HEADLINES

• County launches strategy to make area smoke free
• Kick Ash kicks off at Swavesey village college
• Hackney Council successfully prosecutes smoker
• Tasmanian council calls for total smoking ban
• Australian rockers Wolfmother and The Vines under fire over tobacco ads at concerts in Jakarta
• $12m grant to study young adult smoking behaviors

• County launches strategy to make area smoke free

  County Hall in Exeter was the scene for the launch of a five-year strategy for a smoke-free Devon.

  The new Smokefree Devon Alliance is backed by Devon and Somerset Fire & Rescue Service, Devon County Council, the NHS in Devon and business leaders, among other partners.

  The five-year strategy aims to help people to stop smoking, encourage smoke-free homes and workplaces, tackle the illicit tobacco trade and ensure that cigarettes are not sold to underage children.

  Source: This is Plymouth - 23 September 2010
  Link: http://bit.ly/affC4h

• Kick Ash kicks off at Swavesey village college

  A campaign led by young people to prevent under 16s from smoking across Cambridgeshire has started at Swavesey Village College.

  The Kick Ash campaign has recruited 24 young people aged 15 to work as volunteer mentors to lead on a range of activities aimed to encourage young people to show pride in being smoke free.

  Source: Cambridgeshire County Council - 23 September 2010
  Link: http://bit.ly/9FpEgO

• Hackney Council successfully prosecutes smoker

  On Wednesday at Thames Magistrates Court, Mr Adnan Sozuguzel, aged 53 pleaded guilty to smoking in the Turkish Social Club on 19 November 2009. He was given a conditional discharge of 12 months and ordered to pay £50 in costs after a successful prosecution by Hackney Council.

  The owner of the club pleaded guilty to failing to prevent smoking in a smoke free premises at the same address. He was given a conditional discharge of 18 months and ordered to pay £100 in costs. 

  Source: Hackney Council - 23 September 2010
  Link: http://bit.ly/9TDSch

• Tasmanian council calls for total smoking ban

  A local council in Tasmania has urged the state government to impose a total ban on smoking and the sale of tobacco products, in a likely Australian first.

  The Burnie City Council, on the island state's northwest coast, has unanimously passed a resolution supporting a "complete ban on the sale and use of tobacco products in Tasmania".

  Source: Sydney Morning Herald - 23 September 2010
  Link: http://bit.ly/beHBZy

• Australian rockers Wolfmother and The Vines under fire over tobacco ads at concerts in Jakarta

  Australian rock bands Wolfmother and The Vines have come under fire for agreeing to play a Jakarta music festival sponsored by a major Indonesian tobacco company.

  Both bands announced this week they would perform at next month's Java Rockin'Land festival, set to be one of the biggest music events of the year in the Indonesian capital.

  But anti-smoking campaigners say if the bands do perform they will effectively be promoting its major sponsor, Indonesian cigarette maker Gudang Garam.

  Source: Adelaide Now - 23 September 2010
  Link: http://bit.ly/939A0O

• $12m grant to study young adult smoking behaviors

  The University of Illinois at Chicago has received a $12.4 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to study the predictors of smoking patterns from adolescence through young adulthood.

  The project will follow approximately 1,200 Chicago-area youth, first identified during mid-adolescence, who are now entering young adulthood -- the period of highest risk for establishing smoking and dependence. 

  Source: Medical News Today - 23 September 2010
  Link: http://bit.ly/dfR91I