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ASH Daily News for 18 November 2011

HEADLINES

  • Hampshire: Cigarette burglar jailed for five years

    A persistent burglar who stole thousands of pounds worth of cigarettes from shops in Hampshire has been locked up for five years.

    Andrew Pepper, 36, was initially stopped after police saw the number plates of his van covered up.

    When they examined the vehicle they found tools, including a sledgehammer, gloves and bolt croppers he used for the raids on premises, some of which he targeted twice.

    Southampton Crown Court heard that amongst his targets was the Co-op in Victoria Road, Netley, and Tesco Express in Broad Street, Alresford.

    Pepper, of Winchester, admitted three counts of burglary and one of going equipped to burgle. He also asked for 14 other offences of burglary and two of attempted burglary to be considered.

    Pepper also confessed he had carried out the raids with others, but refused to name his associates.

    Source: Southern Daily Echo - 17 November 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/vnIunz

  • Plymouth: Smoking cessation stories

    - Help is on hand for those who want to kick habit
    The beginning of a week long series of stories turning the spotlight on the Plymouth’s smoking habit, as part of The Herald’s loveLIFE health and well-being campaign. Cherie Gordon looks at the reasons why people decide to quit and how smokers can get themselves on the path to a nicotine-free life.

    - Effect on partner convinced me to stop smoking
    For Willow Walsh it wasn't her own health problems that triggered her decision to quit smoking. The 20-year-old had been sparking up cigarettes since she was 16, thanks to stress and peer pressure from friends in school. But she made up her mind to stop her habit after fiancee Adam Crayford began feeling the effects of second hand smoke.

    - CASE STUDY: Anita McKinley
    After sparking up a cigarette every day for years, it was the smell of smoke that finally got to Anita McKinley. The 37-year-old from Stoke took up the habit in her teens but it wasn't until she began to notice the bad whiff coming from her cigarettes that she decided to act.

    - We've slipped up, but are determined to quit for good
    Nicola and Paul Willson know first hand how tough it is to bin a smoking habit. Mum Nicola first sparked up a cigarette when she was a teenager. But the 29-year-old from Plympton used the Plymouth NHS Stop Smoking Service to quit six months before finding out she was expecting a child and remained smoke free throughout the pregnancy.

    - Stubbing it out will be a gift for Luke's son
    Luke, a 28-year-old who chatted to me while he took a quick fag break, said: "I have been trying to cut down but the evenings are the worst. I live alone and get bored so want to smoke." His smoking tale is similar to many, with a habit starting when he was a teenager. But after more than a decade of inhaling smoke from around 20 cigarettes a day, he has started to limit his habit. Now Luke is more likely to have just six a day.

    - Collapsed lung was reason to give up smoking
    Making his way to hospital for the second time in weeks, Stewart Lovering's smoking habit was stubbed out. In August the 42-year-old spent three days in hospital after suffering a collapsed lung. Although the Pneumothorax was not directly related to his addiction to nicotine, Stewart carried on puffing away, boosting the risk of it happening again.

    - Benefits of quitting cigarettes add up to improved health in short time
    A list of just some of the benefits of stubbing out cigarettes.

    Source: This is Plymouth - 18 November 2011
    Link: http://www.thisisplymouth.co.uk

  • Ireland: Illegal cigarette sales adversely affecting retailers

    A Kilkenny retailer has warned that the easy availability of illegal cigarettes has caused hundreds of job losses in the retail sector this year.

    Kevin Browne, who owns the Happy Times store in Market Cross shopping centre in Kilkenny, said the retail sector had lost close to 700 jobs over the past 12 months.

    Mr Browne, who sits on the Executive Council of Retailers Against Smuggling (RAS), a national retail organisation set up to combat the illicit trade, said the problem was getting worse across Leinster.

    Referring to a survey carried out recently by Retailers Against Smuggling of its 3,000 retail members, Mr Browne said 78 per cent of surveyed retailers in the Leinster area felt that the illegal trade had increased in the past year.

    72 per cent of Leinster retailers also said that illegal cigarettes were now widely available in their communities.

    These figures are considerably higher than the national average in the survey, with 59 per cent of retailers claiming that the illicit tobacco problem was getting worse and 69 per cent claiming that illegal cigarettes were readily available in their area.

    NB: RAS is a tobacco industry innitiative.

    Source: Kilkenny Advertiser - 18 November 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/rzWAup

  • USA: Living billboard highlights dangers of smoking for Great American Smokeout

    One by one, students in Michael Huffman’s seventh-grade science class at Holy Family Catholic School, 1725 N.E. Seward, made their way to a giant chalk outline of a body drawn in the school parking lot Wednesday afternoon.

    “Smoking can cause sinus cancer,” one student said.

    “Smoking can cause blood cancer,” said three others.

    In all, 19 students represented points within the body that can be ravaged by the effects of cancer.

    The project, a living billboard, was a visual representation of what students had been learning in conjunction with the 36th American Cancer Society’s Great American Smokeout, which was Thursday.

    A video is available at the link below.

    Source: CJ Online - 16 November 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/roXo1r

  • Iran fires up voters with partial lifting of water pipe ban

    Revoking a smoking ban may seem an unlikely way to boost election turnouts. But in Iran, authorities are hopeful that allowing the traditional hubble-bubble, or water pipes, back into tea houses could encourage reluctant voters to go to the polls.

    The government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has signed into law a bill that removes tea houses from the list of places where smoking tobacco is prohibited, Iranian newspapers reported on Thursday.

    The move comes only two weeks after Iran's court of administrative justice, a judicial body independent of the government, banned the smoking of all sorts of tobacco in traditional restaurants and tea houses. Iranians were allowed only to smoke certain types – perceived to be less dangerous – in the past.

    The new reprieve, which appears to be only for men, has already met with criticism. 

    The swift repeal of a ban after just two weeks highlights the extent of a power struggle between the president and his supporters on one side, and the conservatives of the judiciary and the parliament on the other side, fighting with each other for the next parliamentary elections due in March 2012 and the presidential vote in 2013.

    Source: The Guardian - 17 November 2010
    Link: http://bit.ly/tkB17f

  • Philippines: Tobacco firm open to reasonable sin tax hike

    Philip Morris and Fortune Tobacco Corp. said it is open to a ‘reasonable increase’ in sin taxes but opposed proposals, including those of the Department of Finance, on ‘indexing’ tobacco taxes to inflation.

    “We’re not opposed to a reasonable increase in sin taxes," PMFTC president Chris Nelson said on Thursday, but he also warned that job losses might result if the government raises taxes on his firm’s products.

    PMFTC, a company controlled by the Lucio Tan Group, said it would rather that the current sin tax law be extended by five to six years.

    The PMFTC stance comes about a week after the Department of Budget and Management reiterated its support for pending measures to “restructure sin taxes" as one of priority bills of the Aquino administration.

    Source: GMA News - 17 November 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/tQdiNT