HEADLINES

• MP’s plea over tobacco packs
• Study: The poorest smokers face the toughest odds
• Study: Many people continue to smoke after being diagnosed with cancer
• Council targets illicit tobacco suppliers
• Smoke and minors: Photographer captures disturbing images of children puffing on cigarettes
• Wales: Lung emergencies at 10 year high, say NHS figures
• Scotland: Tobacco smuggler ordered to pay £480,000

• MP’s plea over tobacco packs

  Kevin Barron, MP for Rother Valley, has called for cigarette packaging to be changed to protect children.

  The Labour MP is supporting a campaign to put tobacco in plain, standardised packaging.

  Source: The Star, 23 January 2012
  Link: http://bit.ly/Ay7th0

• Study: The poorest smokers face the toughest odds

  Quitting smoking is never easy but according to a new study by a tobacco dependence researcher at The City College of New York (CCNY), if you're poor and less educated, giving up is doubly hard.

  The study found that smokers on the lowest rungs of the socioeconomic ladder were 55 percent more likely than those at the upper end to start smoking again three months after treatment. By six months post-quitting, the probability of their going back to cigarettes jumped to two-and-a-half times that of the more affluent smokers.

  The research will be published in the March 2012 issue of the "American Journal of Public Health" and will appear ahead-of-print online under the journal's "First Look" section.

  Source: Medical News Today, 23 January 2012
  Link: http://bit.ly/yvRGkU

• Study: Many people continue to smoke after being diagnosed with cancer

  A new study found that a substantial number of lung and colorectal cancer patients continue to smoke after being diagnosed.
  
  According to the authors stopping smoking after a cancer diagnosis is important because continuing to smoke can negatively affect patients' responses to treatments, their subsequent cancer risk and potentially their survival.
   

  Source: Eurekalert, 23 January 2012
  Link: http://bit.ly/wREJMh

• Council targets illicit tobacco suppliers

  In a major crackdown on illicit tobacco suppliers, trading standards officers from St Helens Council will be targeting pubs and workplaces over the next few weeks.

  It’s part of a joint initiative involving the council, NHS Halton and St Helens and the Health Improvement Team at Bridgewater Community Healthcare NHS Trust.  The aim is to highlight the dangers that go with smoking – particularly for children – heightened by the availability of cheap tobacco.

  Source: St Helens Council, 20 January 2012
  Link: http://bit.ly/wjUbuR

• Smoke and minors: Photographer captures disturbing images of children puffing on cigarettes

  Belgian photographer Frieke Janssens has created 15 deeply unsettling images of children puffing on cigarettes, cigars or pipes in a collection entitled 'The Beauty of an Ugly Addiction', in an attempt to contrast the attractiveness and vulgarity of smoking.
  
  The colour images show the youngsters, aged between four and nine, in a selection of adult outfits as they perform the rituals of a smoker - forcing out smoke through the nose, lighting one cigarette with another or mouthing smoke rings.
  
  The photographer did not use real cigarettes during the shoot. Instead, she relied on sticks of chalk or cheese for props, and used candles and incense to create smoke.

  Source: Mail on Sunday, 22 January 2012
  Link: http://bit.ly/ApnMrQ

• Wales: Lung emergencies at 10 year high, say NHS figures

  NHS figures show that the number of emergency hospital admissions for people with lung conditions in Wales is at a 10 year high.

  The chairman of the British Lung Foundation Wales warned that figures could rise for years as more people who smoked 20 years ago - when smoking was at a peak - become ill.

  Source: BBC News, 23 January 2012
  Link: http://bbc.in/zBWbJd

• Scotland: Tobacco smuggler ordered to pay £480,000

  According to the Crown Office a fraudster who dodged VAT on thousands of cigarettes has been ordered to pay £480,000.

  Stephen Dunn from Bellshill, in Lanarkshire, previously admitted evading VAT on tobacco and was sentenced to 12 months in prison on 8th March 2010.

  The conviction followed on from Operation Blubber, an investigation carried out by HM Revenue and Customs in 2007.

  Source: The Press Association, 21 January 2012
  Link: http://bit.ly/xQZL2t