Ireland: Over 4m cigarettes siezed in Cork

Customs officers have seized 4.2 million cigarettes in the largest haul of counterfeit tobacco ever landed in the Port of Cork. It is estimated the haul would have cost Revenue over €1 million in lost taxes.

The cigarettes, which were in John Player Blue boxes, were found among a cargo of swimwear manufactured in China which arrived at Tivoli docks in a container last Friday evening. The counterfeit cigarettes were uncovered in a routine operation by customs officers at the docks.

It is understood the cigarettes would have been sold on the market in this country for in the region of €5 a packet even though they would have cost just cents to produce.

This is the second major seizure of counterfeit cigarettes in Cork in recent weeks. On January 28th gardai seized 755,000 counterfeit cigarettes and more than 500kg of tobacco, worth an estimated €500,000.

The intelligence-led operation, involving gardaí and Customs officers, on a private residence at Carrignavar, Co Cork, and searches of a garage and a van by revenue officers.

Follow-up searches of premises on the north side of Cork city and in east Cork led to further seizures.

Source: Irish Times, 14 February 2010
Link: http://bit.ly/bmS1WW

Japan: Underage smokers using taspo cards

About 30 percent of middle and high school students who are below the legal age to smoke buy cigarettes using taspo IC cards, which were introduced to prevent minors from lighting up, according to a Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry study panel.

The panel, chaired by Nihon University Prof. Takashi Oida, said about 40 percent of these underage taspo users obtained the cards from home or family members.

The panel conducted the survey on minors' smoking habits on 240 middle and high schools nationwide in autumn 2008, and 96,000 students in 172 schools responded.

Regarding the introduction of taspo cards, which are used to confirm whether purchasers are of legal adult age when buying cigarette packs from automatic vending machines, 61 percent of the underage students who said they regularly smoke once a month or more said it has become more difficult for them to buy cigarettes.

But 29 percent also said they had bought tobacco using taspo cards. Among students that smoke daily, 42 percent said they had used taspo cards.

Regarding how they acquired the cards, 15 percent said they brought the cards from home; 22 percent said they borrowed cards from family members; and 7.9 percent said they undertook procedures on their own to obtain the cards from the tobacco industry's card-issuing authority.

The percentages of students who smoke at least once a month were 2.9 percent among male middle school students, 2 percent among female middle school students, 9.8 percent among male high school students, and 4.5 percent among female high school students. These figures marked a considerable fall from those of the previous survey 12 years ago--11 percent of male middle school students, 4.9 percent of female middle school students, 31 percent of male high school students, and 13 percent of female high school students.

"As fewer youths regard smoking as being cool, [the phenomenon of] minors' smoking has been steadily decreasing," Oida said. "Though taspo cards are effective to a certain degree, family members' cooperation is necessary."

Source: The Yomiuri Shimbun, 15 February 2010
Link: http://bit.ly/bgdn2W

USA: Effective smoking cessation treatments for underserved groups

With the national trend toward quitting smoking flat, psychologists are finding some success with treatments aimed at helping smokers from underserved groups, including racial and ethnic minorities and those with psychiatric disorders.

In a special section of this month's issue of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, published by the American Psychological Association, researchers report on several effective treatments that may help these smokers in an effort to increase national smoking cessation rates. The percentage of American smokers rose from 19.8 percent in 2007 to 20.6 percent in 2008, after a 10-year steady decline in smoking rates, according to the latest from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"One of the reasons smoking rates have remained stagnant is because these underserved groups of smokers have not been adequately targeted by research and treatment," said the special section editor, Belinda Borrelli, PhD, who is with the Center for Behavioral and Preventive Medicine at Brown University Medical School. Underserved smokers include those who have a 10 percent higher smoking rate than the general population, have less access to treatments, and are more likely to be excluded from long term treatments trials, according to Borelli.

In one article, researchers found that success in stopping smoking differed for different psychiatric disorders. For example, compared to smokers with no psychiatric disorders, smokers who had an anxiety disorder were less likely to quit smoking six months after treatment.

In the same article, researchers found that people's barriers to quitting were directly related to what type of psychiatric disorder they had. For example, smokers who had ever been diagnosed with an anxiety disorder reported a strong emotional bond with their cigarettes while smokers ever diagnosed with a substance use disorder reported that social and environmental influences were especially likely to affect their smoking. "This information may help clinicians gauge relapse risk and identify treatment targets among smokers who have ever had psychological illnesses," said lead author Megan Piper, PhD, from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.

Evidence-based smoking cessation treatments are addressed in another article in this special section. Researchers from the University of Miami looked at the effect of intensive cognitive-behavioral therapy on African-American smokers. They placed 154 African-American smokers wearing nicotine patches into one of two six-session interventions. Participants in the group using cognitive-behavioral techniques were taught relapse prevention strategies and coping skills, along with other techniques. The other group participated in a health education series that explained general medical conditions that are associated with smoking, such as heart disease and lung cancer.

Compared with general health education, participation in cognitive-behavioral therapy sessions more than doubled the rate of quitting at a six month follow-up, from 14 percent to 31 percent the researchers found. "We know cognitive-behavioral therapy helps people quit, but few studies have examined this treatment's effect on African-American smokers," said the study's lead author, Monica Webb, PhD, of the University of Miami. "Hopefully, our findings will encourage smoking cessation counselors and researchers to utilize cognitive-behavioral interventions in this underserved population."

Source: Science Daily, 15 February 2010
Link: http://bit.ly/aOlQsI

EU fights flow of contraband cigarettes from east

On the eastern border of the European Union, the fight against cigarette smuggling from Ukraine, Russia or Moldova is intensifying as traffickers cash in on the lucrative trade.

"Is smuggling to the European Union on the increase? Unfortunately, yes," Austin Rowan, head of the task group cigarettes from the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) said.

"Why? Because the profits are so enormous," he added.

"There is a huge difference in the prices between Ukraine and the European Union for example", he added.

While a pack of cigarettes costs more than eight euros in Ireland and more than five in France, it can be bought for between 30 euro-cents and one euro in Ukraine, which sits on the eastern border of the EU.

Seizures of contraband cigarettes exploded in the European Union from 4.4 billion units in 2005 to 5.2 billion in 2008, according to the latest figures from OLAF.

Most of those cigarettes, whether counterfeit or genuine - but smuggled into the EU without taxes being paid - come from China, Ukraine and Russia.

The loss of duties prevented by the seizures is a little over a billion euros, said Rowan.

"At best 10 percent is seized, so you are talking about approximately nine billion euros' prejudice annually for the budget of Member states," he added.

After putting a liaison officer in China last year, the European Anti-Fraud office is hoping to appoint three more in other "tobacco hotspots": Moscow, Kiev and the Egyptian capital Cairo.

On the frontline of this struggle are the EU countries that border Ukraine: Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.

Seizures of contraband cigarettes in the four countries increased by almost 50 million in one year: from 843 million in 2008 to 891.5 million in 2009, according to their own official figures.

"If you're going to bring cigarettes from Ukraine, then you will use the Eastern borders," said Rowan.

"But if you are going to bring cigarettes from Dubai or from China, then the EU ports are interesting - like Dublin, Antwerpen, Rotterdam."

Poland and Romania had also become "countries of destination" for smuggled cigarettes, having previously only been used by smugglers to get their goods to western Europe.

A 2009 increase in excise duties in Romania helped bring that about.

Tobacco company Philip Morris in Romania told the financial daily Ziarul Financiar it was stopping production at its Bucharest factory for two weeks because of the flood of contraband that had hit its sales.

Romanian customs and border police have stepped up their efforts.

"About 21 million illegal cigarettes have been confiscated since the beginning of 2010," Dorel Fronea, deputy director of Romania's border surveillance division for the Customs service, said.

But the smugglers were never short of ideas to beat the checks.

Marin Turica, head of the unit combating transborder crime at the Romanian border police said, "We found cigarettes hidden among pizzas or hamburgers transported in refrigerated trucks."

"We found them in lorries carrying wheat, in road tankers or even in wheel rims."

Smugglers from Ukraine also used locals in the mountain regions to carry the goods on their back across the "green border" between Ukraine and Romania, he explained.

They would be paid a mere 35 to 50 euros for each crossing.

Romania has stepped up the penalties for anyone caught smuggler in a bid to stub out he phenomenon, authorising the confiscation of vehicles used for smuggling.

"This is an endless fight," Fronea said.

"We cannot eliminate 100 percent of the smuggling but we want to at least reduce it to a minimum level," he added.

Source: EUbusiness, 11 February 2010
Link: http://bit.ly/b28kuM

Tobacco users with HPV-positive head and neck cancers at increased risk of recurrence

Patients with head and neck cancer linked to high risk human papillomavirus, or HPV, have worse outcomes if they are current or former tobacco users, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center.

High-risk HPVs are the same viruses that are associated with cancers of the uterine cervix.

The research suggests that current or former tobacco users may need a more aggressive treatment regimen than patients who have never used tobacco.

Past research shows that HPV-positive head and neck cancers tend to be more responsive to current treatments and these patients overall tend to have better outcomes than patients with HPV-negative tumors. However, the new study found that current tobacco users with HPV-positive tumors were five times more likely to have their cancer recur. Even former smokers had an increased risk of recurrence.

"Because the effect of HPV is so strong in giving a very good prognostic picture, we were surprised to find that smoking remained a huge issue, and it actually affected the outcome in patients who smoked," says senior study author Thomas Carey, Ph.D., professor of otolaryngology and pharmacology, and co-director of the Head and Neck Oncology Program at the U-M Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Results of the study appear in the Feb. 15 issue of Clinical Cancer Research.

The study looked at 124 patients with advanced oropharyngeal cancer, which is cancer of the tonsils or the base of the tongue. Most of these patients had HPV DNA in their tumors, which is consistent with HPV being a major factor in oropharyngeal cancer development. All 22 of the HPV-negative patients were tobacco users, and about two-thirds of the 102 HPV-positive patients were current or former tobacco users.

Of the HPV-positive patients who had never used tobacco, 6 percent had a recurrence of their cancer. Meanwhile, 19 percent of former tobacco users and 35 percent of current tobacco users had a recurrence. Still, the outcomes were better than the HPV-negative patients, all of whom were smokers, and among whom half recurred.

Tobacco users have traditionally been more likely than non-users to develop head and neck cancers. But a recent rise in these cancers linked to HPV has meant more non-smokers are being diagnosed with the disease. HPV-positive head and neck cancers tend to be more responsive to chemotherapy and radiation treatments, which has made researchers wonder if these highly toxic treatments could be reduced in this group of patients.

"The side effects of these treatments affect critical functions such as eating and swallowing. Since the HPV-positive tumors respond so well to treatment, our research team has been asking: Could we potentially spare patients some of these side effects while maintaining good outcomes if we reduce the doses given? If we decide to reduce intensity of treatment, our study shows we will want to take tobacco use into account. Any smoking or tobacco use increases the risk of recurrence or a second primary cancer," Carey says.

Researchers from U-M's multidisciplinary head and neck oncology program are planning a clinical trial to look at reducing treatment intensity for low-risk patients - those whose tumours express certain markers, including HPV, and who are not tobacco users. The trial is expected to begin this spring.

Source: Medical News Today, 15 February 2010
Link: http://bit.ly/cwGSpT

Saatchi & Saatchi X launches anti-smoking campaign for QUIT

QUIT, the anti-smoking charity, is launching an animated viral campaign to help raise awareness about lung health and promote its dedicated "QUITline".

The campaign, created by Saatchi & Saatchi X, will incorporate a series of 15-second animated films that feature "loony lungs" characters, which willingly take on dangerous situations in order to hurt themselves. 

The virals will be supported by experiential activity, which will see the "Loony Lungs" appear at pubs and cafes that are situated near key London Underground stations.

The new work is the latest in a long-running campaign by QUIT to encourage people to stop smoking and draw attention to QUITline, which provides counselling and support to smokers in the UK.

Last year's work, which was also created by Saatchi & Saatchi X, saw a direct marketing pack sent to smokers that included a set of mocked up lung X-rays.

Ant Melder, the creative director of Saatchi & Saatchi X, said: "For this campaign, we've used dark humour to grab the attention of smokers while still keeping an extremely serious message at the core of the communication."

According to the latest figures, the number of people that have managed to stop smoking in England fell by 4 per cent year-on-year in 2009.

Source: Campaign, 10 February 2010
Link: http://bit.ly/bfzbbH