Warning to smokers after third Sheffield fire

Fire chiefs have re-issued a warning about lighting up at home after attending the third smoking-related fire in Sheffield in a week.

A woman was taken to hospital after a fire at her flat on Saturday, thought to have been caused by a cigarette.

On Monday a man suffered burns after falling asleep while smoking and part of a house in Stannington was destroyed in a separate fire on Tuesday.

The fire service has started a campaign to reduce smoking-related incidents.

South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service said the woman, who is in her 70s, was found unconscious in her flat at Exeter Place in the Broomhall area of the city.

The alarm was raised after smoke was seen coming from her fourth-floor home.

The service's district manager Dick Hutton, said: "I have no doubt that were it not for the swift actions of the passer-by who raised the alarm, our control staff and our firefighters on the scene, this woman would have been killed.

"I am delighted the woman has been saved, but this is tempered with disappointment at yet another smoking-related fire.

"I want to remind the public once again to be careful with all sources of ignition and in particular cigarettes, which are the single biggest cause of deaths in accidental house fires in South Yorkshire."

Source: BBC News, 14 March 2010
Link: http://bit.ly/bu6z5N

No time for complacency on smoking, warns NHS Confederation Chair

The chair of the NHS Confederation, Bryan Stoten, has used No-Smoking Day to warn against any complacency in the efforts to reduce smoking. 

Mr Stoten also said that, despite the financial pressures currently affecting public services, it was crucial that the NHS and society did not forget about the cost and harm of smoking.

He said: "Enormous public health success has been achieved by bringing smoking prevalence down to 21 per cent three years earlier than the Government's own target."

"However, much more needs to be done if we are to meet the new target of 10 per cent set out in the Government's new smoking cessation strategy.

"Everyone in the NHS is aware of how important it is to find efficiencies and savings but we all need to remember that encouraging people to stop smoking, or better still, never to take it up in the first place, will also save vast sums of money.

"This is a challenge worth meeting. It will save many lives, reduce pressure on health services and help families who currently have to watch loved ones suffer."

Source: MediLexicon News, 12 March 2010
Link: http://bit.ly/9Xl9ZM

Italian police bust Bulgarian truck with contraband cigarettes

The Italian Financial Police and the Customs Agency caught at the port of Ancona a Bulgarian tractor trailer loaded with contraband cigarettes.

The truck carried 7 884 kg of contraband cigarettes hidden in plastic boxes that were supposed to contain construction materials. It has arrived on a ferryboat from Greece. The tractor trailer has been sealed and the driver arrested.

The cigarettes are believed to have been destined to the booming black market in Northern Europe.

Modern technology and high professionalism have contributed to the Ancona authorities busting 30 tons of contraband cigarettes in the last 2 months.

Source: novinite, 13 March 2010
Link: http://bit.ly/c1Kayn

Russia: Teen smoking a 'National Catastrophe'

Moscow's top doctor said that smoking-related diseases were growing and warned that teenage smoking was leading to a "national catastrophe."

Dr. Leonid Lazebnik painted a grim picture of the harm that tobacco was causing Russians, telling a round table that 65 percent of men and 30 percent of women have smoked at some time in their lives.

In contrast, Lazebnik said, the figures in the mid-1980s were 48 percent of men and 5 percent of women.

He said 24.6 percent of Muscovites are smokers.

"But the scariest thing of all is our future," Lazebnik said. "In Moscow, 73 percent of boys and 65 percent of girls smoke. I see this as a national catastrophe."

Lazebnik did not provide figures for the growth in smoking-related diseases.

City Hall and federal officials attending Friday's round table promised to lobby for laws that restricted smoking in public places and limited cigarette sales.

"We will have no success without a legal base," said Yulia Grimalskaya, deputy head of City Hall's department for family and youth policies.

She said her department was lobbying for a ban on selling cigarettes in kiosks, the licensing of tobacco sales and fines for smoking in public places, including restaurants.

Nikolai Gerasimenko, first deputy head of State Duma's commission for health protection, called for higher excise duties on tobacco products, which he said would clear the market of contraband cigarettes and drive up cigarette prices, making them less affordable.

Russia has the lowest excise duties on tobacco goods in Europe, said Dmitry Yanin, chairman of the board at the International Confederation of Consumer Societies.

Yanin urged a ban on tobacco advertising and smoking in public places. "Smoking-free zones would boost Moscow's tourist potential," Yanin said.

Gerasimenko complained that foreign tobacco makers were making money at Russia's expense.

"They get their profits, while we spend lots of money on medical treatment," he said.

About 10 percent of tobacco traders on the Russian market are foreign, he said.

According to a survey conducted by the state-run VTsIOM polling agency in December, those billboards, which were posted around the city in November, had led 7 percent of respondents to quit smoking.

The survey questioned 1,000 Muscovites, all of them smokers or former smokers, a VTsIOM spokeswoman said by telephone. It offered no margin of error.

Source: The Moscow Times, 15 March 2010
Link: http://bit.ly/dBkTD6

Alcohol and tobacco investments anger

Objections have been raised after it emerged more than £20m of Devon's public sector pensions funds are invested in tobacco and alcohol companies.

Councillor Gordon Hook, Lib Dem member for Newton Abbot South, responded angrily to revelations by county council leader John Hart that the Devon Pension Fund, of which the authority is a member, had investments in unspecified companies in the sectors.

Responding to a question raised by Cllr Hook at the county council's latest cabinet meeting, Cllr Hart said: "The county council does not have any investment funds with tobacco or alcohol companies, but it is only one of 89 member bodies that comprise the Devon Pension Fund.

Source: thisisexeter, 15 March 2010
Link: http://bit.ly/aa09Cv