Scotland: Call to criminalise tobacco supply to children

The Scottish Government has been urged to toughen up proposed new tobacco laws to stop adults buying cigarettes for underage smokers. The parliament's health committee said ministers should make it a criminal offence to buy tobacco for under-18s. The committee's call came during its consideration of government plans to curb the number of young smokers.

Scottish ministers have said they want to cut the proportion to less than 23% by 2012. The drive came amid recent figures from health officials which indicated the number of young people smoking in Scotland had returned to a level last seen almost 10 years ago.

The government's plans, brought forward in the Tobacco and Primary Medical Services Bill, would ban stores from displaying cigarettes and other tobacco products. The legislation would also outlaw cigarette vending machines and introduce a registration system for tobacco retailers.

Health committee convener and SNP MSP Christine Grahame, said: "Everyone agreed that deterrents to stop young people smoking are necessary and this is why we are calling for the bill to be amended to criminalise the act of buying cigarettes on behalf of under-18s." Public Health Minister Shona Robison has agreed to consider the measure.

Most committee members backed a tobacco vending machine and cigarette display ban - although they accepted businesses such as shops would face costs in complying with the latter proposal. The committee also largely backed measures in the bill to exclude certain people or private firms from providing GP services through health board contracts.

But some MSPs said community co-operatives should be allowed to hold such contracts.

Source: BBC News, 13 September 2009
Link: http://tiny.cc/G8N69 

Richard Branson makes high-profile plea on cigarette packs

Sir Richard Branson has waded into the debate on plain cigarette packaging and urged MPs to back a bill on new tobacco control measures. Branson wants more to be done to stop children being sucked into a "lethal addiction", and is backing a campaign to protect children from tobacco marketing.

"Getting rid of cigarette vending machines will help save lives. And plain packaging will help take the glitz and glamour out of tobacco," the founder of the Virgin group of companies is quoted as writing in a letter to newspaper editors at The Daily Mirror.

Last week, tobacco manufacturers hit back at research that said bright packaging was misleading some smokers.

"Plain packaging would prevent tobacco manufacturers from providing consumers with information about products that are legally available in retail outlets," said Christopher Ogden, chief executive of the Tobacco Manufacturers Association.

Amanda Sandford, research manager at charity Action on Smoking and Health (Ash) said packaging was now the main form of tobacco promotion and said plain packaging would be a first step to stop misleading information.

Source: Packaging News, 14 September 2009
Link: http://tiny.cc/IKR8i 

Correction: Heart attacks plummet after smoking ban, ASH Daily News 14th September 2009

We have heard that the figures reported in the Sunday Times yesterday (and now circulating elsewhere) are not based on any research conducted to date.

The impact of the smokefree legislation on heart attacks is being analysed by Anna Gilmore and team at Bath but they have no final results yet.

Their findings will be available next year in time for the three year review of the legislation.

One in five shops 'will sell tobacco to children'

One in five shops in the UK is willing to sell tobacco to children, Government research has suggested. 

The review of trading standards figures, carried out by the Local Authorities Co-ordinators of Regulatory Services (LACORS), found that 18% of shops would sell tobacco products to underage buyers in test purchases. It also found that children were able to buy tobacco products from vending machines in 58% of test purchases. And for retailers who are caught out, LACORS says that the fines are too small. It found that from 72 charges, 33% of fines were for less than £100 and 79% for less than £350.

Paul Bettison, LACORS chairman, said: "Our research has shown that more work must be done with businesses to make sure that they request ID every time a young person tries to buy cigarettes and that people keep a stricter eye on cigarette vending machines, which present easy avenues for supply." However, the Association of Convenience Stores said that the test purchasing figures were a "poor measure of the performance of shops in preventing underage tobacco sales".

ACS chief executive James Lowman said: "Trading Standards Officers generally conduct test purchases at shops that have been the subject of complaints or other local intelligence. So the figures in this report show that of the premises suspected of selling tobacco to those underage around one in five were proved to be breaking the law, rather than one in five of all retailers. This is an important distinction."

He also pointed out that, since 1 April 2009, retailers caught persistently selling tobacco to under-18s have faced a ban from selling tobacco of up to one year, as well as the fine of up to £5,000.

Source: More Than Business, 14th September 2009
Link: http://tiny.cc/3NlCw 

Sweden: Smoking when pregnant increases baby's asthma risk, study

Smoking during pregancy increases the risk of a baby developing asthma up to sixfold, said a Swedish study published at the European Respiratory Society's annual congress. The study by Professeur Anders Bjerg of the Sunderby central hospital in Norrbotten and his specialists showed that smoking leads to babies being born underweight, a fact that has an impact on the development of asthma.

The Swedish doctors studied asthma in about 3,400 children between 1996 and 2008. The study found that babies of smoking mothers had an average weight of 211 grammes (7.44 ounces) less than those of mothers who do not smoke.

Nearly a quarter (24.3 percent) of smoking mothers' babies weighed less than 2.5 kilogrammes at birth against 4.1 percent for those of non-smoking women. In underweight children of women who smoked throughout their pregnancy the asthma risk was at 23.5 percent, against 7.7 percent in children of non-smoking mothers who were born with an average weight.

Source: AFP, 14 September 2009
Link: http://tiny.cc/rMm6v