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ASH Daily news for 4 January 2011

HEADLINES

  • Nicotine patches to be offered to England smokers

    The government is offering free nicotine patches to smokers in England planning to quit in the new year.

    A week's free trial of the patches - part of the NHS Stop Smoking Quit Kit - will be available at many chemists for the first time from 1 January.

    Health Secretary Andrew Lansley told the BBC he hoped people would then complete the full course.

    Mr Lansley said: "We're hoping, starting on Saturday [1 January], and working with our partners in pharmacies across the country, that more than 400,000 people will try to give up smoking using the Quit Kits supplied by the Department of Health."

    The Department of Health has ordered 300,000 of the kits and has an option to buy an extra 105,000 if demand is high.

    A spokesman said the government estimated that one third of those who requested the kits would then use the vouchers to get their free nicotine patches.

    Mr Lansley added: "It's twice as effective as other mechanisms in helping people to give up smoking."

    Although a limited number of the Quick Kits containing vouchers for the free patches can be ordered online, most will be available at pharmacies across the country.

    Mr Lansley said the government was encouraging people to quit as "smoking is still the greatest avoidable cause of early death in this country".

    He added: "Up to 80,000 lives a year are lost as a consequence of smoking and 400,000 hospital admissions a year are directly associated with the impact of smoking. About 90% of people who have lung cancer have smoked at some time."

    He admitted that those wishing to kick the habit may need more than a week to do so.

    The government and kit suppliers Novartis and GSK had concluded that a week's free supply was "a very good basis upon which smokers get started."

    "If they complete the course, there is a good chance they will remain smoke-free thereafter," Mr Lansley said.

    The government has spent around £1.80 on each kit, which also contain health plans and other devices to help people give up smoking.

    Deborah Arnott from Action on Smoking and Health said: "What worries me is that many smokers who could benefit from this may not find out about it.

    "The advertising campaigns, which have been so important in the past in getting smokers to take up these sorts of offers and to go to smoking cessation services are not being run any more as they have been cancelled by the government."
     

    Source: BBC News, 28 December 2010
    Link: http://bbc.in/hi6nf7

  • Spain gets tough anti-smoking law

    Spain has brought into force an anti-smoking law that is likely to turn the EU's fourth largest tobacco producer into one of Europe's most stringently smokeless.

    The law prohibits lighting up in enclosed public places, although hotels are allowed to reserve 30% of their rooms for smokers. In a particularly tough measure, outside smoking is banned in open-air children's playgrounds - even those inside parks - and at access points to schools and hospitals.

    See also: Stubbing out cigarettes in Europe - Facts, The Independent - 1 January 2011

    Source: Google/Press Association - 03 January 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/hwA1vI

  • The nudge is no policy fudge

    The following is an extract from a commentary by Francis Maude MP on the Government's behavioural economics or 'nudge' policy: 

    This government does not believe that there is no role for legislation, nor that behavioural economics is a silver bullet. Some of our most radical policies – on free schools, for example – do require legislation. But legislation has its limitations. Is the answer to rising obesity a law restricting citizens to one chocolate bar a week? Should we ban TV in households with underachieving children? Of course not.

    In many policy areas the government has thrown huge sums of money at problems with limited success. Our prison population has surged, yet our crime rates have fallen more slowly than those of other countries. We spend over £100bn every year on healthcare, yet only a tiny fraction of that money is directed at the behavioural causes of ill health – smoking, drinking and diet. As we seek to reduce costs, we must look for better, cheaper ways to do the job.

    [...]

    Central government can play a role in giving communities the powers and resources to try out such approaches, and access to knowledge about what works; and in sharing examples of good practice. But central and local government need to tread carefully, ensuring that the public feel comfortable about any particular nudge. Yet one thing we can be certain about: between banning and doing nothing there are many choices.
     

    Source: The Guardian, 27 Dec. 2010
    Link: http://bit.ly/dZSCiX

  • Canada: Quebec: Poster fires up anti-tobacco groups


    Just in time for New Year's resolutions, a new poster promoting smoking as a glamorous, sexy, lifestyle choice.

    Showing a svelte woman in a party dress, the poster for Vogue cigarettes was distributed to provincial tobacco retailers and depicts smoking as something trendy done by beautiful people, an anti-smoking coalition said yesterday.

    "You can't get more 'lifestyle' than the popular fashion magazine, Vogue," said Flory Doucas of the Coalition quebecoise pour le controle du tabac.

    "The ad is trying to change the perception of a deadly addictive product, branding it as socially acceptable to a segment of Quebec population," Doucas said. "It's clearly a cigarette for women."

    Posters went on display in retailers' stockrooms, away from customers' eyes, she explained.

    But many people saw it given that Quebec has 7,000 tobacco retailers, Doucas said, and the poster still flouts the Tobacco Act, which forbids nearly all tobacco advertising.

    In June 2007, the Supreme Court upheld the Tobacco Act, and the validity of federal legislation restricting tobacco advertising, barring tobacco sponsorships and requiring larger warnings on cigarette packages.

    The law does allow advertising in publications, direct mail and bars.

    The coalition also deplored the timing of the poster and new festive tobacco packaging.

    "December is a key time for new packaging. It's also a crucial time when many smokers promise themselves they would quit," Doucas said. "Tobacco companies are finding ways to promote their products in attractive new ways.

    "If we needed a reminder that the current law needs to be strengthened ... well, here it is."

     

     

    Source: The Gazette 29 December 2010
    Link: http://bit.ly/icVICh

  • Canada to increase size of tobacco warnings to cover 3/4 of cigarette package

    New anti-smoking warnings on cigarette packs will feature images of an iconic Canadian cancer victim and cover a full three-quarters of the packages’ surface.

    The significant increase in the size of the often-stark ads comes after opposition MPs on the House of Commons health committee recently threw their weight behind a long-standing movement to bump up the mandatory ads from the current level of half the packs’ surface panel.

    The new ads also will feature a toll-free number for a national helpline for smokers and a website for more information.

    Slideshow: New tobacco warnings bigger, more graphic - CBC, 30 December 2010

    Video: More graphic labels for cigarettes set to be unveiled - CTV News, 29 December 2010

    Source: Vancouver Sun - 29 December 2010
    Link: http://bit.ly/exoN3f

  • Smoking ban on US submarines

    US Navy submarines have become No Smoking zones after a Pentagon study earlier this year found the risks of secondhand smoke were severe in confined spaces.
    About 40 per cent of the US navy's 13,000 submariners smoke - double the US average.

    Yesterday's order came 16 years after a smoking ban in US military buildings and installations, and aboard Navy ships.

    A ready supply of nicotine patches and gum will be stocked on the subs to help smokers deal with the ban while at sea, officials said. 

    Source: The Scotsman - 01 January 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/hNaWw1

  • USA: Californians are smoking less and less

    According to a study by the California Department of Public Health, just 13.1 percent of California residents reported smoking last year, compared with 20.6 percent nationally.

    California now has the second-lowest smoking rate in the country, trailing only Utah.

    The declining rate here reflects a culture that is especially conscious of health and the environment, and it was hailed by state officials as evidence of the success of a strategy to demonize smoking.

    In 1988, the state increased the tax on cigarettes, using part of the proceeds to finance an antitobacco campaign, and began instituting bans on smoking in public places — first on planes and buses, then in indoor workplaces and bars.

    The health department has also used media campaigns, including graphic antismoking advertisements, like a 1997 television commercial that showed a woman smoking a cigarette through the laryngectomy hole in her throat.

    Health officials state that California’s sustained campaign has led not only to lower smoking rates but also to public health benefits. They point out that lung cancer rates are going down more than three times as fast in California than in the rest of the country, and that the state has saved an estimated $86 billion in health care costs
     

    Source: The New York Times, 25 Dec. 2009
    Link: http://nyti.ms/hoUiBx

  • China: Beijing aims to be "tobacco-free" by 2015

    Beijing is working toward being "tobacco free" by the end of 2015, said the Chinese capital's health authorities, who are planning to make all public spaces, including work sites and public transport, no smoking zones by the end of 2015.

    The state-run China Daily also reports that the Beijing Health Bureau is also aiming to reduce significantly the proportion of men who smoke.

    In 2005, the Chinese goverment estimated there were 350 million smokers in China, including 60% of Chinese men and 3% of women, and that the number of children and young female smokers was on the rise.

    While the Beijing Health Bureau has yet to reveal details of its plan, last week they released the results of a survey that interviewed 2,100 of the city's dwellers aged from 10 to 89 years.

    The survey showed that more than 95% of those interviewed said they knew that smoking could cause lung cancer.

    It also showed that nearly 60% of interviewees knew smoking could lead to "apoplexy" (cardiovascular and heart problems). This is considerably more than the 16% nationwide figure, suggesting that the 22 million people in China's capital are more aware of the potential harms of smoking than their 1.3 billion fellow countrymen.

    Beijing's health authorities estimate that to date, nearly 80 per cent of doctors in residential clinics have now been trained in how to help patients quit smoking

    Source: Medical News Today, 27 Dec. 2010
    Link: http://bit.ly/hf1WQS