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ASH Daily news for 07 November 2011

HEADLINES

  • Pubs urged to aid crackdown on illegal cigarette sales

    As part of the "Keep It Out" campaign, licensees in the north-west are being asked to crack down on illegal tobacco sales.

    As part of the campaign, 7,500 pubs in “problem areas” will be sent a pack containing information about illegal tobacco, a window sticker to encourage conversations with the community, and beer mats.

    A study by Tobacco Free Futures, a collaborative programme funded by Directors of Public Health in the North West, found that illegal tobacco dealers are making it easy for children and young people to smoke. The research questioned 4,111 people.

    Tobacco Free Futures said that dealers target children and young people by selling them single cigarettes, which makes it more affordable for them and gets them hooked so that they come back for more.

    Tobacco Free Futures director Andrea Crossfield said: “Illegal tobacco makes it easier for children to get hold of cigarettes and helps to get them hooked into a deadly addiction to tobacco. The Keep It Out campaign is a way of letting concerned parents and community members know that they can take action and do something about this.”

    Source: The Morning Advertiser, 07 November 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/tP4TTQ

  • Money from illegal cigarettes is confiscated by Portsmouth City Council

    Portsmouth City Council has confiscated thousands of pounds made from selling illegal cigarettes.

    Shopkeeper Omaid Ramazan Abdul Rahman, was ordered to pay back £3,297.

    Trading standards officers seized more than 24,000 cigarettes that were incorrectly labelled, with some specifically manufactured to avoid tax.

    In July Rahman received a two-month prison sentence suspended for a year and was ordered to do 180 hours of unpaid work.

    Now the council has won a case against him under the Proceeds of Crime Act, which allows council investigators to consider the lifestyle and conduct of those convicted of crimes, and apply to the courts for confiscation of the proceeds.

    The council will receive £1,236 of the confiscated amount, which will help fund future investigations. The rest goes to the court and the government.

    Cllr Lynne Stagg, the council’s cabinet member for community safety, said: ‘This is the first time the council has used these powers and it has been very successful. We’ll continue to directly target the pockets of those who break the law, ensuring crime doesn’t pay.’

    Source: The News, 07 November 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/uF9KAN

  • Children of smokers 'worry parents will need cancer treatment'

    A Department of Health study has shown that children of smokers worry about the effects the habit is having on their parents.

    Nearly three-quarters (73 per cent) of children questioned said they are concerned their mother or father may die as a result of diseases - such as cancer - contracted by smoking, while over half (58 per cent) admitted they are worried about the risk of their smoking parent contracting heart disease.

    Chief executive of Action on Smoking & Health (ASH) Deborah Arnott noted smokers may find it easier to quit "for the sake of their children or other members of their family", rather than for their own good.

    Source: Private Health, 06 November 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/s4nQj5

  • Tobacco smuggling into Japan surges after disaster

    The Finance Ministry said tobacco smuggling into Japan surged in the April-June period as domestic stocks ran short after the March 11 disaster.

    Around 300,000 illegally imported cigarettes were seized by authorities,  roughly a 8.7-fold increase from a year earlier.

    The ministry also reported 4,226 businesses failed to declare a total of 193.3 billion yen of tariffs and consumption tax imposed on imported goods in the year from July 2010 through June this year, leading the authorities to impose some 13.5 billion yen of back tax.

    Source: The Mainichi Daily News, 07 November 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/t5SikH

  • Interview: Johnny Depp talks about smoking

    Below is a short extract from an interview with Johnny Depp in today's Guardian. He talks about quitting smoking and starting again.

    Smoking is a useful metaphor for Depp's self-image – renegade, European, rough around the edges. He did manage to give it up for two and a half years, and despite having to smoke in almost every scene of his new film, The Rum Diary – "just fake things, I think they're made of cured leather or something, they're really hideous, you light it and it smells like a tyre burning" – it was only on the journey home that nicotine reclaimed him.

    "One bang on [the director] Bruce Robinson's horrible little Café Crème cigar. One bang – yeah, one hit and it was over."

    "I just said: 'Come on, give me a bang.' Bruce and I were in the plane, and I just said: 'Oh come on.' You know, we'd had a bit to drink – and …" He mimes taking a drag. On the plane? "On the plane, mmmm." I look puzzled. He looks momentarily bashful. "Well, it was a private plane. On a private plane you can smoke. It makes it an incredibly expensive habit, of course," he shrugs, "cos you can only smoke on a private plane."

    Source: The Guardian, 06 November 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/tWI4Ab

  • Australia: Mental health smoking ban set to be lifted

    A smoking ban for mental health patients is likely to be lifted to stop people who have been committed risking their lives for a cigarette.

    Reports have shown some involuntary patients were even swapping sex for cigarettes and poking electricity sockets with paper clips to get a spark and light up.

    Earlier this year, The Sunday Times and PerthNow reported how involuntary mental health patients who smoke were not able to light up in Western Australian hospitals, prompting some to go to extreme lengths to smoke cigarettes.

    Mental Health Minister Helen Morton today announced she wanted to lift the ban and would take the proposal to cabinet.

    Source: news.com.au, 04 November 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/rRwBFN

  • Common gene mutation raises risk of life-threatening aneurysms

    Scientists have identified a common genetic mutation that raises the risk of aneurysms – the life-threatening bulges in arteries that kill thousands of people in Britain alone each year. The finding could help unravel why aneurysms form in the aorta, the largest artery in the body, and what causes them to grow to a size that makes them likely to rupture.

    The disease is most common in white, middle-aged men and often goes unnoticed because aneurysms rarely cause obvious symptoms until they burst and trigger massive internal bleeding.

    People who smoke and have high blood pressure are more at risk of aortic aneurysms, but the disease also runs in families, suggesting that genes play a significant role in the condition.

    A team led by Matt Bown, a vascular surgeon at Leicester University in the UK, compared the genetic makeup of 1,866 patients with abdominal aortic aneurysms with a healthy group of 5,534 people. Gene sequences that appeared more often in the aneurysm patients were then confirmed in several thousand other patients.

    Source: The Guardian, 03 November 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/vjQcGZ