ASH, 102 Clifton Street, LONDON, EC2A 4HW.
Tel 020 7739 5902 Fax 020 7613 0531

ASH Daily News

20 October 2006

[View html version: http://www.globalink.org/nbuk]

HEADLINES

Hong Kong passes smokefree public places law

Study of smoking and inequalities

New Wanless study into health spending

Licensee smokefree preparation initiative launched in Publican

Lord Harris, obituary

FULL TEXT

Hong Kong passes smokefree public places law

Yesterday the Legislative Council of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) approved a law entitled the Smoking (Public Health) (Amendment) Bill 2005, which will take effect on Jan. 1, 2007.

Smoking will be banned in government offices, shops and halls from January. But the ban will not be applied to bars and other places of entertainment until 2009 to give them time to adjust. The bill was passed after health chief York Chow agreed to studying the feasibility of allowing bars and restaurants to reserve special rooms for their customers.

Under the terms of the new law, cigarette manufacturers are also barred from using misleading terms such as "lights" and "mild" on packaging. Hong Kong had long been mulling a smoking ban in a bid to protect the health of the more than 200,000 people employed in the hospitality trade.

A fixed penalty system for smoking offences will also be introduced. The amendment ordinance also gives the Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food authority in appointing inspectors to take enforcement action.

Source: Forbes, People's Daily, China.org.cn, 20 October 2006
Article link: http://tinyurl.com/ylykqr


Study of smoking and inequalities

In a study published in the latest edition of the Lancet, Prabhat Jha and colleagues report, in a four-country study, that most social inequalities in adult male mortality during the 1990s were due to smoking. However, they are cautious about the indirect method used in this analysis:

They report: "We have used direct methods to estimate the contribution of smoking to socioeconomic and ethnic inequalities in mortality in New Zealand. For the 1996-99 period, smoking contributed 21% to the gap between 45-74-year-old men with post-school qualifications and those with none. The corresponding figure for women was 11%.

Our other work suggested that only 5-10% of the larger inequality in mortality between Maori and non-Maori individuals was due to smoking, despite large differences in smoking prevalence.

Direct methods are preferable where local data permit, and indirect methods must be treated cautiously. Although smoking is an extremely important contributor to health inequalities, we concur with Marmot that there are also other major determinants of health inequalities."

Source: The Lancet, 20 October 2006
Article link: http://tinyurl.com/y7ggea


New Wanless study into health spending

Sir Derek Wanless, the former NatWest Group chief executive, is to repeat his study of health spending five years after his previous groundbreaking review for the Treasury helped justify the current massive boost in NHS spending.

Sir Derek is to revisit the review in an independent study for the King's Fund health think-tank. The new exercise comes at a critical moment in the run up to next year's comprehensive spending review which will decide how much cash the NHS gets after 2008.

Sir Derek concluded that over 30 years the NHS had underspent by some £230bn compared to other European health systems. Since 2002 NHS spending has been rising at 7 per cent a year in real terms to take it up to the European average.

But with NHS spending by 2008 accounting for around a fifth of all public expenditure, and with total public expenditure set to grow only by around 1.9 per cent a year after that, most analysts expect the Treasury to push for a big reduction in NHS spending growth - down to about 3 per cent a year in real terms. Without that, other spending departments will face an even tighter squeeze.

Source: Financial Times, 20 October 2006
Article link: http://tinyurl.com/y8uf28


Licensee smokefree preparation initiative launched in Publican

Fresh Air, Fresh Thinking is the new initiative being launched in The Publican this week to help the licensed trade look forward with confidence to the smoking ban.
Launched together with Club Mirror, the magazine for private members' clubs, and in association with the industry's clean-air initiative AIR, Fresh Air, Fresh Thinking is aimed at finding new ways for licensees to breathe fresh life into their businesses as the ban comes in.
Source: Publican, 20 October 2006
Related link: http://www.thepublican.com/freshthinking


Lord Harris, obituary

Lord Harris, honorary president of smokers' group Forest, has died aged 81 from a suspected heart attack at his North London home.

A pipe-smoker, he campaigned against banning smoking in public places.

He once said: "A lot of people fulfil themselves through sucking at their pipes or smoking their fags. It's part of their personality."

Tory peer Lord Tebbit said:

"I am just sad that he is no longer there. I valued him as a friend and a source of inspiration and advice."

Source: BBC, Financial Times, Times, 20 October 2006
Article link: (BBC) http://tinyurl.com/yx6pma

----------------------------------
Unsubscribe:

Public subscribers: http://www.ash.org.uk/html/about/subscribe.php
Globalink members: http://member.globalink.org
----------------------------------





Michael Fredman
Web Manager
ASH
102 Clifton St
EC2A 4HW

020 7739 5902