ASH Daily news for 01 September 2010
HEADLINES
- Greece bans smoking in enclosed public spaces
- Researchers test theory that exercise can help smokers step up to challenge
- Fake cigarettes found in furniture at Felixstowe Port
- More people quit smoking thanks to NHS
- USA: Tobacco signs still target city’s poorer areas
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Greece bans smoking in enclosed public spaces
A ban on lighting up in enclosed public areas comes into force in Greece today as part of an effort to curb the country's high smoking rates.
Offenders will be fined up to €10,000 (£8,260), and tobacco advertising will also be prohibited under the measures.
Some 42% of Greeks over the age of 15 smoke, well above the European average of 29%. The campaign will include an advertising blitz and the distribution of anti-smoking board games to children.
The prime minister, George Papandreou, said: "It will contribute to the work we're doing today that's aimed at changing attitudes, norms and behaviour to improve our quality of life and to make our country viable – not just its economy but in everyday life."
The Greek health ministry said the measures were needed after partial smoking bans over the last eight years were generally ignored. From today, offices and businesses will ban smoking and close popular smoking rooms. Those caught violating the new law will be fined between €50 and €500 and have their names recorded in an offenders' database. Businesses will be fined between €500 and €10,000.
Martin Dockrell, of the anti-smoking campaign group ASH, said: "I would expect Greece to experience some of the greatest health benefits in Europe [from the ban] because it has such high smoking rates. If [smokers] can cope with sitting on a street corner in rainy London and windy Dublin, beautiful and sunny Greece shouldn't pose much of a challenge."
Greek bar and restaurant owners, who have already been hit by a recession and a shaky tourism season, said a dip in business could cost them their livelihood.
"Obviously, customers will not stay as long if they need to go outside for a smoke," said Nikos Louvros, who owns a bar in central Athens. "I can't understand why smokers and non-smokers can't have their own areas. You can filter the air, and everyone would gets what suits them."
Louvros was so angered by a previous attempt to impose a ban last year that he formed his own pro-smoking political party that received 1,500 votes in the 2009 national election. He plans to run again in local elections in November. "Maybe we'll win the race for mayor of Athens," he said. "Then, we'll see what happens."
Source: The Guardian, 01 September 2010
Link: http://bit.ly/cnNdO6 -
Researchers test theory that exercise can help smokers step up to challenge
In the UK, two out of three smokers want to quit, but more than three quarters (78 per cent) light up again after 12 months without tobacco.
The investigation wants to focus on "hard-to-reach" smokers to see if taking up physical exercise can help them cut the number of cigarettes they smoke – making it easier for them to then quit permanently.
Professor Adrian Taylor, from the university's School of Sport and Health Sciences, said: "Smoking reduction strategies, particularly using nicotine replacement therapy, have been shown to increase the number of people trying to quit. Adding physical activity to usual care has been shown to increase abstinence rates among smokers making an abrupt quit attempt."
Instead of lighting up after a meal, he hopes that a short walk will encourage people away from smoking, helping relieve stress and aid concentration.
Smokers who have not used the NHS Stop Smoking Services (SSS) and who want to quit will be the subjects of the research and will be trying out a number of measures.
The study, funded by the National Institute for Health Research Health Technology Assessment (NIHR HTA) will take 120 smokers from two areas in Plymouth where nearly half (45 per cent) of adults smoke, more than twice the national average.
The group of volunteers will be split into two separate groups, with one using brief advice, which is given to most patients attempting to quit, the other will enter upon a course of physical activity, which will be individually tailored to each patient, depending on their needs.
In addition, each volunteer will be offered additional support through the local NHS Stop Smoking Service for up to six weeks, if and when they decide to quit.
A spokesman for the NIHR HTA programme said: "With the growing awareness of the health risks and inequalities associated with smoking it is vital that research is conducted into new ways of helping people to give up, especially as 74 per cent of smokers say they want to quit, but only a tiny proportion of these people make use of the free service provided by the NHS."
The results are due to be published in 2013.
Source: thisisplymouth, 31 August 2010
Link: http://bit.ly/9m8Xdt -
Fake cigarettes found in furniture at Felixstowe Port
Fake cigarettes have been found hidden in a container of furniture at Felixstowe Port in Suffolk.
UK Border Agency officials found 20 boxes containing a total of 800,000 cigarettes when an X-ray showed a discrepancy with the load.
The container had been shipped from China and was destined for Southend in Essex.
The cigarettes will now be shredded and the pulp used to generate electricity for the National Grid.
A Border Agency spokesman said the duty on the load should have been £177,000.
Bill Form, the UK Border Agency's assistant director at Felixstowe port, said: "People who are tempted to buy cheap copies don't realise that the products they are buying are completely unregulated."
Source: BBC News, 31 August 2010
Link: http://bbc.in/d0P5i3 -
More people quit smoking thanks to NHS
The number of people successfully stubbing out the habit with a local stop smoking service is above the national average.
NHS Berkshire West has exceeded its targets for its stop smoking service by 14 per cent this year, helping 2,474 people to stop smoking.
Figures show 60 per cent of people who committed to give up smoking succeeded, while nationally the figure was 49 per cent.
Iwona Rodriguez, stop smoking co-ordinator said: “We’re delighted that our Stop Smoking Service at NHS Berkshire West has been so successful.
“We have a number of initiatives to help people throughout the area and our drop-in clinic (known as the POD) at the Broad Street Mall.
Reading was recently cited in a national report on tobacco control as an example of good practice.”
Source: getwokingham, 31 August 2010
Link: http://bit.ly/bBLtBb -
USA: Tobacco signs still target city’s poorer areas
The signs, wrought in soothing italics, beckon with promises of tobacco “pleasure!’’ at low, low prices. Across Dorchester, Mattapan, and other city neighborhoods, big signs and little signs, vertical signs and horizontal signs trumpet the availability of cigarettes at corner stores and gas stations. They are plastered on façades and propped against windows, affixed to light poles and gas pumps.
A dozen years after Massachusetts attempted to ban storefront tobacco ads within 1,000 feet of schools and playgrounds, a prohibition thwarted by a tobacco company’s legal challenge, the signs remain prolific and prominent in Boston’s lower-income neighborhoods, especially those with substantial African-American and Hispanic populations.
But now, empowered by Congress to regulate tobacco companies, the Food and Drug Administration is taking steps that could rein in the pastel-hued signs that industry foes say entice young customers to start smoking.
With cigarette advertising banished from the airwaves and largely absent from billboards, storefronts are some of the last bastions of tobacco marketing. The continued presence of the ads is a testament, researchers said, to the deep reach of cigarette makers in poorer communities, where merchants said company representatives sometimes personally attach ads to store exteriors.
“Tobacco advertising is still alive and well,’’ said Dr. Michael Siegel, a tobacco control specialist at the Boston University School of Public Health. “There’s a widespread perception that somehow the tobacco advertising has gone away, that it’s been taken care of, that we don’t have to worry about this anymore. But that’s not true.’’
On Gallivan Boulevard, there is the Hess gas station, with signs for Newport, Marlboro, and Pall Mall on light posts and more ads in the window of the convenience store and on the pumps, at least 20 in all. On Dorchester Avenue, there is the red-brick Ashmont Convenience Store, where two Newport signs and one for Maverick cigarettes (“Everyday low price, $6.70’’) dominate posters touting telephone calling cards.
Hung Tran, who was behind the cash register at the Ashmont shop, said that in a neighborhood where tough times have exacted a steep toll, the signs let potential patrons know what wares he has inside.
“It’s good for customers to see it,’’ said Tran, whose brother owns the shop.
The signs, Tran said, are provided by the maker of Newport and Maverick, Lorillard Tobacco Co., which has a contract with the store. “Every three months,’’ Tran said, “they tell me what to do.’’
Lorillard’s director of investor relations, Robert Bannon, declined to discuss the company’s marketing practices. Another major cigarette producer, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., did not return phone messages.
A representative of the nation’s leading tobacco maker, Philip Morris USA, defended storefront ads, citing free speech rights under the First Amendment.
“Adult consumers have a constitutionally protected interest in receiving communications from retailers and manufacturers, just as we, Philip Morris USA, have the right as a manufacturer to communicate nonmisleading information to those consumers about our products,’’ company spokesman David Sutton said.
That position echoes a legal challenge tobacco companies are making to a New York City campaign that mandates graphic warnings at cash registers about the health perils of smoking. Massachusetts regulators proposed a similar initiative earlier this year, but put it on hold, awaiting the outcome of the New York case.
Researchers found in 2003 and 2004 that roughly 4 of every 10 dollars spent on tobacco marketing went to store signs, payments to retailers for prime shelf space, and displays inside shops. In some cases, shopkeepers received thousands of dollars through tobacco manufacturer incentive programs.
And the more tobacco promotions children encounter, the greater the risk they will start smoking, Massachusetts scientists reported in 2006.
It is no secret that ad dollars are disproportionately spent in poorer neighborhoods, said researchers, pointing to studies from the past 15 years. In the most recent, Harvard School of Public Health researchers found that stores selling cigarettes in Dorchester were significantly more likely to have signs — and bigger signs — than retailers in Brookline. The researchers, who canvassed storefronts from November 2007 to February 2008, also discovered that stores in Dorchester were more likely to advertise prices and that the prices were lower than in Brookline.
In the Dorchester ZIP code covered by the study, 02124, the median family income was $38,203; 18 percent of Dorchester adults smoke regularly. In Brookline, where the median income was $92,993, the smoking rate was only 6.5 percent.
“Does this marketing demonstrate a targeting of disadvantaged communities? Clearly,’’ said Greg Connolly, an author of the Harvard study that appears in the American Journal of Health Promotion. “Is there a moral and economic obligation to intervene? Yes. We’re not showing dignity and respect for low-income people in Boston.’’
Both Boston and Brookline have rules prohibiting more than 30 percent of a window from being covered by any kind of signs. Brookline goes further, with a design guideline limiting brand-specific advertising. But a planning official said that rule is rarely enforced.
Brookline was the first Massachusetts municipality to impose a ban on smoking in restaurants and bars. Health director Alan Balsam said the absence of tobacco ads is more a reflection of his town’s attitude toward smoking than a recognition of obscure zoning rules.
“It just shows sometimes you don’t have to hit people with a hammer,’’ Balsam said. “It’s a long slog to educate people who own businesses about tobacco control, but I think we’ve done a fairly good job.’’
In 1996, the FDA first asserted regulatory jurisdiction over tobacco companies, including advertising, but a court ruled that the federal agency was overstepping its authority.
Two years later, Massachusetts attempted to restrict storefront ads. Tobacco maker Lorillard sued, and the US Supreme Court sided with the company.
Last year, the FDA won the power to regulate tobacco companies under a landmark law passed by Congress. The agency, after soliciting public comments, is weighing what to do about ads on the exterior walls and grounds of retailers, a spokeswoman said.
Matthew Myers, president of the advocacy group Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said he believes “there is no question the FDA will clamp down’’ on the signs. But, he said, it is less clear how.
Advertising could be banned within 1,000 feet of schools and playgrounds, as the FDA and Massachusetts proposed in the 1990s. Or the agency could shrink that to a smaller radius so that fewer retailers are affected. Or, rather than an outright prohibition, it could dictate that all tobacco ads be fashioned in a muted design, such as black and white type. The rules, Myers said, would not apply to signs in store windows.
“The question purely is what rules should be in place to govern outdoor advertising that both protect the public health and are consistent with the First Amendment,’’ Myers said.
Source: The Boston Globe, 30 August 2010
Link: http://bit.ly/cFMZY3
