HEADLINES

• Tobacco firms' use of YouTube probed
• New test to benefit people quitting smoking
• Cuba's subsidized cigarettes going up in smoke
• USA: Battle over smoking in condos catches fire in Florida
• Israel: Health Minister to target web smoking ads

• Tobacco firms' use of YouTube probed

  The tobacco industry may be using websites such as YouTube to get around a ban on advertising cigarettes, a study says.

  Researchers in New Zealand studied the video-sharing site and found a number of pro-tobacco videos "consistent with indirect marketing activity by tobacco companies or their proxies".

  They say governments should consider regulating such content on the net.

  Tobacco companies have always denied using the net to promote cigarettes.

  "Tobacco companies stand to benefit greatly from the marketing potential of Web 2.0, without themselves being at significant risk of being implicated in violating any laws or advertising codes," the researchers wrote.

  Amanda Sandford, research manager at anti-smoking group Action on Smoking and Health (Ash) said the study's findings were "disturbing but fairly typical of tobacco industry activity".

  "As soon as one avenue of promotion is closed, companies will seek out alternative means of promoting their product and will do anything to get round advertising restrictions," she told BBC News.

  "It indicates that their key audience is young people. There is a need for much stronger control over what appears on the internet."

  But Catherine Armstrong, a spokesperson for British American Tobacco, one of the firms studied in the report, said it was "not our policy to use social networking sites such as Facebook or YouTube to promote our tobacco product brands".

  "Not even the authors of this report claim we have done so," she said. "Using social media could breach local advertising laws and our own International Marketing Standards, which apply to our companies worldwide.

  "Our employees, agencies and service providers should never use social media to promote our tobacco brands."

  Several tobacco firms signed up to a voluntary agreement to restrict direct advertising on websites in 2002.

  YouTube said that it does not "accept any paid-for tobacco advertising anywhere in the world".

  The study, published in the journal Tobacco Control, focused on YouTube, the largest video-sharing site on the web. YouTube gets more than 1bn views a day.

  The researchers searched for five tobacco brands and analysed the first 20 pages of video clips containing any reference to the firms. The content studied had been uploaded by users.

  The authors analysed 163 clips, of which 20 appeared to be "very professionally made," they say.

  "It is disturbing to note that some of the pro-tobacco videos appeared to be of a professional standard, many followed similar themes within a brand and large numbers contained images or music that maybe copyrighted to tobacco companies but have not been removed," the researchers said.

  Firms who own copyright material posted on YouTube can request a video to be taken down. Users can aslo flag content to Google - the owners of YouTube - that they believe is "inappropriate".

  "YouTube is a community site with clear policies that prohibit inappropriate content," said a spokesperson for the site.

  "These policies don't allow any content that is illegal, as well as any material that depicts minors smoking. Our community understands the rules and polices the site for inappropriate material."

  
  Almost three-quarters of the content studied was classified as "pro-tobacco" with less than 4% classified as "anti-tobacco".

  The dominant brand on YouTube was Marlboro, they said.

  "The high presence of the Marlboro brand on YouTube could be because the Marlboro brand is being marketed more effectively than other brands and is therefore more popular, and/or because there is commercially driven placement of the videos on YouTube," the researchers wrote.

  Ken Garcia, spokesman for Marlboro-makers Philip Morris USA, said the firm did not "post cigarette brand marketing on YouTube".

  "We have communicated with YouTube in the past to ask them to remove YouTube material that we believe infringes on our intellectual property rights," he told BBC News.

  Google were unable to confirm if they had been contacted by Philip Morris USA.

  Most of the clips in the study contained images of people smoking branded tobacco products or images associated with the brand. Many also included the brand name in the title of the video.

  The content featured a large proportion of archive material as well as videos featuring celebrities, films, sport and music.

  "Videos featuring celebrities movies were mainly historic, and comprised videos from the 1950s and 1960s featuring The Flintstones, The Beverly Hillbillies or The Beatles," the researchers wrote.

  They said their findings suggest governments should extend "current tobacco advertising restrictions to include Web 2.0".

  "We can see no functional difference between exposure to tobacco in movies outside the internet, and exposure to video and film material on the internet," Dr George Thomson, one of the authors of the study told BBC News.

  "Generally, the more tobacco is normalised, the more kids will take it up."

  The study was conducted by Dr Thomson, with Lucy Elkin and Professor Nick Wilson of the University of Otago, Wellington, New Zealand.
   

  Source: BBC News, 26 Aug 2010
  Link: http://bbc.in/dD4PyV

• New test to benefit people quitting smoking

  A test for one of the thousands of chemicals in cigarette smoke has the potential for more accurately estimating smokers' mouth level exposure and may have applications for developing custom-tailored quitting approaches for the more than 43 million people in the United States who still smoke, and hundreds of millions elsewhere, scientists said here today.

  In a report at the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), they described development of a way to measure mainstream smoke deliveries of select chemicals that an individual smoker consumes on a per cigarette basis. It provides a much more accurate estimate of exposure than using automated cigarette smoking machines to estimate mainstream smoke deliveries, which traditionally have been used.

  "Historically, our knowledge about the amounts of carcinogens, nicotine, and tar produced by cigarettes is based on data from smoking machines," Clifford Watson, Ph.D., explained. "Those machines do not smoke cigarettes in the same way as people. Smokers may inhale large puff volumes or take more puffs per cigarette than the fixed regimen a smoking machine uses. Our method avoids those pitfalls and provides an actual 'mouth level'― rather than a 'machine-level' ― profile of smokers' exposure to the harmful substances in tobacco smoke."

  Potential future applications include examining a smoker's daily cigarette-to-cigarette consumption pattern and developing an optimized smoking cessation program based on an individual's pattern . According to Watson, it may be possible to develop individualized plans for quitting that are custom-tailored to each individual's smoking pattern to improve cessation rates. Watson added, "Cessation rates for smoking are generally poor so that any improvement may substantially increase quit rates." Dr. Watson is a chemist with the U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta.

  The new method also could be valuable in better understanding health risks of cigarettes with different levels of smoke constituents, Watson added. Machine-smoked "light" and "ultra-light" cigarettes do produce smoke with less tar and nicotine than regular cigarettes. However, smokers that use such products may compensate and inhale deeper, take more puffs, or smoke more cigarettes. In doing so, their dose of tar, nicotine, and other chemicals may approach the dose from a regular cigarette.

  Watson and colleagues based the method on previous research involving a substance naturally present in tobacco called solanesol. During smoking, a fraction of the solanesol deposits in the cigarette filters and serves as a good surrogate "marker" for other compounds in the mainstream smoke that smokers draw in their mouths. Watson reasoned that measurements of this one compound could be used to gauge a smoker's exposure to numerous other chemicals in the more than 7,000 chemicals present in cigarette smoke.

  The scientists removed filters from cigarette butts and measured the solanesol content. The cigarette butts were from a variety of brands machine-smoked under different conditions, including variations in the amount of smoke per cigarette puff, differences in the number of puffs, and effectiveness of the filter. Their findings indicate that measuring solanesol does provide a quick, inexpensive way to estimate a smoker's total exposure, in a way that more closely reflects their natural smoking habits.

  Even cigarettes that are labeled as "low tar" or "light" are unsafe, prompting the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to recently ban tobacco companies from using these terms on cigarette packaging.

  "There's no such thing as a safe cigarette," Watson cautioned. "The only proven means to reduce your health risk from tobacco use is to quit."

  The American Chemical Society is a non-profit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 161,000 members, ACS is the world's largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.
   

  Source: Red Orbit, 25 Aug 2010
  Link: http://bit.ly/cspxY8

• Cuba's subsidized cigarettes going up in smoke

  Cuba is phasing out its longstanding monthly allotments of subsidized cigarettes as President Raul Castro works to jump-start the island's spluttering economy.

  Beginning next month, some 2.5 million Cubans over the age of 54 no longer will get their four packs of cigarettes as part of the country's ration program, the government announced on Wednesday.

  "The Council of Ministers has resolved to eliminate cigarettes from the rationed family basket as of September as part of the measures gradually being adopted to limit state subsidies," an official statement said.

  The cigarettes "are not a primary necessity," it said.

  Castro has said that communist-ruled Cuba's ration system eventually will be eliminated as he moves to modernize the economy.

  Monthly allotments of chickpeas, potatoes and a pound (0.45 kg) of sugar were removed from the system this year.
   

  Many subsidized items were cut in the 1990s after the collapse of former benefactor the Soviet Union plunged the island into a deep recession.

  But allotments of inexpensive cigarettes for Cubans born before 1956 were kept in place.

  Local economists estimate the ration of rice, beans and other staples provides enough food for less than two weeks, leaving many Cubans to turn to state-run stores and markets.

  Castro, since taking over from his ailing elder brother Fidel Castro in 2008, has pushed to restructure the centralized economy, which has been battered by hurricanes, the global financial crisis and chronic inefficiencies.

  He has called for the elimination of all subsidies, and such things as state-sponsored honeymoons and vacations already have been cut. But Cubans would still enjoy free health care, education and social security.

  Castro recently announced plans to lay off 1 million workers over five years, or a fifth of the labor force, and has called for more family farming, self-employment and small business creation to make up for cuts in the state's payroll.

  Cuba is an important tobacco and cigar producer and boasts one of the world's highest per-capita rates of smokers.

  Unlike many countries where cigarettes are heavily taxed, Cuba sells unfiltered black tobacco cigarettes for as little as 7 pesos a pack at state stores, or around 40 cents, while the allotted packs cost just 2 to 3 pesos.
  Retirees can often be seen on Havana's streets selling their subsidized cigarettes for 5 pesos a pack.

  "This is a blow for the elderly like me," 82-year-old Esperanza Rodriguez said. "It was like a little bit of money they gave us each month."
   

  Source: Reuters, 26 Aug 2010
  Link: http://bit.ly/cZswVe

• USA: Battle over smoking in condos catches fire in Florida

  If you can smell it, it can hurt you.

  That contention has churned up debate among condominium owners over the right to smoke cigarettes in one's own unit versus a neighbor's right to breathe clean air.

  Lawsuits are being filed around the nation, and some attorneys who represent Florida condominium associations say the issue could soon be coming to a court here.

  Coral Gables real estate agent Ana Anderson moved out of her Silver Palms condo last month because her neighbors' smoke was seeping into her walls and through her ventilation system. Minimally, Anderson wants to recoup the cost of medical bills, sealing off her apartment from smoke, and wages lost due to illness. She also wants Silver Palms to become a smoke-free building. She said she will sue if she has to and is in the process of hiring attorneys who are well-versed in the issues.

  Anderson now lives in the in-law quarters of a house she owns. It is smoke-free and she has control over the environment.

  Anderson became physically ill several days after her November move into her new condo. She muscled through her allergic reactions before asking the condo association for help to seal off smoke wafting in from two neighbors' apartments, one next door and one beneath her unit.

  Her neighbors at the Dadeland-area complex were sympathetic, and tried to remedy the situation but could not, she said.

  They washed down their walls with bleach, but fresh second-hand smoke kept pouring in, according to Anderson. Had her neighbors stopped smoking, the air would have cleared up in a very short while, she said.

  "I understand that people have a right to do what they want [in their own homes] but here's the problem: I spent over $2,000 sealing my apartment from smoke," Anderson said.

  Condo association members will not reimburse her, Anderson said. Nor will they revise the association documents to prohibit smoking.

  Anderson's former attorney, Bart Ostrzenski of Deerfield Beach, sent a certified letter on May 19 to Silver Palms' attorney Robert E. Paige of Miami, outlining Anderson's difficulties and how they could be resolved.

  Paige never responded, according to Anderson.

  Ostrzenski said that Paige's silence didn't surprise him, but he was taken aback by the complexity of the dispute.

  "The issue of smoking in a condominium is a fundamentally difficult and expensive issue for any condominium to tackle. On the one side, the association has a responsibility to protect its owners and residents from nuisances. To nonsmokers, smoking is obviously a nuisance," Ostrzenski said.

  "On the other side, there are those who believe that smoking is a personal choice, which should not be regulated by a condominium association, especially when such regulation is imposed upon what you do in your own home. To a smoker, this is a very direct intrusion into their homes."

  [...]

  Naples real estate agent Michele Harrison said properties clear of smoke sell better but banning smoking might violate private property rights.

  "I would not want to see that type of restriction put on a property owner," Harrison said.

  There is a problem ridding the apartment of residual odor once the smoker moves out, she said.

  I have had prospects walk in a door and immediately out the door because they detect the smell in the home," Harrison said.

  Anderson said she couldn't give her condo away in this market.

  "I did put it up for rent. A new [tenant] moved in on Monday," said Anderson

  Source: Law.com,
  Link: http://bit.ly/9SV2xv

• Israel: Health Minister to target web smoking ads

  Health Ministry director-general Dr. Ronni Gamzu will bring to a special ministry tobacco control committee he established the problem of fighting the growing trend of using the Internet to advertise the products of Israeli tobacco companies, The Jerusalem Post learned on Wednesday.

  Since 1983, there has been a ban in Israel on advertising tobacco on conventional electronic media, TV and radio, but there are no restrictions on Web sites – and youth spend hours a day online.
   

  When he entered his position on June 1, Gamzu decided to set up the committee to take new initiatives against tobacco use and also to complete the work of the aborted Gillon Committee on the Prevention of Smoking, which was established in 1999 at the bidding of the High Court of Justice but without any report being written and issued by Judge Alon Gillon. After the ministry asked the court numerous times for an extension of the deadline, Gamzu renewed the committee and serves as chairman. He said a report with recommendations on new and stronger strategies to fight smoking will be issued the end of this year.

  Gamzu told the Post that he will ask the committee to examine ideas to fight tobacco advertising in Israel, including that on Web sites. Among the popular Israeli news sites that have presented tobacco advertising are Ynet and Walla.

  Deputy director-general Dr. Boaz Lev, who supervises the ministry’s 2020 Israel Plan to promote better health in another decade, told the Post that fighting tobacco advertising on the Web was a “worthy target, and we will consider ways of doing it.”

  [...]

  Amos Hausner, chairman of the Israel Council for the Prevention of Smoking, said youths are clearly being targeted by the tobacco industry via films and the Internet through subliminal and direct advertising. “These media have a strong influence on children and youth, and they are wanted by the tobacco companies as new customers.”

  Hausner added that his council had received complaints from the public about tobacco ads on Israeli Web sites.

  Hausner said that the ombudsman of the Second Authority for Television and Radio sent a letter last week to the Avir Naki (Clean Air) smoking prevention organization about smoking on popular Channel 2 shows including Kokav Nolad (A Star is Born) and previously, Big Brother.

  The ombudsman said the authority’s council would discuss the problem.

  Compared to the increase in smoking shown on films in Israel, this has been cut by 50% in the US, according to a recent study.

  Source: Jerusalem Post, 26 Aug 2010
  Link: http://bit.ly/9mBZte