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

ASH Daily News

24 October 2006

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

HEADLINES

Hunt for a 'safer' cigarette

Smokers huddling in doorways of pubs to beat chill face £50 fine

Kraft says it is ready for a spin-off

'Tobacco curriculum' for Welsh schools

Blast! Forgot about the fags...


FULL TEXT

Hunt for a 'safer' cigarette

The Cambridge Evening News reports on a BAT subsidiary's efforts to find a less hazardous cigarette:

A completely safe cigarette may be impossible but tobacco firms hope that cutting out the toxins in cigarette smoke would at least reduce the health risk substantially.

And - despite concerns from anti-smoking campaigners - research work on that idea has been quietly going on in Cambridge.

UK firm British American Tobacco (BAT), the world's second largest cigarette-maker, hopes it can get cigarettes with reduced toxicants on the market as soon as five years from now.

Dr Eian Massey, general manager of Advanced Technologies (Cambridge) Ltd, a company wholly owned by BAT, is leading the work of a team of scientists at Cambridge Science Park.

They use cell cultures to grow lung tissue which they then cover with different blends of cigarette smoke to see how the tissue reacts over varying time periods.

Tobacco smoke is chemically very complex and more than 4,000 individual substances have been identified in it, most at trace levels, and some 100 of these are toxicants.

Dr Massey said: "We've got 35 people in the unit and 30 are scientists. We look at cells grown in tissue culture and use these to look at a number of things.

"We work on tobacco smoke and how genes are turned on and off by tobacco smoke. This identifies topics we work on to reduce the health risks. The unit has been working on this for the past five or six years. If people continue to smoke, there is a duty to think about this sort of thing."

He has just come back from a conference of companies in the tobacco industry which have research facilities. One of the topics under discussion was Risk Reduction and Smoking Acceptance - Addressing the Challenge.

He said: "People do publish a lot of work done through joint industry bodies."

Help from the world's top medical research bodies would be appreciated in their work on less harmful cigarettes but governments do not offer such assistance.

David O'Reilly, BAT's harm reduction programme manager, said: "The problem we face is that the whole health argument regarding smoking is 'quit or die' - an impractical choice, since cigarettes seem unlikely to disappear any time soon.

"Smokers are either choosing not to give up, or are else not able to quit. From our point of view, the public health focus needs to switch from 'quit or die' to reduced-risk cigarettes."

Anti-smoking groups do not agree and ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) has said "the hunt for a so-called safer cigarette is farcical".

Deborah Arnott, director of ASH, said: "The problem with cigarettes is the inhaling of smoke. You can tinker about with the materials in the cigarette, but inhaling smoke is so dangerous that the particular blend of toxic constituents will not make much difference.

"The fact is that you are burning something and inhaling the smoke and that will always be harmful. However you tinker around with it, smoke damages your lungs.

"The danger with developing a product like this is the implication that a low-toxic cigarette is somehow less harmful, which will reassure smokers and could stop some giving up.

"The launch of low-tar cigarettes did the same thing, but we now know these are just as harmful as other cigarettes."

BAT's brands, sold in 180 countries, include Dunhill, Lucky Strike, Pall Mall, Rothmans and Benson & Hedges.

It says it makes "high quality tobacco products for the diverse preferences of millions of consumers" and spans the business "from seed to smoke".

Previous lower risk cigarettes have been tested before - though without success.

Dr Massey said: "There has been one or two products on the market in the past. In the States, there was one called Eclipse but it did not get taken up universally by the smoking population."

The question for desperate smokers is - is a new product due on the market soon or is it all a pipe dream?

As a scientist, Dr Massey is understandably reticent about giving an exact date.

But he says: "One is looking to do this in as reasonable a time as possible. I don't think we are looking at decades, we are looking at five to 10 years."

Cambridge Evening News, 23/10/06
http://tinyurl.com/y25np8


Smokers huddling in doorways of pubs to beat chill face £50 fine

A Leading Dundee councillor has told licensees and smokers that as the temperatures drop they could be prosecuted for smoking undercover in doorways.

Licensing board chairman Neil Powrie warned pub and club owners that they face a £200 sanction, while the smoker could be hit with a £50 fixed-penalty notice for huddling in a doorway to enjoy the habit, as the first winter of Scotland's smoking ban looms.

Mr Powrie told the licensing board that there had been almost total compliance in the city with the law banning smoking in enclosed public places since it came into force at the end of March this year.

But the licensing chief said that he had already heard of complaints from the public about smokers seeking shelter from the weather in doorways before lighting up.

He said: "If someone stands and smokes inside a recessed doorway, then it is a quite clear breach of the smoking prohibition legislation and an offence.

"That could lead to not only the smoker being issued with a fixed-penalty notice, but also the person who is responsible for managing the premises.

"To prevent this from happening, it is important that we raise as much awareness of this as possible.

"Environmental health and trading standards staff from the city council will be able to advise licensees on the situation and also provide specific signs to make sure that the message gets across clearly.

"There has been tremendous support in Dundee for the new legislation since it came into force, and I would not want to see anything jeopardising the city's positive track record.

"Both smokers and publicans have a responsibility, and I am keen to ensure that this issue does not become a major problem."

http://www.thisisnorthscotland.couk 23 October 2006
http://tinyurl.com/y762ks


Kraft says it is ready for a spin-off

Kraft Foods, the US food maker owned by Altria Group, yesterday signalled it is ready for a long-awaited spin-off that would see the maker of Oreo cookies and Oscar Mayer meats separated from the Philip Morris tobacco companies.

In a brief interview following Kraft's third-quarter earnings call, Irene Rosenfeld, who was appointed chief executive in June, said: "The timing is a decision of the Altria board but I believe if and when it decides to spin, we are ready."

Investors are growing weary of waiting for Altria's corporate restructuring into two or three parts. The company signalled its intentions back in November 2004, but says it has been waiting for improvements in the litigation environment.

Speculation over the timing of the spin-off mounted last week when Altria postponed its earnings release by a day. It will now report earnings tomorrow - the same day as a planned informal board meeting.

While most tobacco analysts do not expect an announcement this week, Citigroup's Bonnie Herzog told clients "the most likely reason" for the delay is that the board will announce the tax-free spin-off of its 88 per cent stake in Kraft.

Financial Times, 24/10/06



'Tobacco curriculum' proposed for Welsh schools

A Welsh council is to launch a "tobacco curriculum" amid claims that the Welsh Assembly Government has not issued enough guidance on substance misuse.

A new document says that pupils should be taught about the dangers of smoking in a bid to stop so many teenagers taking up the habit.

Health experts want all schools in Merthyr Tydfil to develop the comprehensive tobacco control curriculum by 2010.

The idea is part of a community strategy to help reduce the number of people in the area who smoke.

But a teachers' union said schools and councils should develop smoke-free zones around schools to prevent pupils leaving school premises for a cigarette at lunch and break times.

The Merthyr Tydfil tobacco control strategy and action plan, which will be discussed at a local health board meeting today, states that there is limited evidence about the effectiveness of traditional preventative work in schools.


Instead the document, which was developed by the area's Tobacco Control Forum, has devised a list of radical ideas designed to stop children becoming addicted.

In calling for a tobacco control curriculum, the document said there is no uniform development of Welsh Assembly Government guidance covering teaching of substance misuse, including tobacco, in schools.

It also wants school nurses to provide health promotion and all primary schools to enrol in anti-smoking schemes by 2008 - only 10 have enrolled so far.

As a further measure the forum has called on health bosses to investigate ways to ensure that school smoking cessation services receive continued funding.

Three secondary schools in Merthyr Tydfil had taken part in a pilot scheme, but only one is still running after the funding ended last December.

Geraint Davies, regional policy officer for the NASUWT, said, "One particular age group has witnessed an increase in smoking over the last 10-15 years - teenagers.

"It is important that measures are put in place, across the country, to inform these youngsters of the dangers and perils of smoking."

Western Mail, 24/10/06
http://www.icwales.co.uk



Blast! Forgot about the fags...

Bungling burglers accidentally blew up a house as they tried to steal a boiler, police believe. Two men were taken to hospital with burns and third suffered serious injuries in the blast yesterday.

Police believe the men were smoking as they tried to remove a gas boiler from the building.

Metro, 24/10/06




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

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



Amanda Sandford
Research Manager
ASH
102 Clifton Street
LONDON
EC2A 4HW
t 020 7739 5902
f 020 7613 0531