Home / Media Room / News / ASH Daily News / ASH Daily News for 24/10/2006 / ASH Daily news for 04 March 2011

ASH Daily news for 04 March 2011

HEADLINES

  • Roadblocks set up to catch drivers smoking

    Police roadblocks are being set up to catch drivers who are breaking the law – by smoking at the wheel of their company vehicle.

    Council wardens and Essex Police will carry out random inspections across the county to look for evidence of illicit cigarette use.

    They will even hunt for cigarette butts in the ashtrays and smell the air inside the vehicles in order to clamp down on the outlawed practice.

    Workers were banned from smoking in their company cars as part of the Health Act introduced in 2007.

    Source: The Telegraph - 02 March 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/ew6Tai

  • Smoking could be banned in cars in Jersey

    Andrew Heaven, Jersey's head of health improvement, said officials were considering extending the smoke free legislation to all motor vehicles.

    He said the public health advice was to encourage people not to smoke in cars and that he would look at the evidence and consult the public before a decision is made.

    As part of Jersey's smoking in the workplace ban since 2007, smoking has been banned in work vehicles that are used by more than one person.

    Mr Heaven said: "There is also another side to this, the Highway Code advises against smoking whilst driving because it causes a distraction, and there are similar issues around mobile phones, so there are health issues but there are also driver safety issues as well."

    Source: BBC News - 03 March 2011
    Link: http://bbc.in/g1rMtr

  • Smokers with sudden urge to quit 'could be in early stages of cancer'

    People who suddenly lose the urge to smoke should beware – it could be an early sign of lung cancer.

    Chemicals in the tumour may put long-time addicts off tobacco without them realising it, a US study suggests.

    The discovery could lead to cases being picked up sooner and improving survival rates, scientists say.

    Prof Barbara Campling, of Philadelphia’s Thomas Jefferson University, said it was ‘widely known’ many lung cancer patients stopped smoking before diagnosis.

    ‘This observation is often dismissed by saying these patients must have quit because of symptoms of their cancer. However, we found the majority of lung cancer patients who stopped smoking before diagnosis quit before the onset of symptoms.

    ‘Furthermore, they often quit with no difficulty, despite multiple previous unsuccessful quit attempts. This has led us to speculate that, in some cases, spontaneous smoking cessation may be an early symptom of lung cancer.’

    Source: Metro - 02 March 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/gJ33EE

  • Tobacco smoking impacts teens' brains, UCLA study shows

    While studies have linked cigarette smoking to deficits in attention and memory in adults, UCLA researchers wanted to compare brain function in adolescent smokers and non-smokers, with a focus on the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain that guides "executive functions" like decision-making and that is still developing structurally and functionally in adolescents.

    They found a disturbing correlation: The greater a teen's addiction to nicotine, the less active the prefrontal cortex was, suggesting that smoking can affect brain function.

    In the study, 25 smokers and 25 non-smokers between the ages of 15 to 21 were asked to perform a test that activated the prefrontal cortex and required them to inhibit responding.

    The test, called the Stop-Signal Task (SST), was done while the participants were undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The Stop-Signal Task involves pressing a button as quickly as possible every time a lighted arrow appears - unless an auditory tone is played, in which case the participant must prevent himself from pressing the button. It is a test of a person's ability to inhibit an action.

    Prior to the fMRI test, the researchers used the Heaviness of Smoking Index (HSI) to measure the level of nicotine dependence in the smoking group. The HSI takes into account how many cigarettes a teen smokes in a day and how soon after waking he or she takes the first smoke.

    Among smokers, the researchers found that the higher the HSI - that is, the more a teen smoked - the lesser the activity in the prefrontal cortex. And yet, despite these lower levels of activation, the smoking group and the non-smoking group performed roughly the same with respect to inhibition on the Stop-Signal Task.

    Source: BrightSurf - 03 March 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/gatNIf

  • Canada: Tenant fights for right to live smoke free

    Corinne Denis faces her landlord today in a battle over tobacco smoke that she says seeps into her apartment and makes her cough and wheeze.

    But the 60-year-old insists she isn't asking Ontario's Landlord and Tenant Board to force all the tenants at the sprawling Plaza East at 11873 Tecumseh Rd. E. to stop smoking, nor is she seeking a big payout or expensive renovations to the building.

    What she wants is to leave. She asked in January -providing a note from her doctor -to get out of her lease. She said she was refused.

    She has seven months left on her one-year lease. In addition to getting her lease cancelled, she's seeking the $30 deposit she's paid so far toward the last month's rent, plus $150 for moving expenses.

     

    Source: The Windsor Star - 02 March 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/hKdj7M

  • USA: Tobacco firms fight proposed ad campaign

    The nation's three largest tobacco manufacturers said Thursday that the U.S. Justice Department wants them to post "inflammatory and inaccurate" statements in an advertising campaign that is "designed to shame and humiliate" them.

    The manufacturers — R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., Philip Morris USA Inc. and Lorillard Tobacco Co. — were responding to a federal request that was made Feb. 4 and disclosed Feb. 23. British American Tobacco Co. Ltd. also was listed as a defendant.

    The government proposed 14 statements that cover: the addictiveness of nicotine; the lack of health benefits from "low tar," "ultra-light" and "mild" cigarettes; and negative health effects of secondhand smoke.

    The manufacturers said they have "no objections to providing consumers with factual and noncontroversial information about the health effects and addictiveness of smoking."

    However, they added that the statements proposed by the Justice Department "are improperly prefaced by inflammatory, confessional and vilifying language about defendants' past conduct that bears no resemblance to the factual and uncontroversial statements contemplated by the D.C. Circuit" of the U.S. District Court.

    Source: Winston-Salem Journal - 03 March 2011
    Link: http://bit.ly/gXY5dB