HEADLINES

• Government scraps smoking ban review
• Ireland: Cigarette sales see 40pc drop in a year
• Tobacco trade plea on plan to ban displays in Guernsey
• Women who are exposed to passive smoking during pregnancy 'increase children's risk of cancer in later life'
• Smoking ban starts to pay dividends
• Minnesota: Under smoking bans, bars, restaurants see no significant employment change

• Government scraps smoking ban review

  On eve of the ban's three-year anniversary, DoH says no intention currently to review the legislation

  A planned review of the smoking ban has been ditched by the coalition government, raising hopes the measures will not be extended.

  The ban has its three-year anniversary tomorrow [1 July] and Labour had vowed to review the legislation after this period.

  But a Department of Health spokeswoman today confirmed this review has been abandoned. “There are no plans to review the smoking ban at the present time,” she said.

  Trade group, the Guild of Master Victuallers, were among those that had raised fears that a review could lead to the ban being extended to doorways and pub beer gardens.

  Source: The Publican - 30 June 2010
  Link: http://bit.ly/aspPsX

• Ireland: Cigarette sales see 40pc drop in a year

  Cigarette sales in shops have fallen 40pc in a year after in-store tobacco ads were banned, retailers claimed today.

  One year after point-of-sale displays were outlawed, manufacturers and retailers claimed more people were smoking and the black market was meeting demand as over-the-counter sales drop.

  Health campaigners from the Irish Cancer Society and Ash Ireland disputed the figures and rejected suggestions an ad ban was to blame for increased smuggling.

  Barry Gilsenan from Retailers Against Smuggling said the year-old order had normalised criminal trade in contraband tobacco, which now accounts for a quarter of all cigarettes in the country.

  "We are not looking to promote the sale of cigarettes; tobacco is a legal product and an absolutely vital aspect of our income. But it is worrying to see that criminals are now targeting shopkeepers to sell illegal goods," he said.

  The group claimed one in five of its members surveyed had been offered contraband and/or counterfeit tobacco to sell in their shops.

  Kathleen O'Meara, head of advocacy with the Irish Cancer Society, said the claim that sales were down 40pc was extraordinary.

  "There is no link between point-of-sale regulation and smuggling and smoking," she said.

  Professor Luke Clancy, ASH Ireland, also disputed the retailers' figures.

  "Do they have evidence of the smuggling?" he asked. "They should put their money there to try and reduce smuggling."

  Source: Herald.ie - 01 July 2010
  Link: http://bit.ly/cpt61N

• Tobacco trade plea on plan to ban displays in Guernsey

  Guernsey's politicians are being urged not to go ahead with a ban on the display of tobacco products.

  The States' Health and Social Services department is proposing the move to cut down on young people smoking.

  However, the Channel Islands' Tobacco Importers and Manufacturers' Association has written to deputies asking them to scrap plans.

  If the ban is imposed, tobacco products will be banished from shop displays and in the airport's duty-free site.

  The letter from the trade federation sets out a number of points against the plans and claims the proposal's impact has not been adequately researched.

  It points out that retailers in Guernsey may have to renovate their shops to comply with the ban and, basing calculations on the Scottish Government's own Regulatory Impact Assessment, claims this could cost them more than £1,000 to carry out.

  Source: BBC News - 29 June 2010
  Link: http://bit.ly/bq0r51

• Women who are exposed to passive smoking during pregnancy 'increase children's risk of cancer in later life'

  Pregnant women subjected to passive smoking give birth to babies with an increased, lifelong susceptibility to cancer, research reveals.

  Passive smoking causes the same type of genetic damage in unborn infants as that found in adult smokers with cancerous tumours.

  Researchers said the abnormalities in newborns were indistinguishable from those found in babies of mothers who were active smokers.

  And they may affect survival, birth weight and lifelong susceptibility to diseases like cancer, according to the study published online in the Open Paediatric Medicine Journal.

  Dr Stephen Grant and colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh in the U.S. found a smoke-induced mutation in an oncogene, a gene which transforms normal cells into cancerous tumours.

  The mutation was the same level and type in newborns of mothers who were active smokers as those in babies born to non-smoking mothers exposed to tobacco smoke.

  The mutations were also discernible in newborns of women who had stopped smoking during their pregnancies, but who did not actively avoid second-hand smoke.

  The study confirms previous research in which Dr Grant discovered evidence of genetic abnormalities in babies whose mothers were exposed to environmental tobacco smoke.

  There is also evidence that maternal exposure to passive smoke, as well as a history of paternal cigarette smoke exposure, is linked with an increased risk of childhood cancer, especially leukaemias and lymphomas in children under five.

  Dr Grant said: 'These findings back up our previous conclusion that passive, or secondary, smoke causes permanent genetic damage in newborns that is very similar to the damage caused by active smoking.

  'By using a different laboratory test, we were able to pick up a completely distinct yet equally important type of genetic mutation that is likely to persist throughout a child's lifetime.

  'Pregnant women should not only stop smoking, but be aware of their exposure to tobacco smoke from other family members, work and social situations.'

  Source: Daily Mail - 01 July 2010
  Link: http://bit.ly/cLM3rG

• Smoking ban starts to pay dividends

  Warrington has a 99 per cent compliance rate for not smoking in work places and public places across the borough - and the smoking ban is already beginning to pay dividends.

  A report in the British Medical Journal shows there was a 2.4 per cent drop in the number of emergency heart attack admissions to hospital in the first 12 months of the ban.

  Another, by the London Health Observatory, shows that smoke-free legislation has resulted in around 9,600 fewer bed days for heart attacks at an estimated cost saving of £8.4 million in acute hospital care.

  The primary aim of the smoking ban was to protect workers and the general public from exposure to the harmful effects of second hand smoke.

  Coun Mike Biggin, the borough council's executive member for climate change and public protection said: "Since the Smokefree Law came into force three years ago, environmental health officers in Warrington have carried out more than 3,000 inspections of workplaces and public places across the borough and the compliance rates for not smoking in a smokefree place remains consistently high at 99%." 

  Source: Warrington Worldwide - 01 July 2010
  Link: http://bit.ly/8XOiWW

• Minnesota: Under smoking bans, bars, restaurants see no significant employment change

  The passage of smoking bans in two large Minnesota cities was not associated with job losses at bars and may in fact have contributed to higher employment in restaurants, according to new research.

  The study is the first to examine the economic effects of clean indoor air policies on bars and restaurants as independent types of businesses, the researchers said. Consistent with previous published studies of the economic impact of smoking bans, this analysis did not find significant economic effects on the hospitality industry as a whole.

  In both Minneapolis and St. Paul, the policies were associated with an increase of at least 3 percent in employment at restaurants over a 2 ½-year span following adoption of a local clean indoor air policy. Employment in Minneapolis bars increased more than 5 percent after passage of that city's smoking ban, while in St. Paul, bar employment had a nonsignificant decrease of 1 percent - a decrease that cannot be statistically distinguished from zero, or no change in employment.

  The researchers noted that the broad look at total bar and restaurant employment at the city level over time means that this study is not able to describe potential changes at the neighborhood or individual business level. Opponents to smoking bans have argued against enactment of these policies with predictions of large revenue losses, worker layoffs and business closures in the hospitality industry, and at bars in particular because of known correlations between drinking and tobacco use.

  Proponents of such policies say smoking bans promote a healthful workplace atmosphere for workers and patrons. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, exposure to secondhand smoke increases nonsmokers' risks of developing lung cancer, heart disease, respiratory conditions and other diseases.

  "These clean indoor air policies are designed to protect workers from exposure to secondhand smoke," said Elizabeth Klein, assistant professor of health behavior and health promotion at Ohio State University and lead author of the study.

  "We are evaluating business employment because employment is an objective measure of the overall economic health of these businesses. What we have found is that there isn't a significant economic effect for bars, and in fact for restaurants, there is some positive change in employment. These findings underscore that nothing economically catastrophic happened for bars or restaurants in the Twin Cities as a result of banning smoking in these environments."

  The research is published in the July/August issue of the Journal of Public Health Management Practice.

  All of this research examines employment trends before Minnesota adopted a comprehensive statewide clean indoor air policy in late 2007. A comprehensive citywide smoking ban - covering virtually all workplaces - took effect on March 31, 2005 in Minneapolis and on March 31, 2006 in St. Paul. For a year before that, St. Paul operated under a partial smoking ban that exempted bars.

  "It is difficult to find an appropriate comparison between one city with a clean indoor air policy and another city without a policy, so we used this model to look at what was going on in each community before adoption of the policies and what happened after that. This design allows for each city to serve as its own comparison group," Klein said.

  The researchers also accounted for employment in the rest of the hospitality industry - minus restaurants and bars - over the same time period as a way to account for general economic conditions that might have been an additional influence on bar and restaurant employment.

  The researchers obtained employment figures from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development, to which businesses are required by law to report the total number of individuals they employ each month.

  In Minneapolis, the comprehensive smoking ban was associated with a 3 percent gradual permanent increase in employment at restaurants and an increase of between 5 percent and 6 percent employment in bars. The estimated change in the rest of the hospitality industry, when compared with either bars or restaurants, was a 1 percent or smaller increase in employment.

  In St. Paul, the clean indoor air policy was associated with a 4 percent increase in restaurant employment. Bars, which were not subject to the smoking ban until a year later than restaurants in that city, saw a 1 percent or smaller decrease in employment after the smoking ban took effect in bars. When subject to statistical analysis, that decrease was no different from no effect at all.

  For the rest of the hospitality industry in St. Paul, the partial smoking ban was associated with an almost 12 percent increase in employment. The comprehensive clean indoor air policy adopted a year later was associated with a reduction in hospitality employment of 13 percent, but this decrease was not significant by statistical standards. Klein said no clear explanation exists for this decrease, but an ongoing investigation into the economic effects of the statewide Minnesota smoking ban adopted in late 2007 can evaluate if other regions of the state experienced similar trends.

  As part of monitoring other economic conditions, Klein accounted for the potential influence of a National Hockey League 2004-05 season-long strike on employment at bars and restaurants in St. Paul, home to the Minnesota Wild. The strike was associated with a nonsignificant drop in bar and restaurant employment of less than 1 percent.

  The researchers did note that the employment figures act as a headcount of the total number of people employed but do not differentiate between part-time and full-time jobs held. And while revenues are another strong indicator of the economic health of businesses, reliable revenue data would not be available frequently enough to allow for a monthly analysis.

  Klein said that these findings are consistent with previous research that has examined the economic effects of smoking bans on bars and restaurants in California and in cities in Canada and Australia. It also reinforces her own findings published in 2009 that suggested that exempting bars from community smoking bans made no economic difference in terms of preserving bar employment. That study examined employment trends over three years in eight Minnesota cities with different types of clean indoor air policies and two cities with no laws restricting smoking.

  While the Midwestern United States has been slower to adopt clean indoor air policies than have coastal states, Klein said this first detailed look at the economic effects of smoking bans on bars in the Midwest might encourage more communities and states in the region to consider adopting the policies.

  "These results show there is a null or a slightly positive effect on employment with these policies," Klein said. "In this case, it appears that the unintended consequences of local clean indoor air policies may have had a positive, albeit small, economic benefit for hospitality businesses."

  This work was supported by a grant from ClearWay Minnesota, an independent, nonprofit organization seeking to reduce Minnesota residents' tobacco use and exposure to secondhand smoke through research, action and collaboration. The study findings do not necessarily represent the official views of the organization.  

  Source: MediLexicon - 01 July 2010
  Link: http://bit.ly/cBQVov