HEADLINES

• Coventry: Rat droppings and asbestos found in dodgy cigarettes seized
• Wales: Publican fined after customer is caught smoking in the bar
• Twickenham: Principal makes u-turn on Richmond College smoking ban
• Warwickshire experts help Poland introduce smoking ban
• Indonesian clinic touts smoking as cancer cure
• Germany: Catering sales rise despite anti-smoking laws

• Coventry: Rat droppings and asbestos found in dodgy cigarettes seized

  Health chiefs fear £8,000 of illegal tobacco seized in Coventry last week may have contained even more hazards than shop-bought brands.

  Asbestos, rat droppings and tobacco beetles are among the sickening secret ingredients that have been found in the thousands of illegal cigarettes smoked across the city every day.

  That is on top of poisons such as arsenic and cyanide and chemicals like formaldehyde and ammonia which are found in all cigarettes.

  Trading Standards officers seized more than £8,000 of illicit tobacco after swooping on a home in Hillfields last week. The haul included more than 24,700 cigarettes and in excess of 50 packs of tobacco, many masquerading as popular brands.

  Andrew Tandy, principal trading standards officer at Coventry City Council, said: “As well as counterfeit copies of big brands, smokers are sold bootleg brands.”

  “We regularly find Jin Ling cigarettes which are exclusively manufactured for the illicit tobacco market and whose ingredients are not controlled by UK legislation and can be even more harmful to smokers.

  Illegal cigarettes may be cheaper than the real thing but buying them funds criminals who have no concern for the people they sell to."

  Source: Coventry Telegraph - 11 April 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/gkWfoi

• Wales: Publican fined after customer is caught smoking in the bar

  A pub licensee has been prosecuted for allowing a customer to smoke on her premises.

  In one of the first prosecutions of its kind in the region Sylvia Weaver, of The Prince of Wales pub in Leeswood, was fined £300 with £315 costs.

  Tim Dillon, prosecuting at Flintshire Magistrates Court at Mold, said last September the local authority received a complaint that the pub was allowing customers to smoke inside the property.

  On September 10, two licensing officers visited the pub and saw a man smoking by the bar and a woman rolling a cigarette next to him, who turned out to be Weaver.

  When asked why she was allowing smoking by the bar, she said she was sorry.

  She said she allowed the customer to smoke inside because he had heart trouble and could not walk outside. He had to have a medical spray with him by the bar. 

  There was a full ashtray behind the bar and the customer was issued with a fixed penalty notice which was paid.

  The pub was visited again in February and investigators could smell cigarette smoke although they could not see anyone smoking in the bar at the time.
  
  There was a full ashtray on a seat next to a man who turned out to be Weaver’s husband. 

  Source: The Leader - 11 April 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/h7yoWR

• Twickenham: Principal makes u-turn on Richmond College smoking ban

  Richmond College principal David Ansell announced a u-turn on his no-smoking policy after complaints students were smoking outside people’s homes.

  In a letter Mr Ansell said: “Recognising the impact our smoking policy has had on the community, the college has decided to change its policy and, with effect from Tuesday, April 26, staff and students will be allocated a specific smoking area within the grounds of the college.”

  The college was made a no-smoking zone last September. The ban was criticised by residents who said there had been an increase in intimidating behaviour, littering and drug-taking outside their homes.

  Source: Richmond and Twickenham Times - 11 April 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/fA3Opr

• Warwickshire experts help Poland introduce smoking ban

  Warwickshire’s drugs team is helping people in Poland to introduce a smoking ban.

  Paul Hooper, the county’s drug and alcohol strategy team manager, has been invited to support Poland in their introduction of smoke-free legislation.

  He will advise on the challenges faced in the UK since the smoking ban in public was implemented four years ago.

  Source: Coventry Telegraph - 11 April 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/giaBoY

• Indonesian clinic touts smoking as cancer cure

  An Indonesian woman exhales cigarette smoke into the mouth of a gaunt, naked patient at a Jakarta clinic, where tobacco is openly touted as a cancer cure.

  The Western patient is suffering from emphysema, a condition she developed from decades of smoking. Along with cancer and autism, it's just one of the ailments the Griya Balur clinic claims it can cure with cigarettes.

  Griya Balur founder Dr. Gretha Zahar told AFP she had treated 60,000 people with tobacco smoke over the past decade.

  With a PhD in nanochemistry from Padjadjaran University in Bandung, West Java, Zahar believes that by manipulating the mercury in tobacco smoking can cure all diseases including cancer, and even reverse the ageing process.

  "Mercury is the cause of all illnesses. In my cigarettes -- we call them Divine Cigarettes -- there are scavengers that extract the mercury from the body," she said.

  On her website she says she does not need to subject her theories to clinical tests or publish them in peer-reviewed journals, nor does she have the money to "fight" with "Western medical scientists".

  Zahar's claims were recently presented to the Constitutional Court where farmers and legislators from the tobacco-growing hub of Central Java are challenging a law that recognises the leaf as addictive.
  
  Aris Widodo, a pharmacology professor at Brawijaya University in Malang, East Java, told the court that he had never heard of anyone dying from smoking.
  
  On the contrary, he said, smoking was good for you. "Smoking can eliminate anxiety, sharpen concentration and calm the nerves. It's a good cheap alternative to other expensive drugs, like Valium," he said.
  
  Tobacco is addictive and harmful to health, but Indonesians are taking up the habit in ever larger -- and younger -- numbers, cheered on by the tobacco industry's aggressive marketing.

  Source: Channel News Asia - 12 April 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/gIoRT4

• Germany: Catering sales rise despite anti-smoking laws

  Critics of smoking bans in Germany have long argued that cafes and bars will see business slump if customers can't light up. But figures from the catering trade tell a different story. Customers, it seems, don't mind going outside to have a smoke.

  Contrary to claims by breweries, the catering industry and tobacco firms, the imposition of smoking bans in German states has not dampened sales.

  The southern state of Bavaria, for example -- which has the strongest anti-smoking laws in Germany -- has seen catering industry sales rise by 1.5 percent in the second half of 2010, on the same period a year earlier. In contrast, bars and restaurants in North Rhine-Westphalia, a state with weaker measures including exemptions in bars, has seen its catering trade income sink by 3.1 percent in the same period.

  Germany's smoking bans have been a patchwork affair with individual states determining regional measures. The result has been that many bars manage to keep their doors open to smokers. 

  Source: Spiegel Online - 04 April 2011
  Link: http://bit.ly/hF00eV