HEADLINES

• Sales of e-cigarettes soar, but do they really work?
• Workers’ fag breaks cost Rochdale £14m a year
• Australia fumes over kangaroo cigarette packs
• 71% of Washington voters oppose special rule to allow cigar smoking in bars and restaurants
• Nicotine buzz from 1,300 years ago
• Frieke Janssens' controversial 'Smoking Children' images

• Sales of e-cigarettes soar, but do they really work?

  A gorwing number of smokers are turning to electronic cigarettes to help them quit. Do they work? asks Katie Burnetts. The article includes views from smokers who have tried them.

  Source: The Guardian - 10 January 2012
  Link: http://bit.ly/wMSbTt

• Workers’ fag breaks cost Rochdale £14m a year

  Smokers in Rochdale cost the NHS more than £12m a year, it has been revealed.

  Figures released by ASH also suggest nearly £14m annually is being lost due to workers taking fag breaks.

  It is estimated a further £12m is being wasted through sick days as a result of ill health caused by smoking.

  Source: Rochdale Observer - 11 January 2012
  Link: http://bit.ly/yA1YBf

• Australia fumes over kangaroo cigarette packs

  Australia's government has lambasted British American Tobacco for using the image of a kangaroo on packets of cigarettes sold in Europe, ramping up hostilities ahead of a legal battle over plain-packaging laws.

  The image of a kangaroo, similar to that on road signs warning of the animals in Australia, with the phrase "An Australian Favorite" appears on packets of Winfield cigarettes sold in France.

  Source: CNBC - 12 January 2012
  Link: http://bit.ly/yXenPj

• 71% of Washington voters oppose special rule to allow cigar smoking in bars and restaurants

  A new statewide poll shows 71 percent of Washington voters oppose creating a loophole in the voter-approved 2005 Clean Indoor Air Act to allow cigar smoking in bars, restaurants and some retail stores. The poll was conducted by Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN), American Heart Association and the American Lung Association of the Mountain Pacific. It was funded with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

  Source: Hotelier.com - 12 January 2012
  Link: http://bit.ly/zS0YQc

• Nicotine buzz from 1,300 years ago

  Researchers have identified traces of nicotine inside a 1,300-year-old Mayan flask, confirming the vessel's ancient use and providing the earliest chemical evidence of tobacco in Maya culture.

  Source: MSNBC - 10 January 2012
  Link: http://on.msnbc.com/Amna2R

• Frieke Janssens' controversial 'Smoking Children' images

  In reaction to a May 2010 YouTube video that showed an Indonesian toddler lighting up, Belgian photographer Frieke Janssens has produced a series of photographs that depict children smoking.

  The article features a gallery of some of the images.

  Source: Huffington Post - 12 January 2012
  Link: http://huff.to/zBW4Ll