July 2009 Archives

Don't you just love it when people smoke with their children present... (hopefully poor little Valentina isn't getting much smoke down there in her stroller)

Sienna passes her UK driving test and starts smoking immeditately after...

 

During 34 years of smoking, Carolyn Smeaton has tried countless ways to reduce her three-pack-a-day habit, including a nicotine patch, nicotine gum and a prescription drug. But stop-smoking aids always failed her.

Then, having watched a TV infomercial at her home here, Ms. Smeaton tried an electronic cigarette, which claimed to be a less dangerous way to feed her addiction. The battery-powered device she bought online delivered an odorless dose of nicotine and flavoring without cigarette tar or additives, and produced a vapor mist nearly identical in appearance to tobacco smoke.

"I feel like this could save my life," said Ms. Smeaton, 47, who has cut her tobacco smoking to a pack and a half daily, supplemented by her e-cigarette.

That electronic cigarettes are unapproved by the government and virtually unstudied has not deterred thousands of smokers from flocking to mall kiosks and the Internet to buy them. And because they produce no smoke, they can be used in workplaces, restaurants and airports. One distributor is aptly named Smoking Everywhere.

The reaction of medical authorities and antismoking groups has ranged from calls for testing to skepticism to outright hostility. Opponents say the safety claims are more rumor than anything else, since the components of e-cigarettes have never been tested for safety.

In fact, the Food and Drug Administration has already refused entry to dozens of shipments of e-cigarettes coming into the country, mostly from China, the chief maker of them, where manufacture began about five years ago. The F.D.A. took similar action in 1989, refusing shipments of an earlier, less appealing version, Favor Smoke-Free Cigarettes.

"These appear to be unapproved drug device products," said Karen Riley, a spokeswoman for the agency, "and as unapproved products they can't enter the United States."

But enough of the e-cigarettes have made their way into the country that they continue to proliferate online and in the malls.

For $100 to $150 or so, a user can buy a starter kit including a battery-powered cigarette and replaceable cartridges that typically contain nicotine (though cartridges can be bought without it), flavoring and propylene glycol, a liquid whose vaporizing produces the smokelike mist. When a user inhales, a sensor heats the cartridge. The flavorings include tobacco, menthol and cherry, and the levels of nicotine vary by cartridge.

Propylene glycol is used in antifreeze, and also to create artificial smoke or fog in theatrical productions. The F.D.A. has classified it as an additive that is "generally recognized as safe" for use in food. But when asked whether inhaling it was safe, Dr. Richard D. Hurt, director of the Nicotine Dependence Center at the Mayo Clinic, said, "I don't think so, but I'm not sure anyone knows for sure."

Of the e-cigarettes themselves, Dr. Hurt added: "We basically don't know anything about them. They've never been tested for safety or efficacy to help people stop smoking."

Public health officials also worry that the devices' fruit flavors, novelty and ease of access may entice children.

"It looks like a cigarette and is marketed as a cigarette," said Jonathan P. Winickoff, an associate professor at the Massachusetts General Hospital for Children and chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics Tobacco Consortium. "There's nothing that prevents youth from getting addicted to nicotine."

Sales and use of electronic cigarettes are already illegal on safety grounds in Australia and Hong Kong, and some other countries regulate them as medicinal devices or forbid their advertising. So far the United States has focused only on stopping them at the border, although Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, has asked the drug agency to take them off the market until they can be tested.

Distributors of electronic cigarettes fear that a bill making its way through Congress that would give the F.D.A. the authority to regulate tobacco could be used to put them out of business as well. The bill has passed the House and could be taken up by the Senate this week.

The only American study of electronic cigarettes, now under way at Virginia Commonwealth University and financed by the National Cancer Institute, deals not with the kind of safety questions raised by propylene glycol but rather with the amount of nicotine processed by the bodies of the products' users.

Another study, conducted this year at the University of Auckland in New Zealand and financed by Ruyan, an electronic cigarette company, shows that users typically receive 10 percent to 18 percent of the nicotine delivered by a tobacco cigarette.

Smoking Everywhere, a Florida-based distributor of electronic cigarettes, sued the F.D.A on April 28, claiming that the agency did not have jurisdiction to refuse the imported devices.

"The F.D.A. has the power to regulate Nicorette gum and the like because it is marketed as a smoking cessation product," said Kip Schwartz, a lawyer for Smoking Everywhere. But the company says its products are a cigarette alternative for adult enjoyment and make no claims to help smokers quit, Mr. Schwartz added.

Matt Salmon, a spokesman for the Electronic Cigarette Association, which represents six distributors, said e-cigarettes delivered nothing more than a mixture of nicotine and water vapor and emitted "no carcinogens." The association declined to give sales figures, but said that "hundreds of thousands" of people used the products and that the average age of those users was the mid-40s.

"It's a really good alternative for people who smoke tobacco," Mr. Salmon said.

Edwin Schwab, who quit smoking regular cigarettes last year after trying e-cigarettes, likes them so much he has started selling them at a mall kiosk in Providence, R.I.

Mr. Schwab took his e-smoke along when he went out one night, he said, "and when everyone was smoking outside in the cold, I just stood in the warm bar, smoking."

Source: New York Times, article by Katie Zezima

This is just classic... smoking with your baby!

Good grief, and she's just as bad for letting him.

The following is a statement of Matthew L. Myers, President, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids:

We urge North Carolina legislators to take a stand to protect the health and pocketbooks of North Carolina families by heeding Governor Bev Perdue's call to include a 50-cent cigarette tax increase in the state budget. While a larger cigarette tax increase would produce even greater benefits, an increase of at least 50 cents -- to 85 cents a pack -- would be an important step toward protecting the state's kids and taxpayers from the devastating toll of tobacco. The state's current tax of 35 cents is the fourth lowest in the country and the national average is $1.31 a pack.

While the North Carolina Legislature grapples with a $4 billion budget deficit and potentially devastating cuts to state services, including many vital public health programs, other states are turning to tobacco tax increases to raise new revenue and dramatically reduce health care costs by reducing smoking. This year alone the following states have increased their taxes: Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Kentucky, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin.

These 11 states have recognized that increasing tobacco taxes is a win-win-win solution -- a health win that will reduce tobacco use and save lives, a financial win that will raise much-needed revenue and reduce tobacco-caused health care costs, and a political win that is popular with voters. Seventy-nine percent of North Carolina voters support an even higher tax increase of $1.

Governor Perdue initially proposed a $1 increase, which would have yielded even greater health and fiscal benefits. Unfortunately, the House of Representatives included no cigarette tax increase in its budget, and the Senate has discussed a minor increase of no more than 15 cents, which would produce few -- if any -- public health benefits and only minimal revenue increases, since the tobacco companies can easily nullify such a small increase with coupons and other price promotions.

Even with a 50-cent increase, at 85 cents per pack, North Carolina's cigarette tax will still be well below the state average of $1.31 per pack.

The evidence is clear that increasing the cigarette tax is one of the most effective ways to reduce smoking, especially among kids. Studies show that every 10 percent increase in the price of cigarettes reduces youth smoking by 7 percent and overall cigarette consumption by about 4 percent. North Carolina can expect a 50-cent-per-pack cigarette tax increase to prevent some 43,400 North Carolina kids alive today from becoming smokers, spur 26,800 North Carolina smokers to quit for good, save 20,900 North Carolina residents from smoking-caused deaths, produce more than $1 billion in long-term health care savings, and raise $210 million a year in new revenue.

Currently, Rhode Island has the highest state cigarette tax at $3.46 per pack. Fourteen states and the District of Columbia have cigarette tax rates of at least $2 per pack, and 27 states and the District of Columbia have cigarette tax rates of at least $1 per pack or more.

Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death in North Carolina, claiming 12,200 lives each year and costing the state $2.46 billion annually in health care bills, including $769 million in Medicaid payments alone. Government expenditures related to tobacco amount to a hidden tax of $578 each year on every North Carolina household. In addition, 19 percent of North Carolina high school students currently smoke, 39,600 North Carolina kids try smoking for the first time each year and 11,800 more kids become regular smokers every year.

We call on the General Assembly to pass a cigarette tax increase of at least 50 cents to reduce the devastating toll of tobacco in North Carolina.

SOURCE Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids

Amanda Crawford was just fifteen when she smoked her first cigarette. Now that she is 45, she still smokes despite having tried to quit multiple times. Children are fifty percent more likely to start smoking if they have a parent who smokes - and in Crawford's case, it was her father who smoked. Born and raised in Virginia, she met and married her husband - also a smoker - in Roanoke. The Crawfords now have three sons - 28, 14 and 11. "Our 28-year-old started smoking when he turned 18 and our 14-year-old is already sneaking cigarettes. My father quit smoking later in his life, but I'm concerned about how smoking will affect the health of our entire family," she said.

She is not alone. As caregivers across the country mobilize for Sandwich Generation Month in July, the American Legacy Foundation(R) today released the results of a recent survey analyzing the unique concerns associated with tobacco use and prevention for Americans raising their own kids while simultaneously caring for their aging parents - millions of whom have been life-long smokers and are now struggling with the resulting health effects. Lung cancer, heart disease, stroke, and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder (COPD), which includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema, can all afflict aging smokers and can be emotionally and financially debilitating for families forced to cope with them.

The survey, conducted by Opinion Research Corporation, found that 75 percent of respondents with a parent who is a current or former smoker are concerned about their aging parent's current or past smoking or their diagnosis of having a tobacco-related disease. Thirty-four percent of respondents with teenage or adult children indicated that they were concerned about their child's current or potential smoking. About 5% of respondents were "sandwiched" in between: struggling with issues related to both their parents and children smoking. Nationwide, this small percentage translates to more than 10 million Americans in this situation.

The survey highlights the unique position of this group of Americans and their concerns about the impact of the nation's number-one preventable cause of death on their emotional and financial well-being. Treating tobacco-related disease is enormously expensive for families and for the healthcare system. A 2007 American Legacy Foundation report found that America's Medicaid system could spend nearly $10 billion less within five years if all Medicaid beneficiaries who smoke, quit. Effective smoking prevention and cessation programs could cut Medicaid costs by 5.6 percent.

Results from this survey also found that while just over a third of respondents are concerned about their own kids smoking, 56 percent of all respondents feel that a national youth smoking prevention campaign will keep kids from lighting up. Almost half (49 percent) think that a national quit smoking campaign will help reduce healthcare costs across the country.

"As healthcare reform and the economy dominate our headlines, we simply cannot ignore the burden of smoking on the health of America's families," said Cheryl G. Healton, DrPH. "This snapshot into the lives and concerns of this segment of our population reinforces the urgency with which more resources are needed to return money and lives as dividends," she said. This is especially important given one in five of those concerned about their parents say the healthcare costs associated with smoking are impacting their family's financial situation more than ever.

Late last year, the foundation commissioned an online survey by Harris Interactive analyzing the impact of the economic crisis on smokers. In that survey, 77 percent of smokers report increased stress levels due to the current state of the economy and two-thirds of those smokers say this stress has had an effect on their smoking.

The single best way for smokers to improve their health is to quit. Forty-six million Americans have stopped smoking but currently 43 million still do. On average, it takes 8-11 attempts before a smoker quits for good so adopting a personalized, comprehensive quit plan is critical to increasing the odds for success. The free, state-of-the-art EX(R) campaign is helping smokers quit by arming them with the best information available to re-learn their lives without cigarettes. Visit www.BecomeAnEX.org for more information.

The current survey was conducted on behalf of the American Legacy Foundation by Opinion Research Corporation's CARAVAN(R) Telephone Survey among a national probability sample of 1,002 adults 18 years of age and older, living in private households in the continental United States, during the period June 19-22, 2009. A full methodology is available.

SOURCE American Legacy Foundation

Today, the Florida state tobacco tax will increase by $1.00, the biggest of its kind in Florida history, to a total of $1.34 per pack, as part of the Protecting Florida's Health Act. The pressures of a higher price tag on cigarettes may prompt Florida smokers to try and quit spontaneously.

New data published in the journal, Nicotine and Tobacco Research, shows that many U.S. quit attempts are unplanned and these types of attempts can be a successful route to cessation. In the study, almost 40 percent of subjects reported that their most recent quit attempt started without any advance planning, suggesting that for some smokers, setting an advance quit date may not be as necessary as once thought.

"The study examines the possibility that while quit attempts may seem like spontaneous efforts on the surface, they may actually be the result of prolonged subconscious dissatisfaction with or concern about one's smoking. The results do not discredit planning out a quit attempt, however, a smoker needs to determine what may be the best approach to ensure long-term cessation," said Dr. Saul Shiffman, professor in the departments of psychology and pharmaceutical science at the University of Pittsburgh and study co-author. "All smokers should consider ways to manage tough situations such as cravings and withdrawal symptoms to ensure long-term success."

Smokers who make an unplanned quit attempt can improve their chances significantly by getting help and support from proven stop smoking tools such as therapeutic nicotine products like Nicorette(R), NicoDerm(R) CQ(R) and Commit(R). Consistent with their FDA-approved labeling, therapeutic nicotine products help reduce nicotine withdrawal symptoms, including nicotine craving, associated with quitting smoking. Smokers who quit spontaneously can also access therapeutic nicotine medicines which are available over the counter without a doctor's prescription at more than 35,000 retail outlets.

To encourage smokers to pick the approach best for them, whether they're spontaneous quitters or planners, GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare and the American Cancer Society, Florida Division, are teaming up to offer starter packs of Nicorette through the Florida QuitLine at 877-U-CAN-NOW (877-822-6669). The QuitLine is a smoking cessation service offered by the State of Florida for its citizens, and the GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare-provided starter packs will augment a significant allocation of nicotine replacement therapy products funded by the Florida Legislature.

"With tobacco being the leading preventable cause of death and disease in Florida, this significant increase in the price of cigarettes gives the state an excellent opportunity to reduce smoking rates and improve public health," said Marty Larsen, chairman of the board and president of the American Cancer Society, Florida Division. "We are dedicated to helping Florida smokers manage the challenges of quitting smoking. By providing safe and effective cessation aids, like therapeutic nicotine, all smokers looking to quit - spontaneous and planners - have the opportunity to re-evaluate continued smoking and finally quit for good."

About the Study

A study of 1,700 adults (900 adults age 18 and over who currently smoke cigarettes every day and 800 adults, age 18 and over, who previously smoked every day but quit between one month and ten years ago) were recruited from an online U.S. market research database (Survey Sampling International, Shelton, CT) and completed an online survey. A random sample of people in the database panels were sent an e-mail that contained a link to an online survey.

About Florida's QuitLine

Florida's QuitLine is a toll-free, telephone-based tobacco cessation service available at 877-U-CAN-NOW. Anyone living in Florida who wants to quit smoking can use the QuitLine, which offers counselling sessions, self-help materials and pharmacotherapy assistance. The State of Florida contracts with the American Cancer Society to provide the service.

SOURCE GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare

Wisconsin leaders have taken a positive step to protect the state's kids and taxpayers from the devastating toll of tobacco by increasing the state cigarette tax by 75 cents. However, it is deeply disappointing that despite this increase in tobacco-related revenue, state leaders approved a budget that cuts funding by more than half for critical tobacco prevention and cessation programs. This devastating cut will reduce the number of people who quit as a result of the cigarette tax increase and undermine successful programs already in place to protect kids and help smokers quit.

The budget cut will reduce the amount Wisconsin spends a year on tobacco prevention and cessation programs to just $6.85 million a year. This is barely one-tenth of the $64.3 million that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that Wisconsin spend each year on such programs. It is also just a fraction of the hundreds of millions of dollars the state collects each year from tobacco taxes and the 1998 state tobacco settlement.

It is penny-wise and pound-foolish to shortchange tobacco prevention programs. These programs are proven to reduce smoking among both youth and adults, save lives and save money by reducing tobacco-related health care costs, which total more than $2 billion a year in Wisconsin. An August 2008 scientific study found that California's tobacco prevention program saved $86 billion in health care costs in its first 15 years, which is nearly 50 times what the state spent on the program. Few government programs provide such a tremendous return on investment.

Nevertheless, the cigarette tax increase, to $2.52 cents per pack, is a win-win solution for Wisconsin -- a health win that will reduce tobacco use and save lives and a financial win that will raise much-needed revenue. It is also a positive step that the budget increases the tax on other tobacco products, including smokeless tobacco, which will serve to discourage youth from using all tobacco products.

Studies show that every 10 percent increase in the price of cigarettes reduces youth smoking by 7 percent and overall cigarette consumption by about 4 percent. Wisconsin can expect a 75-cent-per-pack cigarette tax increase to prevent some 33,100 Wisconsin kids alive today from becoming smokers, spur 17,000 Wisconsin smokers to quit for good, save 15,000 Wisconsin residents from smoking-caused deaths, produce more than $740 million in long-term health care savings, and raise $97 million a year in new revenue.

Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States. In Wisconsin, tobacco use claims more than 7,200 lives each year and costs the state $2.02 billion annually in health care bills, including $480 million in Medicaid payments alone. Government expenditures related to tobacco amount to a hidden tax of $594 every year on every Wisconsin household. More than 20 percent of Wisconsin high school students smoke, and 7,900 more kids become smokers every year.

States that have been most successful at reducing tobacco use have implemented a comprehensive approach that includes high tobacco taxes, strong smoke-free workplace laws and well-funded tobacco prevention and cessation programs. Wisconsin legislators passed important measures this year on the first two steps and the state was making progress on the third until these cuts were passed. Legislators need to take corrective steps in the future to put back in place the third critical element of the fight against tobacco by increasing funding for tobacco prevention and cessation programs.

Wisconsin becomes the ninth state to increase its tobacco tax in 2009. The other states are Arkansas, Florida, Hawaii, Kentucky, Mississippi, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Vermont. When all these cigarette tax increases are implemented, the average state cigarette tax will be $1.29 per pack.

Source: statement from Matthew L. Myers, President, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids

I'm not sure when the above was taken... but Anison did just admit in the March issue of Elle UK that she smokes. She admitted that she 'enjoys cigarettes at night', saying: 'I don't feel so guilty, though. Smoking a cigarette with a glass of white wine... I love red wine, but it gives me a headache'....

Real classy.