October 2009 Archives

J.C. Seneca, a tribal councilor and co-chairman of the Seneca Nation Foreign Relations Committee, and Robert Odawi Porter, Senior Policy Advisor and Counsel, appeared today before the State Senate Committee on Investigations and Government Operations. The hearing, held at Borough of Manhattan Community College, focused on the issue of whether New York State has the right to collect taxes on Native American tobacco sales within its borders.

Addressing the hearing panel, Councilor Seneca said the recurrent question of 'Why doesn't the State collect taxes on commerce taking place on Indian lands?' has a simple and definitive answer: It lacks authority to do so.

"For over 200 years, New York State has tried to steal our lands, assert jurisdiction over what lands we have left, and impose its taxes on us and our activities. In response, and in our defense, the United States promised to protect us from any effort by the State to impose its taxes in our territories," Councilor Seneca told the hearing panel.

"Your oaths of office require you to uphold American laws and treaties. Whether you do so or not is up to you, but I assure you that we have no intention of compromising any of our treaty right that have already been bought and paid for through the relinquishment of most of our aboriginal rights," Councilor Seneca said.

The Seneca leader detailed the Seneca Nation's effort to build its economy across its five Western New York sovereign territories, which has contributed over $1.1 billion to the state-wide economy in the past decade.

The Nation has grown to become the fifth largest employer in Western New York, providing jobs for some 6,300 persons through its government, gaming and hospitality, gasoline and tobacco retailing and emerging private sector ventures. Hundreds of those jobs are held by non-Senecas.

Councilor Seneca also told the panel the Nation's tobacco and motor fuel business segment, which generated an estimated $313 million for the Nation in 2007, contributed nearly $200 million in spin-off dollars to the State economy.

"Even though the Nation's tobacco trade is not subject to State taxation, the ripple effects of the Nation's trade spill into the state and regional economy as the Seneca government and citizens spend net tobacco profits in the off-territory economy," Councilor Seneca said.

According to a recent study by Harvard economist Jonathan Taylor, Seneca tobacco sales in 2005 generated $195 million in State Gross Domestic Product. The study concluded that for every $1 of gross profits accrued to the Nation's tobacco businesses, the state economy gained $1.67.

The Seneca leader also detailed the Nation's ground-breaking efforts to oversee and control sales and distribution of tobacco products. In addition to voluntary reviews from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Enforcement, the Nation has also implemented a sophisticated, anti-counterfeiting 'stamping' program.

The Nation has also established its own tobacco business enforcement commission which oversees compliance to a rigorous set of regulations which includes: retailer authorization, minimum pricing and a ban on sales to minors.

Councilor Seneca noted that four different New York governors, including Gov. David Paterson, have honored the Nation's treaty rights and respected its economic development efforts by supporting its immunity to taxation of its commerce.

"They have not all accepted this policy easily, but we are appreciative that Governors (Mario) Cuomo, (George) Pataki, (Elliot) Spitzer and (David) Paterson have chose to base our relationship on diplomacy and respect, rather than unilateralism and conflict," Councilor Seneca said. "We urge you to consider whether the State Legislature should, once and for all, recognize our federally-protected rights and work to establish a lasting peace."

SOURCE Seneca Nation of Indians

A new survey conducted by the American Legacy Foundation(R) (Legacy) finds that the majority (63 percent) of sports fans surveyed are current or former smokers and 76 percent of them have smoked while watching or attending sporting events. The study examines whether sports fans were exposed to secondhand smoke while watching sports; smoked while watching sports at certain venues; or whether those who quit smoking relapsed while watching a game. The survey also examined whether watching sports was a trigger for fans who smoke.

The survey also indicated that 60 percent of sports fans have been exposed to secondhand smoke in the past year while watching or attending sporting events and that 36 percent of sports fans who smoke or used to smoke are extremely or very tempted to smoke while viewing sporting events in their own homes. When the score of the game is close, nearly one third are extremely or very tempted to light up.

Starting this week and through the winter, many smokers will be exposed to new quit smoking messages through the EX(R) national smoking cessation campaign. Legacy, along with the National Alliance for Tobacco Cessation (NATC), announced today that the next round of new ads in its two-year old EX campaign are now being featured during FOX Sports' broadcast of Major League Baseball's American League Championship Series (ALCS) and World Series. The campaign's new ad debut includes traditional 30-second in-game commercials, as well as new virtual home plate signage that will be seen during live action.

The placement of the ads during the ALCS and World Series is the first of several that will appear in different sports venues through the winter, including "Bassmasters" programming on ESPN2 and national radio programming on Sporting News Radio. The ads are now prominently featured during ALCS games on FOX and will run in various formats through January to encourage smokers to visit www.BecomeAnEX.org for a free comprehensive plan to "re-learn life without cigarettes."

"For years, tobacco industry advertisements were prominently displayed during sporting events, circumventing the federal ban on tobacco advertising on television," said Cheryl G. Healton, DrPH, Legacy's president and CEO. "Through EX, we hope to help fans who smoke to beat this addiction with a free, easy-to-follow three-step plan to quit smoking."

These new ads may also help to counter the images of players who use smokeless tobacco -- both snuff and chew -- whom fans of professional baseball are accustomed to seeing. Eight million Americans 12 and older use smokeless tobacco products and annually one million more begin using them. Adolescents who use smokeless tobacco are more likely to become cigarette smokers.

Released just prior to Lung Cancer Awareness Month and the Great American Smoke Out in November, a critical time to help the 43 million Americans who smoke to finally quit, these findings indicate a high proportion of smokers among sports fans surveyed (34 percent). Eighty-four percent of sports fans who are current smokers reported that they smoke cigarettes while watching or attending sporting events.

The NATC encourages fans who smoke to use the EX quit plan, a two-year old collaborative of state and national public health groups spearheaded by Legacy. This is the second phase of EX advertising and promotions which are designed to help smokers "re-learn" life without cigarettes.

EX is more than an advertising campaign. It provides evidence-based tools to help smokers quit, including information that can help them prepare for a quit attempt by 1) "Re-learning" their thinking on the behavioral aspects of smoking and how different smoking triggers can be overcome with practice and preparation; 2) "Re-learning" their knowledge of addiction and how medications can increase their chances for quitting success; and 3) "Re-learning" their ideas of how support from friends and family members can play a critical role in quitting.

Because social support is so important, EX has supplemented its online quitting plan at www.BecomeAnEX.org with a virtual community for smokers who want to convene and collaborate on their successes and challenges in the difficult quit process. Since March 2008, when the program first debuted, more than a million people have visited www.BecomeAnEX.org for help re-learning life without cigarettes. More than 14,000 smokers have joined the online community, forming nearly 300 customized support groups. EX tools were designed in collaboration with Mayo Clinic and with input from former and current smokers who have lived with this struggle, in order to provide smokers with a realistic approach with evidence-based research.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, most smokers in America -- 70 percent -- want to quit, but in 2000, only about five percent were successful in quitting long-term. Quitting smoking is ultimately one of the single most important lifestyle changes one can make to improve and extend their lives. Tobacco-related disease is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States; smokers therefore need to be armed with all the available information to make the best, most informed choices about the smoking cessation resources available to them.

SOURCE American Legacy Foundation

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

A landmark report released today by the Institute of Medicine provides powerful new evidence that elected officials have no excuse for failing to enact comprehensive smoke-free workplace laws. The IOM report concludes smoke-free laws reduce the number of heart attacks and save lives. The report also confirms that there is conclusive scientific evidence that secondhand smoke causes heart disease, including heart attacks, and finds there is compelling evidence that even relatively brief exposure to secondhand smoke can lead to a heart attack.

These powerful conclusions, reached by one of the most prestigious scientific authorities in the United States, send a loud and clear message to elected officials across the U.S. and worldwide: No excuses, no half-measures. It's time to protect everyone's right to breathe clean air by enacting comprehensive smoke-free laws that include all workplaces and public places, including restaurants and bars. There should be no exceptions or loopholes. No one should have to put themselves at risk of a heart attack, lung cancer or the other serious diseases caused by secondhand smoke in order to earn a paycheck or enjoy a night out.

In the United States, 27 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have enacted smoke-free laws that include restaurants and bars. The new report should spur the remaining 23 states to enact comprehensive laws that include all workplaces, restaurants and bars (and all states to eliminate any exceptions that remain in their laws). This report should also spur countries around the world to enact comprehensive smoke-free laws in compliance with the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the international tobacco control treaty ratified by 167 countries.

Even before this IOM report, there was already conclusive evidence that secondhand smoke causes death and disease, while smoke-free laws protect health and save lives. As the U.S. Surgeon General stated in issuing a groundbreaking report on secondhand smoke in June 2006, "The debate is over. The science is clear: Secondhand smoke is not a mere annoyance but a serious health hazard that causes premature death and disease in children and nonsmoking adults."

Secondhand smoke contains more than 4,000 chemicals, including at least 69 carcinogens. The Surgeon General found that secondhand smoke is a proven cause of lung cancer, heart disease, serious respiratory illnesses such as bronchitis, low birth weight and sudden infant death syndrome. The Surgeon General also found that secondhand smoke is responsible for tens of thousands of deaths in the U.S. each year, there is no safe level of exposure and smoke-free laws protect health without harming business.

The IOM's conclusions that smoke-free laws prevent heart attacks and that even short-term exposure to secondhand smoke can lead to a heart attack add significantly to the Surgeon General's report. The IOM report was requested by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the wake of a growing number of studies in smoke-free localities, states and countries that found reductions in heart attack rates after smoke-free laws are implemented. After reviewing 11 such studies in the United States, Canada, Scotland and Italy and a multitude of other scientific studies examining the relationship between secondhand smoke and cardiovascular disease, an IOM committee of scientific experts reached the following conclusions:

• "The committee concludes that there is a causal relationship between smoking bans and decreases in acute coronary events."
• "The evidence reviewed by the committee is consistent with a causal relationship between secondhand-smoke exposure and acute coronary events, such as acute MI (myocardial infarction)."
• "The committee concludes that it is biologically plausible for a relatively brief exposure to secondhand smoke to precipitate an acute coronary event." According to the report, experimental studies have found that secondhand smoke exposure causes adverse changes in the cardiovascular system that increase the risk of a heart attack.
  

In the U.S., 27 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico have passed smoke-free laws that cover restaurants and bars. The states are: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina (Jan. 2, 2010), Ohio, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota (on hold pending resolution of litigation), Utah, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin (July 5, 2010).

Internationally, a growing number of countries have enacted strong, nationwide smoke-free laws. These include Bermuda, Bhutan, Colombia, Djibouti, Iceland, Ireland, Lithuania, New Zealand, Norway, Panama, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and Uruguay. Most Canadian provinces/territories and Australian states/territories have also enacted such laws.

The Institute of Medicine is part of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. The report and related materials can be found at www.iom.edu.

SOURCE Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids

For the first time, researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have demonstrated that it is possible to successfully recruit and retain a large number of adolescent smokers from the general population into a smoking intervention study and, through personalized, proactive telephone counseling, significantly impact rates of six-month continuous quitting. These findings, by Arthur V. Peterson Jr., Ph.D., Kathleen A. Kealey and colleagues, are reported in a pair of papers in the Oct. 12 "Advance Access" online edition of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

"When this study started, despite decades of research and dozens of intervention trials, there was no proven way to reach teens from the general population and recruit them into smoking cessation programs, and there was no proven way to help these teens quit," said Peterson, a member of the Hutchinson Center's Public Health Sciences Division and lead author of the paper that reported the results of the Hutchinson Study of High School Smoking, the largest randomized trial of teen smoking cessation ever conducted.

The trial, funded by the National Institutes of Health, involved 2,151 teenage smokers from 50 high schools in Washington. Half of the schools were randomly assigned to the experimental intervention; teens in these schools were invited to take part in confidential, personalized telephone counseling designed to help motivate them to quit. The remaining 25 schools served as a comparison group; teen smokers from these schools did not participate in the telephone intervention. The study also included 745 nonsmokers to ensure that contacting students for participation in the trial would not reveal a participant's smoking status.

Study recruitment was robust; in the experimental group 65.3 percent of the smokers were eligible and participated in the telephone intervention. Recruitment took place in their junior year and the counseling intervention took place during their senior year. "The literature says it is very difficult to recruit kids to teen smoking programs. People have tried. The field has encountered great obstacles in recruiting teens to smoking cessation programs. And so we took that as a challenge," Peterson said.

The study found that a proactive strategy of reaching out to teens and offering them the opportunity to receive up to nine personalized, confidential telephone counseling sessions effectively helped many of them to kick the habit. In addition, by proactively identifying and recruiting teen smokers (with parental consent for those under age 18), two-thirds of all identified smokers participated in the telephone counseling and nearly half completed all of their scheduled counseling calls.

At the completion of the study, 21.8 percent of all smokers (daily and less than daily) in the counseling group had achieved continuous quitting for six months, as compared to 17.7 percent of those in the comparison group, a difference of 4 percent.

The intervention also impacted three-month, one-month and seven-day smoking abstinence, with differences between the counseling group and the comparison group of 3.3 percent, 6.8 percent and 7.5 percent, respectively. Notably, the one-month and seven-day quit rates among the smokers who received telephone counseling were roughly three times higher than those reported in nearly 50 previous adolescent smoking-cessation trials of a variety of interventions conducted over the past two decades.

"These results are critically important for supporting and stimulating our nation's search to find successful ways to help reduce smoking by teens and young adults," Peterson said.

An estimated 26.5 percent of high school seniors smoke monthly, and 13.6 percent smoke 10 or more cigarettes daily. Although nearly half of all current adolescent smokers report having tried to quit smoking in the past year, only about 4 percent per year succeed on their own. In addition, young adults ages 18 to 24 have the highest smoking rates in the U.S., ranging between 27 percent and 40 percent, depending on geographic region and socioeconomic status.

The telephone counseling intervention was based on the premise that smokers need to believe it is important to quit, have confidence they can quit and have the knowledge and skills needed to be successful with quitting. Therefore, the intervention integrated two types of counseling: motivational interviewing, which emphasizes building motivation and confidence for quitting, and cognitive behavioral skills training, which gives smokers the tools they need to learn how to quit.

Motivational interviewing, first described in the early '80s by William R. Miller, Ph.D., as a way to help treat problem drinkers, enhances a person's motivation to change by exploring and resolving one's ambivalence about change. In this study, the technique was used to explore and resolve the participants' ambivalence about smoking and quitting, and to mobilize their inner resources to trigger a decision to quit.

"Motivational interviewing is very caring, nonjudgmental and respectful. It is non-confrontational. A counselor would never say, 'I want you to quit smoking.' Instead the counselor would ask what the behavior means to the participant. What do they like about it? What don't they like about it?" explained Kealey, first author of the companion paper, which describes in detail the design and implementation of the telephone counseling intervention.

In motivational interviewing, the counselor would use reflective statements to repeat the participant's own words back to him or her. For example: "So, it sounds to me like you smoke because it helps you to relax when you're under stress. But on the other hand, you said that you really don't like the way it smells, and that it's really expensive. So what do you make of that?"

"In the end, it is the smoker's own reasons and desire to quit that motivate the quit attempt," said Kealey, project manager for the study.

Cognitive behavioral skills training seeks to help people build skills for quitting and preventing relapse through counseling strategies that emphasize practical tools, such as self-talk strategies, ways to cope with stress and smoking triggers, and collaborating on a plan for quitting. "While motivational interviewing increases a person's motivation to quit, cognitive behavioral skills training gives them the resources and the confidence they need to be successful," Kealey said.

Adolescent smoking cessation studies conducted in the past 20 years have been largely unsuccessful in getting teens to quit. These studies have identified significant challenges. To date, only two other randomized controlled trials - with smaller numbers of teen smokers than the Hutchinson Study and conducted in medical settings - have shown promise in achieving significant teen quit rates.

So what makes the Hutchinson Study so effective? The researchers hypothesize that the reason is threefold:

The intervention was proactive, reaching out and engaging teens - "Past research has shown that, for a multitude of reasons, many teen smokers do not seek out help with quitting. However, our study demonstrates that if we reach out to teens, without pressuring them to quit, many will talk to counselors about their smoking and some of those teens will decide to quit," Peterson said.

The counseling was offered by telephone - "This allowed for private, confidential, one-to-one counseling and allowed the counselors to explore and focus on issues specific to the individual smoker," he said. Telephone counseling also gave teens control over the timing and length of the counseling sessions.

The counselors used motivational interviewing techniques in all communications with the teens - "It seemed quite appropriate for us to test this deferential strategy in youth because teens, in particular, don't want to be told what to do," Peterson said. "Our goal was to put them in the driver's seat."

So even though teens tend not to seek help for quitting smoking, this study indicates that they are more likely to succeed with quitting if they have help. "An important message from this study for teens and young adult smokers - really for all smokers - is that personalized telephone counseling can help one be successful with quitting smoking," Peterson said. Such help is available through the nation's network of quit lines, such as 1-800-QUIT-NOW offered through the Washington State Department of Health.

The National Cancer Institute funded the study, which also involved investigators at Group Health Research Institute in Seattle.

At Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, our interdisciplinary teams of world-renowned scientists and humanitarians work together to prevent, diagnose and treat cancer, HIV/AIDS and other diseases.

The Chronicle Herald, Halifax, NS Canada - Editorials

Fri. Oct 9 - 4:46 AM