Category: People

  • Expelled for smoking

    Expelled for smoking

    Two vocational high school students in Indonesia were expelled after a photo in which the students appear to be smoking in a classroom in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta, was uploaded on Instagram, according to a story in The Jakarta Post.

    The students’ Jakarta Smart Cards (KJP), previously issued as part of an educational assistance program, were revoked.

    North Jakarta Education agency head Khairul confirmed yesterday that the students were expelled. “The school has expelled both students and the North Jakarta administration will also revoke their KJPs,” Khairul was reported to have said on Thursday.

    On Monday, an Instagram account uploaded a picture of the two students wearing their white and grey high school uniforms and appearing to smoke a cigarette in the presence of a teacher standing with his back to them in a classroom.

  • Japan’s smoking rate falls

    Japan’s smoking rate falls

    The prevalence of smoking among Japan’s adult population fell from 19.3 percent in May 2016 to 18.2 percent in May 2017, according to Japan Tobacco Inc.’s annual survey.

    Smoking among men fell from 29.7 percent to 28.2 percent, while smoking among women fell from 9.7 percent to 9.0 percent.

    Based on population figures provided by the Statistics Bureau of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Japan’s smoking population fell from 20.27 million in 2016 to 19.17 million in 2017.

    The number of male smokers fell from 14.98 million to 14.26 million, while the number of female smokers fell from 5.28 million to 4.91 million. As of April 1, 2017, Japan’s population comprised 50.56 million men and 54.53 million women, while, as of April 1, 2016, it comprised 50.45 million men and 54.45 million women.

    The JT study has been carried out annually since 1965.

    The May 2017 survey was conducted using a stratified two-stage sampling method. Questionnaires were mailed to about 32,000 adult men and women (20 years or older) nationwide. JT collected 19,875 (61.9 percent) valid responses from the total population surveyed.

    In publishing the results, JTI said it was of the view that the smoking rate in Japan had been and was on a declining trend due to various factors, including the country’s aging population, people’s growing awareness of the health risks associated with smoking, the tightening of smoking-related regulations, and tax and price hikes.

    JT said it would ‘continue its efforts to realize a society in which smokers and non-smokers can co-exist in harmony’.

  • E-cigarettes are quit aids

    E-cigarettes are quit aids

    An increasing number of people in the US are giving up cigarettes, and a new study suggests that the take-up of electronic cigarettes might be the reason, according to a story by Steven Reinberg for HealthDay.

    After stalling for 15 years, the US quit-smoking rate rose to nearly six percent in 2014-2015, up from less than five percent in prior years, national survey data indicates.

    Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine believe e-cigarettes have helped fuel the increase.

    “From 2014 to 2015, more e-cigarette users tried to quit cigarette smoking and succeeded in quitting than those who didn’t use e-cigarettes,” said lead researcher Shu-Hong Zhu, director of the university’s Center for Research and Intervention in Tobacco Control.

    Reviewing survey responses from nearly 25,000 current and former smokers in 2014-2015, Zhu and his colleagues found that vapers were more likely than non-users to make a quit attempt (65 percent versus 40 percent). And they were more likely to succeed for at least three months (eight percent versus five percent), he said.

    In background notes, the researchers said the use of e-cigarettes in the US became noticeable around 2010 and increased dramatically by 2014, which would coincide with the rising quit-smoking rates.

    Reinberg reported that scientists remained divided over whether e-cigarettes provided a gateway to smoking or a less harmful tool that helped smokers quit, but added that the new study seemed to support the second theory.

    “People should be open to consider e-cigarettes as a way to help them quit, especially if they have used everything else in the past,” Zhu said. “The important thing is that people continue to try.”

    Zhu added that a national tobacco control campaign that began airing in 2012 probably also helped boost quit rates.

  • Few state quit-aids

    Few state quit-aids

    With no funding for 2017-18, the West Virginia Division of Tobacco Prevention is to sack all but one of the people currently working in its eight-person office, according to an AP State & Local story relayed by the TMA.

    The Division’s director Jim Kerrigan will then be its only employee.

    Kerrigan said that he wanted to keep two programs going: Quitline, a tobacco-cessation hotline; and RAZE, an anti-tobacco education program aimed at teenagers.

    The division is currently operating on state funds carried over from the previous budget year, and on federal grants.

    Juliana Frederick Curry of the American Cancer Society described the cuts as “disheartening” because the state had the highest youth smoking rate and the second-highest adult smoking rate in the US.

  • Making smokers receptive

    Making smokers receptive

    New research suggests that smokers who undergo a CT (computed tomography) scan of their lungs are more likely to quit than are those who don’t undergo such a process, according to a story by Rod Minchin published by independent.co.uk.

    Scientists said the findings of a study – looking at the effect of CT screening on smokers at high-risk of developing lung cancer – was at odds with the belief that a negative screening result offered a ‘licence to smoke’.

    They suggested that engaging with lung screening could provide smokers with an opportunity to access smoking cessation support at a time when they were likely to be more receptive to offers of help.

    “Our trial shows that CT lung cancer screening offers a teachable moment for smoking cessation among high-risk groups in the UK,” Dr. Kate Brain, of Cardiff University, was quoted as saying.

    “We now need evidence about the best ways of integrating lung cancer screening with stop-smoking support, so that services are designed to deliver the maximum health benefits for current and future generations.”

    The trial, led by researchers at Cardiff University working with the University of Liverpool, King’s College London and Queen Mary University, London, involved 4,055 participants aged 50 to 75.

    Minchin’s story, which includes information about how the research was conducted, is at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/smokers-ct-scan-lungs-quitting-more-likely-tobacco-cigarettes-cardiff-university-dr-kate-brain-a7857691.html.

  • An education in smoking

    An education in smoking

    A school in Australia is permitting students as young as 15 to have a smoking break at lunch and other recess periods, according to an independent.co.uk story.

    Carolyn Blanden, principal at The Warakirri College in Sydney, said she believed that relaxed rules would encourage the students to keep attending school.

    “At my school, you can come with bright blue hair and metal in your face,” Blanden told Australia’s Daily Telegraph.

    “And if you need to have a smoke, that’s OK too.”

    Blanden said she would rather her students smoked cigarettes, with all the health risks that involved, than have them “floating around the streets or in detention”.

    The principal has previously worked at fee-paying private schools but says her current job is the “most rewarding work I think I’ve ever done”.

    Many of the school’s students are from broken homes, with many of their parents either in jail or battling drug addiction.

    Under Wreaker’s curriculum, students can study three subjects per year rather than six for two years.

    The school is said to be similar to an adult learning environment, with no fees or uniforms. There is a gym and students are allowed to leave the campus grounds when not in class.

    Many of the children who graduated Year 10 (age 14-16) in 2016 were the first in their families to achieve a Record of School Achievement

  • Psychiatrists say lift e-ban

    Psychiatrists say lift e-ban

    Australia’s psychiatrists are urging the government to lift its ban on nicotine-containing electronic cigarettes, saying their mentally ill patients, many of whom are heavy smokers, could ‘significantly benefit’ from the devices, according to a story by Esther Han for the Sydney Morning Herald.

    In a submission to the federal government’s e-cigarette inquiry, the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) said the mentally ill were more likely to smoke than were those who were not mentally ill, and that they were more likely than were other smokers to be heavy smokers, which meant their life expectancy was 20 years less than that of the general population.

    ‘E-cigarettes … provide a safer way to deliver nicotine to those who are unable to stop smoking, thereby minimising the harms associated with smoking tobacco and reducing some of the health disparities,’ the submission said.

    ‘The RANZCP therefore supports a cautious approach that takes into account …the significant health benefits which these products present.’

    The submission marks the first time a specialist medical college or major health group has broken ranks with Australia’s medical fraternity, which largely wants the ban on nicotine-containing e-cigarettes maintained because, they say, the safety of these devices and their efficacy as quitting aids are unclear.

    It is legal to buy ‘vaping’ devices, but it is unlawful to sell, possess or use nicotine-containing ones because the chemical is classified as a poison.

    This year the Therapeutic Goods Administration rejected an application to exempt the drug from the dangerous poisons list.

    Professor David Castle, RANZCP board member, said the current restrictions on tobacco were not helping people with mental illness and e-cigarettes needed to be made available, albeit with caveats.

    Seventy per cent of people with schizophrenia and 61 percent of people with bipolar disorder are smokers, compared to 16 percent of those without mental health problems, studies show.

  • WHO report published

    WHO report published

    The recently-appointed director general of the World Health Organization, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has said that governments around the world “must waste no time in incorporating all the provisions of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control [FCTC] into their national tobacco control programs and policies”.

    “They must also clamp down on the illicit tobacco trade, which is exacerbating the global tobacco epidemic and its related health and socioeconomic consequences,” he said in a foreword to the latest WHO report on the global tobacco epidemic, which was published yesterday. “Forty Parties are needed for the Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products, under the WHO FCTC, to come into force. Currently, only a few more Parties are needed for this important step to occur.”

    The protocol, which was promoted by the WHO’s previous director general and which was adopted in November 2012, still has not entered into force. At its heart, it calls for the establishment of a tobacco-products tracking-and-tracing system, but a search for ‘tracking and tracing’ in the 135-page report brought up only one oblique reference, in a passage on tax stamps.

    In a press note issued alongside the report, which is said to have been ‘made possible by funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies’, the WHO said its latest report had found that more countries had implemented tobacco control policies, ranging from graphic pack warnings and advertising bans to no-smoking areas, though it wasn’t clear what was meant by ‘more’. ‘About 4.7 billion people – 63 percent of the world’s population – are covered by at least one comprehensive tobacco control measure, which has quadrupled since 2007 when only one billion people and 15 percent of the world’s population were covered,’ the press note said. ‘Strategies to implement such policies have saved millions of people from early death.

    ‘However, the tobacco industry continues to hamper government efforts to fully implement life- and cost-saving interventions…’.

    The press note went on to say that FCTC strategies to support the implementation of tobacco-demand reduction-measures, such as the “MPOWER” measures, had, during the past decade, saved millions of people from early death and hundreds of billions of dollars. ‘MPOWER,’ the note said, ‘was established in 2008 to promote government action on six tobacco control strategies in-line with the WHO FCTC to:

    • monitor tobacco use and prevention policies;
    • protect people from tobacco smoke;
    • offer help to quit tobacco use;
    • warn people about the dangers of tobacco;
    • enforce bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship; [and]
    • raise taxes on tobacco.’

    The WHO press note is at: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2017/tobacco-report/en/.

    The report is at: http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/255874/1/9789241512824-eng.pdf.

  • Illegal trade increasing

    Illegal trade increasing

    A recent study conducted by the Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research in Greece, estimates that illicit products could account for 30 percent of cigarette sales this year, according to a Kathimerini story relayed by the TMA.

    In January-June this year, the decrease in the legal cigarette market was twice that of the corresponding period last year.

    The story said that high taxes on tobacco products and a lack of remedial measures were considered as factors for the reported increase in the illegal cigarette trade.

  • You can’t please everybody

    You can’t please everybody

    A smokers’ group has criticised the targets set by the UK government in its new Tobacco Control Plan (TCP) and called on ministers to consult consumers before introducing any further measures.

    According to the Department of Health, the objectives of the TCP are, by 2022, to:

    • reduce the number of 15-year-olds who regularly smoke from eight percent to three percent or less;
    • reduce smoking among adults in England from 15.5 percent to 12 percent or less;
    • reduce the inequality gap in smoking prevalence, between those in routine and manual occupations and the general population; and
    • reduce the prevalence of smoking in pregnancy from 10.5 percent to six percent or less.

    “Setting targets encourages punitive measures,” said Simon Clark (pictured), director of the smokers’ group Forest. “The best tobacco control plan puts education and choice ahead of prohibition and coercion.”

    Commenting on the commitment to extend smoking bans to all hospitals, mental health facilities and prisons, Clark said that in the 21st century tobacco control policies should focus on harm reduction products, not on prohibition and other restrictive practises.

    “E-cigarettes and other harm reduction products are a game-changer because they offer consumers a pleasurable yet safer alternative to smoking,” he said.

    “If however adults choose to smoke that is their right and it must be respected. Denormalising or punishing smokers is unacceptable.

    “The most important stakeholder is the consumer yet they are routinely ignored by government. Ministers should stop lecturing smokers and engage with them.”

    Meanwhile, the TCP report, Towards a smoke-free generation: a tobacco control plan for England, has been welcomed by the UK Vaping Industry Association (UKVIA), which says that it provides two key measures relevant to vaping:

    • Public Health England will update their evidence report on e-cigarettes annually until the end of the Parliament in 2022 and will include messages about the relative safety of e-cigarettes within quit smoking campaigns; and
    • the government will review where the UK’s exit from the EU offers opportunities to review current regulation to identify where the UK can sensibly deregulate [and] will assess recent legislation such as the Tobacco Products Directive, including as it applies to e-cigarettes.

    In welcoming the TCP, Doug Mutter, a UKVIA board member and head of manufacturing & compliance at Vaporized, said the TCP contained welcome measures that the UKVIA had been calling for.

    “Public Health England has stated vaping is at least 95 percent less harmful than smoking, and it is about time we made this clear to smokers,” said Mutter. “That’s why we are particularly pleased to see the commitment that from now on this will be highlighted as part of Public Health England’s anti-smoking campaigns, a missed opportunity to date.

    “We also welcome the plan’s commitment to relook at the EU Tobacco Product Directive, and its impact on vaping products. The contradictory situation where vaping products are treated like tobacco, though they contain none, cannot continue.

    “The UKVIA will be pushing government to turn these words into action. Britain is a world-leader in health policy, and it is about time we had regulations that reflect our country’s own public health priorities.”

    The TCP report is at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/629455/Towards_a_Smoke_free_Generation_-_A_Tobacco_Control_Plan_for_England_2017-2022.pdf.