Category: People

Recalling nicotine’s benefits
A study funded by the US’ National Institutes of Health is testing whether nicotine patches can improve memory and functioning in people who have mild memory loss or Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), according to a story at globenewswire.com.
The largest and longest-running study of its kind, the MIND (Memory Improvement through Nicotine Dosing) Study is looking for 300 volunteers at sites across the US who have mild memory loss but are otherwise healthy, non-smokers and over the age of 55.
“The MIND Study will provide valuable information for researchers with regard to early memory loss that is associated with normal aging and early Alzheimer’s disease, but we need volunteers if we are going to succeed,” said Dr. Paul Newhouse, MD, director of the Vanderbilt Center for Cognitive Medicine and lead investigator for the MIND Study.
The story said that, according to the Alzheimer’s Association, about one in five people aged 65 or older had mild memory loss or MCI and were more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease or other dementias.
Although currently there was no FDA-approved medication indicated to treat this condition, it was known that nicotine stimulated an area in the brain known to be important for thinking and memory, and scientists believed it could be an effective treatment for adults with MCI.
“People often think nicotine is addictive and harmful because it is in tobacco products, but it’s safe when used in patch form,” Newhouse said. “Nicotine is an inexpensive, readily-available treatment that could have significant benefits for people experiencing mild memory impairment.”
Potential study volunteers can learn more by visiting MINDStudy.org or calling 1-866-MIND-150.
February 6, 2019
Catch-as-catch-can
A story in pharmacynews.com.au has thrown some cold water – but not much – on a widely-reported UK study (see Quitting with e-cigarettes, January 31) that found that nicotine-containing electronic cigarettes were almost twice as effective as nicotine patches and gum in helping smokers quit their habit.
But there was a ‘catch’, the story said. A year after quitting tobacco 80 percent of those who had switched to e-cigarettes were still vaping, while nine percent who had used nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) were still using NRT.
But that seems to be the limit of the cold water.
The findings were significant because the NRT users tended to cease treatment prematurely and had higher rates of relapse, Dr. Ryan Courtney (PhD) of the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre in Sydney, NSW, was quoted as saying.
“Vaporised nicotine products seem to have quite high user acceptability in terms of the act of using your hands, the sensory-motor aspects,” said Courtney, who is also a senior lecturer in health behaviour science at the University of NSW. “And [users] do actually get enjoyment out of using vaporised nicotine products.”
But he said the long-term health risks of vaping were unknown, and that GPs and patients should continue to exercise caution.
“From a harm-reduction approach, vaporised nicotine products frequently do present as a potentially safer option, but there haven’t been the long-term studies that have looked at outcomes,” he said.
February 6, 2019
Grower registrations up
Grower registrations for Zimbabwe’s 2019 flue-cured tobacco marketing season, at 169,772, are up by 46 percent on those of the previous season, 116,525, according to a story in The Herald citing figures from the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board.
Of the registered growers, 41,021 were said to be ‘new’.
In 2018, flue-cured tobacco deliveries reached a record high of 252 million kg, but it is unlikely that this year will see an increase on that volume commensurate with the increase in registered growers.
In part this is because it is difficult to know how accurate registration figures are. For instance, a Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation story at the end of last year put the number of registered growers at 103,000, though, given when the story was published, it is possible that this was the number of registered growers who had delivered tobacco for sale.
More significantly, though, is the fact that the increase in registrations is likely to be largely due to administrative changes. That is, the increase in registrations has been influenced by the need for growers to obtain individual numbers so that they can benefit from the introduction of foreign currency incentives.
Changes to the way that payments are made to growers have made it difficult for them to share money after selling their crops because they are no longer paid cash. The money is now being deposited in bank accounts or paid through EcoCash.
February 6, 2019
What’s tracking and tracing?
The supply of tobacco products to UK retailers could be put in jeopardy unless HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) publishes details of the application process for track and trace (T&T) codes without delay, according to a story in the on-line version of Convenience Store magazine.
With a little more than three months to go before the new T&T regulations are enforced, concerns of a possible backlog of applications from retailers are said to be growing.
From May 20, retailers will need two unique codes in order to purchase tobacco legally, an economic operator identifier code for their business and a facility identifier code for each of their stores.
HRMC was said to have told Convenience Store that an announcement on its chosen supplier to act as the UK’s ID issuer would be made by February 1, but by the time the magazine’s story had appeared on February 4 no details had been forthcoming.
February 6, 2019
Prohibition proposed
Under a proposal before Hawaii’s state Legislature, cigarette sales would be effectively banned outright by 2024, according to a Hawaii News Now story.
The ban would go into effect progressively, starting with raising the minimum age for buying cigarettes from 21 to 30 in 2020.
By 2022, no one under 50 could buy cigarettes.
And two years later, no one under 100 would be allowed to buy cigarettes.
The story rated the measure, House Bill 1509, as a long shot. It said it had passed its first reading last week, a procedural hurdle, and had been assigned to committees. But it didn’t yet have a hearing.
That didn’t mean it wouldn’t get one, the story went on to say, especially after news of the proposal started generating headlines nationally.
The authors of the bill, two Democratic representatives and a Republican, said the proposed ban simply made sense.
“The cigarette is considered the deadliest artifact in human history,” they wrote in the preamble to the measure. “The cigarette is an unreasonably dangerous and defective productive, killing half of its long-term users.”
About 13 percent of Hawaii adults are smokers, which is lower than the national average of 17 percent.
Hawaii also has one of the nation’s highest cigarette taxes, at $3.20 a pack. And more than a decade ago, the Hawaii Legislature significantly expanded smoke-free zones, and included e-cigarettes in those prohibitions three years ago.
The measure before lawmakers that would ban cigarette sales would not include e-cigarettes.
February 5, 2019
When quitting isn’t quitting
A public health expert in the US has been moved to ask a pointed question of the American Lung Association.
Writing on his blog, The Rest of the Story, Dr. Michael Siegel (pictured) asked whether the Association really hated smokers so much that it wanted to discourage them from making quit attempts using electronic cigarettes, despite new clinical trial evidence of their superiority to nicotine replacement therapy (NRT).
On Saturday, Siegel, who is a Professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences, Boston University School of Public Health, referred to a one-year randomized, clinical trial that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine and in which e-cigarettes were compared to NRT as aids to smoking cessation.
This, the most definitive study yet on the effectiveness of electronic cigarettes for smoking cessation, found that one-year smoking cessation rates with e-cigarettes were nearly twice those obtained using NRT, Siegel said.
This was great news for smokers, as it suggested that switching to vaping was another smoking cessation option that could be added to those already available.
Siegel quoted the Association as responding to the study’s results by saying that the US Food and Drug Administration had not found any e-cigarette to be safe and effective in helping smokers quit. ‘We only support methods that are FDA approved and regulated,’ it said. ‘Switching to e-cigarettes does not mean quitting. Quitting means truly ending the addiction to nicotine, which is very difficult.’
In other words, Siegel said, the Association was saying that despite this clinical trial’s demonstrating that e-cigarettes are probably much more effective than NRT for smoking cessation, they would rather smokers continued smoking than make a quit attempt using electronic cigarettes.
February 5, 2019
World Bank report
Contrary to tobacco industry arguments, taxes and prices have only a limited impact on the illegal cigarette market share at country level, according to a World Bank report, Confronting illicit tobacco trade: A global review of country experiences.
The report, running to about 650 pages, says that evidence indicates that the illegal cigarette market is relatively larger in countries with low taxes and prices while relatively smaller in countries with higher cigarette taxes and prices. Non-price factors such as governance status, weak regulatory framework, social acceptance of illicit trade, and the availability of informal distribution networks are said to ‘appear to be far more important determinants of the size of the illicit tobacco market’.
Part of the Bank’s advice for tackling the illegal trade is for authorities to avoid reliance on the tobacco industry, whose role is said to pose a challenge to countries seeking to address the illegal trade, ‘since the tobacco industry is often linked to illicit trade in tobacco products, either directly or indirectly’.
‘The UK and Ireland case studies emphasize the need to fulfill obligations under Article 5.3 of the FCTC [World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control] to prevent the tobacco industry from influencing public policy,’ the report says. ‘The case studies, including Colombia, Australia, Georgia, and Malaysia, also confirm prior findings that the tobacco industry regularly overstates levels and changes in tobacco illicit trade to oppose tobacco tax reforms. The Georgia and Uruguay case studies show that when the government responds to industry pressure and reduces taxes due to fears regarding tobacco illicit trade, the result is a decline in revenues and an increase in consumption, while the true drivers of illicit trade in tobacco products remain unaddressed.’
The Bank concludes, in part, that the following actions need to be undertaken to confront the illegal trade in tobacco products.
- ‘Require licensing for the full tobacco supply chain, as required by Article 6 of the [FCTC] Protocol.
- ‘Require use of secure excise tax stamps and other product markings to facilitate enforcement and tax collection, as required by Article 8 of Protocol.
- ‘Establish effective track-and-trace systems to follow tobacco products through the supply chain from production or import to sale to consumers (Article 8 of the Protocol).
- ‘Establish effective enforcement teams equipped with automated reporting devices, to reduce human discretion in tobacco tax administration (Articles 8 and 19 of the Protocol).
- ‘Obtain detection equipment and use it effectively at customs posts (Articles 14 and 19 of the Protocol).
- ‘Develop a risk profile to target inspections (Articles 10, 14 and 19 of the Protocol).
- ‘Set relatively low duty-free allowances (Article 13 of the Protocol and Article 6.2 of the FCTC) for tobacco product purchases, both in terms of amounts and frequency.
- ‘Regulate or ban trade in tobacco products in free trade and other special economic zones (Article 12 of the Protocol).
- ‘Set and enforce significant financial penalties and penal provisions for illicit trade in tobacco products (Articles 15, 16 and 17 of the Protocol).
- ‘Provide for secure and environmentally friendly destruction of seized cigarettes, carried out by the regulatory authorities and not by the tobacco industry (Article 18 of the Protocol).
- ‘Educate the public on the impact of tobacco illicit trade.
February 4, 2019
Caught on camera
Any person who ‘catches’ someone smoking outside a designated smoking area at Phuket International Airport, Thailand, now stands to receive a B1,500 reward, according to a story in The Phuket News.
But it’s not a case of simply reporting the smoker.
According to the airport’s general manager, Thanee Choungchoonyone, speaking on Friday; to claim the ‘reward’, a person must see a fellow person smoking anywhere other than a designated smoking area, take a photo of that person and show it to airport staff. But to receive the reward, the smoker must be caught.
As from yesterday, the inside and outside areas of the six international airports operated by Airports of Thailand have been designated non-smoking, except for designated smoking areas.
The six airports are Phuket International Airport (PIA), Chiang Mai International Airport, Chiang Rai International Airport, Don Mueang International Airport, Suvarnabhumi Airport, and Hat Yai International Airport.
Thanee said the move was aimed at ramping up enforcement of the Tobacco Products Control Act B.E. 2017, under which PIA, a government facility, was designated non-smoking.
The News said also that he talked of a possible disturbance to non-smokers in and around the airport as being one reason behind the decision to offer rewards.
“There are six clearly marked rooms in the airport in which people are allowed to smoke,” Thanee said, before adding that anyone found violating the law would be liable to a fine of up to B5,000.
February 4, 2019
Smoking up in Turkey
Turkey is due to launch a new anti-smoking campaign in the coming months following an increase in the incidence of smoking, according to a story in The Hürriyet Daily News.
The Health Minister Fahrettin Koca reportedly said in an interview that the incidence of smoking had increased from 27 percent to 32 percent in recent years, despite a ban on smoking in public places.
The incidence of smoking among men had increased to 44 percent, while that among women had risen to 19 percent.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had endorsed Turkey’s long-term anti-tobacco campaign, but the smoking industry had been finding new ways to increase consumption, the minister was reported to have said.
“They pushed for water pipes after inspections against smoking in cafes or restaurants intensified,” Koca said. “They campaign that electronic cigarettes are harmless, although the situation is the other way around. They promote slim cigarettes for women’s consumption.”
He accused the tobacco industry of trying to encourage young people to become long-term users and women smokers to become role models.
“They are introducing smoking as part of a modern life and culture,” he said. “That’s why we should also fight these efforts of the tobacco industry.”
The News said that the new campaign, which will be unveiled in a couple of months, will display smokers as ‘second-class people’ in the eyes of the public – presumably in the eyes of the non-smoking public.
It will bring in changes also to smoking-in-public-places regulations.
And it will herald intensified enforcement of those regulations.
February 4, 2019
Tobacco research
Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Health said on Sunday that work was starting on local research linked to the World Health Organization’s Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS), according to a story in Asharq Al-Awsat quoting the Saudi Press Agency (SPA).
The research is being carried out by the Ministry in co-operation with the General Authority for Statistics under the supervision of the WHO and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
The research will cover 12,800 households and will survey adults 15 years of age and older.
According to the SPA, the research is the first of its kind to have been conducted in the Kingdom.
The aim of the research is to determine the level of tobacco use among adults and assess the interventions that might be used for combating it.
February 4, 2019