The UK smokers’ group Forest says prioritizing smoking cessation with a view to reducing smoking prevalence in England to less than five percent by 2030 is an attack on choice and personal responsibility.
Responding to a statement released yesterday by Public Health England, Simon Clark, director of Forest, said millions of people smoked not because they were addicted but because they enjoyed it.
“No-one should be forced to stop smoking because of excessive regulations, punitive taxation or creeping prohibition,” he said.
“Prioritizing smoking cessation in order to create a ‘smoke free’ society would be an attack on choice and personal responsibility.
“If adults choose to smoke in full knowledge of the health risks and don’t want to quit that choice must be respected.”
Category: People
Standing up for smoking
Quitting by default
Changing the way tobacco is retailed would be a crucial step in achieving the New Zealand Government’s 2025 smoke-free goal, new research by the University of Otago suggests.
If the Government prevented new retail outlets from selling tobacco, while allowing existing retailers to continue selling tobacco until they closed or relocated, it could achieve a 50 percent reduction in tobacco outlets by 2032, the research, just published in the medical journal Tobacco Control, is said to have shown.
One of the study’s authors, co-director of the Cancer Society Social and Behavioural Research Unit at the university’s Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, Dr. Louise Marsh, said achieving this reduction would “likely help lower smoking prevalence and health inequities”.
“This approach would not achieve New Zealand’s endgame goal of reducing tobacco availability to minimal levels by 2025, nor the sector’s target of a 95 percent reduction in outlet density by 2022, but would nonetheless result in a significant advancement from the status quo,” she was quoted as saying in a piece posted on the university’s website.
Decreasing the number of outlets that stock tobacco would help reduce youth smoking initiation and enable smokers to quit ‘more easily’, Marsh and her colleague, Dr. Lindsay Robertson, formerly from the Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, concluded.
The researchers examined the impact of a hypothetical policy that, from 2020, banned new retail outlets from selling tobacco. Under the policy, existing retailers would be allowed to continue selling tobacco until they closed their outlets or moved to a different location, when they could no longer sell from the new location.
The study used Stats NZ data on the number of tobacco outlets between 2006 and 2016 (supermarkets, convenience stores, service stations and liquor stores only), and the rate at which these stores closed or relocated.
Based on mean annual closure rates, the total number of tobacco outlets would decrease by 27 percent by 2025, 50 percent by 2032 and 84 percent by 2050.No room for smoking
In three months’ time, smokers will not be able to light up when dining al fresco at restaurants Malaysia-wide, according to a story at The Coverage quoting other media outlets.
The Health Ministry has reportedly said that all open-air restaurants will be gazetted as non-smoking areas from December.
The Health Ministry has reportedly said that all open-air restaurants will be gazetted as non-smoking areas from December.
“This gazettement is Malaysia’s commitment as a member state to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and adheres to the guidelines under Article 8 of the World Health Organization,” the deputy health minister Dr. Lee Boon Chye was quoted as saying.
“It is also one of the ministry’s initiatives to protect the public from the dangers of cigarette smoke.”
Those found to have broken the law on smoking could be fined RM10,000 or sent to jail for up to two years.
Lee was reported to have proposed also closing the parliament’s smoking-room next month in a bid to turn the entire law-making house into a smoke-free zone.
He said there were currently 23 areas designated smoke-free under the Control of Tobacco Product (Amendment) Regulations 2017.These included entertainment centers, theaters, elevators, public toilets, air-conditioned eateries, public vehicles, airports, government premises and any area used for assembly.Quitting made easier
In a study of adult smokers in Scotland given a blu PRO vaping device and liquids, more than a third completely switched to vaping while the others significantly reduced their average smoking frequency, according to a press note by Imperial Brands’ Fontem Ventures subsidiary.
A new peer-reviewed study funded by Fontem Ventures and published in the Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health of 72 adult smokers willing to try vaping as an alternative to smoking found that after 90 days, 37 percent of them had completely replaced their cigarettes and switched to Fontem Ventures’ blu vaping products.
“Our data show that it is possible to facilitate significant behavioural change on the part of smokers as a result of providing them with access to high quality e-cigarette products, at least for a short period of time,” said Professor Neil McKeganey, director of the Centre for Substance Use Research, who conducted the study.
The 72 adult smokers were given access to the blu PRO open system e-cigarette and a range of commercially available blu flavors and nicotine strengths through the duration of the study.
After 90 days the researchers found:- 36.5 percent of the participants had switched to vaping completely;
- A reduction in daily smoking from 88.7 percent of participants at baseline to 17.5 percent;
- A reduction in cigarette smoking from an average of 14.38 to an average of 3.19 per day;
- A decrease in the average number of days per month that participants smoked, from 27.87/30 at baseline to 9.22/30 days after 90-days.
- Non-tobacco flavor e-liquids were preferred by the majority of participants.
‘The number of smokers who switched to vaping completely increased from baseline to day-30 and continued to rise throughout the study duration (90 days),’ the note said. ‘The finding suggests that the use of vaping products may have additional benefits with longer use – i.e. a proportion of smokers completely switched within the first month of use, but a larger proportion needed more than two months to make the switch and gradually switch over a longer period.’
“All participants found the flavors used were important in helping them to switch or cut down and 92.1 percent believed that the blu PRO had helped them to cut down or replace smoking completely at 90 days,” said McKeganey.
Meanwhile, Dr Grant O’Connell, corporate affairs manager, at Fontem Ventures said that in contrast to these “impressive results”, licensed nicotine replacement therapies had been shown to be substantially less satisfying to smokers as evidenced by their modest efficacy, in some cases less than 15 percent smoking abstinence after three months use.
“The 40 percent of UK smokers who have not even tried an e-cigarette should be encouraged to try products such as blu as an alternative to smoking. It is also clear from the data that vapers who continue to smoke, termed dual users, are undergoing a longer-term transition from smoking to non-smoking, moving through different stages of use that are not evident in snapshot surveys,” said O’Connell.
The study can be downloaded here.Young forsaking cigarettes
The US’ young adult cigarette smoking rate is at an all-time low of about 10 percent, a more than 20 percent drop in a year, according to a Truth Initiative statement.
Young adult smokers are defined as people 18-24 years of age who report having smoked more than 100 cigarettes in their lifetime and who now smoke every day or some days.
In 2017, 10.4 percent (more than three million) of young adults smoked cigarettes, according to the latest data on cigarette use from the National Health Interview Survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
That marks a 21 percent decline since 2016, when the young-adult smoking rate was 13.1 percent, and a 45 percent decrease since 2011, when 18.9 percent of young adults smoked.
The statement said too that the ‘youth’ smoking rate had dropped also to an historic low. Now, 5.4 percent (about 1.3 million) of US teens smoked, down from 5.9 percent in 2016.
‘These declines underscore the importance of proven public health strategies, including well-funded and well-executed public education campaigns, like truth®,’ the statement said.
‘Research published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health concluded that truth prevented more than 300,000 US ‘youth’ and young adults from becoming smokers in just one year from 2015-16.
‘Youth and young adults are most at risk of starting to smoke cigarettes. Nearly all – 99 percent – of smokers start smoking by age 26.’More bans, more coming
Israel has ramped up its restrictions on tobacco smoking in public places, according to a BBC Online story quoting a Ynet news report.
A ban on smoking tobacco, which applied to government offices, courts, religious councils, hospitals and clinics, is being extended to concerts, demonstrations and all open-air events attended by more than 50 people.
It is being extended also to swimming pools, open-air sports facilities, playgrounds, zoos, the entrances to pre-schools, and in enclosed car parks.
Some venues are allowed to designate smoking areas at least 10 meters from the entrance ‘as long as they do not inconvenience other parts of the facility, or residences’.
The new restrictions, which were set out in a bill in May, came into force on September 1 after years of complaints by campaigners that the health ministry had not done enough to tackle the relatively high rate of smoking in the country.
Further restrictions are planned. The Health Ministry’s Moshe Bar Siman Tov promised parliament in May that the government would ban smoking areas in bars and restaurants.There must be another way
Most smokers in Australia think that a September 1 excise tax increase was a tax grab by a greedy government aimed at exploiting and punishing smokers for their addiction rather than a genuine attempt to reduce smoking rates, according to a story at news.com.au.
The story, by Colin Mendelsohn, the chairman of the Australian Tobacco Harm Reduction Association and Associate Professor of the School of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of New South Wales, said that cigarette prices had doubled in Australia since 2008 and were now the highest in the world.
Increasing tobacco taxes was a proven strategy for reducing smoking rates, Mendelsohn said, but it seemed to be having a diminishing effect at these ‘stratospheric levels’. Despite annual price increases, there had been no significant fall in Australian smoking rates from 2013 to 2016, according to the three-yearly National Drug Strategy Household Surveys.
Tobacco excise had delivered a massive $12.5 billion to government coffers during the past financial year. However, this tax was particularly cruel at a time of zero wage growth. High prices exploited the most marginalised members of the community, such as low-income groups, Indigenous people and people with substance-use and mental-illness issues.
Another unwanted effect of high prices had been the exponential growth in the illicit tobacco industry. Illicit tobacco from smuggling and illicit tobacco crops made up 15-28 percent of the total tobacco market and funded organized crime and terrorism.
‘Australia’s tobacco control policy has always focused on telling smokers to just quit, also known as the ‘quit or die’ approach,’ Mendelsohn said…
‘However, there is now a viable alternative: vaping. Nicotine vaporisers (e-cigarettes) provide the nicotine that smokers are addicted to but without the tar and carbon monoxide that cause almost all the harm to health. Importantly they also replicate the smoking ritual and provide some of the pleasure and habit that makes quitting so difficult.’E-cig stance challenged
The recent advisory issued by India’s Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to the State government seeking a ban on the sale of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) is based on poor advice and a lack of scientific evidence, according to a story by Bindu Shajan Perappadan at thehindu.com quoting a group representing electronic cigarette users across the country.
The Association of Vapers India (AVI) has hit back at the Center and questioned the motive behind the advisory.
‘ENDS products are being examined across the world for their benefit in harm reduction and as a pathway to smoking cessation,’ the AVI said in a press note. ‘The advisory must be withdrawn immediately…’
Evidence that had been produced during the past two years had shown that a smoker who switched to vaping cut her health risk by more than 95 percent, the AVI said.
And it questioned why the government had not banned tobacco cigarettes if it was so concerned about nicotine.
At the same time, the AVI rubbished the government’s contention that vaping would increase smoking rates among teenagers, citing evidence to the contrary based on a survey of 60,000 teenagers by UK-based Public Health England.
“This claim is bogus as smoking rates among the youth are declining in all countries that have allowed vaping,” said AVI director Samrat Chowdhery. “In fact, overall smoking rates have declined at a historical rate after vaping was introduced. This clearly points to the tremendous harm reduction potential of vaping.”
Meanwhile, Deepak Mukarji of The Alternatives, which advocates harm reduction in respect of people and the planet, said the Alternatives was disappointed with the Central government’s directive on e-cigarettes. This retrograde step denied harm reduction and potentially lifesaving alternatives to smokers by ignoring science and its emerging technologies.
Evidence that the government claimed to have, the AVI said, was either outdated or intentionally misinterpreted; and it was out of line with the view widely accepted by all major scientific institutions that the use of e-cigarettes was substantially less harmful than was smoking combustible cigarettes.
The association blamed the government also for presenting a wrong picture by selectively citing World Health Organization data that 30 countries had banned e-cigarettes, while holding back information that 65 nations had allowed and regulated such products.The evidence is in
Electronic-cigarette campaigners have headed to Australia’s capital Canberra to convince federal politicians to lift bans on nicotine vaping products, according to a story by Michael Black at abc.net.au.
A recent CSIRO [Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, an independent Australian federal government agency responsible for scientific research] report found regular use of vaping devices was likely to harm a person’s health, but it suggested there were likely benefits in replacing regular cigarettes with e-cigarettes.
Brian Marlow, the campaign manager for Legalise Vaping Australia, said the report quantified points his organization had been making for years.
“They’ve shown the gateway theory, that vaping leads to smoking, just doesn’t exist; they’ve shown that vaping reduces smoking rates; they’ve shown that it’s safer than smoking,” he said.
“This is not a harmless technology, it’s just significantly less harmful than tobacco and that’s what we’re trying to get across.”
Currently, there are various bans across Australia that restrict the sale of e-cigarettes and liquids containing nicotine.
Many vapers purchase products online and some don’t know that it’s technically illegal to do so.Drinking problem
Age-adjusted rates of premature death from smoking in Russia dropped by nearly 34 percent between 1994 and 2016, according to a story in Science Magazine citing ‘the most extensive health study on the nation ever conducted’.
More generally, life expectancy in Russia during the same period increased by more than seven years, while rates of death among children under the age of five decreased by nearly 60 percent.
Russia saw progress also in reducing premature death (as measured in years of life lost – YLLs) from stomach cancer, drowning, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
“These are significant accomplishments,” Dr. Mohsen Naghavi, a professor of health metrics sciences at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, was quoted as saying. “Russia’s public health officials deserve recognition for their efforts lowering the country’s burden of disease.”
However, the study concludes that the nation continues to face considerable health challenges.
Russia exceeds all other countries for age-adjusted premature death rates attributed to alcohol use disorders and has the second-highest premature death rate from drug use globally.
“Like many other nations, more than half of all deaths in Russia can be attributed to behavioral risk factors, most prominently alcohol and substance abuse,” said Dr. Christopher Murray, an author on the study and director at IHME.
The study, Burden of disease in Russia, 1980-2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016, was published on Friday in the international medical journal The Lancet. It is part of the Global Burden of Disease study, a comprehensive effort to quantify health internationally, covering 333 diseases and injuries and 84 risk factors.
Researchers found more than half of all deaths in Russia are attributable to behavioral risk factors, such as smoking, alcohol use, dietary risks, low physical activity, drug use, and unsafe sex. However, high blood pressure, a metabolic risk factor, was the leading risk for death in Russia, accounting for nearly one in three deaths in 2016.
The ‘top 10’ causes of premature mortality in 2016 were given as:- Ischemic heart disease
- Stroke
- Suicide
- Cardiomyopathy
- Road injuries
- Lower respiratory infections
- Lung cancer
- Alcohol use disorders
- Interpersonal violence
- HIV/AIDS
And the ‘top 10’ risk factors contributing to premature mortality in 2016 (ranking based on all ages rates of YLLs per 100,000 people):
- High systolic blood pressure
- Alcohol use
- Smoking
- High total cholesterol
- High body-mass index
- Diet low in whole grains
- High fasting plasma glucose
- Diet low in fruits
- Diet low in nuts and seeds
- Ambient particulate matter pollution.
