About 6.9 percent of Chinese teenagers smoke tobacco and 19.9 percent of them have tried smoking at least once, according to a story in The Global Times quoting a health department official and citing the news website chinanews.com.
The story said also that 180 million children in the country had been harmed by passive smoking, without defining what was meant by a child.
Habits acquired during teenage years could leave their mark on a person’s whole life, said Li Nong, deputy director of the publicity department at the National Health Commission. Efforts to control smoking among teenagers should be stepped up.
Eighteen cities had imposed smoking bans in public places, but controlling the habit in China faced challenges, Li said.
The country’s target of reducing the smoking rate among people over 15 years of age to less than 20 percent by 2030 still had a long way to go.
The deputy director of the Chinese Association on Tobacco Control, Liao Wenke, said innovative education methods, which teenagers could and were willing to accept, should be initiated to educate them about the harmful effects of smoking.
As of March 2018, the public-places smoking-incidence in Shanghai dropped by nearly nine percentage points (from 25.1 percent to 16.3 percent) after the introduction of a ban in all enclosed public spaces in March 2017.
Category: Regulation
China faces challenges
Graphic warnings fail
Cigarette-pack graphic-warnings showing grossly disfigured feet and rotting teeth are no longer shocking enough to prompt Australians to quit the habit, according to a story by David Chen for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, citing new research.
The results of the research indicated that it was time to devise novel ways of reaching out to people to explain the risks associated with smoking.
A James Cook University team surveyed 900 people, including non-smokers, smokers, pharmacists and students in the Queensland-state cities of Townsville, Rockhampton and Brisbane, seeking their views on current cigarette warning labels.
Nearly 60 percent of those surveyed thought the warnings were ineffective in getting current smokers to quit, while 27 percent thought the labels were effective in preventing non-smokers from taking up the habit.
Survey author Aaron Drovandi said the findings suggested health authorities needed to come up with new ways to encourage smokers to quit the habit.
“What we currently have in Australia, which is the set of rotating warnings, I think we need to increase the rate at which we do that, developing new warnings and rotating them,” he was quoted as saying.
“Also trying to think of novel ways of reaching out to people explaining the risk of smoking in ways they haven’t come across, that might try to trigger more of a response than the current packaging warnings which have had their effectiveness reduced over time.”
“A lot of people indicated that they care more about the money than their own health.”Vaping out of the shadows
The Canadian federal government’s new Tobacco and Vaping Products Act will force tobacco companies to use standardized packaging, but it also opens a world of advertising possibilities for e-liquids and e-cigarettes, according to a story by Jackie Sharkey for CBS News.
The new law, which received royal assent last week, legalized and regulated what had been a “bold, black market,” said David Hammond, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research’s chair in applied health and professor at the University of Waterloo.
Though technically illicit, the story said, nicotine e-liquid was available at vape shops and other stores in most cities across the country, though most big international companies had stayed out of the market.
But with legalization, Hammond predicts Canadians will see big multi-national companies move into the marketplace, along with their advertisements.
“For the first time in decades, you could see TV or front-page newspaper ads for recreational nicotine products,” he said.
Hammond, who testified before Parliament while the law was being drafted, said advertising was the most contentious part of the new Tobacco and Vaping Products Act.
In fact, the Canadian Cancer Society (CCS) is recommending stronger regulations for the advertising components of the act, something Health Canada is considering through consultations.
There is a lot at stake.
“[Companies] will not be able to make a health claim immediately, but Health Canada is working on regulations to that effect,” said Rob Cunningham, senior policy advisor for the CCS.Local Heets to go on sale
Philip Morris Korea said on Wednesday that locally-produced tobacco sticks for its heated-tobacco devices would be on the shelves of South Korea’s stores ‘within the year’, according to a Yonhap News Agency story.
The company said Heets would be produced at its factory in Yangsan, 420 km southeast of Seoul. The factory would be the first facility in Asia to manufacture tobacco sticks for IQOS.
In December, PM Korea said it planned to invest US$420 million by 2019 to expand its local facilities and hire 700 new employees.
The story said that increasing numbers of South Korean smokers were switching to smoke-free products following the launch of IQOS on the domestic market in June 2017.
The share of Heets on the all-cigarettes market was reportedly 7.3 percent during the first quarter of the year, placing it within the top five tobacco brands in the country.
“I am pleased to see that our vision to replace cigarettes with science-based smoke-free products is becoming a reality in Korea at an unprecedented speed,” said Chong Il-woo, PM Korea’s MD, during a press conference in Seoul.
But all is not well. The company expressed concern after the government unveiled its plan to adopt pictorial health warnings for heated-tobacco products, starting at the end of the year.
“The proposed warnings are inappropriate and misleading; not only would they confuse current heated-tobacco product users, but they would also have a negative impact on those adult smokers considering switching to better alternatives,” said Nikolaus Ricketts, director of Reduced Risk Products.Nicotine policy flawed
In a sun-sentinel.com opinion piece, Raymond March has asked why, when other examples of lawmakers attempting to legislate consumer health have failed or made the situation worse, would it be assumed that regulating cigarettes would be any different?
March said that, in 2015, nearly 70 percent of smokers in the US tried unsuccessfully to quit and that their inability to stop had come with considerable health risks. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, smoking accounted for more than 480,000 preventable deaths per year. Health complications associated with smoking were also financially taxing, leading to nearly $170 billion in direct medical costs annually.
To reduce both eye-opening figures, the Food and Drug Administration had recently announced its intent to reduce nicotine levels in cigarettes.
The FDA hoped that reducing nicotine would cause current smokers to cut back and prevent future generations from starting.
But, said March, it was important to look beyond policy intentions. Unfortunately, the most well-intended policies, especially those aimed to promote health or deter vices, were often deceptively harmful.
Reducing nicotine in cigarettes would likely motivate smokers to consume more cigarettes to satisfy their craving, increasing the amount of toxic materials they ingested. Others might turn to other nicotine products to satisfy their cravings.
Often the alternatives were no better or worse.
Regulations placed on physicians and consumers to prevent opioid abuse often drove patients to seek dangerous illicit alternatives, including heroin. Taxing soda motivated consumers to drink more unhealthy fruit juices and alcoholic beverages. As a result, the consumer’s health was at greater risk.
‘When other examples of lawmakers attempting to legislate consumer health fail or make the situation worse, why would regulating cigarettes be any different?’ he asked.
March is a research fellow at the Independent Institute and assistant professor of economics at San Jose State University.Jailed for smoking shisha
Six people have been sentenced to four months in prison by a court in Mombasa, Kenya, after they pleaded guilty to smoking shisha, according to a story in The Star.
The six were among 10 people charged with smoking shisha in a restaurant in the Sparki area of Mombasa county.
The other four, who denied the charges, were each released on a Sh50,000 bond.
Police officers were said to have raided the restaurant after a tip-off.
The former Health Cabinet Secretary Cleopas Mailu in December banned importing and smoking shisha, on the grounds that smoking shisha was a health hazard.
Earlier this year, justice Roseline Aburili declined to lift the ban pending the hearing and determination of a legal challenge to the ban.
The judge said even though the applicants had an arguable case, this didn’t mean their case would be successful.
She said lifting the ban would be a wrong move and not in the interests of the public.
The judge was of the view that should the court rule in favor of the applicants after the full hearing, it would not be impossible to revert to the initial status.Call for ban by 2025
The government of New Zealand will have to ban the sale of cigarettes if it wants to reach its goal of making the country tobacco-smoke-free by 2025, MPs have been told, according to a story in The New Zealand Herald.
Public health advocates and academics said also that the government needed to encourage more aggressively less harmful alternatives to smoking, such as vaping.
At a briefing on the Smokefree 2025 target at Parliament, Lance Norman, the chief executive of the Māori public health organization, Hapai Te Hauora, said there was no way the target would be reached on existing settings.
Ministry of Health figures show nearly 16 percent of New Zealanders smoke, including 35 percent of Māori and 25 percent of Pacific Islanders.
The overall rate has fallen from 20.1 per cent in 2006.
The smokefree target set by the government requires smoking rates to fall below five percent by 2025.
“We are nowhere near that,” Norman said. “Saying it’s a train wreck for Māori would be an understatement.”
His organization made three recommendations to MPs if they wanted to reach the goal:- Urgently encourage harm minimization products such as e-cigarettes;
- Ban the sale of cigarettes by 2025;
- Spend more of the revenue from tobacco excise tax on promoting harm-minimization products and supporting vulnerable families.
GFN registration open
With about three weeks to go until the start of the fifth Global Forum on Nicotine, the organisers say that there is still time to register for what is scheduled to be the biggest Forum yet.
The 2018 Forum will include the event’s biggest-ever conference program with more than 55 speakers, the second International Symposium on Nicotine Technology, and a film festival.
It is scheduled to be held at the Marriott Hotel, Warsaw, Poland, on June 14-16.Only one 'option'
The Netherlands’ junior health minister Paul Blokhuis is drawing up rules to govern the use of heat-not-burn products, according to a story in dutchnews.nl.
There are currently no restrictions on the use of such products, which don’t fall under the current tobacco laws.
Under Blokhuis’ plans, the sale of these products would become subject to an age limit, and, reportedly, bans would be imposed on ‘advertising and new packaging’.
These sorts of products were treated as a clever alternative to ordinary cigarettes, Blokhuis told MPs during a briefing. But users were still inhaling cancer-causing ingredients and other dangerous substances he said.
The minister said he planned to take action against the products because he did not want people to get the idea that using them was a sensible option.
“The only sensible option is not smoking,” he said.Vaping in the dark
Adults in Canada will soon have easier access to electronic cigarettes and vaping supplies — and be exposed to more advertisements promoting them — now that the federal Liberal government has passed legislation formally legalizing and regulating the practice of vaping, according to a Canadian Press story.
Once the Tobacco and Vaping Products Act receives royal assent in the coming days, it will prohibit the sale of vape products to minors, ban flavors aimed at young people and prohibit marketing that features testimonials, health claims or lifestyle themes.
At the same time, it will allow the legal manufacture, import and sale of vaping products both with and without nicotine, Health Canada said yesterday.
Other provisions will come into force 180 days after the bill becomes law to give manufacturers and importers time to comply.
Manufacturers that want to market their products with therapeutic claims, such as for smoking cessation, will still require Health Canada’s blessing before their products can be imported, advertised or sold in Canada.
Some experts welcomed the vaping regulations, saying they give legitimacy to something that could prove a boon for smokers who are trying to quit. Others fear the restrictions could keep those very same people from exploring vaping’s potential as a less-harmful alternative to smoking.
Where they agree, however, is that Canada continues to lack sufficient research into vaping and its potential effects.
The law essentially treated vaping like smoking, with similar regulations, said David Sweanor, an adjunct professor at the University of Ottawa’s Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics.
It prevented companies that made non-combustible products from informing smokers about significantly less hazardous options, and failed adequately to distinguish between the risks of using combustible cigarettes, e-cigarettes and other alternatives.
But Canadian Medical Association president Dr. Laurent Marcoux welcomed the legislation for its restrictions on promoting and advertising vape products, and said it was still too soon to embrace vaping as a potential stop-smoking aid