Tag: England

Young buy into illegal trade
Figures from a new survey show that more than half of all teenage smokers in the north-east of England have bought illicit tobacco products, according to a story in The Conversation.
The figures, from the 2017 North East Illegal Tobacco Survey, found that 55 percent of smokers between the ages of 14 and 15 said they had bought illicit tobacco products from shops or “tab houses”, while 73 percent said they had been offered illicit tobacco products at some point.
The Conversation story said there had been cases of illicit tobacco being sold to children from ice-cream vans.
And sometimes these sales were of single sticks, which were much easier for young people to buy with their pocket money.
The Conversation reported that because they were generally cheaper than were licit products, illicit products could discourage people from deciding to give up smoking.
But it busted the myth about illicit cigarettes being more harmful than were licit ones.
All cigarettes were harmful to health, it said.
A High Court judgement in 2016 recognised there was no difference in the harm presented by any brand of cigarettes.
In this way, tobacco control advocates often likened any differences between the consumption of licit and illicit cigarettes as being similar to the difference between jumping out of the 12th or 13th floor of a burning building.
The full story is at: https://theconversation.com/nearly-half-of-teenage-smokers-have-bought-illegal-tobacco-so-what-are-the-dangers-85558.
November 24, 2017
England to quit by 2040
A new report forecasts that the UK government is on track to meet its smoke-free target for England by about 2040, where smoke-free is defined as a smoking prevalence among adults of five percent or lower.
This forecast is based on a continuation of above-inflation excise increases and known regulatory interventions.
The report, Working towards a smoke-free England, was prepared for Philip Morris Ltd by Frontier Economics.
Frontier forecast, too, that if smoking continued to decline at the same rate after 2040, it would be eliminated by about 2051.
‘Smoking is in long-run decline, but since 2012 it has declined at more than twice the rate seen between 1993 and 2011,’ Frontier said in a note posted on its website. ‘Smokers switching to e-cigarettes appear to have made a material contribution to that recent trend.
‘We anticipate that the faster decline in smoking since 2012 will not continue indefinitely. In part this is because the growth of e-cigarettes is now slowing. Data from ASH indicates that there were only 100,000 new vapers in 2017, compared with 800,000 in 2014.
‘The government’s target of reducing smoking to below five percent could be met as soon as 2029 if the faster rate of decline since 2012 were maintained. If that trend continued further, smoking would be eliminated in England by 2035.
‘Meeting this target by 2029 would require an additional 2.5 million smokers to quit over and above those we already expect to quit in our central forecast. This is equivalent to around 210,000 extra quitters each year.
‘This would require significant changes, such as:
- A rapid increase in the number of smokers switching to smoke-free alternatives, including e-cigarettes; and/or
- Reversing the decline in smokers quitting through NHS Stop Smoking services, which decreased to 40,000 in 2016 from a peak of 100,000 in 2011; and/or
- Finding other new and effective ways to persuade smokers to quit.’
The report is at: http://www.frontier-economics.com/documents/2017/11/frontier-report_working-towards-smoke-free-england_nov-2017.pdf
November 9, 2017
Vaping goes mainstream
In embracing electronic cigarettes for the first time, England’s ‘Stoptober’ campaign is signaling that vaping is the key to getting people to quit smoking, according to a story by Nick Triggle for BBC Online.
Launched in 2012 and held during October annually ever since, Stoptober is a 28-day stop-smoking campaign by Public Health England (PHE) that encourages and supports smokers across England to quit their habit.
This year, for the first time, the government’s Stoptober campaign will feature vaping in its television information slots.
The decision to feature vaping was made after e-cigarettes proved to be the most popular tool for quitting during last year’s campaign.
Some 53 percent of people used them, helping push the numbers of people taking part in Stoptober since its launch to more than 1.5 million.
In welcoming the campaign development, a spokesperson for the UK Vaping Industry Association said in a written statement that PHE’s commitment to encourage smokers to switch to vaping in Stoptober was hugely significant to the nation’s health.
‘The government’s Tobacco Control Plan set out their intentions to promote vaping as a viable alternative to smoking and it is encouraging to see that this was more than just warm words,’ the spokesperson said.
‘It feels that at last the tide is beginning to turn; the UK is leading the way on vaping as an effective tool to reduce and stop smoking related disease.
‘As an industry, we have consistently called for recognition of the public health potential of vaping on the back of mounting evidence from respected organisations such as Public Health England, Cancer Research UK, the Royal College of Physicians.
‘The Scottish health authorities also seem to be following the same logic. We call on the Welsh Government to make the same commitment, which was notably absent from their recent Tobacco Control Strategy.’
Meanwhile, Triggle reported that whereas e-cigarettes were not yet officially prescribed on the National Health Service, doctors and other health professionals were being encouraged to advise smokers who wanted to use them that they were a ‘better alternative to smoking’.
Government experts behind the Stoptober campaign had been encouraged by newly released research suggesting record numbers of quit attempts were proving successful.
University College London researchers had found 20 percent of attempts were successful in the first six months of 2017, compared with an average of 16 percent during the previous 10 years.
Triggle’s full report is at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-41339790.
September 22, 2017
Understanding vaping
The Global Forum on Nicotine is organising a series of public dialogues in Ireland and England under the title ‘Understanding Vaping’.
The dialogues are described as being free-to-attend, short, focussed events designed to enable interactive discussion and debate.
They are due to be held on October 24, October 31 and November 2. Each will start at 14:00 and end by 17:00.
The dialogues are aimed at tackling a range of issues surrounding the increasing use of nicotine products, including electronic cigarettes, whose use is less risky than is that of traditional tobacco cigarettes and that provide a viable alternative to smoking.
They are aimed also at involving public health professionals, academics and scientists, policy makers, consumers, the owners and managers of premises, and members of the public.
The first dialogue in this series is scheduled to be held on October 24 in Dublin, Ireland. It will be hosted by the Irish Vape Vendors Association and will include:
- Gillian Golden (Irish Vape Vendors Association, Ireland);
- Professor David Sweanor (University of Ottawa, Canada);
- Dr Dominic Rowley (Health STI Clinic, Ireland); and
- Martin Dockrell (Public Health England, UK).
The second dialogue is scheduled to be held on October 31 in London, England. It will be hosted by the London Drug and Alcohol Policy Forum and will include:
- Dr Penelope Bevan CBE (director, Public Health for the City of London, UK), who will chair the session;
- Helen Redmond (Silver School of Social Work, New York University, USA); and
- Louise Ross (Leicester Stop Smoking Service, UK).
The third dialogue is scheduled to be held on November 2 in Durham, England. It will be hosted by Vapourtrails TV and will include:
- David Dorn (New Nicotine Alliance and VTTV, UK);
- Jacques le Houezec (president, #SOVAPE, France); and
- Professor Gerry Stimson (programme director of the Global Forum on Nicotine).
Information on the dialogues is at: https://gfn.net.co/dialogues/autumn2017.
September 21, 2017
Poor dying too soon
People living in the most deprived parts of England and Wales are more than twice as likely to succumb to avoidable deaths than are those living in the most well-off areas, according to a story by May Bulman for The Independent citing new statistics.
Smoking is said to be a likely contributor to the higher rates of avoidable deaths in deprived regions.
Bulman said that figures collated by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) showed that in areas with the highest levels of social deprivation there were 18,794 deaths from causes that were considered avoidable, compared with 7,756 in the least-deprived areas. It was not clear what period these figures referred to.
The ONS report comes four years after Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said there was “shocking” local variation in ‘early death rates’ which could “not continue unchecked”.
But the new figures appear to indicate that social deprivation is still closely linked to deaths that could have been avoided with timely and effective public health interventions.
September 1, 2017
Discussing vaping locally
The organisers of the Global Forum on Nicotine are due to stage later this year three local dialogues; one in Ireland and two in England.
Earlier this year they held two dialogues in England and one in Scotland (https://gfn.net.co//dialogues-archive/2017-spring/videos).
The organisers say that the headline topic for the new series of dialogues is ‘Understanding Vaping’, though in each location the topic will be approached from a different angle.
The dialogues are to be held on:
- October 24, at the O’Callaghan Davenport Hotel, 8-10 Merrion Street Lower, Dublin, Ireland;
- October 31, in the Marketing Suite, the Guildhall, Basinghall Street, City of London, England; and
- November 2, at Crook Hall & Gardens, Frankland Lane, Sidegate, Durham, England.
All the events will start at 14.00 and end by 17.00.
They are free to attend, though registration is required at: https://gfn.net.co/dialogues/register.
Further information is available at: https://gfn.net.co/dialogues.
July 20, 2017
Fake cigarettes on Facebook
Photo by Jason A. Howie
Counterfeit cigarettes and tobacco are being advertised and sold through Facebook, according to a BBC online story.
Counterfeit products are reportedly being sold by people using fake profiles on buy and sell pages for the south-east of England.
Facebook was quoted as saying that content in breach of its commerce policy was always removed, but ‘cut-price’ tobacco and cigarettes are said to be being sold through the social media site’s Marketplace pages.
Undercover reporters were said to have arranged to meet a seller in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, and purchased items marketed as Mayfair cigarettes and Amber Leaf rolling tobacco.
When analysed, these products were found to contain double the lead content and a third more cadmium than did genuine products. Both of these are toxic metals that can cause damage to the liver, kidneys and brain.
Jon Griffin, analyst at Kent Scientific Services, was quoted as saying that human beings were not good at getting rid of contaminants.
“So the likelihood is you are going to be taking in more of those contaminant metals and they will remain in your system in organs, in the brain, in other organs in the body and you will not get rid of them,” he said.
“Over a period of time there’s a bigger potential health risk.”
April 3, 2017
Pregnant testing initiative
Photo by Showbits
England’s public health chief is urging hospitals to give every pregnant woman a carbon monoxide test to check whether she smokes, according to a story in The Guardian.
Duncan Selbie wants midwives and nurses routinely to screen mothers-to-be when their pregnancy is first “booked”, monitor them at all their antenatal appointments and support those who want to quit.
The initiative is part of a National Health Service (NHS)-wide drive to persuade patients to quit the habit.
Under the plan, hospitals would ban smoking shelters used by staff and patients, hand out nicotine gum and patches, and include helping smokers to quit in patients’ Public Health England’s treatment plans. Doctors and nurses would use their conversations with patients to advise them how to give up tobacco or encourage them to switch to electronic cigarettes instead.
“This isn’t about scaring or hectoring people,” said Selbie. “It’s about making people aware that if they want to give up, NHS staff can help them. The evidence shows that if someone is helped to quit, they are four times more likely to succeed than if they do it on their own.”
The Royal College of Midwives (RCM) backed carbon monoxide testing for expectant mothers if they had the right to refuse to undergo it.
“The RCM is supportive of pregnant women being offered carbon monoxide testing at a time when it is appropriate to do so,” said Janet Fyle, the RCM’s professional policy adviser. “Depending on the circumstances, it could be at the initial antenatal booking or during subsequent antenatal visits. Women should have the ability to decline testing as with any other area of antenatal screening.”

February 28, 2017