Tobacco.org

Only 60% of smokers aware they are addicts: Pfizer poll  

Seventy-one percent of smokers are nicotine addicts requiring medical treatment, but only 60 percent of them are aware of their addiction, according to a recent survey by Pfizer Japan Inc., a major drug manufacturer based in Tokyo.

The survey found that by prefecture, the percentage of smokers aware of their nicotine addiction was highest in Osaka at 79 percent, while it was lowest in Tokushima at 49 percent.

The online survey of 9,400 smokers -- 100 men and 100 women in each of the 47 prefectures -- was conducted prior to World No Tobacco Day on May 31.

Jump to full article »

Spousal and Alcohol-Related Predictors of Smoking Cessation: A Longitudinal Study in a Community Sample of Married Couples  

We investigated the longitudinal influence of spousal and individual heavy drinking and heavy smoking on smoking cessation among married couples. Couples' (N=634) past-year smoking, alcohol problems, and heavy drinking were assessed. We used an event history analysis and found that spousal and one's own heavy smoking and one's own heavy drinking decreased the likelihood of smoking cessation. Heavy drinking and spousal behavior should be considered when developing public health interventions and policies for smoking cessation.

Jump to full article »

• Letters - Read the Warning, Light a Cigarette?  

Buyology by Martin Lindstrom 

Cigarette Health Warnings Stimulate Smoking. While it's accepted wisdom that printing health warnings on tobacco product packages doesn't have much of an impact on smoking behavior, the researchers found that the warnings had no effect at all on the cravings of smokers. This applied not only to the rather subtle messages on US packaging, but even packages that included bold text and gruesome disease photos. None, zero, nada. Even worse, they found that the health warnings stimulated the subjects' nucleus accumbens, an area associated with cravings! The researchers concluded that the warnings not only didn't help, but triggered a stronger craving. The very warnings intended to reduce smoking might well be an effective marketing tool for Big Tobacco! . . .

Do Cigarette Warning Labels Drive Us To Smoke More? 

Buy-ology - Truth and Lies About Why We Buy, the new book by ad-industry pundit Martin Lindstrom, reports the findings of a three-year, $7 million neuromarketing study. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electronencephalography (EEG) technologies, researchers studied 2,000 people from five countries in an attempt to unlock the triggers behind consumer behavior.

The study’s goals included evaluating the effectiveness of product warning labels and product placement. A major finding was the extent to which consumers are driven more by subconscious motivations than conscious ones.

When people were asked if they thought the warning labels on cigarette packs worked, they almost all said “yes”. But when they were asked this question while their brain activity was being studied using fMRI technology, “craving spots” lit up indicating that the warning labels made the smokers want to smoke.

In a separate study, researchers discovered that anti-smoking ads had the same effect on study participants. Despite what people said they thought about the effectiveness of anti-smoking ads and warnings, their brains showed the materials acted as craving triggers instead.

These results are astounding. Those of us who have been gripped by the smoking addiction already know how irrational the urge to smoke can seem. No matter how much we say we want to quit, and how badly we really do want to quit, we find ourselves relapsing again and again. We feel helpless against our cravings.

Jump to full article »

LINDSTROM: Inhaling Fear  

To reduce this cost, the incoming Obama administration should abandon one antismoking strategy that isn't working.

A key component of the Food and Drug Administration's approach to smoking prevention is to warn about health dangers . . .

A brain-imaging experiment I conducted in 2006 explains why antismoking scare tactics have been so futile. I examined people's brain activity as they reacted to cigarette warning labels by using functional magnetic resonance imaging, a scanning technique that can show how much oxygen and glucose a particular area of the brain uses while it works, allowing us to observe which specific regions are active at any given time. . . .

We found that the warnings prompted no blood flow to the amygdala, the part of the brain that registers alarm, or to the part of the cortex that would be involved in any effort to register disapproval.

To the contrary, the warning labels backfired: they stimulated the nucleus accumbens, sometimes called the "craving spot," which lights up on f.M.R.I. whenever a person craves something, whether it's alcohol, drugs, tobacco or gambling.

Further investigation is needed, but our study has already revealed an unintended consequence of antismoking health warnings. They appear to work mainly as a marketing tool to keep smokers smoking.

Jump to full article »

• HORLEY: Could genes be a licence to smoke?  

Yet now the revolution in genetic science offers the chance to have treatments tailored to our personal DNA, and could soon identify those at least and greatest risk of certain diseases, such as smoking-related lung cancer. The consequences are not entirely benign, however; one leading oncologist goes so far as to claim that the tobacco industry could use such techniques to engineer a resurgence in smoking, and that it is just a matter of time before it succeeds in doing so.

The story starts eight years ago, when the 25,000 or so genes in human DNA were first identified by the Human Genome Project. . . .

The self-evident place to start would have been the genes known to metabolise tobacco, but as that has not yet borne fruit, the search will have to be broadened. "They will have to study the entire genome of large groups of people, which could take them five years. But the end result could be a gene-testing kit cheap enough to give as an 18th birthday present, so your children can find out how safe it is for them to start smoking."

The reason this would make sense for the tobacco companies is that, while the Government likes to tell smokers to quit or die, at least 80 per cent of them do not get lung cancer, and the precise mechanisms that link smoking and cancer are not well understood. . . .

Of course, the tobacco industry will never be able to claim outright that smoking could be made safe. Since 1998, when it was forced by a US court to cough up a quarter of a trillion dollars for the treatment of smoking-related diseases, it has been choosing its words carefully. Yet Dr David O'Reilly, the head of public health and scientific affairs at British American Tobacco, still foresees a day when BAT might sell a cigarette no more harmful than going out in the sun. . . .

In other words, just as we are now seeing personalised drugs tailored to our DNA in order to cure cancer, we can look forward to personalised cigarettes to help us avoid it.

Jump to full article »

First Of Thousands Of Florida Smoker Lawsuits Since Engle Underway 

Whether or not Hess was actually addicted to cigarettes will be the key to the case that his widow is bringing against Benson & Hedges (owned by Philip Morris), the cigarettes Hess preferred to smoke. The tobacco company says he was not addicted and could have stopped smoking at any time, according to the Miami Herald. . . .

There is no doubt that Big Tobacco companies will try to discredit the smokers who are now forced to file individual cases. Tobacco companies will try to prove that these individuals, many of them deceased a) that they weren't truly addicted and b) they were responsible for their own death.

Expect it to get uglier here before the families who are living without their loved ones see any remedy through the courts. The Hess case will be watched by many, including our law firm.

Jump to full article »

First of many tobacco trials begins in Broward County 

He grew up in Brooklyn and started smoking at 15, back when cigarettes were cool, celebrities lit up on black-and-white TV and even doctors promoted the virtues of competing brands. America loved its tobacco in the 1950s, and Stuart Hess was no exception.

Hess, who eventually settled with his family in Cooper City, didn't know then that the Benson & Hedges he puffed by the pack were deadly, and cigarette makers did their best to make sure the public never found out.

That's what lawyers for Hess' widow and Phillip Morris agreed on Wednesday during opening statements in a groundbreaking wrongful death lawsuit, the first of as many as 6,000 statewide potentially worth $100 billion or more. The tobacco company also conceded cigarettes can be addictive, cause lung cancer and Hess died of lung cancer caused by four decades of smoking. He was 55 when he died in 1997. . . .

Philip Morris attorney Kenneth Reilly has the difficult task of proving the company's own statistics don't apply to Hess, who smoked one to three packs per day. The records show Hess made some attempts to quit -- sometimes with short-term success -- but never stuck with any of the programs he tried, Reilly argued.

Reilly contends Hess smoked because he decided to, just as he decided to eat too much, exercise too little and ignore doctors' advice to curtail drinking and take medication. "The issues are, is Mr. Hess really addicted or is he just conflicted?" Reilly said. "This is not to criticize, this is just how he lived his life."

Jump to full article »

• First Florida tobacco trial begins in Broward 

Philip Morris, defending a lawsuit brought by the Cooper City widow of a chain smoker who smoked most of his life before dying of lung cancer, disputed allegations that he was addicted to cigarettes and therefore couldn't stop smoking.

In opening arguments of a closely watched trial, the first to be heard of about 8,000 cases filed in Florida against tobacco companies, Philip Morris lawyer Kenneth Reilly said Stuart Hess did not meet the criteria of someone who was nicotine dependent.

''There's no question that Mr. Hess smoked for a long time and a lot of cigarettes,'' Reilly told a Broward jury Wednesday. ``That doesn't mean you are nicotine dependent or addicted.''

Hess, Reilly said, had numerous chances to quit smoking but simply chose not to stop.

A lawyer for Elaine Hess claimed her husband's death was directly attributable to his addiction to cigarettes containing nicotine. Stuart Hess, who owned a locksmith businesses, began smoking as a teenager and smoked until his death at age 55 in 1997. He mostly puffed Benson & Hedges made by Philip Morris, the largest cigarette maker in the country.

'Philip Morris' cigarettes killed Stuart Hess,'' said Adam Trop, Elaine Hess' lawyer. ``Those cigarettes caused cancer to form in his lung, invade the rest of his body and take his life.'

Jump to full article »

First Of 8,000 Florida Tobacco Lawsuits Begins 

A lawsuit by the widow of a Cooper City man who smoked up to 40 cigarettes a day for 40 years, is underway - the first of 8,000 similar lawsuits to be heard in Florida against Big Tobacco.

Thousands of individual lawsuits were allowed to move forward after the Florida Supreme Court in 2006 decertified a massive $145 billion class-action verdict.

Stuart Hess died of lung cancer at the age of 55 in 1997. His widow, Elaine, says Stuart tried to quit smoking. He tried Nicorette gum and hypnosis. He tried to quit cold turkey. Nothing worked.

Whether or not Hess was actually addicted to cigarettes will be the key to the case. Benson & Hedges (owned by Philip Morris), the cigarettes Hess preferred, says he was not addicted and could have stopped smoking at any time, according to the Miami Herald.

Lawyers for Hess must first prove he was addicted to cigarettes and that they caused his lung cancer. If they fail, the case goes away.

If they succeed, the jury can listen to key findings already established against the tobacco industry in the class-action Engle case before it was decertified.

Jump to full article »

Smoking Drug To Help Drinkers Too  

Researchers have discovered Champix cut the drinking of alcohol-dependent rats by half with a single dose.

And now clinical trials on humans have shown similar results.

Addiction experts at The Priory in Roehampton will now try the drug out on patients with alcohol dependency.

It will be the first time a drug of this type has been used to treat alcohol and nicotine addiction.

Consultant psychiatrist Dr Mark Collins, the priory's head of addiction services, said the development was "very interesting".

But he warned against branding the product a "wonder drug".

Jump to full article »

• Genetic Link to Likely Tobacco Addiction Identified 

Scientists say they have pinpointed a genetic link that makes people more likely to get hooked on tobacco, causing them to smoke more cigarettes, making it harder to quit, and leading more often to deadly lung cancer.

The discovery by three separate teams of scientists makes the strongest case so far for the biological underpinnings of the addiction of smoking and sheds light on how genetics and cigarettes join forces to cause cancer, experts said. The findings also lay the groundwork for more tailored quit-smoking treatments. . . .

The three studies, funded by governments in the U.S. and Europe, is being published Thursday in the journals Nature and Nature Genetics.

Jump to full article »

• Smoking Drug To Help Drinkers Too  

A controversial drug used by millions of people to stop smoking could become the first in the world to treat heavy drinkers too, Sky News has learned.

Researchers hoping smoking drug can treat drinkers too

Researchers have discovered Champix cut the drinking of alcohol-dependent rats by half with a single dose.

And now clinical trials on humans have shown similar results.

Addiction experts at The Priory in Roehampton will now try the drug out on patients with alcohol dependency.

It will be the first time a drug of this type has been used to treat alcohol and nicotine addiction. . . .

A spokesman for Pfizer said: "Champix is only licensed for smoking cessation and we recommend at present that it should only be used in accordance with its license."

Jump to full article »

• CARPENTER-PALUMBO: To quit drugs or alcohol, it helps to quit smoking 

Anthony spent 11 years in recovery from drugs and alcohol before he relapsed. He blames his "pilot light," a smoking addiction, for his relapse. But last year when Anthony entered treatment, his tobacco addiction was treated, too. The "pilot light" went out.

Nine out of 10 people dealing with alcohol or drug addiction are smokers, compared with the general population of New York, where fewer than two out of 10 people smoke.

As one of 110,000 New Yorkers in treatment on any given day in New York, Anthony is an example of why New York is the first state to go tobacco-free at all addiction services facilities.

And now OASAS (New York State Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services) is able to report that since the tobacco-free requirement took effect last summer, we hear stories daily of individuals who have successfully treated their tobacco addiction due to this change. . . .

Studies available on the New York State Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Web site (http://www.oasas.state.ny.us/tobacco/index.cfm) include results such as:

* Smoking cessation increases the likelihood of long-term abstinence from alcohol and drugs. . . .

As overseer of one of the nation's largest addiction services systems with more than 1,550 programs, it is the responsibility of OASAS to address this critical health issue.

To prepare for the new regulation's implementation, OASAS provided training to 10,000 members of the addictions work force of 35,000 paid and volunteer staff. That collaboration and education continues with the help of funding provided under Gov. David Paterson's leadership. . . .

--Carpenter-Palumbo is commissioner, New York State Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services.

Jump to full article »