Tobacco.org

Dangers of Third Hand Smoke 

Arkansas is a relatively small state compared to the rest of the country, but in terms of tobacco use, we rank tenth, with 20% of high school students who smoke and 22% of adults who smoke.

"Both of those rates have been coming down, but obviously we have a long way to go," Dr. Carolyn Dresler with the Arkansas Department of Health said.

According to the health department, smoking puts a big toll financially on the state. The annual health care costs in Arkansas directly caused by smoking is $812 million. $242 million of that is covered by Medicaid. Arkansans are paying 564 dollars per household for the state and federal tax burden from smoking caused government costs, and the productivity lost from smoking in Arkansas is over one billion dollars.

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Smuggling of alcohol and tobacco into UK costing £5.5bn  

One in eight bottles of spirits consumed over Christmas and one in six cigarettes smoked are likely to have been smuggled into the UK, figures in the annual estimate of revenue lost by customs suggest.

The latest report by Revenue and Customs (HMRC) puts the maximum amount lost from smuggled alcohol, cigarettes, hand-rolled tobacco and petrol at nearly £5.5bn. The share of smuggled alcohol has increased over the past year, from one in 10 to one in eight bottles. The trade in illegal cigarettes also went up. The government has been at pains to clamp down on the smuggling of cheap cigarettes, amid reports that poorer smokers are more likely to quit if prices increase. In October a report published in the British Medical Journal said that cheap cigarettes and other tobacco products smuggled into Britain caused 4,000 premature deaths, four times the number from illegal drugs. The study by Prof Robert West found that if smuggling were stopped, tobacco prices would rise by about 12%. A price increase would encourage over 5% of smokers to stop smoking, his report added.

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In Atlantic City, No Longer Is All That Glitters Golden  

As go the casinos, so go the city’s fortunes. A smoking ban imposed by the City Council illustrates the symbiotic relationship.

The Council passed a ban that would have extended the existing prohibition on smoking from 75 percent to 100 percent of the casino floors, allowing smoking only in sealed-off lounges where gambling was not permitted. But after the casino industry — and some of the very employees the ban was meant to protect — loudly complained that the ban would make them lose business, the Council voted to postpone a total ban at least for a year.

“This is not the time to play around with those kind of dynamics,” said Robert McDevitt, president of Unite-Here Local 54, which represents hotel, food and beverage workers, some of whom feared a ban would cost jobs.

During the debate on the ban, some workers wore orange T-shirts that read, “I don’t want to work in an ashtray”; others wore red T-shirts that read, “I don’t want to work in an ashtray, but I want to work.”

The casino industry is being hit by what many are calling the perfect storm: a national recession just as competition from slot parlors in Pennsylvania and New York has heightened.

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ENGEL: Outside Edge: How our pubs have run out of puff 

The more laws governments pass, the more they are subject to the oldest law of all: the law of unintended consequences. And smoking bans are having bizarre consequences across the world. . . .

In Britain, where smoking in enclosed public places became totally illegal in 2007, beer sales are down by 10 per cent; analysts attribute half of that to the smoking law. Pubs are now closing at a record rate of 36 a week. . . .

There are similar reports from Ireland, where the broadcaster Gerry Anderson said bars now had the atmosphere of a dentist’s waiting room. In France, more than 500 of the 40,000 cafés and bars disappeared last year. Again, the ban is largely blamed. And in France, the climate is more conducive to sitting outside with a Ricard and a Gauloise.

Latest figures suggest there has been no effect at all on tobacco consumption in Britain or Ireland. And anecdotal evidence is that kids are now staying out of pubs, heading for any open spaces they can find, getting bladdered on cheap supermarket lager and smoking their heads off.

When the ban came in, all the non-smokers twittered about how they could now safely visit all the lovely smoke-free pubs. And did they? Did they heck!

I hardly ever smoked in pubs myself. Nor does anyone else now. They do not drink in them either. Brilliant.

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• Year-old smoking ban still irks Ill. casinos, bars 

In the year since the new law kicked in, many bar owners say they've lost business, while casinos blame a drop in business on the ban and local governments that depend on gambling-tax revenue say they're sharing in the pain.

But the complaints aren't universal. Some bar owners say they've survived and even thrived since the ban, and organizations that pushed for it say the first year has been a success.

"I think it went exceptionally well," said Kathy Drea, the director of public policy for the American Lung Association. "We've heard from so many people that are now working in smoke-free work places and what a difference it's made in their lives. They just feel better."

Effective Jan. 1, 2008, the measure outlawed smoking in public places and within 15 feet of their exterior doors and windows. People and establishments that violate the law face fines of up to $250.

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• Cancer is on the increase in Australia 

According to the latest information cancer is on the increase in Australia.

In a report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare on cancer statistics for 2008 new cancer cases are expected to increase by over 3,000 cases per year.

The report shows that the number of new cancer cases diagnosed in Australia each year passed the 100,000 mark for the first time in 2005 and the number of new cases in 2008 is estimated to be over 108,000.

The report, Cancer in Australia 2008, has revealed that the major impact cancer has already had on the health system is all set to continue and the number of cancer-related hospital admissions is projected to rise by over 23,000 per year in the short term. . . .

The AIHW report also shows that Tasmania has some of the highest cancer rates in the country with an annual average of 433 cases per 100,000 people and lung cancer is overtaking breast cancer as a killer of Tasmanian women - Tasmania continues to have, high rates of smoking and the Cancer Council says the figures are alarming.

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• Foreign 'soota' may be fuelling terror  

Beware: your foreign cigarette puff may be lighting up terrorism, proving it to be injurious to the country's health too.

Yes, the profits from genuine as well as cheap fake smuggled cigarettes of popular foreign brands are now under suspicion of funding terrorism in India.

Such cigarettes are coming into this country from Bangladesh, Myanmar, Korea and China. Popular brands like 555, Marlboro and Benson and Hedges are easily available at panwalla shops in every city.

A warning has been sounded by the American security agencies stating that the profits from cigarette smuggling in the USA are funding terrorist entities abroad such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and Al-Qaida.

Although prepared for a different purpose, India's top business body - Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry in India (ASSOCHAM) - in a report 'Combating counterfeiting - brand protection', released earlier this year, gives a definitive estimate of the huge funds generated through smuggled tobacco. . . .

After the November 26-29 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, Indian spying and counter-terrorism agencies have started looking at various channels from where terror money is flowing into the terrorism market. The smuggling of foreign cigarettes' has come on their radar.

They are trying to calculate how much money generated through this smuggling network is finding its way to terrorism activities in India.

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Effect of the California Tobacco Control Program on Personal Health Care Expenditures 

Background

Large state tobacco control programs have been shown to reduce smoking and would be expected to affect health care costs. We investigate the effect of California's large-scale tobacco control program on aggregate personal health care expenditures in the state.

Methods and Findings

Cointegrating regressions were used to predict (1) the difference in per capita cigarette consumption between California and 38 control states as a function of the difference in cumulative expenditures of the California and control state tobacco control programs, and (2) the relationship between the difference in cigarette consumption and the difference in per capita personal health expenditures between the control states and California between 1980 and 2004. Between 1989 (when it started) and 2004, the California program was associated with $86 billion (2004 US dollars) (95% confidence interval [CI] $28 billion to $151 billion) lower health care expenditures than would have been expected without the program. This reduction grew over time, reaching 7.3% (95% CI 2.7%–12.1%) of total health care expenditures in 2004.

Conclusions

A strong tobacco control program is not only associated with reduced smoking, but also with reductions in health care expenditures.

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LEE: Tobacco Control Yields Clear Dividends for Health and Wealth 

This Perspective discusses the following new study published in PLoS Medicine:

Lightwood JM, Dinno A, Glantz SA (2008) Effect of the California Tobacco Control Program on personal health care expenditures. PLoS Med 5(8): e178. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0050178

Stanton Glantz and colleagues find that the California state tobacco control program is associated not only with reduced smoking, but with reductions in health care costs as well. . . .

As well as challenging industry claims that tobacco is a necessary economic evil, therefore, Glantz and colleagues raise questions about the spending priorities of governments on public health. As tobacco is the leading cause of premature death and disease, responsible for 5.4 million deaths each year [9], it is an anachronism that tobacco control programmes still remain among the most poorly funded. Donor agencies are equally culpable. While the FCTC pushed tobacco control far higher on national and global policy agendas than ever before, concrete commitments to implement the wide-ranging provisions of the treaty have been disappointingly lacklustre. Implementation, especially in low- and middle-income countries, remains handicapped by a lack of resources. As the tobacco industry itself has become fond of arguing, low- and middle-income countries have other priorities, such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, which demand the immediate attention of policy makers. Most political systems remain more attuned to acute rather than longer-term needs, even if the latter eventually cause greater burdens of death and disease. Yet, as this new research by Glantz and colleagues shows, substantial returns are both immediate and long-term. The announcement in July of New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg's Global Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use, which includes a combined commitment of US$500 million to “help governments in developing countries implement proven policies and increase funding for tobacco control” [11], is an important step in correcting the longstanding imbalance in costs and benefits from tobacco use. Funding of this magnitude, as Glantz and colleagues demonstrate, can be a sound investment that rapidly and significantly reduces health care expenditure and saves valuable human lives.

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Casinos get burned by smoking ban this year 

While casino workers can now breathe smoke-free air at work, the year-old indoor smoking ban in Illinois has been measurably tough on the state’s riverboats.

That means attempts to allow gamblers smoke at the slots and gambling tables probably won’t die with 2008.

All year, monthly reports from the Illinois Gaming Board showed a sharp decline in the amount the state’s gamblers were putting on the line at casinos. So far this year, the state’s boats have seen about a 20 percent drop.

Surely, some of that decline can be seen because of the country’s economic recession.

But gambling hasn’t fallen as sharply in casinos in states that border Illinois.

“The only other thing is smoking,” said Tom Swoik, executive director of the Illinois Casino Gaming Association.

Early this year, the casino industry and some lawmakers pushed to have Illinois riverboats exempted from the indoor smoking ban. Those efforts failed, but they are not unprecedented.

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A real pain 

SMOKING dates back to the year 2,000BC. Through the centuries, people from all walks of life have succumbed to the addictive nature of tobacco. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), in the 21st century alone, tobacco is expected to kill one billion people globally whilst its consumption is on the rise in developing countries.

"Smoking has often been wrongly depicted as 'cool', 'fashionable', 'trendy' and in certain societies, it is part of the social norm," said Dr Zarihah Mohd Zain, a 16-year veteran epidemiologist who specialises in smoking-related issues. "In actual fact, smoking is the leading cause of preventable death. The health consequences of smoking are two-fold. First, the smoker rapidly becomes dependant on nicotine. The addictive properties of nicotine are well documented but are often underestimated by the consumer.

"Secondly, smoking causes fatal and disabling disease . . .

Dr Zarihah stressed the importance of getting help and encouragement of family members and friends while trying to quit smoking. It has been proven that a combination of medication and a support programme increases the chances of quitting smoking, therefore reducing the chances of the vicious cycle of relapsing.

The health benefits of quitting smoking are many-fold.

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Last orders: calling time on pubs? 

Pubs have played an important role in British life over the centuries. So much so that Britain without its public houses is hard to imagine.

But the local boozer is under attack from all sides with five closing every day.

By 2012, it is estimated that one in eight of our licensed premises will have gone under, and that and more than 4,000 will disappear in the next two years. . . .

Then there is the smoking ban, which has resulted in a dip in trade for many pubs, while the poor weather this summer also struck a blow to the business.

There is no one reason why times are tough for publicans.

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LETTER: FOCUS ON/Dec. 19: Tobacco money can save Texas money  

Thanks to the Star-Telegram for the editorial regarding anti-smoking programs. Tobacco use continues to be the No. 1 cause of preventable death in the United States. Significantly reducing tobacco use is a worthy health goal. (See: "Anti-smoking programs," Dec. 12)

As Commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) (from 2004 to 2006), I oversaw some of the state's tobacco control programs and want to offer additional points to ponder.

The Texas tobacco control initiative that operates in six areas of the state is based on the Southeast Texas program that you cited. That program was very effective in reducing tobacco use in youth and adults for only $3 per capita -- about 25 percent of the amount recommended by the Centers for Disease Control. . . .

The net return, $1 billion minus $345 million ($69 million times 5), would be a $655 million reduction in medical costs.

Talk about reducing tobacco's terrible toll on children, families and communities -- health impact. Talk about offsetting costs of caring for indigent patients -- cost effectiveness.

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Casino Owners Say Limiting Smoking Sections Is Hurting Business 

The owners of Pennsylvania's casinos say limiting smoking is hurting business, so they're appealing to state officials to expand the size of their smoking sections.

Before September 11th, smokers like Erika Johnson, could light up wherever they wanted while trying their luck at places like the Meadows Race Track and Casino.

But that all changed when the Clean Indoor Air Act went into effect - limiting smokers to 25-percent of the gaming floor.

"I like coming and being entertained and of course enjoy smoking as well," said Johnson.

According to the Act, after 90 days the casino can request a report from the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue showing the Gross Terminal Revenue difference between smoking and non smoking sections.

The Meadows Casino already has that data and has already filed for expansion.

"We submitted an exemption yesterday as our smoking games showed double the revenue than our non-smoking games," said Meadows Race Track and Casino Director of Marketing Jamie John.

If approved, smoking space at the Meadows could increase up to 50%.

But the news isn't sitting well with the American Cancer Society.

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• Economists call for higher tobacco tax 

A new report "Tobacco Tax and Its Potential Influence on China", launched at a press conference in Beijing on December 15, calls for a substantial increase in tobacco taxes in order to cut the number of smokers.

The report's authors are Professor Teh-wei Hu of the University of California at Berkeley, Professor Mao Zhengzhong of Sichuan University, Shi Jian, vice director of the Theoretical Research Institute of the State Administration of Taxation (SAT), and Chen Wendong, also of SAT.

Every year 1 million of China's 350 million smokers die from tobacco-related illnesses and the number is expected to increase to 2 million by 2020. Economic losses from smoking amount to 186 billion yuan every year or 1.9 percent of GDP.

A one-yuan increase in duty on a pack of cigarettes would save 2.7 billion yuan in medical costs. Furthermore with people taking less time off work, 9.92 billion yuan of additional revenue would be produced.

The report says China's 40 percent tobacco tax is much lower than the international standard of 65 percent.

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