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Wednesday, December 01, 2004
Tobacco laws unconstitutional, Que. court hears
Canadian Press
MONTREAL— A federal law that bans tobacco sponsorship, restricts advertising and requires large warnings on cigarette packs is unconstitutional, lawyers for Canada's three largest tobacco companies argued Monday.
Imperial Tobacco Canada Limited, Rothmans, Benson & Hedges Inc. and JTI-Macdonald Corp. began five days of hearings on an appeal of a Quebec Superior Court decision upholding the 1997 federal Tobacco Act.
The companies argued the law which prohibits lifestyle advertising effectively constitutes a total ban on advertising, something the Supreme Court of Canada ruled was unconstitutional in 1995.
The industry isn't asking for "unlimited freedom of advertising of tobacco products,'' lawyer Simon Potter said outside the courtroom.
"But there should be a small window, there should be some possibility for Canadians to receive advertising about products that they have a right to buy,'' said Potter, who's representing Imperial Tobacco.
The companies said a 2002 Quebec Superior Court ruling upholding the federal law failed to address several key constitutional issues and contained numerous factual errors.
The federal government, the Canadian Cancer Society and anti-tobacco advocates said they'll argue the law is constitutionally valid.
"The law permits informative advertising and brand preference, and that's the question that the court will have to answer,'' said government lawyer Claude Joyal.
Rob Cunningham, lawyer for the cancer society, said while the restrictions on advertising and promotion infringe on freedom of expression, they're justified as a reasonable limit under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
"We believe that these laws are essential to protect public health in Canada, to reduce smoking among adults and among children,'' said Cunningham.
"And it's working.''
The youth smoking rate at 18 per cent is the lowest ever recorded. Smoking among adults has decreased to 21 per cent, compared with 30 per cent before these laws were enforced, he said.
Global efforts since Canada's law was enacted shows it's not out of step with the rest of the world, added Cunningham.
"There are many countries that have laws stronger than Canada and even more will join that category.''
Since May 2003, 168 countries have signed a World Health Organization agreement that once enacted would set international standards on tobacco price, tax increases, advertising, sponsorship, labelling and second-hand smoke.
The European Union, Thailand, Japan, Mexico and Australia are among 36 countries that have ratified the framework agreement that includes requirements for picture-based package warning.
Canada has not ratified the agreement that takes effect once 40 countries have ratified it. However, Canada requires that warnings such as pictures of diseased lungs occupy half the space on cigarette packages.
Australia requires 60 per cent of the package to contain warnings. Belgium's ratio is 56 per cent.
The Quebec Court of Appeal can only review evidence and pleadings introduced to the lower court prior to its ruling in 2002.
Despite the changes since then, Canada remains the most highly regulated countries in the world on tobacco advertising, said Christina Dona, an Imperial Canada spokeswoman.
"We still don't feel that the World Health Organization is talking about infringing rights, they're just calling for restrictions on advertising that we fully agree with,'' she said.
"We're just looking for a law that will allow us in some way to communicate with adult consumers in a way that is deemed appropriate.'
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1101765563257_11/?hub=Canada
Manitoba bar owners want province's help with economic fallout of smoking ban
Steve Lambert Monday, November 29, 2004
WINNIPEG (CP) -- Manitoba bar owners want more help to deal with the economic fallout of the province's new smoking ban, but the government said Monday it has already done what it can.
"I think we've done lots," Industry Minister Jim Rondeau said.
"We've put what we can right now on the table. And what we want to do is listen to see how the businesses can adapt."
The anti-smoking law took effect Oct. 1 and bans puffing in all enclosed public places expect for native reserves and areas under federal jurisdiction. Bar owners say they have lost business since the law came in.
The Manitoba Hotel Association, which represents hundreds of bars across the province, has been pushing for changes that could allow its members to take in more money.
One idea is to allow beverage rooms, which are currently not permitted to allow minors, to open for family-friendly community events off-hours.
Another proposal would see cold beer stores located in hotels no longer barred from selling non-beer products.
"For example, the vodka coolers, we aren't able to sell them," said association president Jim Baker. "They're only available at the government stores, so we would like to have them too."
But Rondeau said the government has already taken several steps such as allowing bars to operate video lottery terminals on Sundays. The government has also allowed bars to offer more types of gaming -- all in an attempt to attract customers.
The government is seeing its own revenues shrink because of the smoking ban. Revenues at its two casinos in Winnipeg dropped by about 20 per cent in the months after the city enacted a municipal smoking bylaw last year.
Still, Rondeau is predicting a turnaround for both provincial and business coffers.
"All jurisdictions that have gone non-smoking, have within a very short period of time exceeded previous (sales).
"If you look at the stats in California, if you look at the stats in other places that have gone non-smoking, over the years the retail has increased."
About 45 rural bar owners have banded together to try to overturn the smoking ban. They have raised tens of thousands of dollars for court battles.
"(The government) is grossly interfering with people's businesses," said spokesman Gary Desrosiers.
"We're also looking at the inequality under the law between us and the native reserves. We have properties that are literally two or three miles from big bingo halls and gambling houses . . . where the customers can still go and smoke. And that's where they're going."
A handful of charges have already been laid under the smoking law. One restaurant owner was due in court Tuesday in Selkirk, north of Winnipeg, while the case of a Treherne hotelier has been postponed to Dec. 13.
Robert Jenkinson, owner Creekside Hideaway, was in Portage la Prairie court Monday to face 13 charges of violating the anti-smoking law. He was the first business owner charged under the new law.
Saskatchewan hotel owners are also worried about what will happen when that province's anti-smoking law takes effect Jan. 1
The Hotels Association of Saskatchewan met with three provincial cabinet ministers Monday to talk about the provincewide ban.
But Health Minister John Nilson said the government is not considering the association's idea of designated smoking rooms.
"The law is clear that it doesn't have a provision that would allow for designated smoking rooms," Nilson said.
http://www.canada.com/national/story.html?id=e8078353-2b76-40ec-a248-f759198a1d44
High Doses of Beta Carotene Pose Lingering Threats
By Kathleen Doheny HealthDay Reporter
TUESDAY, Nov. 30 (HealthDayNews) -- Twenty years ago, high doses of beta carotene were thought to have cancer-preventing power, and two large clinical trials were launched to determine if it might reduce lung cancer among cigarette smokers.
But the disease-fighting properties of beta carotene, a carotenoid which the body converts into vitamin A, fell far short, the studies found. One trial was even halted before its scheduled end because of the adverse effects of high doses of beta carotene supplement: it appeared to raise the risk of lung cancer, as well as death from heart disease and other causes.
Now, it appears that some of the adverse effects of high beta carotene doses can persist for women in particular, according to a study in the Dec. 1 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
For the new study, researchers followed up with the participants in one of the trials -- the Beta-Carotene and Retinol Efficacy Trial (CARET) for six years after it ended in 1996.
They found the increased risk of death from heart disease disappeared quickly after the participants -- all smokers or former smokers or persons with a history of asbestos exposure -- stopped taking the supplements. However, the incidence of lung cancer and deaths from all causes decreased but didn't disappear. And former smokers and women had higher risk of lung cancer than did others in the study.
"CARET stopped a year and a half early," said Mark D. Thornquist, a biostatistician at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, and a co-author of the new study. "Those who got the beta carotene [supplementation] had a higher incidence of lung cancer and overall mortality."
During the CARET study, the participants who took the supplement had a 28 percent greater incidence of lung cancer and 17 percent more deaths from all causes compared with those who didn't take the beta carotene. In the study, the beta carotene dose given was 30 milligrams a day, combined with 25,000 international units of retinyl palmitate, also thought to be a cancer fighter.
Thornquist and his colleagues followed the CARET trial participants to find out if the adverse effects of beta carotene went away as soon as people stopped taking the supplement.
The participants were contacted annually to update information on lung cancer and other health data, he said.
During this follow-up phase, women who took beta carotene were 1.3 times likelier to develop lung cancer than women who were on a placebo. They were also 1.4 times likelier to die of heart disease and 1.3 times likelier to die from all other causes.
"For men, the results of the vitamin went away within a year or so," Thornquist said. "In women, the effect appeared to be persistent."
Exactly why isn't known, he said, adding, "Men and women may have different abilities to repair DNA damage."
Hormonal differences may mean men and women metabolize beta carotene differently, he said. "Beta carotene tends to be stored in body fat, and women tend to have more body fat," he noted.
The results of the new study aren't surprising, said Anna Duffield-Lillico, an assistant attending epidemiologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, who co-authored an editorial accompanying the study. The fact that the risk of lung cancer and death was still elevated after use of the supplement was stopped "provides confirmation of the adverse effects of beta carotene supplements on lung cancer incidence in smokers."
High levels of beta carotene and exposure to cigarette smoke have proven a dangerous combination in animal studies, she said, leading to the rapid development of precancerous lesions.
The best advice, Duffield-Lillico and Thornquist agreed, is to avoid high doses of beta carotene. The CARET study's 30 milligrams a day is "about 10 times what you would get from a typical daily vitamin supplement," Thornquist said.
"We have no evidence that [the amount of beta carotene in] a typical multivitamin would be harmful," Thornquist added.
Beta carotene is found naturally in carrots, spinach and other dark-green leafy vegetables, broccoli and winter squash.
More information
To learn more about beta carotene, visit the National Library of Medicine
http://www.forbes.com/lifestyle/health/feeds/hscout/2004/11/30/hscout522623.html
Farmers await word on tobacco payments -KY
Companies say buyout ends deal
By Marcus Green The Courier-Journal
Tobacco farmers are awaiting an announcement from the U.S. Agriculture Department that could help decide whether they will get one last payment from the 1998 settlement between states and cigarette makers.
At stake in the decision, which could come today, is $128 million for Kentucky growers. The payments from the Master Settlement Agreement are to end once the tobacco buyout takes effect.
Shelbyville, Ky., farmer Paul Hornback expects his 2004 check to exceed $30,000 — money he plans to plow into his 90-acre tobacco operation. He said other farmers are counting on the money as well.
"I think it's very significant because growers have already budgeted for that money coming in," Hornback said.
But the tobacco companies have challenged the payments in a North Carolina court, claiming that the congressional buyout became effective this year and therefore nullifies their remaining 2004 payments. They also are asking for a refund of millions of dollars already made to the trust fund established for the payments, called Phase II.
QUICK TAKE
Last we knew
A North Carolina judge said he expects to rule Dec. 20 on whether tobacco companies must make another payment to tobacco farmers as part of the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement called Phase II.
The latest
Growers could know today whether U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman has notified cigarette makers that they must make their first payment under the tobacco buyout, a possible indicator as to when Phase II ends and the buyout begins.
Why it's news
Many Kentucky growers stand to gain about $128 million in 2004 Phase II payments and many already have budgeted the money.
For more info
www.ncbusinesscourt.net
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Cigarette makers are responsible for funding the buyout, which President Bush signed into law as part of a sweeping corporate tax bill in October. The buyout will give growers $10.1 billion over the next decade to quit raising leaf, switch to new crops or exit the business.
Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman must give the tobacco companies at least 30 days' notice before the first buyout assessment is due. If Veneman has notified the companies by today that their first assessment must be paid by Dec. 31, that likely would bolster their case that the buyout becomes effective this year.
Attorney General Greg Stumbo's office believes that if the assessment notice isn't issued by today, the court will rule that the companies need to make their fourth-quarter Phase II payments and are not entitled to a refund for previous payments.
"We're really hopeful, of course, that that assessment is not issued until some later time," said Pierce Whites, Kentucky's deputy attorney general.
If the companies are "successful in arguing that this goes into effect in 2004, they're going to seek a refund of their first three quarters' payments — and that's going to be an additional $320 million."
The growers' trust allows the companies to reduce their payments if a change in the law leads to new taxes or assessments by the government. The companies say the buyout triggered that provision and gives them an immediate right to begin lowering payments.
It's possible that so-called Phase I payments — money from cigarette makers used to fund Kentucky's agricultural diversification efforts — could be shifted to cover the lost Phase II money if the companies' challenge succeeds.
Kentucky law requires Phase I money to be used to supplement Phase II funds should they fall below $114 million a year. But Kara Keeton, spokeswoman for the Governor's Office of Agricultural Policy, said legislators could amend the law in an effort to avoid depleting Phase I funds.
"The legislature has the ability during the (upcoming legislative) session to go back in and change the language if they so choose," Keeton said. "Otherwise, there is a potential that the Phase I money would have to be used to cover the Phase II payments for 2004."
Further straining the situation for Kentucky farmers is a freeze on Phase II payments while the North Carolina court considers the companies' request for a refund. The tobacco companies must inform the court on Thursday whether Veneman issues the first buyout assessment by today.
Judge Ben Tennille has set a hearing for Dec. 20, when he is expected to rule whether the buyout signed into law Oct. 22 became effective this year. Keeton said the governor's office expects the companies to appeal any ruling in favor of the tobacco states, possibly delaying the payments to farmers even more.
The governor's office, which oversees Kentucky's share of the tobacco-settlement money, believes Congress meant for the end of the Phase II payments to coincide with the start of the buyout.
U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and nine other senators told Veneman in a letter last week that it was not the intent of Congress for the buyout to disrupt the 2004 Phase II payments. The letter maintained that passage of the buyout does not let the companies off the hook.
The Kentucky Farm Bureau also has petitioned the North Carolina court to keep the payments in place.
"To eliminate or diminish that cash flow at this point would be seriously disruptive in Kentucky's many tobacco-dependent communities," wrote Sam Moore, the farm bureau president, in a letter to the court.
Indiana farmers also would be impacted.
"We're dependent on it quite a bit to make some of our year-end payments," said Kim Imel, a Madison, Ind., grower. "... It's going to be sort of tough. None of us were expecting to lose some of our settlement money because of the buyout."
http://www.courier-journal.com/business/news2004/12/01/D1-tobacco01-7109.html
Study: Teens smoking fewer cigarettes, more marijuana -OR
PENDLETON, Ore. - Teenagers in Eastern Oregon are smoking fewer cigarettes but using slightly more marijuana than their peers statewide, according to a new study.
The annual Oregon Healthy Teens Survey is a voluntary, anonymous survey given to 11th-graders throughout Oregon to help school districts identify health and safety habits.
Students are asked questions about tobacco, alcohol and drug use, their mental health, sexual activity and how safe they feel in their communities and schools.
The survey results were from students in Pendleton and Hermiston. Milton-Freewater and Morrow County also participated in the survey but have not yet received results.
Across the state, more than 10,000 11th-graders from 203 schools participated in the survey for the 2003-2004 school year. Eighth-graders also participated at some schools.
Overall, Hermiston High School students reported using drugs, alcohol and tobacco at about the same frequency as their peers across the state.
"The good news is we're about at the state average," said Principal Sean Gallagher. "The bad news is we're not farther below."
Although cigarette use was 5.3 percent below the state average of 16.8 percent, Hermiston juniors reported drinking 1.2 percent more than the state average of 45.1 percent.
Likewise, 2 percent more of Hermiston students reported using marijuana during the previous 30 days than the statewide average of 19.6 percent.
At Pendleton High School, almost 30 percent of 11th-graders reported using marijuana or hashish within the last 30 days, compared to 27.5 percent in last year's survey.
"I think for our community and our school, marijuana use is on our radar as a problem," said Roger Stueckle, director of elementary education for the school district.
But Pendleton officials saw improvement in most areas, particularly for harassment.
"We have really had our major focus on harassment and bullying," Stueckle said. "We hope that will continue to go down."
Under 10 percent of the 164 Pendleton High School students surveyed reported being harassed about their weight, clothes, acne or other physical characteristics, down nearly 4 percent from last year.
At Hermiston High School, students were slightly more prone to feel sexually harassed or intimidated based on sexual orientation compared to teens across the state, but less so based on race or physical characteristics, like acne, clothes and weight.
As younger students have been raised to be more comfortable with their sexuality, many gay students are not hiding their preferences as in the past, Gallagher said, which might be a reflection of the higher number of students reporting harassment.
"People are being forced to deal with it," he said. Alcohol use was Gallagher's main concern, noting that about 46 percent of students said they drank in the past month.
There were 83 boys and 65 girls among the 148 Hermiston students surveyed. The school has about 1,300 students.
http://www.katu.com/health/story.asp?ID=73051
Survey Shows Teens' Attempted-Suicide Rate Is Soaring -CA
San Diego Average is 10.9 Percent
POSTED: 2:20 pm PST November 30, 2004
UPDATED: 2:33 pm PST November 30, 2004
About one in 10 San Diego high school students attempted suicide last year, a rate that is higher than the national average and up from the previous year, according to a survey of 1,800 students.
 Read the Report or
http://www2.sdcounty.ca.gov/hhsa/ServiceDetails.asp?ServiceID=583
The annual survey reports on youth and families for the San Diego County Board of Supervisors.
It found the number of reported suicide attempts among ninth- through 12th-graders was 10.9 percent, compared with 10.5 percent the previous year. The county ranked above the national average of 8.5 percent.
The question posed to students on the survey was, "Are you reporting an attempted suicide in the last year?" In the last year there has not been a single reported suicide among San Diego Unified School District students, according to school officials.
The report also found that pregnancy among girls 15 to 17 years old has declined.
Hispanic girls accounted for nearly 42 percent of all teens who got pregnant, significantly more than any other ethnic group.
Cigarette smoking and alcohol use among high school students decreased slightly to an average of about 11 percent. The number of youths who reported smoking marijuana stayed about the same at 13 percent, but has dropped nearly 4 percentage points among 11th-graders since 1999.
About 16.5 percent of children in the county live in poverty, compared with 19 percent statewide. The number of children whose families receive temporary cash assistance for housing, food and other needs from the state's welfare-to-work program is also below the state average.
http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/3959591/detail.html
Report: 1 In 10 San Diego Teens Attempt Suicide -CA
County Ranks Above National Average
POSTED: 9:33 am PST November 30, 2004
UPDATED: 1:59 pm PST November 30, 2004
SAN DIEGO -- A survey of 1,800 high school students in the San Diego Unified School District shows that about one in 10 of them attempted suicide last year, which is higher than the national average.
The number of reported suicide attempts among the district's 9th- through 12-graders was 10.9 percent, compared with 10.5 percent the previous year, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune.
The county ranked above the national average of 8.5 percent of students who acknowledged that they had attempted suicide, the newspaper reported.
The data are part of an annual report on youth and families in San Diego County. The Board of Supervisors will receive the report Tuesday and authorize it for public release, the Union-Tribune reported.
Developed in 1997 at the suggestion of Supervisors Dianne Jacob and Greg Cox, the report monitors health, economic security, educational achievement, access to services and safety for children in the county.
This year's report gives the county good marks overall. Teen pregnancy among girls 15 to 17 years has declined. But Hispanic girls made up nearly 42 percent of all teen who got pregnant, significantly more than any other ethnic group.
Cigarette smoking and alcohol use among high school students decreased slightly to an average of about 11 percent, the Union-Tribune reported. The number of students who reported smoking marijuana stayed about the same at 13 percent.
The rate of substantiated cases of child abuse and neglect decreased from 15 percent per 1,000 children in 2002 to 13 percent in 2003, the newspaper reported. About 16.5 percent of the county's children live in poverty, compared with 19 percent nationwide.
More Information:
http://www.10news.com/news/3958467/detail.html
American Public Health Association Applauds 40 Nations That Have Ratified the International Tobacco Control Treaty, Urges U.S. Administration to Make Ratification a Top Priority
11/30/2004 4:47:00 PM
To: National Desk
Contact: Sabrina Jones of the American Public Health Association
WASHINGTON, Nov. 30 /U.S. Newswire/ - The following statement on the international tobacco control treaty was released today by Georges C. Benjamin, MD, FACP, executive director of the American Public Health Association:
"With Peru's ratification today of the international tobacco control treaty, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control will become international law early next year. The American Public Health Association commends the 40 nations that have ratified the treaty, which cements a historic step in containing the global epidemic of tobacco use that kills more than 4 million people a year. In effect, this treaty gives countries the power to restrict tobacco advertising, combat cigarette smuggling and require health warning labels -- crucial measures in reducing the health threats of tobacco.
"Yet, the United States is noticeably absent from this important international action, which has even been ratified by countries that have major tobacco industries. While the United States has signed the treaty, the administration has yet to send the agreement to the U.S. Senate for ratification, rendering the signing meaningless. As it stands, this nation is not committed to the treaty's goals of reducing global tobacco use.
"We cannot afford to move slowly on this issue. In the United States alone, tobacco use is the leading cause of death, killing more than 400,000 people each year and costing our nation a massive $75 billion in health care costs. Tobacco products are virtually unregulated and, every day, hundreds of children become smokers.
"The American Public Health Association urgently calls on the administration and Senate to follow the lead of other countries and work together to ratify the treaty and work for its full implementation to protect the health of all citizens from the scourge of tobacco."
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The American Public Health Association, the oldest and largest organization of public health professionals, represents more than 50,000 members from over 50 public health occupations. More information is available at http://www.apha.org.
http://www.usnewswire.com/
http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=40206
Tobacco Industry Pressure Vs. Non-Smokers' Rights CHILE
María Cecilia Espinosa
SANTIAGO, Nov 30 (IPS) - Cigarettes kill 14,000 people a year in Chile, which has one of the highest smoking rates in Latin America. But despite these facts, the country's anti-smoking legislation is weak, and attempts to bolster it have been hindered by pressure from large tobacco companies, according to lawmakers and consumer rights groups.
After signing the World Health Organisation (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), the Ricardo Lagos government took over a year to submit a bill to Congress seeking its ratification.
The bill was finally presented on Nov. 15, but only after a group of lawmakers had threatened to charge the Chilean minister of health, Pedro García, with violating the country's constitution.
Consumers International's (CI) Santiago-based regional office for Latin America and the Caribbean is now conducting a petition campaign, collecting signatures to demand that Lagos fast-track the bill in question.
Ironically, its current classification as ”simply urgent” - as opposed to ”extremely urgent” - means that its adoption could actually be delayed indefinitely.
In the meantime, Chiletabacos, the Chilean subsidiary of British American Tobacco (BAT) that controls 98 percent of cigarette sales in Chile, is spearheading a campaign of its own, seeking to improve its image by sponsoring cultural and educational activities while attempting to convince the public that banning smoking in public places is synonymous with intolerance.
”For Chiletabacos, the word 'rights' only exists in reference to the rights of the country's four million smokers. It doesn't recognise the 'right' of non-smokers to have their health protected,” states a report from the CIPRESS Foundation, a Chilean non-governmental organisation.
According to CI, the tobacco industry as a whole has a global strategy aimed at capturing markets in the South to compensate for the markets it is losing in the industrialised countries of the North, due to anti-smoking legislation.
The tobacco transnationals have been highly successful in Latin America, where the number of smokers has increased by 68 percent, while 10 percent of smokers in the United States and Europe have kicked the habit, according to CI statistics.
The Pan-American Health Organisation (PAHO) reported in May that 45 percent of men and 35 percent of women over the age of 12 in Chile and Argentina are smokers.
As a result, more than 70 percent of children and adolescents in these countries regularly breathe in second-hand cigarette smoke in their own homes, making them ”passive smokers”.
For CI and the Chilean Consumers Organisation (ODECU), this fact constitutes a violation of the country's constitution, which establishes the Chilean people's right ”to live in an environment free from pollution.”
The FCTC, signed by Chile in September 2003, has been ratified by 37 countries so far. This means that only three more ratifications are needed for the treaty to enter into force, at which point it will apply to all signatory countries, whether they have ratified it or not.
All of the countries of Latin America have signed the convention, with the exception of Colombia and the Dominican Republic, while only four have ratified it: Mexico, Panama, Peru and Uruguay.
Once the FCTC enters into effect, the Chilean government will have to comply with the convention's provisions by more strictly enforcing the rules adopted in 1995 regarding non-smoking areas, regulating cigarette advertising and sales to minors under 18 years of age, raising taxes on tobacco products, working harder to control smuggling, and more effectively publicising the harmful effects of tobacco, by printing warnings on cigarette packages, for example.
The convention will affect the way the tobacco industry operates internationally, through restrictions on cigarette advertising and the incorporation of controls on this form of advertising in national and international public health policies.
Adolescents who pick up the cigarette habit become tobacco consumers for 30 years or more, and it is specifically Chileans in this age group who are far more likely to smoke than their counterparts in other Latin American countries. According to health ministry statistics, 34 percent of teenage boys and 43 percent of teenage girls in Chile are smokers.
British American Tobacco ranks second worldwide in cigarette sales, with a 15 percent global market share. It boasts on its website of being ”the world's most international tobacco group,” with brands sold in 180 different countries.
Latin America and the Caribbean accounted for 18.9 percent of BAT's global sales in 2003, while Chiletabacos alone contributed 22 million dollars to the corporation's 1.42 billion dollars in profits that year.
Chiletabacos also pays more taxes to the Chilean state than any other private company, representing five percent of all taxation revenues. Taxes make up 60.4 percent of the sales price of cigarettes in Chile.
In August 1990, the Chilean government put forward draft legislation to prohibit tobacco company sponsorship of cultural, social or sports activities, sales of cigarettes to minors under 18 years of age, and sales of loose cigarettes, in addition to requiring printed warnings on the dangers of smoking covering at least 20 percent of the surface of cigarette packages.
But none of these initiatives was ever implemented, and the so-called Tobacco Law, passed in 1995, was limited to assigning the Ministry of Health the task of establishing ”a clear and precise warning on the specific health risks implied by tobacco consumption.”
In 1997, the Ministry of Education was instructed to develop curriculum content aimed at educating students on the benefits of non-smoking and the harm caused by cigarettes, with an emphasis on prevention and rehabilitation.
Nevertheless, according to lawmaker Fulvio Rossi of the co-governing Socialist Party, ”in practice there is no legislation to control tobacco addiction, as is demonstrated by the exponential rise in cigarette smoking among schoolchildren and women.”
Existing legislation places no restrictions on advertising, does nothing to more effectively combat cigarette smuggling, and does not require significant warnings on the dangers of smoking on cigarette packages, he told IPS. In the meantime, the price of cigarettes remains highly affordable.
Rossi, one of the legislators who threatened to charge the health minister with violating the constitution, also pointed out that rules regarding smoking and non-smoking areas in public establishments are not being enforced, ”although in practice,” he added, ”it has been shown that there are just as many carcinogens in non-smoking sections as in smoking sections.”
In its own defence, Chiletabacos points to the high taxes charged on the products it sells, which translate into a considerable contribution to the state coffers.
The company says it has a legitimate right to manufacture and market a legal product, as well as a constitutional right to be treated equally before the law, and to freely communicate with its clients through advertising.
Moreover, the company stresses, it provides direct employment to roughly 700 workers, in addition to thousands of jobs in the production chain for this product, while sponsoring countless philanthropic, educational and cultural programmes.
The directors and executives of Chiletabacos form part of the highest stratum of the country's industrial and financial elite.
However, according to the CIPRESS Foundation report, ”its main goals are to prevent tax increases, protect its advertising and publicity options, and stop any attempts to adopt regulations or legislation aimed at eliminating second-hand smoke in closed spaces.”
The support Chiletabacos gives to cultural, sports and philanthropic activities, as well as the considerable taxes it contributes to the state treasury, represent ”enormous pressure on the government to stall the ratification of the FCTC, as has been demonstrated up until now,” Yul Francisco Dorado, one of the organisers of the CI petition drive, told IPS.
Dorado pointed to a PAHO-sponsored study carried out by the schools of medicine and economics at the University of Chile, which revealed that the state spends 1.14 billion dollars annually on the treatment of smoking-related medical problems, such as lung cancer, heart disease and chronic respiratory illnesses.
”The amount of money spent on treating tobacco-related illnesses far outweighs the tax contributions made by Chiletabacos,” he said.
The ratification of the FCTC will improve the quality of life, well-being and health of the Chilean people, Omar Pérez Santiago, the coordinator of ODECU, told IPS.
Above all, it will lead to ”a coherent policy towards tobacco addiction as an epidemic that kills a great many people in Chile and around the world.” By recognising the habit as a disease, he added, it will come to be viewed as such by society as a whole, which will lead to the creation of a healthier environment for everyone. (END/2004)
http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/interna.asp?idnews=26486
Political correctness needs correcting
By John E. Frydenlund
An initial provision included in recent corporate tax legislation would have prohibited tobacco companies from communicating truthful information about the relative risks of tobacco products. Fortunately, that provision was removed by a House-Senate conference committee. Additionally, the politically-correct crowd that has been promoting this sort of policy suffered a setback in this year’s election, with more voters demonstrating that they are fed up with some of the nonsense being passed off as “science.”
This would be a good time for Congress to reexamine some of the politically-correct policies that have been foisted on the American public. Too often, policymakers cater to neo-prohibitionist constituencies with hidden agendas to outlaw products like alcohol and tobacco, or agree with radical health activists that want to control what people eat.
When the facts do not fit their agenda, such groups use fear-mongering and political pressure to stifle any scientific research that undermines their goals. They prefer to utilize “jeopardy-style” research, which provides an answer and then uses faulty science to “prove” the foregone conclusion and bolster their agendas.
For example, there is a growing body of evidence to demonstrate that organic foods may present a greater relative health risk from deadly bacteria, such as e-coli and salmonella. Some advocacy groups whitewash potential health risks from organic foods, while attempting to scare the public about non-existing dangers from genetically-modified foods, which they call “Franken-foods,” and ignore the potential these foods hold for enhancing public health and alleviating hunger and starvation around the world.
One of the neo-prohibitionists’ favorite tactics is to advocate higher excise taxes on alcohol -- a tactic they also employ with cigarettes and tobacco products. However, many of them are more willing to openly advocate outright prohibition of cigarettes and tobacco products, at least in public places.
As part of the politically-correct crowd’s anti-tobacco crusade, it is crucial that tobacco of any sort be demonized. Their commitment to the belief that all tobacco is evil, no matter the circumstances, is so strong that they refuse to accept that there is any potential to develop beneficial uses for the product, such as the use of smokeless tobacco as an alternative to cigarettes.
The result of this bias is that Americans, who are trying to quit smoking, are being denied potential health benefits that could come from utilizing “harm reduction” strategies. Such techniques might at least provide relative alternatives and present a better chance of success for those people than does the insistence on the “all or nothing” cold turkey approach preferred by the activists.
Federal government agencies responsible for informing the public of the effects of using smokeless tobacco have sided with the activists and conducted a concerted campaign of disinformation against the product. This is not only misleading the public about the true relative dangers of smokeless tobacco, but is counterproductive to agencies’ responsibility to promote the public health.
Scientific evidence exists to demonstrate that smokeless tobacco is a safer alternative to cigarette smoking and holds potential as a cessation technique for the millions of Americans that have been unable to quit smoking.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) does not allow smokeless tobacco companies to make any claims regarding the relative health safety benefits that might result from switching from smoking cigarettes to using smokeless tobacco. Also, other agencies of the federal government, particularly the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), continue to disseminate information that distorts the truth about smokeless tobacco and misleads the public.
Congress needs to investigate why the FTC, HHS, and the CDC continue to provide misleading and inaccurate information regarding the dangers of smokeless tobacco to the public and why they have failed to conduct the legally-required research to determine the relative dangers between smokeless tobacco and cigarettes. It is also necessary to determine how much federal money is being used to run smoking “quit-lines” that are supposed to help people quit smoking, while failing to acknowledge that smokeless tobacco is an effective cessation technique.
Frydenlund is the food and agriculture director at Citizens Against Government Waste, and the author of the recently released Through the Looking Glass report, “A New Health Threat: Federally-Funded Health Policy Based on Junk Science.”
http://www.thehill.com/daily_features/113004.aspx
Cancer-Enabling Enzyme Can Be Blocked Naturally: Danish Research Confirms Cancer Breakthrough Approach by Matthias Rath, M.D.
(PressMethod) - A discovery made by Dr. Matthias Rath on how nutrient synergy can halt the cascading series of events that lead to the metastasis of cancer has been recently confirmed by Research done at Copenhagen University and published in the International Journal of Cancer.
The Danish study found that the lack of the enzyme urokinase plasminogen activator (uPA) can stop the spread of cancer, as shown in mice genetically modified to not have the enzyme. The absence of uPA prevents the ability of cancer cells to dissolve collagen and metastasize to other parts of the body, but today there are no pharmaceutical solutions to block uPA.
Dr. Matthias Rath's research shows that blocking this enzyme can be achieved naturally. In 1992, Dr. Rath published research suggesting the use of amino acid lysine as a natural inhibitor of plasmin and other enzymes (matrix metalloproteinases) involved in collagen digestion. Recently, Dr. Rath and his team of researchers at the Matthias Rath Research Institute in Cellular Medicine, Santa Clara, CA have identified a specific combination of nutrients that can inhibit the activity of collagen dissolving enzymes and stop the spread of cancer cells. Dr. Rath's research shows that Vitamin C, the amino acids L-lysine and L-proline, and a green tea extract known as Epigallocatechin Gallate (EGCG) work together to synergistically block the spread of cancer cells through connective tissue. In addition, this specific nutrient synergy can reduce new blood vessel formation, which supplies blood to tumors (angiogenesis), inhibit cancer cell replication, and induce a natural "suicide" cycle in cancer cells (apoptosis).
"The most effective way to control cancer is by attacking cancer simultaneously at all four ways it threatens health: its spread, growth, lifespan and survival," says Dr. Rath.
Dr. Rath's research, published in scientific journals and presented at many scientific conferences, points the way to a new era in the natural control of cancer, which is both more effective and safer than pharmaceutical methods.
For more information on Dr. Rath's research, go to www.drrathresearch.org.
Contact:
Rich Greenwood
CONTACT INFORMATION
Email Us
http:// http://www.pressmethod.com/gosite.aspx?Tak=http%3a%2f%2f
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http://www.pressmethod.com/releasestorage/5004730.htm
Study Examines Proteins' Relation to DNA Repair and Malignant Melanoma
01 Dec 2004
A reduced capacity to repair UV-induced DNA damage has been associated with an increased risk of cutaneous malignant melanoma, but the molecular mechanism of the association is not known. The INK4a/ARF locus, which contains two known tumor suppressors, is often mutated in melanomas and in the cells of patients with familial malignant melanoma, but it is not known if the locus is involved in DNA repair.
In a new study, Thomas M. Rünger, M.D., of the Boston University School of Medicine, and colleagues measured and compared DNA repair in cells from normal mice and cells from mice with one or both of the tumor suppressors mutated. The mutant cells had a lower capacity for DNA repair compared with the normal cells. The authors conclude that mutation of the INK4a/ARF locus may predispose people to melanoma because of a reduced ability to repair sun-induced DNA damage in addition to the loss of tumor suppressor function.
Contact: Thomas M. Rünger, Boston University School of Medicine, 617-638-5551, truenger@bu.edu
Note: The Journal of the National Cancer Institute is published by Oxford University Press and is not affiliated with the National Cancer Institute. Attribution to the Journal of the National Cancer Institute is requested in all news coverage. Visit the Journal online at http://jncicancerspectrum.oupjournals.org.
Contact: Sarah Zielinski or Kate Travis
jncimedia@oupjournals.org
301-841-1287
Journal of the National Cancer Institute
Judge's outburst at QC over MSP's letter-Scotland
JOHN ROBERTSON
LAW CORRESPONDENT
A LETTER from a politician about a historic damages case led yesterday to a furious judge reporting a senior lawyer for possible disciplinary action.
Allan Wilson, MSP, wrote to Lord Nimmo Smith about the time he has taken to give a ruling on a widow’s claim for compensation from a tobacco firm for the death of her husband from lung cancer.
In an amazing and angry outburst at the woman’s QC, Colin McEachran, who had suggested that she contact her MSP, the judge said he found the situation "reprehensible".
Lord Nimmo Smith took it as implying that he was not properly performing his duties. He accused Mr McEachran of thinking he knew better than the judge how to do his job, and suggested the QC had brought himself and his professional body, the Faculty of Advocates, into disrepute.
Mr McEachran insisted that he had merely given advice to contact an MSP, not that there should be direct communication with the judge. On being told by Lord Nimmo Smith that the matter was to be referred to the Faculty of Advocates, Mr McEachran commented: "As your Lordship pleases."
Margaret McTear, 59, of Beith, Ayrshire, has continued a case originally raised in the Court of Session by her husband, Alfred, before his death in 1993 at the age of 48. It is against Imperial Tobacco, maker of the cigarettes which Mr McTear smoked.
In October last year, Lord Nimmo Smith began hearing evidence in the case. It is understood that it is the first time on this side of the Atlantic that an attempt to sue a tobacco giant has reached such an advanced stage.
The evidence and legal submissions on behalf of Mrs McTear and Imperial Tobacco ended in February this year, and Lord Nimmo Smith announced that he would issue a judgment in due course.
The parties were called to a hearing before the judge yesterday. He said that on 18 November - the day he began to preside over the Jodi Jones murder trial in the High Court - he received a letter from Mr Wilson, Labour MSP for Cunninghame North. The politician asked why there had been no decision in Mrs McTear’s case. A reply was sent, indicating that discussion with third parties was not possible.
Lord Nimmo Smith said there was a convention, aimed at maintaining judicial independence, that politicians did not intervene in current cases. He said the court could not allow itself to be, or appear to be, influenced by third parties.
He had no doubt that Mr Wilson had written in good faith, but he continued: "What I find reprehensible is that Mr Wilson should have become involved at all. This can only have been designed to put pressure on me to issue my decision sooner than I might otherwise do... I regard this as wholly improper. The clear implication is I have not been applying myself as diligently as I should to my judicial duties."
Lord Nimmo Smith said he had given up a week’s leave to work on the judgment, and already had a draft of more than 860 pages and 250,000 words. He had other judicial commitments, including the Jodi Jones case, and had indicated in July that he might not be able to produce the judgment until late in the year.
He asked Mr McEachran: "What on earth is this all about?"
Mr McEachran said the litigation had started almost 12 years ago and Mrs McTear was entitled to have her case determined "within a reasonable time".
He had learned that his client had become unhappy about the administration of justice, and he suggested that she write to her MSP.
"It was as broad as that. I did not suggest that any communication be made directly to your Lordship," said Mr McEachran.
Lord Nimmo Smith said Mr McEachran seemed to think he knew better than the judge how to do his job. What should he have done, that he had not done?
"I have no comment on that," said Mr McEachran.
The judge added: "I am not a magician. I cannot wave a magic wand and produce an opinion [judgment]."
He believed Mr McEachran was not being candid with him in "this entire shenanigan" and the matter would be reported to the Faculty of Advocates.
LORD NIMMO SMITH
Lord (William) Nimmo Smith, 62, was appointed to the bench in 1996, having served an "apprenticeship" as a temporary judge.
As a leading QC of his generation, he had appeared for The Scotsman and successfully fought attempts by the government to ban the newspaper from carrying extracts from the memoirs of a former intelligence officer, Anthony Cavendish.
He was appointed to investigate the so-called "magic circle" affair in 1992 and found no evidence to support claims that gay lawyers had conspired to pervert the course of justice. He also led an inquiry into allegations of nepotism in recruitment at Monklands district council.
Lord Nimmo Smith was chosen as one of the five judges who heard, and dismissed, an appeal by the Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.
He also rejected an attempt to challenge the Scottish Parliament’s legislation which banned fox-hunting with dogs.
In recent weeks, he has presided over the trial of Luke Mitchell, who is accused of murdering his girlfriend, Jodi Jones, in Midlothian.
http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=1377442004
Chronic stress may accelerate cellular aging
CTV.ca News Staff
We all know that too much stress isn't healthy. Now, intriguing scientific evidence shows that chronic stress may accelerate aging in our immune cells.
Prof. Elissa Epel of University of California, San Francisco, may have found new evidence of how stress wears us down by making the immune cells in our bodies age prematurely.
Epel's team followed 58 mothers, 39 of whom were caring for a chronically ill child. Most of them reported higher stress levels than mothers with healthy children.
But when researchers looked at the DNA in their immune cells, they noticed a stunning finding. The telomeres, or biological clocks, in the cells of the chronically stressed women were much shorter, indicating they had aged prematurely.
"We were flabbergasted. It was something you couldn't have expected to find," Epel says.
"We found that in women with the highest stress, they were so short that the cells had aged 10 years more than in the other women. That's not a matter of normal aging but from stress."
The authors say "the exact mechanism that connect the mind and the cell are unknown.'' But they will now begin work to see if other types of cells are affected by stress.
The study is published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Karyl Jones-Whittey knows all about living with daily stress. She says that every day is difficult caring for her autistic son, Ian.
"It is exhausting. It is the feeling of being absolutely weighed down with the weight of the world," she says.
Now, Karyl has her own problems, suffering from high blood pressure and arthritis.
"It makes me wonder about how many of my medical conditions -- many of them have only cropped up since Ian was born -- how many are them are related to living under chronic stress?"
Dr. David Posen writes and lectures about the dangers of stress. He hopes the research will be an eye-opener that stress is more than an annoyance; it can be harmful to our health.
"We all have stress in our lives and learning how to handle it is a life skill. And it's neglected and now it's bubbling to the top, you can't put it off much longer," he says.
This new link between stress and cell aging may trigger a flood of new research on how to reverse stress, says Dr. Doug Saunders of the Ontario Psychological Association.
"To look at stress reduction techniques, like cognitive behaviour therapy, meditation, to see if this can impact biological markers like telomeres."
The research may also lead to new medications that protect these telomeres from stress. But for now, it's an intriguing finding that suggests just how toxic chronic stress may be.
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1101775128220_42/?hub=Health
Posted at 12:11 pm by looped_ca
Monday, November 29, 2004
Dirty insult to citizens -ON
Nov. 29, 2004. 01:00 AM
Stupid.ca
This site is a publicly funded, dirty insult to all citizens even though it is smokers who are the target. The statement that "tobacco is the only commercial product ... that is both lethal and deadly when used as intended" is so erroneous that it screams propaganda. Prescription and non-prescription drugs, automobiles and an endless list of commercial products on the market can also be lethal and deadly when used as intended.
The government's evangelistic crusade against smokers, at the expense of so many critical issues within health care that need to be addressed, is a blatantly obvious attempt to stir up citizens who really don't believe smoking to be a major issue anymore and to justify future plans for further destruction of freedom of choice and individual rights aimed at 20 per cent of the population of Canada. Tactics of this nature are beneath contempt.
Jan Hogg, Bath, Onthttp://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1101682208136&call_pageid=968332189003&col=968350116895&DPL=IvsNDS%2f7ChAX&tacodalogin=yes
Lawyers wrangle over legality of tobacco ad ban -CANADA
Canadian Press Monday, November 29, 2004
A federal law that bans tobacco sponsorship, restricts advertising and requires large warnings on cigarette packs is unconstitutional, lawyers for Canada's three largest tobacco companies argued Monday.
Imperial Tobacco Canada Limited, Rothmans, Benson & Hedges Inc. and JTI-Macdonald Corp. argued before the Quebec Court of Appeal that the 1997 Tobacco Act effectively constitutes a total ban on advertising, which the Supreme Court of Canada ruled was unconstitutional in 1995.
"Our view is that this is deja-vu, that we're looking at a prohibition which is total again and that the Supreme Court has already essentially decided the matter in 1995," lawyer Simon Potter said outside the courtroom.
"There is no justification for a law which tells people that you cannot evoke images or evoke emotions," said Potter, representing Imperial Tobacco.
The companies said a 2002 Quebec Superior Court ruling upholding the federal law failed to address several key constitutional issues and contained numerous factual errors.
The federal government, the Canadian Cancer Society and anti-tobacco advocates said they will argue during five days of hearings the law is constitutionally valid.
While the restrictions on advertising and promotion infringe on freedom of expression, they are justified as a reasonable limit under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the cancer society said.
"We believe that these laws are essential to protect public health in Canada, to reduce smoking among adults and among children,'' said Rob Cunningham, lawyer for the cancer society."
"And it's working."
The youth smoking rate at 18 per cent is the lowest ever recorded. Smoking among adults has decreased to 21 per cent, compared with 30 per cent before these laws were enforced, Cunningham added.
http://www.canada.com/montreal/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=e17ed4b6-e27e-409b-8e65-ff1d8616ccdd
*article in canoe affiliates also
Smoking bylaw case put off for 2 weeks MB
WINNIPEG - The first Manitoba business owner to face charges under the province's new smoking law appeared in court Monday morning.
Robert Jenkinson, who owns the Creekside Hideaway restaurant in Treherne, faces 13 charges under the new Non-Smokers Health Protection Act.
Jenkinson's lawyer, Art Stacey, says the matter has been put off for two weeks to give Jenkinson time to get on opinion on how to proceed with his case.
No plea has been entered yet, but Jenkinson has vowed in the past to fight the law, which he says punishes rural bar and hotel owners.
About two dozen other restaurant and bar owners are defying the new law by allowing smoking in their establishments.
Provincial officials say it's only a matter of time until they are all charged.
The Non-Smokers Health Protection Act, which outlaws smoking in all public buildings, was passed unanimously in the legislature and enacted Oct. 1. Fines for allowing smoking can run up to $3,000.
http://winnipeg.cbc.ca/regionalnews/caches/mb_smoking20041129.html
Time to Hike the Legal Smoking Age? -NY
By Eyewitness News' Lauren Defranco
(Central Islip -WABC, November 29, 2004) — The minimum age for buying cigarettes may be going up in several of our communities. Lawmakers in one county are trying to raise the smoking age from 18 years old to 19 years old. Eyewitness News' Lauren Defranco reports.
The measure was unanimously passed Monday by the Suffolk County Health and Human Services Committee and it's now awaiting a full vote. Long Island reporter Lauren Defranco has the story.
Why did you decide not to smoke?
Felisha Mention, Student: "Because I see a lot of people with cancer and everything else. I just choose not to do it."
Video: See the Story
Jonathan Zamor, Student: "There's a lady, she can't talk. She has to have that thing in her throat. I don't want that to happen to me ever."
Lauren Defranco: "So you listen..."
Zamor: "Yeah, I'm a good boy. I do whatever my momma told me."
These high school juniors in Central Islip know the devastating physical effects of smoking. But the reality is a lot of students light up in spite of the warnings.
Now Suffolk County lawmakers are trying to curb teenage smoking by raising the legal age from 18 to 19. If they do, Suffolk would join only three other government bodies taking this aggressive action.
Brian Foley, (D) Suffolk County Legislator: "If we can delay, if not prevent, teenagers from starting to smoke, by the time they're in their twenties they'll never start smoking."
So Monday the health and human services committee voted unanimously of the resolution, which could soon become law. This after a spirited public hearing.
For obvious reasons, the opposition to this is remaining quiet but strong. It's convenience store owners who will have to police the new law and possibly lose business.
Suffolk lawmakers are determined this law will ultimately save lives.
http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/news/wabc_112904_suffolksmoking.html
Cigarette Ads in Convenience Stores May Boost Teen Smoking -CA
A new study finds kids who frequent the shops are more likely to pick up the habit.
By Randy Dotinga HealthDay Reporter
MONDAY, Nov. 29 (HealthDayNews) -- New research suggests that teens who spend a lot of time hanging around convenience stores are more likely to smoke, even if they're not the type of kids considered to be delinquents.
While the findings don't point to anything other than a possible link between the stores and smoking, they're raising a red flag among researchers who fear the glut of tobacco advertising in convenience stores is having a major impact on young customers.
"It's the only unregulated frontier for this kind of marketing," explained study co-author Lisa Henriksen, a senior research scientist at Stanford University's Prevention Research Center.
In the spring of 2003, Henriksen and her colleagues surveyed 2,125 middle-school students in the Northern California city of Tracy. They asked the children about their smoking habits and their visits to small grocery, convenience and liquor stores.
The findings appear in the December issue of the American Journal of Public Health.
About a quarter of the students visited the stores at least once a day; about two-thirds visited at least once a week.
The researchers found that those who were exposed to tobacco marketing in the stores at least once a week were more likely to smoke.
The researchers then tinkered with the numbers to test the theory that "kids who are up to no good hang out at stores," Henriksen said. They tried to remove the influence of factors such as race, gender, age, exposure to other tobacco advertising and "propensity for risk-taking," a rough measurement of a kid's tolerance for getting into hot water. Even so, the study still found that kids who visited the stores regularly were 50 percent more likely to smoke.
"That was a compelling result," Henriksen said, although she cautioned that the study doesn't prove that visits to the stores make kids smoke; it only shows a link between the two activities.
According to the study, the tobacco industry spends more on in-store advertising than all other forms of advertising combined -- $9.5 billion vs. $1.7 billion in 2001. Tobacco companies cannot advertise on television or radio, and a 1998 settlement with the federal government banned billboard advertising.
The study "shows that the tobacco industry is still able to use the loopholes in the settlement to very effectively market to kids," said Stanton A. Glantz, director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research at the University of California, San Francisco.
Advertising through store displays "may be less efficient for them, but they have enough money and cigarettes are profitable enough that they're able to use a somewhat less-efficient advertising medium," he said. "The cigarette companies wouldn't be spending billions of dollars doing this if it didn't work. They're not fools."
What's next? According to Henriksen, researchers need to get a better handle on the influence of advertisements in convenience stores. "If our purpose is to argue for effective policies that prevent smoking, we need to point people's attention to stores as an area that needs attention," she said.
More information
Learn more about preventing teen smoking from the American Cancer Society (www.cancer.org ).
http://www.healthcentral.com/news/NewsFullText.cfm?id=522595
The elephant in the room -NY
How I learned to stop worrying and love Mayor Bloomberg
by Shaun McElhenny Columnist
In the wake of the Democrats' 2004 electoral defeat, we have never been gladder to be New Yorkers. Sure, we have a president whom 75 percent of us voted against, but in the next four years we can at least revel in a city government dominated by Democrats.
Many see a blight on this idyllic scene in Republican Mayor Mike Bloomberg. Since Nov. 2, talk among New York Democrats is refocusing on dislodging Bloomberg. It is a natural reaction, since a Republican mayoralty is almost an insult to an overwhelmingly Democratic city, especially after a national election in which the Republicans got the best of us.
Yet it is difficult to partake in anti-Bloomberg designs when his mayoralty is altogether refreshing, especially when it comes to New York City politics.
First of all, Bloomberg is a lifelong Democrat. He only switched his registration because wealthy tycoons do not stand much chance in New York City Democratic primaries, where nearly a dozen Democratic officials compete every four years. And even after switching parties, Bloomberg has not been the GOP lackey that some have made him out to be.
Unlike fellow New Yorkers Gov. George Pataki and former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who are nursing presidential ambitions by slavishly supporting President Bush and the national GOP, Bloomberg has been a consistent advocate for the city when it comes to getting our share from a Republican Congress whose constituencies lie elsewhere.
He nearly refused to give his speech at the Republican National Convention after his appeal for more financial assistance from Washington was excised from his speech by Republican staffers. Ultimately, his duties as host mayor compelled him to make his opening remarks.
Also, while critics have cited Bloomberg's budget cuts as evidence that he is out of touch, the blame lies not with Bloomberg but with the city charter. The charter's balanced budget amendment ties the city's hands during a recession. Regardless of the economy, any New York City mayor faced with a deficit is legally forced to raise taxes or cut programs, the two things budget-makers are not supposed to do in hard times. To his credit, Bloomberg struck a balance of both.
In general, though, Bloomberg's mayoralty is valuable because of its style. The worst thing about New York City politics is that politicians play neighborhoods, races and interest groups off one another for their own gain. Bloomberg does none of this, because his ability to self-finance his campaigns buys his independence from narrow interest groups. It seems as though Bloomberg is trying to serve as everyone's mayor.
Bloomberg also exhibits a type of candor not usually practiced by today's ultra-polished politicians. If he faces tough decisions, such as those concerning the budget, he says flat out that it was a tough decision and that he made his choice for such-and-such a reason. No excuses, no spinning and no blame game.
And let us not forget NYU students' favorite issue, the smoking ban. You can say all you want about rights, but rights go only as far as no one else is being harmed. Twenty percent of the population does not have any right to poison the rest. Furthermore, from an economic standpoint, the major slowdown in the nightlife business that was supposed to accompany the ban never materialized. Bloomberg is right to be proud of this measure.
This does not mean that Bloomberg should definitely win re-election next year. But it does mean that Democrats should not immediately vote for whomever the Democratic primary produces simply because he or she is a Democrat. It is unfair to take our image of the national Republican Party and project it onto Bloomberg simply because of his party registration.
My vote, for one, is not etched in stone. Depending on who wins the Democratic nomination, Bloomberg has a good chance at being the first politician for whom I have ever crossed party lines. •
http://www.nyunews.com/opinion/columnists/8434.html
Smoking ban could waft through bars, restaurants-MN
City health commissioner wants ordinance by 2005
By Erik Brooks Nov. 28, 2004
Milwaukee health commissioner Bevan Baker is floating the concept of banning smoking at all Milwaukee workplaces, including restaurants and bars, and will craft an ordinance in early 2005.
Baker called the prohibition of smoking in workplaces "good public health policy," despite concerns from business owners, industry groups and smokers sure to resist the ban. He said a push for a "smoke-free city" will be part of his department's agenda for the Common Council in 2005.
Baker said he has yet to approach Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett or aldermen with a specific plan. He said he's waiting until early next year when the "heavy lifting" of balancing the 2005 city budget is complete.
Any ban will meet some resistance, said Ald. Bob Donovan, chairman of the Common Council's Public Safety Committee, which would consider the measure.
"I have seen ridiculous legislation move forward, and in my estimation this would be one of them," Donovan said of Baker's suggestion. "It's the choice of any business to make that determination. I don't think it should be mandated by government."
Business owners contacted by The Business Journal agreed.
"Bars really do seem to be the last bastion for smokers," said Tag Grotelueschen, co-owner of Club Garibaldi, a bar at 2501 S. Superior St., Milwaukee.
He said he would oppose a city mandate, but noted any ban would affect all bar owners equally.
'Absurd' mandate
A spokesman for the Tavern League of Wisconsin in Madison called government-mandated smoking bans "absurd."
"Our people feel, 'This is my business,'" said Pete Madland, chief office manager and former president of the Tavern League. "If I go broke and bankrupt and lose my livelihood on decisions that I make, that's one thing. If I go broke because of decisions that government makes, that's a hard pill to swallow."
Indeed, the effect can be significant, said Jayne Aliota, vice president of Waukesha-based George Webb Corp., which has 40 area locations, eight in the city of Milwaukee. Aliota said George Webb is predicting a 30 percent drop in business at its three Wauwatosa restaurants when that city's smoking ban goes into effect in 2006.
Citywide smoking bans are especially hurtful in areas where patrons can bypass a restaurant in one city and dine at another restaurant minutes away in a city that allows smoking, Aliota said.
Given that perception, a statewide smoking ban would draw more support from business owners because it would "level the playing field," she said.
Heinemann's Restaurants, which has eight area locations including two in the city of Milwaukee, voluntarily went smoke-free more than a decade ago, said Peggy Burns, president of the Milwaukee-based chain.
Because the restaurants were among the first in the area to do it, business dropped 10 percent to 15 percent in the first year, Burns said. It rebounded, although not entirely.
Burns said a growing number of restaurants are choosing to go entirely smoke-free on their own.
Appealing to nonsmokers
Smoking ban supporters, however, say business revenue could actually increase over time, as people who may have avoided establishments with high levels of secondary cigarette smoke may now patronize them.
"Smokers are adjusting to a smoke-free world," said Maureen Busalacchi, executive director of Smoke Free Wisconsin, a Madison-based anti-smoking interest group.
Details of Bevan's proposed ordinance are under consideration, but he called a ban on smoking in restaurants and bars "a great, great starting point." The city two years ago enacted an ordinance banning smoking in all city-owned buildings and vehicles.
The potential prohibition, Baker said, is in line with his goals of reducing "health disparities" among Milwaukee residents, which he promised to do when Barrett chose him to head the Health Department in July.
"I am looking forward to working with all parties to make sure Milwaukee is one of the cities in this country that has a smoke-free work environment," Baker said. "My responsibility as health commissioner is to protect the residents of Milwaukee, and if a smoke-free environment is a means to that end, then I am 100 percent behind it."
Such a ban could lead to improved health and lower health care costs in a city struggling with large insurance premium increases, Baker said.
Baker said he will study the ordinances of other cities and states that have enacted bans.
Eighteen Wisconsin municipalities have some form of smoking ban in place, with most ordinances focused on restaurants. So far, only one Milwaukee County community, Wauwatosa, has banned smoking. Its restaurant ban takes effect July 1, 2006. Franklin city officials are considering a ban on smoking in restaurants.
Madison model
In Madison, a more stringent ordinance outlawing smoking in all places of employment will be phased in starting in 2005, with a restaurant and bar smoking ban taking place starting next July. Officials in Oshkosh, Appleton and Wausau are also considering restaurant smoking bans.
Nationwide, more than 1,800 municipalities have some sort of "clean indoor air law," according to the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation, a Berkeley, Calif.-based interest group. Of those, 248 have banned smoking in all workplaces. Ten states have laws that ban smoking in either workplaces, restaurants or bars.
Anti-smoking advocates are increasingly pushing for "all encompassing" bans on smoking in workplaces, not just in restaurants or bars, said Dona Wininsky, public policy coordinator for the American Lung Association of Wisconsin, Brookfield. A push for a workplace ban locally is likely in 2005, with Baker's support for the ban a major boost for the effort, she said.
The politics of enacting a ban are among the biggest roadblocks, Wininsky said, although she expressed optimism that "fresh blood" on the Milwaukee Common Council could lead to increased support for a smoking prohibition.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6605909/
Picking up a nicotine habit at college- USA
Alcohol, peer pressure are key factors in students' decision to smoke
By Arianne Baker November 29, 2004
College smokers are likely to be a Caucasian, non-religious member of a fraternity or sorority who drinks, according to Edith Balback, director of the Tufts Community Health program. This survey, based on national data that is not Tufts-specific, also found that smokers also tend to be dissatisfied with their education and non-athletic.
According to the Office on Smoking and Health at the Center for Disease Control, 80 percent of adult smokers started smoking before the age of 18. Since the strong force of peer pressure in middle school and high school tends to be the principal factor influencing adolescents' decisions to smoke, most anti-smoking campaigns are aimed at the adolescent crowd.
Among the college demographic, the overall number of student smokers stays approximately the same, "Around nine percent start in college and nine percent quit," Balback said.
There are several possible reasons why nine percent of college students start smoking upon attending college. Alcohol plays a role, say both Balbach and Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Robin Kanarek, a researcher in the psychopharmacology of tobacco and nicotine use.
"One feature of college social life which may contribute to smoking is alcohol use," Kanarek said. "Alcohol may make students feel less inhibited and thus contribute to their decision to smoke."
Those suing tobacco companies focus on the firms' advertising practices. National ad campaigns like thetruth.com aim to raise awareness about companies' practice of marketing cigarettes to adolescents.
But some students do not attribute their first smoke to cigarette companies' ad campaigns. "Advertising didn't impact me at all - it was curiosity," freshman Jake Brotter said. Brotter tried his first cigarette when he was in eighth grade.
National anti-smoking campaigns also face limited success. "The anti-smoking ads definitely kept me from smoking up until freshman or sophomore year [of high school]," freshman Josh Lord said. "The first time I smoked a cigarette was sophomore year and I was considerably drunk."
Although anti-smoking campaigns may not prevent all people from taking up smoking, these national ad campaigns appear to have a degree of effectiveness. Junior Holly Ganbold, an international student from Austria, says that there are more anti-smoking campaigns in the United States than in Austria and "people smoke about 25 times more there."
Peer pressure and whether one's friends smoke are also two important factors in the whether students start smoking. "It's not advertising; it's who you're friends with," said Ganbold of her reasons for starting to smoke when she was 16-years-old.
Brotter started smoking regularly during his senior year of high school, when it became easy to buy cigarettes because he had "plenty of friends who were eighteen."
Nicotine's addictive and relaxing properties make cigarettes an appealing stress reliever to stressed students who already smoke - possibly contributing to the fact that most people who enter college as smokers leave as smokers.
"I think that stress does play a role in maintaining smoking behavior," Kanarek said. "We and others have data that show withdrawal from smoking increases feelings associated with stress in smokers. Also, there are data demonstrating that nicotine has mild pain-relieving properties."
Kanarek ventured to say that "if someone who is a smoker has to sit through a three-hour class without smoking, it could be detrimental" to classroom performance.
As far as the effect of smoking on success in school, studies for college-age students are limited. However, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, "smokers have shown impairment across a wide range of psychomotor and cognitive functions, such as language comprehension" during periods of abstinence and/or craving.
Fortunately, compared to other people of the same age group, college students are less likely to smoke. "While the stress of college may encourage some to start smoking or make it harder to quit, higher education as a rule is protective against smoking," Balbach said.
There are accessible resources on campus for those suffering from alcohol and (non-tobacco) drug problems, but the school's resources for cigarette smokers seeking to quit are more limited.
"I think Tufts' priority is alcohol and other drugs that pose an immediate threat to student health - tobacco is more deadly, but it tends to be a slow-motion killer," said Balbach when asked if Tufts' services for smokers are sufficient.
Tufts students are largely aware of the ill health effects of smoking. However, Brotter admits that, though he read about the Great American Smokeout - an effort by the American Cancer Society to help stop smoking that took place on Nov. 18 - he has no immediate plans to stop. "I'll probably try to quit in the next one to five years," he said.
Both Brotter and Lord said that if their younger siblings started smoking, they would tell them to stop. "I would definitely tell them not to," Lord said. Brotter concurred, saying that he would explain to his siblings that "smoking is bad for your health."
Lord added that he would say the same to friends that may be smoking too much. Though Lord says that he is not addicted to cigarettes, he feels that he has many friends who are. "[If they] are smoking a pack a day, I try to get them to cut down," Lord said.
Tufts Health Services offers a range of options to students who want to quit smoking. The Health Services website lists the Tufts AOD program, peer support groups, and a Counseling Center as some of their services.
http://www.tuftsdaily.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/11/29/41aac617bebfd
Experts Assess Lung Cancer Risk Among Smokers
By Ed Edelson Health Day Reporter
MONDAY, Nov. 29 (HealthDayNews) -- The largest study of its kind has come up with hard, cold numbers that pinpoint the risk of lung cancer for smokers and former smokers.
The International Early Lung Cancer Action Project used computed tomography (CT) scans to look for early signs of lung cancer in more than 27,700 smokers and ex-smokers. The results were presented Nov. 29 at the Radiological Society of North America's annual meeting in Chicago.
"Based on our data, we can now predict by age, by how much has been smoked or when a smoker has quit, what is the likelihood of developing lung cancer," said project leader Dr. Claudia I. Henschke, chief of chest imaging at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City.
For example, her team found that 15 cases of lung cancer will be detected in every 1,000 smokers aged 50 to 74, compared to six cases per 1,000 in those under 50.
The total number of cigarettes smoked is also important. There will be 28 cases of lung cancer among 1,000 people who smoked three packs a day for 20 years or more, compared to 16 per 1,000 who smoked three packs a day for 10 to 20 years.
People who have managed to kick the habit are at risk long after they stop, Henschke noted, partly because smokers remain more likely to die suddenly of heart disease. The risk of lung cancer does not decline much until 20 years after the last cigarette has been inhaled.
The benefit of early detection of lung cancer is clear, she said. With annual screening, there is a better than 75 percent chance that detection and surgery will save a life. Without screening, the probability of a cure is no better than 10 percent, the researchers said.
But a screening test runs about $300, Henschke said, so cost enters into the decision. For example, it probably makes sense for someone under 75 to have the test, because the expected life span is more than 10 years and early detection will buy extra years. But someone over 80 is more likely to die of other causes, and therefore the benefit is less certain.
It's a decision that has to be made by each individual, preferably after consulting a doctor, Henschke said, but she acknowledges that a purely logical approach might not be easy.
"The mathematics are there, the data are there, and I hope it can be explained to people," she said.
Another speaker at the meeting described work on a computer program that might make a decision on surgery easier once a mass is detected in a lung.
Researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center are developing software that analyzes a series of CT scans to determine if a suspicious mass is cancerous or noncancerous.
Right now, a lung biopsy is necessary to obtain a tissue sample for laboratory analysis, explained Lubomir Hadjiyski, a research assistant professor of radiology at the University of Michigan Medical School. "We hope we can give correct recommendations that would decrease the number of unnecessary biopsies," he said.
Hadjiyski and his colleagues have already developed a similar program for the diagnosis of breast cancer. Clinical trials of the lung cancer program could start "in a year or two," he added.
More information
What you need to know about smoking and health is outlined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
http://www.forbes.com/lifestyle/health/feeds/hscout/2004/11/29/hscout522554.html
'Lighter than air' breathing more than doubles COPD patients' exercise endurance
Helium/oxygen mixture reduces airflow limitations, lung dynamic hyperinflation and sensation of 'shortness of breath'
BETHESDA, Md. (Nov. 29, 2004) – It certainly makes sense: COPD sufferers have varying degrees of serious breathing difficulties, which keeps them from almost any kind of exercise, especially in advanced stages. So maybe "lighter than air" air would be easier to breath, reduce shortness of breath and perhaps even allow them to do some exercise with all of its physical and mental benefits.
A group of Italian researchers reports in the November issue of the Journal of Applied Physiology that while breathing a low-density mixture of 79% helium and 21% oxygen (called heliox), the length of time that 12 COPD patients could do real exercise was 9 minutes, versus only 4.2 minutes for 12 patients breathing regular air (79% nitrogen/21% oxygen). And the exercise involved wasn't trivial: The subjects cycled "until exhaustion" at a rate of 50 rpm at 80% of their maximal rate measured several days earlier while on air.
COPD: 4th leading cause of death in world and U.S., and rising
The World Health Organization estimates that chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD, defined as emphysema and chronic bronchitis) as a single cause of death around the world shares fourth place with HIV/AIDS, following coronary heart disease, cerebrovascular disease and acute respiratory infection. WHO estimates that 2,740,000 people died of COPD worldwide in 2000; cigarette smoking is blamed for about 85% of cases.
According to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), COPD is the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S. and is projected to rise to third place for both men and women by the year 2020. NHLBI says 12.1 million Americans 25 and older were diagnosed with COPD in 2001. Estimated cost of COPD in 2002 was $32.1 billion, of which $18 billion were direct costs.
COPD is characterized by shortness of breath (dyspnea) and exercise intolerance. Among severely affected patients, especially those with emphysema, the inability to exercise or even to move small distances is mostly due to limits on "breathing out" because of limited expiratory flow, and early onset of dyspnea.
Heliox appears to positively change multitude of lung mechanics
In the current study, the more than doubling in the time COPD patients could exercise "was associated with a significant reduction in lung dynamic hyperinflation (DH) at isotime (Iso; when the patients stopped exercising during regular air breathing), as reflected by the increase in inspiratory capacity (IC) to 1.97 from 1.77 liters and a decrease in dyspnea" scoring to 6 from 8.
The researchers said that "heliox induced a state of relative hyperventilation as reflected by the increase in minute ventilation" to 38.3 versus 35.5 liters, and minute ventilation over carbon dioxide output to 36.3 versus 33.9 at peak exercise, and by the reduction in arterial partial pressure of carbon dioxide at Iso to 44 from 48 and at peak exercise to 46 from 48.
The study, "Effect of heliox on lung dynamic hyperinflation, dyspnea, and exercise endurance capacity in COPD patients," was conducted by Paolo Palange, Gabriele Valli, Paolo Onorati, Rosa Antonucci, Patrizia Paoletti, Alessia Rosato, Felice Manfredi, and Pietro Serra from Dipartmento di Medicina Clinica, Servizio di Fisiopatologia Respiratoria, Università "La Sapienza," Rome, Italy.
Palange et al. says the "most likely explanation for our finding is that heliox improved maximal expiratory flow and maximal ventilatory capacity, as reflected by the increase in resting forced expiratory volume and by the increase in tidal volume, mean expiratory flow, and minute ventilation at peak exercise. Importantly, the improvement in maximal expiratory flow determined a significant reduction in lung dynamic hyperinflation and dyspnea, as reflected by the significant increase in inspiratory capacity (IC), inspiratory reserve volume and IC/minute ventilation, and decrease in dyspnea at Iso.
"All of these positive changes in lung mechanics allowed the patients to markedly improve exercise endurance time," they note.
And finally, "it is likely that the exercise protocol used, capable of inducing high levels of ventilation relative to subject's maximal ventilation for a prolonged period of time, has amplified the effect of heliox breathing in reducing turbulent airway resistances," the authors say. In a related observation, they believe that "the high-intensity constant work rate test utilized allowed us to clearly detect the beneficial effect of small changes in lung mechanics induced by heliox breathing on exercise capacity."
Next steps
The authors conclude that "heliox breathing, by reducing airflow limitations, lung dynamic hyperinflation and dyspnea sensation, is capable of improving high-intensity exercise endurance capacity in moderate to severe COPD patients." However, they note that "further studies are needed to verify the potential role of heliox supplementation during exercise rehabilitation programs in COPD patients."
Source
The study, "Effect of heliox on lung dynamic hyperinflation, dyspnea, and exercise endurance capacity in COPD patients," by Palange et al. appears in the November issue of the Journal of Applied Physiology, published by the American Physiological Society.
Editor's note: A copy of the research paper by Palange et al. is available to the media. Members of the media are encouraged to obtain an electronic version and to interview members of the research team. To do so, please contact Mayer Resnick at the American Physiological Society, 301-634-7209, cell 301-332-4402 or mresnick@the-aps.org.
The American Physiological Society was founded in 1887 to foster basic and applied bioscience. The Bethesda, Maryland-based society has more than 10,000 members and publishes 14 peer-reviewed journals containing almost 4,000 articles annually.
APS provides a wide range of research, educational and career support and programming to further the contributions of physiology to understanding the mechanisms of diseased and healthy states. In May, APS received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM).
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2004-11/aps-ta112904.php
PRODUCT MARKETING NEWS
20 Years After Nicorette's Introduction GlaxoSmithKline Offers a Dramatic Change for Smokers-
- New Nicotine Gum Combines Intense Flavor and Effective Treatment --
PITTSBURGH, November 29, 2004 /PRNewswire/ -- For 20 years Nicorette(R) nicotine gum has helped millions of Americans trying to quit smoking, and now the famous remedy is taking a cue from today's popular chewing gums to give more smokers another reason to quit -- great taste, an easier chew and an intense minty flavor. For hundreds of years mint has been a widely popular flavoring and even an herbal therapy for headaches, coughs, colds and the lack of concentration or productivity; now a long-lasting minty flavor is being added to Nicorette -- called Nicorette Fresh Mint -- to attract more smokers to the gum that is clinically proven to help people quitting smoking.
Nicorette nicotine gum, NicoDerm(R) CQ(R) nicotine patch and the Commit(R) nicotine lozenge are marketed by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Consumer Healthcare and have helped more than 2 million people stop smoking by providing low, safe doses of nicotine to ease withdrawal from cigarettes. Smokers familiar with the flavor of the original Nicorette gum will be truly surprised by the taste and texture of new Nicorette Fresh Mint. Like many of today's popular chewing gums, Nicorette Fresh Mint has a hard outer coating that bursts with mint flavor. The new formulation meets the needs of consumers who felt the original gum was not soft enough and expected a flavor more like standard chewing gum.
"When smokers try to quit without help they often experience unbearable cravings and withdrawal symptoms, which are the main reasons they return to cigarettes," states Bill Slivka, Vice President of Smoking Control, GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare. "Nicorette Fresh Mint allows smokers to fight their nicotine cravings as they happen, reducing withdrawal symptoms like irritability and difficulty concentrating. It provides safe, controlled doses of medical nicotine without the harmful tars and poisons found in cigarette smoke."
Nicorette(R) Fresh Mint works the same as original Nicorette and is available in two strengths, 2mg for smokers of 24 or fewer cigarettes each day and 4mg for smokers of 25 or more cigarettes each day. This latest addition to GSK's stop-smoking aids is available over-the-counter in most drug stores, mass merchandisers and supermarkets. The Nicorette Fresh Mint starter kit includes a complete user's guide that explains the process of quitting, how Nicorette Fresh Mint works and why it is important to chew it differently than regular gum. In addition, smokers can receive specific tips for success and advice about staying smoke-free that are offered free with enrollment in the Committed Quitters(R) program, at http://www.quit.com/ .
About Committed Quitters(R)
Committed Quitters is an individualized behavioral support program that is available for free to people using GSK's stop-smoking products. Using Nicorette as directed could double a smoker's chances of quitting cigarettes versus a cold turkey quit attempt, but adding this online support program greatly increases the chances of success. Smokers who have used Nicorette with the assigned support materials from our original Committed Quitters program had quit rates 71 percent higher than people who used the gum alone.(1)
Committed Quitters includes customized materials that provide coping strategies, advice and incentives for staying smoke-free. The Committed Quitters program has been used so far by more than 600,000 smokers. For more information about Nicorette Fresh Mint and the Committed Quitters program, visit the Web site http://www.quit.com/ .
About GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare
GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare is one of the world's largest over- the-counter healthcare products companies and ranks second globally in sales of oral care products. Its more than 30 well-known products include such medicine cabinet staples as Abreva(R), Aquafresh(R) toothpastes and toothbrushes, Goody's(R) Headache Powder, Nicorette(R), NicoDerm(R) CQ(R), Commit(R), Sensodyne(R) and Tums(R).
About GlaxoSmithKline
GlaxoSmithKline is one of the world's leading research-based pharmaceutical and consumer healthcare companies. GlaxoSmithKline is committed to improving the quality of human life by enabling people to do more, feel better and live longer.
(1) Shiffman S, Paty JA, Rohay JM, Di Marino ME, Gitchell J. The efficacy of computer-tailored smoking cessation material as a supplement to nicotine polacrilex gum therapy. Archives of Internal Medicine 2000; 160: 1675-1681.
Web site: http://www.gsk.com/http://www.quit.com/
Ticker Symbol: (NYSE:GSK)
DownloadsFinal.pdf
http://www.pharmalive.com/News/index.cfm?articleid=193820&categoryid=10
Boy, 11, burned in vicious attack - AU
Liam Houlihan November 30, 2004
THREE young men attacked an 11-year-old boy, stubbing a cigarette on his stomach for commenting on the dangers of smoking.
The boy's attackers threw him against a wall and pinned him to the ground by his throat before burning him.
The victim's mother said the attack may have been prompted by her son's comment that the young men smoking thought they looked tough, but were just killing themselves.
The attack happened at the car park of the Mooroolbark McDonald's on September 21.
The boy's mother described her son's attackers as cowardly bullies. "He has a real fear of these boys coming back to get him. I didn't think this could happen to our boy," she said.
The boy's family did not find out about the attack until the boy's doctor noticed the burn two weeks later. The victim was walking with two friends when the older boys heard his comment, and then attacked him.
The men are aged 16 to 20. The main attacker had short blond hair. The victim and his family do not wish to be identified.
"He was basically so scared he didn't mention it to anyone -- not even his family," investigating officer Senior Constable Daniel Sciore said.
The boy from outer eastern suburb The Patch, near Monbulk, had told his family his cut and swollen lip -- received in the attack -- were the result of a fall.
The boy said he and his friends did not report the attack to police because they were scared the attackers might kill them.
Sen-Constable Sciore from Mooroolbark police said he had never seen an attack like it where there was such a huge difference in age between the victim and offender. He described the young victim as polite, well-spoken and well-mannered.
"I saw his injuries two weeks (after the incident) and they were still very serious. The attack can only be described as vicious," he said.
Sen-Constable Sciore said the scene of the attack would have been very busy and someone would have seen something.
Police currently have no leads and are appealing to anyone with information about the man or his two companions to contact Crime Stoppers or the Mooroolbark police.
"It was in broad daylight. Someone would have seen something. This sort of behaviour is not on and it has got to be stopped," Sen-Constable Sciore said.
Herald Sun
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,11539404%255E2862,00.html
Tobacco giant penetrated Asian markets via smuggling and political influence
Posted By: News-Medical in Miscellaneous NewsPublished: Monday, 29-Nov-2004
British American Tobacco (BAT)'s strategy for global expansion combined complicity in smuggling with high level political influence across Asia, new research reveals.
A series of papers published in the journal Tobacco Control, based on analysis of previously secret internal BAT documents, reveal extensive evidence, both of the critical role of contraband in corporate strategy and the company's oversight of widespread smuggling activities across Asia, and its attempts to undermine health policy. The papers look at BAT's activities over the past two decades during which transnational tobacco companies have expanded into Asia's emerging markets as traditional western markets have declined.
The papers have been co-written by tobacco control policy experts from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) in an international collaboration with other researchers. The documents used are being made available through the Guildford Archiving Project, efforts that are improving public access to millions of pages of documents from BAT.
The articles published today explore the strategies used by BAT to pursue rapid growth in key Asian markets, raising serious questions about corporate conduct:
- The first comprehensive analysis of cigarette smuggling in Asia highlights the critical importance of contraband to BAT's regional strategy. This illicit trade has enabled BAT to enter closed markets, to undermine health regulation, and to earn huge profits. The company's documents demonstrate how BAT aimed to carefully manage the availability of smuggled cigarettes while maintaining sufficient separation to allow deniability.
- In China, where the government maintained a firm grip over foreign investment and imports of international cigarette brands, BAT exploited contraband to circumvent import quotas. Documents also show how the company sought to undermine the World Health Organization's Tobacco Free Initiative in China, and to influence China's participation in negotiations for WHO's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).
- Documents detail how BAT identified Cambodia as an attractive target for investment as the country emerged from civil war in the early 1990s. The company viewed Cambodia as strategically valuable in facilitating contraband activities in the region. BAT has also exploited the country's minimal advertising restrictions and sought to prevent advances in tobacco control legislation.
- In Thailand, tobacco companies collaborated to undermine government efforts to require full disclosure of cigarette ingredients. The documents indicate the successful exercise of political influence within the highest levels of government in Thailand and among key embassies.
- In Indonesia BAT has sought to compete with the locally dominant manufacturers of clove-based cigarettes (kreteks). Attempts were made to adapt the image of BAT brands to appeal to Indonesian women. Efforts to develop a kretek-like product were eventually withdrawn amid fears of exposing the company to charges of double standards.
Jeff Collin of LSHTM, who co-authored all of the new papers, comments: "BAT has sought to reverse the impact of long term declines in smoking rates in Europe and North America by aggressively targeting developing countries. Asia is the key to the company's future prospects, and its own documents highlight the dubious tactics used to accelerate its progress in the region. Importantly, the documents also provide a powerful resource for developing effective policy responses to such tactics."
http://www.lshtm.ac.uk/
http://www.news-medical.net/?id=6521
Tougher action needed to stop cigarette sales to children -AU
Posted By: News-Medical in Child Health News Published: Monday, 29-Nov-2004
Retailers should be licensed to sell cigarettes, and the licence revoked if they are caught selling tobacco to children, the Australian Medical Association (WA) said today.
"The State Government is relying on heavy fines to deter retailers, but the threat of losing their licence would be a far stronger deterrent," said AMA (WA) President Dr Paul Skerritt.
"One has to question how effectively we can police the fines system and how often the courts have imposed the maximum penalty in the past."
Dr Skerritt said banning point-of-sale-advertising, limiting displays of tobacco products and restricting cigarette vending machines to licensed premises were welcome initiatives by the State Government - but they should have been introduced much earlier.
"The measures being announced now by the Health Minister were advocated by the Health Department more than 18 months ago," said Dr Skerritt.
"The Government refused to act because it did not want to upset the tobacco and liquor industries.
"On the eve of an election they have promised a raft of reforms which will do nothing to reduce passive smoking for at least another 18 months."
Dr Skerritt said the AMA (WA) was disappointed that Mr McGinty had attacked the association's zero-tolerance attitude to passive smoking as "playing politics".
"We are not prepared to compromise on this issue and we make no apology for putting the health of the community ahead of everyone else's business interests," he said.
"Sadly, our members deal directly with the victims of lung cancer, throat cancer, heart disease and all the other smoking-related illnesses.
"They don't have a lot of sympathy for those who will only take action when the Australian Hotels Association says it is comfortable with the timetable for new regulations to be introduced.
"Many more lives will be lost while we wait for the new rules to take effect."
http://www.amawa.com.au
http://www.news-medical.net/?id=6510
Liverpool and London push for smoking ban -UK
Published 29th November 2004
Liverpool and London have joined forces in petitioning Parliament to pass smoke-free laws in the two cities.
Liverpool City Council and the Association of London Government (ALG) - representing London’s 33 councils – have made the decision to pressure government because neither feels the white paper on health does enough to protect workers.
The councils are to formally place private bills before Parliament to ban smoking in pubs, clubs, restaurants, shops and offices to protect employees being exposed to cigarette smoke. The legislation is being put forward on health and safety grounds and is similar to laws already in force in Ireland and New York.
Sir Robin Wales, chair of the ALG, said: “People have the choice of smoking or not, or whether they wish to stay in smoke-filled environments. However the people working in our leisure venues do not have that choice.
“Recent polls have shown that Londoners themselves back a ban on smoking in public places. This bill is evidence of boroughs listening to and acting on the concerns of their local communities.”
Mike Storey, leader of Liverpool City Council, added: “In Liverpool over 100 people die each year from cancer caused by passive smoking. We take this issue extremely seriously. As a city council we have a duty to protect employees and customers, and our bill will do exactly that.”
The bills are being introduced in time for the next legislative session and will go through the normal parliamentary procedures. This process will also help shape how any ban would be enforced should it become law.
http://www.thepublican.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=15684&d=32&h=24&f=23&dateformat=%25o%20%25B%20%25Y
Protect Your Home From Carbon Monoxide
Carbon monoxide is a colorless, odorless gas that is produced as a result of incomplete burning of carbon-containing fuels. Exposure to CO reduces the blood's ability to carry oxygen.
Carbon monoxide exposures especially affect unborn babies, infants and people with anemia or a history of heart or respiratory disease.
Breathing low levels of CO can cause fatigue and increase chest pain in people with chronic heart disease. Breathing higher levels of carbon monoxide causes flu-like symptoms such as headaches, dizziness, and weakness in healthy people. Carbon monoxide also causes sleepiness, nausea, vomiting, confusion, and disorientation. At very high levels, it causes loss of consciousness and death.
Steps To Prevent Carbon Monoxide Poisoning In Your Home:
Make sure appliances are installed and working according to manufacturers' instructions and local building codes.
Have only a qualified technician install or convert fuel-burning equipment from one type to another.
Have the heating system, chimney and flue inspected and cleaned by a qualified technician every year.
Do not use ovens and gas ranges to heat your home.
Do not burn charcoal inside a home, cabin, recreational vehicle or camper.
Do not operate gasoline-powered engines in confined areas such as garages or basements.
Never leave your car or mower running in a closed garage.
Make sure your furnace has adequate intake of outside air.
Choose vented appliances whenever possible.
Use kerosene space heaters and unvented gas heaters only in well ventilated rooms.
Install a carbon monoxide detector with an audible alarm in your home and garage.
Any fuel-burning appliance that is not adequately vented and maintained can be a potential source of CO, including:
Gas appliances (furnaces, ranges, ovens, water heaters, clothes dryers, etc.).
Fireplaces, wood and coal stoves, space heaters.
Charcoal grills, automobile exhaust fumes, camp stoves, gas-powered lawn mowers, and power tools.
Cigarette smoke can also contain high levels of CO, as well as 200 other known poisons.
Carbon Monoxide Detectors Should:
Meet Underwriters Laboratories, Inc. standards.
Have a long-term warranty.
Be easily self-tested and reset to ensure proper functioning.
Be placed as close to sleeping areas as possible for maximum effectiveness during sleeping hours.
http://www.clickondetroit.com/money/423055/detail.html
Ban Could Cut Smoking by 10% -UK
 Susannah Birkwood Posted by: Webteam on Nov 28, 2004
THE GOVERNMENT’S proposed smoking ban could lower cigarette consumption by as much as 10% and result in massive loss of profits for tobacco companies, according to City analysts.
However the pub trade has hinted that publicans will side-step the ban, while some of Britain's top restaurants are planning to charge membership or entrance fees, as smoking will still be legal in private clubs where the members agree to it.
The UK tobacco market is already declining between 1 and 2 % a year, although this is partly due to the high price of cigarettes. According to analysts at investment banks Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, cigarette consumption could suffer a one-off fall of up to 10%in 2009.
However, Stephen Birkwood from Deutschebank comments: "Given the fact that tobacco companies have a three-year window to restructure their business, the ban shouldn't have a huge impact on the profits they achieve".
According to Manchester doctors, councillors and charity bosses, an absolute ban is the only way forward.
Phil Braber, Chairman of the Greater Manchester and Cheshire Lung Cancer Network, and chest physician at Wythenshawe Hospital, said: "I think doctors will feel let down if there is not a ban because we would be missing a great opportunity not only to protect people from passive smoking, but also a chance to secure very big reductions in active smoking. A smoke-free environment is a reasonable expectation these days".
Dr Kailash Chand, Ashton-under-Lyne GP and local British Medical Association representative, also is “begging” Manchester City Council to push for a smoking ban: "The white paper on public health provides the Government with the biggest opportunity to change the health of the nation since its election in 1997, " he commented. "Is this not the time for Manchester council to propose such a ban?”
Confident that whatever restrictions are proposed, it will be a significant step towards making the city smoke-free, Pat Karney - head of the Greater Manchester Smoke Free Campaign - has said that "I have no doubt that we will have a smoke-free Greater Manchester which will save around 25,000 people over the next five to ten years".
Health secretary John Reid stated that even in pubs where smoking will be permitted, nobody will be able to light up in the bar area.
Student opinion on the smoking ban is unsurprisingly split: Manchester student Dave Jepson said: "Aside from the passive smoking issue, who wants to stink of stale fags after a trip to the pub?" and was supported by Olivia Long who commented "Smokers are in a minority anyway, why should they be allowed to give other people lung cancer?" But others have attacked the plans as "an attempt to demonise smokers".
* I added my comments to site
http://www.student-direct.co.uk/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1682&thold=0&mode=0&order=0
Posted at 11:08 pm by looped_ca
Sunday, November 28, 2004
Redgraves launch political party -UK
Campaigning British actors Vanessa Redgrave and her brother Corin have launched a political party to focus on the sole issue of human rights.
Ms Redgrave pledged the Peace and Progress Party would challenge the government at the next election.
More than 300 people attended the founding conference in central London on Saturday.
They want UK troops withdrawn from Iraq, the repeal of anti-asylum laws and all Third World debt cancelled.
Ms Redgrave said she was unsure how many general election candidates would be fielded but stressed that they would fight solely on a human rights platform.
Vanessa Redgrave She added: "We wouldn't want to rob the Liberal Democrats of the chance to oust Labour".
The new party's manifesto urges people who do not normally vote to come out and pledge support.
The Oscar-winning actress Vanessa has backed many political causes over the years.
She was among a delegation that lobbied outside the US Supreme Court in Washington DC last March, denouncing treatment of inmates at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
Azmat Begg, father of Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg, is on the new party's steering committee.
He told Saturday's founding conference: "There is no other party which is talking about human rights, no other party which is talking about these important issues.
Ms Redgrave added: "People think that human rights concern very few people but it is part of all human life.
"It is to do with security, education, immigration, asylum, all sorts of issues."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4048943.stm
Profits rise as Belhaven braces for smoking ban -UK
IAIN DEY
PUB companies look likely to dominate much of this week’s market interest, as they assess the potential impact of proposed smoking bans.
Belhaven, which now has an estate of more than 250 pubs, has been hit hard by the Scottish Executive’s plans, leaving some investors feeling that the share price fall has been overdone.
This week’s interim results from the Dunbar-based group are likely to give ample reason to back that view.
Pre-tax profits are expected to be around £9m for the first half of the year - up from £7.6m last year. That is an increase of almost 20% and follows a 25% jump in profits at the same stage last year. There is also likely to be a further rise in the dividend.
Bell Lawrie White director Bryan Johnston said: "Belhaven is an extremely well run company. While the brewing industry is moving towards these superpowers, there is still room for the niche players like Belhaven, who are serving regional markets.
They encourage huge loyalty in the brand, and Belhaven’s been very good at that.
"Will a smoking ban make more non-smokers go to the pub or encourage smokers to stay at home? I’m not qualified to answer that. But I don’t think it will be as bad for Belhaven as many seem to think."
Also reporting is Enterprise Inns.
Profits of £225.3m are expected for the 12 months to August 31 - up from £173m a year ago, after the group weathered the impact of the wet summer and increases in energy costs. The results will also include a six-month contribution from the estate of the Unique Pub Company, which was acquired in March, and where Enterprise expects to achieve £25m in savings after integration.
Next up is Mitchells & Butlers, which is due to release its results for the year to August 31 on Wednesday.
M&B is expected to show profits falling to £174.4m from £199m a year ago. The company, which owns the O’Neills and Harvester brands, has been driving sales growth by cutting prices - a strategy that analysts believe will help it to absorb the higher costs that are creating pressure in the industry.
According to brokers Charles Stanley, Mitchells & Butlers will need to cover higher utility costs, rises in the minimum wage and the implications of the smoking ban.
Friday sees results from Wolverhampton & Dudley Breweries, which has an estate of managed and tenanted pubs. A rise in profits to £77.2m is expected for the year to September 30, up from £73.1m a year ago. The group has kept operating margins steady and has integrated the Wizard Inns estate ahead of the schedule laid out at the time of its acquisition in June.
Outside the world of pubs, the week also sees figures from Reliance Security - the company famed for its not-so-reliable prisoner escort service.
Letting prisoners escape, or "negative newsflow" as the City likes to call it, has wiped about 30% from Reliance’s shares over the past six months.
But this week’s interim results could help restore faith in the City. KBC Peel Hunt reckons that pre-tax profits before amortisation of goodwill and exceptionals are likely to be 15% higher at £6.3m.
In the oil industry, while buoyant crude prices have been propping up BP and Shell, the oil services industry has been on less consistent form. Expro updates the market this week with interim results that are expected to show evidence of a turnaround. Cazenove anticipates earnings per share for the first half of 9.5p against 6.5p last year.
Problems in its shallow water business in the gulf of Mexico are thought to have been alleviated, and its North Sea business is expected to show signs of resilience in a tough market.
Compass Group rocked the market in September with a profits warning following a string of setbacks that ranged from poor trading in Europe to weak margins from some contracts with local education authorities.
Analysts expect the group - best known for serving food to blue-chip companies and its Upper Crust sandwich chain - to announce on Tuesday that annual profits have remained virtually static at £660m compared with a year ago.
Reassurance that the problems are not ongoing will help to revive shares in the company, while attention will be paid to cash flow after Compass said it would be £200m worse than originally anticipated this year.
Leisure group De Vere - owner of hotels such as The Belfry, used its trading statement in September to put investors on stand-by for a 3% rise in annual revenues despite poor weather and the renovation of its flagship Grand Hotel in Brighton.
De Vere is expected to reveal on Wednesday that annual profits rose to £43m from £39.7m on the back of a recovery at its upmarket and Village hotels, which have benefited from corporate bookings and conferences.
Costs of £1.3m have been flagged by De Vere following its failure to land the Premier Lodge chain of budget hotels, and its defence against rebel shareholder GPG Holdings, which led a campaign to force the sale of its UK hotels.
http://business.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1365522004
'Nanny state' minister under fire -UK
Publish Date : 11/28/2004 10:24:00 AM Source : United Kingdom News Onlypunjab.com
In a speech in London, Mrs Hodge insisted the government had a "powerful" role to play in family life.
She said "good nannies" were not just about telling you what you must do but about "ensuring you can make real and informed choices for yourself".
But Tory spokesman Theresa May said the government was "intent on interfering" in every aspect of people's lives.
'Powerful force'
Mrs May said families did not need a nanny looking over their shoulder and "tutting disapprovingly every time they make a decision that does not meet with government approval".
Mrs May told BBC Radio 4's The World at One: "At least Mrs Hodge has admitted what many have been saying for years, that the government is intent on interfering and controlling every aspect of our lives.
"Families want the freedom to make their own choices over how they run their lives."
For the Liberal Democrats, Simon Hughes said that government should provide high quality public services enabling people to choose the way they wanted to live rather than a "one size fits all approach".
He added: "Labour too often tries to compel people rather than informing and supporting them to make their own choices.
Labour has come under attack in recent months over plans to ban smoking in public places and smacking.
But in her speech, Mrs Hodge said the state had historically taken an interest in the family, on everything from compulsory education for children to drink-drive laws.
'Best start'
She said that "the state can be a powerful force for good in families and communities".
And government should offer "as much support as possible" to parents especially at the points of transition in children's lives such as moving from primary to secondary school or when they bring their baby home from hospital, she added.
But she said that, rather than "instructing and haranguing" parents, the state should enable and empower them.
She stressed good parenting was not linked to socio-economic background but said poorer families faced "many more obstacles and that makes the state's job different".
She added: "If we really do believe in opportunity for all then the state does need to provide support for the family and children to counter the influence of disadvantage."
Mrs Hodge said that was why the government had decided to offer more to families in disadvantaged areas, with schemes such as Sure Start, the government's network of family centres, which she said helped "deliver the best start in life for every child".
Difficult questions
She pointed to evidence that Sure Start is working including "a 37% increase in breastfeeding in Millmead, Kent", a "25% cut in smoking by pregnant women in Whitehaven" and " a 47% decrease in the number of children under three admitted to an A&E department in Hastings and St Leonards".
Mrs Hodge acknowledged state intervention in family life raised difficult questions but it was not good enough to shy away from such issues.
"For me it's not a question of whether we should intrude in family life, but how and when - and we have to constantly remain focused on our purpose: to strengthen and support families so they can enjoy their opportunities and help to provide opportunities for their children."
Mrs Hodge was speaking at a seminar organised by the left-leaning think tank the Institute for Public Policy Research.
The speech comes as Mr's Hodge's department prepares to publish a booklet to be given to all new parents with advice on how to read a book to their children and how to limit the amount of television they watch.
http://www.onlypunjab.com/fullstory1104-insight-Nanny+state+minister+under+fire-status-3-newsID-9101.html
Smokers may lose homes if litigation fails -IE
Dearbhail McDonald November 28, 2004
IRISH smokers suffering from lung cancer and emphysema could lose their homes and life savings if they fail in a bid to sue tobacco giants.
More than 100 of the original 2,000 litigants have dropped their cases in return for a promise that they will not be pursued for costs. Those determined to continue their fight will be forced to pay the full cost of their legal action if it fails.
An award of costs — the average High Court case costs €100,000 for the companies to defend — could be financially devastating for many of the plaintiffs, some of whom are too ill to mount appeals. One leading Irish tobacco company has already secured an order of costs for €140,000 from a Dublin man who is dying of cancer.
“There have been quite a few orders for costs,” said an industry source. “We will pursue where we feel it is necessary, otherwise it would encourage litigants to sue. We are not sitting ducks. Where an award of costs has been obtained, they will be pursued.
“There was an assumption that people could just sue the tobacco companies without considering liability for costs, but that is not the case.”
Last month about 100 smokers abandoned their claims after the collapse of a crucial test case in the High Court. The smokers, who had their costs waived for abandoning their claims for damages, followed an unsuccessful case taken by a Dublin pensioner.
Earlier this year the High Court ruled that a woman who started smoking at the age of 16 in 1948 — and developed emphysema in 1995 — could not sue Benson & Hedges because of the huge time lapse. Mary Manning, 72, from Dublin, died while awaiting the ruling handed down by Justice Mary Finlay Geoghegan.
The judge criticised the “scattergun approach” of the smokers in bringing the cases. The litigants were seeking payouts of €300,000 each, claiming they contracted illnesses after becoming addicted to cigarettes. They claimed the tobacco companies induced them to smoke for commercial gain but knew of the addictive properties of cigarettes.
The tobacco companies, which contested all the claims — 90% of which have been thrown out or discontinued — said the cases were impossible to defend because key witnesses were elderly or dead. The High Court agreed.
Almost 2,000 smokers started legal action seven years ago. Their claims were lodged on the back of the $200 billion (€163 billion) settlement with smokers made by the American tobacco industry in the late 1990s. Steve Berman, the leading American tobacco litigator tried to join forces with an Irish firm and the state in an action against the tobacco industry. The government refused to take part.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2091-1378330,00.html
Posted at 5:03 pm by looped_ca
Saturday, November 27, 2004
Indoor smokers grab bag -MB
'Volcano' puffing provides smokeless nic fix
By ROCHELLE SQUIRES, STAFF REPORTER Sat, November 27, 2004
Call it a comeback for puffers. At least that's what Tony Siwicki is hoping as he tests a new product that gives puffers a nicotine fix without violating the smoking ban in his restaurant.
Using a device called the Volcano Vapourizer and a pinch of tobacco, smokers can get a big puff of nicotine without creating any second-hand smoke, said Siwicki, owner of the Silver Heights Restaurant.
Under the province-wide smoking ban, Siwicki's customers are not allowed to smoke in his restaurant and lounge. He believes this is a viable alternative.
'LIKE SMOKING A CIGARETTE'
"It's just like smoking a cigarette," said Dave Little, a customer at the restaurant who tried out the vapourizer to satisfy his after-dinner nicotine craving. "It works. It definitely works. And it has good taste."
Little has been smoking for 25 years. He said a blast from the Volcano Vapourizer was a good substitute to the real thing.
"There is no smoke, no ash and no fire, therefore we're not infringing on any bylaws," said Tom Beggs, the distributor for the German-invented device. "It's not smoking, it's vapourizing."
The device has an element that heats the tobacco just enough to vapourize the nicotine.
"What you're doing is roasting the tobacco," said Beggs, adding smokers can inhale the vapours through a mouthpiece once the nicotine has vapourized into an attached baggie.
Silver Heights Restaurant is the first establishment in Manitoba to use the device, but it is gaining popularity among pot smokers in B.C., where Beggs sells about six each month.
A spokeswoman from Manitoba Health said they could not comment whether vapour would follow the same rules as smoke.
Beggs said he's had positive and negative feedback from those who've tried it.
"But when it's -30 C outside, people will be glad for a way to fulfill their craving without having to go outside," said Beggs.
Not everyone liked it.
"I like a cigarette way better. This is kind of funky," said Ashleigh Alty, 25, who's been a smoker for 10 years. "I'd probably go outside instead."
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/WinnipegSun/News/2004/11/27/736012.html
Spat over cigarette nearly fatal for girl -MB
Stabbed in thigh by 12-year-old boy
By CARY CASTAGNA, POLICE REPORTER Sat, November 27, 2004
A 12-year-old boy is accused of stabbing a 13-year-old girl in the thigh Thursday night during a near-fatal dispute that was allegedly over a cigarette. The teen, whose name was withheld by police, was listed in stable condition yesterday after being upgraded from critical.
"At some point, she was in life-threatening condition and if it hadn't been for immediate medical attention, she could have succumbed to those injuries," Winnipeg police spokeswoman Const. Shelly Glover said.
The girl went to a home in the West End shortly after 9:30 p.m. Thursday to visit her girlfriend, Glover said.
"When she arrived, her friend was not there. However, the friend's 12-year-old brother invited her in to wait," Glover said. "While she waited, she and the boy started teasing one another."
But the playful teasing soon turned violent when the girl allegedly took the boy's cigarette away from him, Glover said.
That's when the boy allegedly pulled out a knife and plunged it into the girl's upper leg.
There were other residents in the home at the time and they apparently called 911.
The girl was rushed to hospital while the boy was arrested.
He is facing a charge of aggravated assault -- a severe Criminal Code offence that accuses the young suspect of wounding, maiming, disfiguring or endangering the life of the complainant.
"Charges of aggravated assault are rare when we're dealing with a 12-year-old," Glover said. "More common is the charge of assault or assault causing bodily harm."
LOWER CHARGE
There's still a chance the Crown will lower the charge to assault with a weapon, Glover said. Had the boy been one year younger, he would have been too young to be charged.
The boy was released from police custody on a promise to appear in court at a later date. He cannot be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
All was quiet yesterday at the two-storey home where the incident occurred, but residents said the home is usually buzzing with teenage activity.
"You always see lots of traffic in and out of the house," said one neighbour. "Lots of teens."
Another neighbour shook her head when she heard about the knifing.
"Twelve-year-old kids, they don't know any better," she said. "They just get angry and they take out their frustrations."
City records indicate the home is owned by Kinew Housing Incorporated, a non-profit organization that offers subsidized housing for aboriginal families.
Kinew management couldn't be reached yesterday for comment.
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/WinnipegSun/News/2004/11/27/736014.html
We need a new drug strategy
By Mindelle JacobsSat, November 27, 2004
In the wake of a new study showing increased drug use, the hunt continues for the elusive -- more likely impossible -- prevention strategy that will keep Canadians straight and sober. Given human nature, we might be better off inventing a mood-altering substance with no harmful or long-lasting side effects. That way, those who wanted to get stoned could do so without social censure.
And it would be cheaper than the vast amounts of money governments have spent over the decades on the war on drugs.
That's what I dreamed about the other night: harried Canadians hauling their butts home from work, popping a magic pill and getting stoned with Ottawa's blessing.
No worries about addiction, carcinogens or other dangerous consequences. It's the perfect antidote for our hyper, angst-ridden society. Health Canada should get right on it.
Oh, wait. That makes too much sense. Ottawa would never go for it.
So we are left to ponder the reality of our frazzled, post-modern culture -- a growing proportion of Canadians love to get high.
According to the Canadian Addiction Survey, released Wednesday, 14% of those polled reported they'd used pot in the last year -- up from 7.4% a decade ago.
The good news is that 21% of the past-year users said they didn't toke up in the previous three months and 25% of the past-year users had smoked pot just once or twice.
The bad news is that 18% of past-year users use marijuana daily. As well, about one-third of past-year users reported failing to control their use and a strong desire to smoke pot and about 16% said friends or relatives expressed concern about their pot use.
The results suggest that intervention strategies should target those whose drug use is most acute, says Michel Perron, of the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse, which was involved in the survey.
The difficulty is there is no "tidy, simple" anti-drug message, he notes. Demonizing marijuana failed so experts must come up with a plan that will "resonate" with young people, he says.
"Prevention is complicated," Perron adds.
The survey also found that 79% of the people surveyed were drinkers, up from 72% in 1994. About 7% of those polled are frequent heavy drinkers (at least five drinks more than once a week), up from 5.4% a decade ago.
The biggest boozers are males aged 18 to 24, according to the study. One-quarter of men and 9% of women are high-risk drinkers.
Not surprisingly, booze causes all sorts of problems, the respondents said. One in 10 people polled said someone's drinking was responsible for family and marriage problems. About 15% said they'd had serious arguments because of someone's boozing and 11% were pushed or shoved as a result.
Heavy drinking is particularly prevalent in Alberta and the Atlantic provinces. And lifetime use of pot is significantly higher than the national average in Alberta and B.C.
Although about one in six Canadians has used an illicit drug other than pot at some point, rates of such drug use in the past year are generally 1% or less.
The report only focused on drug use and its related harms. The risk factors and why people use drugs will be addressed in a future study.
For instance, this study found, startlingly, that lifetime pot use increases with education and income. As yet, we don't know why.
Perron says he did a double take when he read that finding.
"We've got to dig deeper into this."
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/WinnipegSun/News/2004/11/27/736029.html
Too much water risky-ON
Provided by: Sun Media Written by: JOHN MINER Nov. 26, 2004
LONDON, Ont. -- Drinking water when you're not thirsty could be harmful to your health, according to a surprise finding of medical researchers studying the health fallout from Walkerton's tainted water tragedy.
"We think we have the rare opportunity to identify a problem that will have a huge impact on the general population," Bill Clark, a kidney specialist and chair of the Walkerton Health Study, said yesterday.
The research might have particular implications for people following popular low- carbohydrate diets that stipulate they should consume eight 236-millilitre glasses of water a day.
"We suspect people on the Atkins diet and all these other groups that are encouraged to drink large volumes of fluid every day, that it may actually be deleterious," Clark said.
"We think you should actually drink water when you are thirsty," Clark said.
The Walkerton research group, which draws scientists from the Lawson Health Research Institute, London Health Sciences Centre, University of Western Ontario and McMaster University, discovered 107 of the town's 5,000 residents produced an abnormally high volume of urine that contained protein.
Researchers expect to find that condition in one in a million people.
It was originally suspected that the condition was due to kidney damage from the E. coli contamination of the town's water system in May 2000 which killed seven people and sickened more than 2,600.
But Clark said it now appears that the high urine volumes are brought on by the residents drinking excessively large volumes of water.
"It looks like people who are taking large volumes of fluid develop protein in the urine. We know that that, over an extended period of time, will cause kidney damage."
Clark said the researchers suspect the problem probably exists in the general population but has not been identified. Among other findings reported to residents last night:
- Eighty-four per cent of participants in the study reported being in good to excellent health.
- Among those in fair to poor health, 82 per cent reported their health had remained stable or improved since last year.
- The majority of children who had kidney problems do not have persisting abnor- malities.
Clark said some Walkerton residents are suffering serious health problems because of the E. coli contamination and it has had a significant effect on the quality of life of the community. But he is optimistic researchers will be able to identify any long-term progressive diseases and largely prevent "major negative outcomes."
Walkerton residents have a higher than expected incidence of diabetes, Clark said.
Work is still continuing to see if that is a result of the tainted water or due to other factors.
http://chealth.canoe.ca/health_news_detail.asp?news_id=12363
Establishments cited in alcohol, cigarette checks - IL
Police issued 17 liquor-related citations to patrons and employees at Prairie Moon, 1502 Sherman Ave., during a compliance check at about 1:15 a.m. Friday.
Nine patrons were cited for using fraudulent identification to enter the establishment.
Two employees were cited for serving alcohol to persons under 21. In addition, four customers were ticketed for alleged underage possession of alcohol and two were cited for 0 entering a liquor establishment under the age of 21.
Of 17 businesses checked by police, alcohol allegedly was sold or served to minors at four others in addition to Prairie Moon.
Citations were issued at Bar Louie, 1520 Sherman Ave.; the Bluestone Cafe, 1932 Central St.; Bill's Blues Bar, 1029 Davis St.; and Dominick's Finer Foods, 1910 Dempster St.
Those ticketed during the sting are scheduled to appear at an administrative hearing Dec. 7 at the Evanston Civic Center.
On Saturday, meanwhile, citations were issued at two businesses where employees allegedly sold cigarettes to a minor working undercover with police.
Tickets were issued at Delta Discount, 800 Main St., and Mobil Gas, 1950 Green Bay Road.
http://www.pioneerlocal.com/cgi-bin/ppo-story/localnews/current/ev/11-25-04-445491.html
Posted at 7:26 pm by looped_ca
Warn people of deadly fungus symptoms, says B.C. victim's sister
Written by CBC News Online staff Thu, 25 Nov 2004
VICTORIA - A Vancouver Island woman says health authorities must do more to warn people about the risks of the rare tropical fungus that killed her sister.
Debbie Chow of Langford lost her only sister, Esther Young, to Cryptococcus neoformans variety gattii three years ago.
The fungus, which makes its home in trees across the east coast of Vancouver Island, attacks the lungs and central nervous system of the victim.
Chow said the infection left her sister in constant pain, nausea and violent seizures.
She was in and out of hospital for months, and Chow said only after she had a spinal tap was she diagnosed with having the fungus. She later died.
"I know my sister," said Chow. "She thought it was menopause. At one point she thought it was just the flu and in fact it was neither one."
Since the disease was first found on the island in 1999, 101 people have contracted it after breathing fungal spores in the air.
"So far we have four cases where cryptococcus has either caused or contributed to death," said Laura MacDougall, an epidemiologist with the B.C. Centre for Disease Control. The cases are described in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
As many as 12 people who have contracted the fungus died, but the others were elderly and their deaths were blamed on other causes, said Dr. Perry Kendall, the provincial health officer.
"I think it would be unwise to try to create a huge amount of unwanted anxiety about a disease which is a very rare," said Kendall.
The rate of cryptococcal deaths on the island is about five times lower than deaths caused by motor vehicle accidents, said Dr. Murray Fyfe, the medical health officer for the Vancouver Island Health Authority.
Since the B.C. Centre for Disease Control focuses on infections not deaths, it's not clear how many people may have died from the disease.
Meanwhile, Chow is calling on health authorities to do more to warn people about the symptoms, which include chest pains, a stubborn cough, severe headaches, neck stiffness and difficulty breathing.
"I wonder how many people are wandering around with cryptococcal who think they have a flu," said Chow.
http://sympatico.msn.cbc.ca/story/science/national/2004/11/25/cryptococcus041125.html
Ontario to require 5 per cent ethanol in gas
Written by CBC News Online staff Fri, 26 Nov 2004
TORONTO - Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty says gas sold in the province will have to contain at least five per cent ethanol within three years.
McGuinty made the announcement Friday in Chatham, Ont., home of the province's only major ethanol factory.
Long touted as a clean source of alternative energy, ethanol is a type of high-octane alcohol, produced from corn, wheat and straw.
Making drivers use more of the biofuel along with the gasoline in their cars and trucks would reduce smog significantly, environmentalists say.
Leading up to the last election, McGuinty's Liberal party had promised to ensure gasoline contained 10 per cent ethanol by 2010.
Gasoline being sold in Ontario now contains about two per cent ethanol.
Refiners have warned that consumer prices will rise if they are forced to add more ethanol to fuel, because it has been expensive to make in the past.
Manitoba and Saskatchewan have already announced plans to boost the amount of ethanol in gas sold within their borders, to 10 per cent and 7.5 per cent respectively by the end of 2005.
The requirements move in the direction of taking car fuels back to their beginnings. The original Model T designed by Henry Ford in 1908 could run on ethanol, which Ford expected to be the fuel of the future.
http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2004/11/25/ethanol-gas-ontario-041125.html
Health Canada
"Light and mild" campaign of the Anti-Tobacco Initiative, 2001-02
The "light and mild" campaign, with an estimated total cost of $9.2 million, was developed after the Minister of Health challenged the tobacco industry in May 2001 to remove the "light and mild" labels from cigarette packages within the next 100 days.
The stated objectives of the first phase of the campaign were "to set stage (provide framing) for the Minister's announcement of the next steps to addressing the light and mild descriptors issues." The television campaign objective was to "bolster public support for continued federal action to address light and mild descriptors issues." The secondary objectives were to "raise awareness of the confusion caused by light and mild descriptors; raise awareness that light and mild cigarettes can deliver the same toxics in similar concentrations as regular cigarettes with the same possible results."
The "light and mild" campaign clearly was related to a key priority of both Health Canada and the federal government. We saw evidence that the development of the ad campaign followed a rational and logical approach from concept to final copy, supported by research at each stage. However, the objectives were vague and not measurable. The media plan and budget called for an average of 22 viewings by 95 percent of Canadian adults 18 and over and spending of $6.7 million over seven weeks. We saw little documented rationale or analysis to support the proposed level of saturation or the level of spending.
No one at Health Canada could tell us how the global budget for the campaign was established in the first place. Health Canada submitted no advertising plan and spending forecast to CCSB, as the government's communications policy required.
http://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/domino/reports.nsf/a1b15d892a1f761a852565c40068a492/ad4a9be8f294cba185256e2b00533d41?OpenDocument&Highlight=0,tobacco
2003 auditor general report
4.42 Another case at Health Canada involved a contract valued at $414,405 for the development of an anti-tobacco campaign. We observed that the contractor's proposal was dated 25 March 2002; the contract was issued on 28 March 2002 and was in effect until 31 March 2002, three days later. Of particular concern to us is that invoices totalling $179,570 had been approved for payment, one as early as 15 February—more than five weeks before the contract was signed. Without a written contract, it was impossible for Health Canada to ensure before it paid the invoices that terms and conditions of the contract had been respected.
http://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/domino/reports.nsf/a1b15d892a1f761a852565c40068a492/39660714b370804085256e2b00533d0b?OpenDocument&Highlight=0,tobacco
Health Canada
"Light and mild" campaign of the Anti-Tobacco Initiative, 2001-02
The "light and mild" campaign, with an estimated total cost of $9.2 million, was developed after the Minister of Health challenged the tobacco industry in May 2001 to remove the "light and mild" labels from cigarette packages within the next 100 days.
The stated objectives of the first phase of the campaign were "to set stage (provide framing) for the Minister's announcement of the next steps to addressing the light and mild descriptors issues." The television campaign objective was to "bolster public support for continued federal action to address light and mild descriptors issues." The secondary objectives were to "raise awareness of the confusion caused by light and mild descriptors; raise awareness that light and mild cigarettes can deliver the same toxics in similar concentrations as regular cigarettes with the same possible results."
The "light and mild" campaign clearly was related to a key priority of both Health Canada and the federal government. We saw evidence that the development of the ad campaign followed a rational and logical approach from concept to final copy, supported by research at each stage. However, the objectives were vague and not measurable. The media plan and budget called for an average of 22 viewings by 95 percent of Canadian adults 18 and over and spending of $6.7 million over seven weeks. We saw little documented rationale or analysis to support the proposed level of saturation or the level of spending.
No one at Health Canada could tell us how the global budget for the campaign was established in the first place. Health Canada submitted no advertising plan and spending forecast to CCSB, as the government's communications policy required.
http://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/domino/reports.nsf/html/20031104se04.html
Office of the Auditor General http://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/domino/other.nsf/html/99menu2e.html
Ontario to intensify tobacco crackdown
By MURRAY CAMPBELL From Friday's Globe and Mail
The Ontario government will begin today to roll out the most sweeping anti-smoking strategy ever seen in Canada, banning cigarettes from being displayed at store counters, raising taxes and requiring all public and work places to be smoke-free within two years.
Health Minister George Smitherman will announce the first part of the initiative, a campaign in which young people will develop "edgy" ads to target their peers, at a concert in Toronto tonight. The timetable for other parts of the strategy is unclear, but the minister said legislation to implement the entire package will be introduced by mid-December.
Mr. Smitherman noted yesterday that Manitoba, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick have programs to reduce smoking but "I don't believe there will be a more comprehensive piece of legislation" in Canada.
"We're not making cigarettes illegal and we are not restricting the right of adults to smoke them, but what we are saying is your right to smoke a cigarette indoors comes at my expense because second-hand smoke is deadly," he added.
The exact shape of the proposed legislation is unclear, but Mr. Smitherman has said repeatedly since the Liberals took office 13 months ago that he intended to implement a six-part strategy that was one of Premier Dalton McGuinty's campaign promises.
In a speech last May, for example, the Health Minister said "we were very clear about what we intended to do" and that "when it comes to the battle against smoking, Ontario will set the pace." He said the aim is to encourage smokers to quit and to prevent young people from starting.
"People will see when the bill comes forward that this is a government that has sought to fulfill the commitments it made during the campaign," Mr. Smitherman said yesterday.
Specifically, the Liberals promised to:
Ban countertop and behind-the-counter displays of tobacco products;
Increase the cost of cigarettes through taxes (the government has added $5 to the price of a carton in the past year);
Make all public and work places, including casinos and private clubs, smoke-free by 2006, superseding a patchwork of anti-tobacco regulations in about 100 municipalities;
Use increased tax revenue to make smoking-cessation medications available to people trying to quit;!
Create a transition fund to help farmers move away from growing tobacco;!
Create a "peer-to-peer" campaign in which young people will be financed to make advertisements that spread the anti-smoking message. The first of these ads will be unveiled tonight in Toronto and four other cities across Ontario.
Mr. Smitherman said the tough measures are necessary because about 16,000 people every year die prematurely from tobacco use and because illness due to smoking costs the health-care system $1.5-billion annually.
Michael Perley, director of the Ontario Campaign for Action on Tobacco, said he is pleased that the government is committed to attacking smoking on a number of fronts.
"You put the whole package together and it's a very impressive lineup of programming, legislation and funding," said Mr. Perley, whose 12-year-old organization represents a number of health groups, including the Ontario Medical Association and the Canadian Cancer Society. "I haven't seen anything to suggest it's not going to be the most comprehensive bill in Canada."
But a smokers rights group formed to fight the Ontario initiative said the government has gone beyond protecting people from second-hand smoke and is out to punish smokers.
Nancy Daigneault, president of the on-line organization mychoice.ca, accused Mr. Smitherman of trampling on the rights of people to make their own choices about their lives. "It's sort of a bullying tactic to force people into adopting a healthy lifestyle," said Ms. Daigneault, whose organization was launched with $2.5-million from the Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers Council.
The Health Minister said earlier this year that he expected a fight from "big tobacco" and "I'm ready for them."
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20041125.wxsmoke1126/BNStory/Front/
Where are all the Non-Smokers -ON
Letters to the Editor Nov. 25/04 The Chronicle Journal Thunder Bay, Ont.
We own and operate a local bingo hall. Proceeds from each bingo go to local
charities. Since the opening of the casino the charities' revenues have
dropped dramatically.
In July the smoke-free by-law came into force. It had an immediate effect on
the attendance in all bingo halls. We no longer require such a large hall to
operate and we moved our businesses to the Lakehead Labour Centre.
All halls have been taking a few breaks in their bingo sessions so the
smokers can go outside and smoke. Now that the weather is rainy and cold
these players are staying away.
We had hoped that our move into a clean, bright smoke-free building would
bring out the non-smokers who said they don't go to bingos because of the
smoke. We decided to offer new food on our menu. Our burgers are homemade
rather than packaged frozen patties. We have fries,gravy, pogos, perogies,
etc.
We even set up a small cafe area where customers can sit and eat before
playing bingo.
The smoke-free by-law was supposed to put everyone on an even playing field.
However, the Mountain Bingo Hall is exempt from this by-law. Many customers
have decided they can go there and play bingo and smoke. We expected this
would happened, but at the same time, we also expected to see non-smoking
players coming out to support their local charities.
To those who voted for the by-law, please come out and support your local
charities and who knows, you might get lucky.
Brad and Mavis Waruk
Intercity Bingo Palace
Thunder Bay, Ont.
Warn people of deadly fungus symptoms, says B.C. victim's sister
Written by CBC News Online staff Thu, 25 Nov 2004
VICTORIA - A Vancouver Island woman says health authorities must do more to warn people about the risks of the rare tropical fungus that killed her sister.
Debbie Chow of Langford lost her only sister, Esther Young, to Cryptococcus neoformans variety gattii three years ago.
The fungus, which makes its home in trees across the east coast of Vancouver Island, attacks the lungs and central nervous system of the victim.
Chow said the infection left her sister in constant pain, nausea and violent seizures.
She was in and out of hospital for months, and Chow said only after she had a spinal tap was she diagnosed with having the fungus. She later died.
"I know my sister," said Chow. "She thought it was menopause. At one point she thought it was just the flu and in fact it was neither one."
Since the disease was first found on the island in 1999, 101 people have contracted it after breathing fungal spores in the air.
"So far we have four cases where cryptococcus has either caused or contributed to death," said Laura MacDougall, an epidemiologist with the B.C. Centre for Disease Control. The cases are described in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
As many as 12 people who have contracted the fungus died, but the others were elderly and their deaths were blamed on other causes, said Dr. Perry Kendall, the provincial health officer.
"I think it would be unwise to try to create a huge amount of unwanted anxiety about a disease which is a very rare," said Kendall.
The rate of cryptococcal deaths on the island is about five times lower than deaths caused by motor vehicle accidents, said Dr. Murray Fyfe, the medical health officer for the Vancouver Island Health Authority.
Since the B.C. Centre for Disease Control focuses on infections not deaths, it's not clear how many people may have died from the disease.
Meanwhile, Chow is calling on health authorities to do more to warn people about the symptoms, which include chest pains, a stubborn cough, severe headaches, neck stiffness and difficulty breathing.
"I wonder how many people are wandering around with cryptococcal who think they have a flu," said Chow.
http://sympatico.msn.cbc.ca/story/science/national/2004/11/25/cryptococcus041125.html
RCMP search Montreal's Imperial Tobacco
CTV.ca News Staff
RCMP officers searched the Montreal headquarters of Imperial Tobacco Canada Friday, as part of an investigation into cigarette smuggling in the 1990s.
Imperial, which markets such brands as duMaurier, Player's and Matinee, said it was co-operating with investigators, although it added that from "a legal standpoint," it "is not 'consenting' to the search."
Imperial said the search warrant involved documents on its activities between 1989 and 1994. The RCMP did not confirm this.
Officials have been probing allegations that cigarette makers were involved in a wave of smuggling in the early 1990s when high taxes were imposed on tobacco in provinces including Ontario and Quebec.
The company said it was not expecting the raid.
"The company is surprised about suspicions that it was in any way linked to smuggling activities in the early 1990s, because of the extensive collaboration that existed at that time with the RCMP in the investigation of smuggling activities," Imperial said in a statement.
The company said its co-operation included allowing police to use one of its trucks as bait in a sting operation to catch smugglers.
In 2003, the RCMP charged JTI-Macdonald and eight former executives in connection with alleged cigarette smuggling in the early 1990s. JTI-Macdonald has denied the charges.
It's alleged the smuggling involved Canadian-made cigarettes that were shipped to the United States, where the taxes were not levied, and then returned to Canada and sold on the black market. It forced the taxes to be rolled back in 1994.
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1101512637259_5?hub=Canada
RCMP raid Imperial Tobacco offices
Fri, 26 Nov 2004
MONTREAL - Police raided the Montreal offices of Imperial Tobacco Friday, hunting for documents in relation to cigarette smuggling in the late 1980s and early '90s.
The RCMP were investigating possible collusion a decade ago between Canada's biggest cigarette maker and criminal elements smuggling cigarettes, Radio-Canada reported.
During that period, the government says, it lost hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes to widespread smuggling of cigarettes from across the American border.
Imperial makes three of the best-selling cigarette brands in Canada: du Maurier, Player's and Matinee,
Ottawa is already suing several tobacco companies, among them JTI-MacDonald, maker of Export A, for alleged involvement in the smuggling, in an attempt to recover some $1.4 billion in lost taxes.
Ottawa, Ontario and Quebec allege several tobacco companies supplied the Canadian black market with Canadian-brand tobacco products earmarked for export or produced abroad.
RELATED * Coverage from CBC Montreal
The cigarette makers allegedly knew aboriginal middlemen operating on reserves that straddle the U.S.-Canada border such as Akwesasne were smuggling the cigarettes back into Canada, thereby avoiding taxes on the resale of the smokes.
Spokesman Yves Thomas Dorval said Imperial had not expected to be raided. "We're surprised because during the period in question we co-operated wholeheartedly with the RCMP ," Dorval said.
"Imperial Tobacco Canada will be co-operating to the fullest extent with the RCMP to provide them with the documents they are seeking, even if on a legal standpoint it is not 'consenting' to the search," the company said later.
The RCMP had a three-day search warrant, Radio-Canada said, and was expected to remain on site at Imperial's offices, scrutinizing documents all weekend.
Imperial is not a quoted company as it is wholly owned by London-based British American Tobaccco.
http://www.cbc.ca/story/business/national/2004/11/26/imperial-smuggling041126.html
Ontario to require 5 per cent ethanol in gas
Written by CBC News Online staff Fri, 26 Nov 2004
TORONTO - Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty says gas sold in the province will have to contain at least five per cent ethanol within three years.
McGuinty made the announcement Friday in Chatham, Ont., home of the province's only major ethanol factory.
Long touted as a clean source of alternative energy, ethanol is a type of high-octane alcohol, produced from corn, wheat and straw.
Making drivers use more of the biofuel along with the gasoline in their cars and trucks would reduce smog significantly, environmentalists say.
Leading up to the last election, McGuinty's Liberal party had promised to ensure gasoline contained 10 per cent ethanol by 2010.
Gasoline being sold in Ontario now contains about two per cent ethanol.
Refiners have warned that consumer prices will rise if they are forced to add more ethanol to fuel, because it has been expensive to make in the past.
Manitoba and Saskatchewan have already announced plans to boost the amount of ethanol in gas sold within their borders, to 10 per cent and 7.5 per cent respectively by the end of 2005.
The requirements move in the direction of taking car fuels back to their beginnings. The original Model T designed by Henry Ford in 1908 could run on ethanol, which Ford expected to be the fuel of the future.
http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2004/11/25/ethanol-gas-ontario-041125.html
Asthma Counterattack
Symptoms decline when families fight allergens at home
Ben Harder
Debris from cockroaches and dust mites, fungus spores, pet dander, noxious chemicals. . . . These are a few of the things that can make the typical home a dangerous place for people with asthma. Molecules from these agents can trigger unnecessary immune responses in a susceptible person, producing breathlessness, wheezing, and coughing. Some people outgrow asthma after childhood, some first develop it in adulthood, and others must cope with it all their lives. Over time, inflammation can reshape a person's airways and leave the lungs permanently impaired.
The world is in the clutches of a poorly understood epidemic. Globally, rates of asthma have been rising for years. In the United States, the condition's prevalence has more than doubled since 1980, and asthma now affects up to 15 million people, including 6 million children.
The annual number of deaths from complications of asthma, which had been in decline through most of the 1960s and 1970s, climbed back up though the 1980s and reached a new high in the mid-1990s. Since then, the death toll has continued to rise, despite medical advances.
Scientists don't know why asthma's prevalence is increasing, although some evidence suggests that the condition is associated with exposure early in life to certain synthetic chemicals that have become widespread in recent decades (SN: 7/24/04, p. 52: Available to subscribers at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20040724/fob4.asp). Rather than directly triggering inflammation, these chemicals may predispose a person's immune system to overreact to other commonly inhaled particles.
Researchers have devised therapies to suppress airway inflammation. The ubiquitous steroid-dispensing inhaler "has been a fantastic boost in the treatment of asthma," says clinical allergist and asthma specialist Albert Sheffer of Harvard Medical School in Boston. Other medications can open airways during severe attacks.
However, even with medication, asthma disrupts daily activities and may require emergency medical and hospitalizations.
People with asthma are generally advised not only to use medical tools but also to avoid environmental triggers—which vary from person to person—to reduce the number of attacks.
Until recently, studies of such environmental measures had shown little effectiveness. Now, a team of scientists reports a study indicating that cleansing the home of the substances that trigger asthma can reduce the number of attacks experienced by susceptible people. In this study, families received intensive, tailored support for reducing exposure to those substances by children with asthma.
The experimental intervention was expensive, so it remains uncertain how those findings might produce large-scale benefits. Nevertheless, many asthma specialists are pleased to see evidence that the interventions can have a clear effect.
Personalized prevention
"There's not a single cause of asthma," says epidemiologist Herman Mitchell of Rho, a Chapel Hill, N.C.–based research firm that conducts clinical trials of new therapies. "For some children, it's cockroaches; for some, it's dust mites." Other common household sources of trigger substances, known as allergens, are cats, dogs, rodents, and mold. All these allergens can be found in dust that accumulates on bedding, rugs, and other such surfaces.
Most asthmatics are sensitive to multiple allergens, Mitchell notes. Environmental interventions for asthma should be as varied as the condition's causes, he argues. Physicians must test each patient to determine which allergens his or her body reacts to. Such testing has been common for decades, but doctors' recommendations about steps that patients can take haven't necessarily been tailored to test results. For years, Mitchell says, "asthma interventions were canned." Oftentimes, they consisted of little more than instructing parents to get rid of pets and household-dust magnets, such as shag carpeting, and to keep their kids away from cigarette smoke.
Mitchell and his medical colleagues at Rho and at collaborating research institutions decided to get more specific. The study enrolled 937 children aged 5 to 11 years, with moderate-to-severe asthma. The children lived in poor neighborhoods of seven U.S. cities and most were black or Hispanic.
The investigators used skin-prick tests to establish which of 11 likely substances caused allergic reactions in each child. In this common test, a doctor, nurse, or technician applies various allergens to tiny scratches on a person's skin. An inflamed wheal at any site indicates sensitivity. The researchers also analyzed dust from each child's home to see which allergens could be detected.
Half the families participating in the study didn't receive a tailored program of interventions. For the other half, the team introduced up to six specific interventions to address particle types found to be both problematic and present in their homes.
Interventions included hiring a pest-control service for families with children sensitive to and exposed to cockroach allergens, providing air purifiers fitted with high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters to homes where mold, cat or dog allergens, or cigarette use created problems, and supplying vacuum cleaners with HEPA filters to combat dust.
The researchers distributed tightly woven coverings that prevent dust mite allergens from escaping a pillow, mattress, or box spring. They also instructed families to use mild bleach to eliminate mold and to remove a dog or cat that caused an allergic reaction in the child. On average, the team applied four measures per family in this group. "It's a focused, tailored, personalized intervention," says Mitchell.
To track asthma symptoms in both groups, researchers interviewed each child's parents by phone every 2 months. Every 6 months or so, a different team of scientists visited each home to check for the presence of allergens and, in the intervention group, to discuss the changes that families had made.
During the first year of the study, children whose families had received the tailored environmental counseling had asthma symptoms on an average of 6.8 days per month, while children without the benefit of a tailored approach had 8.4 days of symptoms.
During a second year of follow-up, the intervention and non-intervention groups experienced symptoms on 2.6 and 3.2 days per 2-week period, respectively. Mitchell attributes both groups' second-year improvement to the greater attention that families paid—after months of being contacted every 2 weeks by researchers—to helping children avoid allergens.
"This is the first time we have evidence [that] documents the validity of environmental control," says Harvard's Sheffer. He headed the National Asthma Education and Prevention Program in the early 1990s, when it began advocating tailored environmental measures for managing asthma. Until now, says Sheffer, such recommendations relied more on logic than on data.
"We had been promoting environmental control because it seemed obvious that reducing exposure to allergens should reduce symptoms," he says.
Sigh of relief
Despite the logic of environmental control, reports last year by two research groups cast doubt on the approach. Those studies both appeared in the July 17, 2003 New England Journal of Medicine
.Household cleanup cuts down on common allergines
source % of children sensitive intervention success
cockroach 69 yes
dust mite 63 y
mold 50 no
cat 44 yes
rodents 33 no
dog 22 no
In one of the studies, Ashley Woodcock of Wythenshawe Hospital in Manchester, England, and his colleagues gave new covers for mattresses, pillows, and quilts to 1,122 adults with asthma. Half the volunteers received covers designed to create a barrier to dust mite allergens, and half got standard covers of more-permeable polyester and cotton.
During the subsequent year, the two volunteer groups showed no difference in the severity of their symptoms, their use of asthma medications, or their breathing, as measured by a device temporarily fitted over the mouth. The same was true when the researchers analyzed data only from the members of the two groups with known sensitivity to a dust mite allergen.
Woodcock concludes, "Bed covers alone don't work in adults."
Allergist Roy Gerth van Wijk of the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and his colleagues attempted a similar intervention for allergen-associated inflammation inside the nose. That condition, called allergic rhinitis, often appears with asthma and is considered by some researchers to be part of the same syndrome.
The researchers distributed covers for mattress, pillows, and blankets—half of which were designed to be allergen impermeable—to 279 people with allergic rhinitis. The researchers found that the special bedding covers reduced the abundance of dust mite allergens but observed no noticeable symptom relief among the volunteers using them, compared with the experience of volunteers using standard bedding.
Accounting for the different results from Mitchell's and his own group's interventions, Gerth van Wijk suggests that the effect of environmental control may be noticeable only in children or that the combination of measures employed in the more recent study may be superior to the single method used in his own study.
Woodcock is skeptical that an approach with as many components as the Mitchell study had can prove practical on a broad scale. Because many of the homes in the study received multiple interventions, there aren't enough data to determine the individual effect of each measure, Mitchell says.
"These are expensive interventions," Woodcock says. "You wouldn't give [a patient] four drugs and say, 'I'm not sure which one works, but take all four.'"
Mitchell agrees that the equipment and services involved in environmental interventions are fairly expensive. However, he says that environmental interventions are less expensive than drugs when considered in terms of cost per day of asthma symptoms eliminated. He and his colleagues calculate that the labor and equipment they used in interventions in their study amounted to less than $1,000 per child per year.
One major expense is in sending a health care provider to collect the dust that's needed to determine which allergens are present in a home. So, Mitchell and his colleagues at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in Research Triangle Park, N.C., have recently developed a dust-collection kit that a family could mail to a laboratory, which would report its results to the child's doctor.
Mitchell and other researchers recognize the challenge of bringing research findings to bear on asthma interventions in millions of homes. Allergists say that many families won't get rid of a pet that's contributing to a child's asthma. And adults told to quit smoking are notorious backsliders.
Anticipating such hurdles, Mitchell and his colleagues cautioned adults in their study to keep pets out of the bedrooms of children with asthma and not to smoke around these kids. That may partially explain the reductions the researchers witnessed in symptoms, even though most families didn't get rid of their pets or prohibit smoking in the home, Mitchell says.
In a recent survey of parents who were aware of at least one household trigger for their child's asthma, for example, only 35 purchased a new vacuum cleaner, while 70 percent bought the recommended air filter. But of 112 families in which a parent's cigarette use appeared to be a factor in a child's asthma, only 7 took any action to reduce the child's exposure to smoke, Michael Cabana and his colleagues at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor reported in the August Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
To increase the probability that families will take steps against asthma, doctors need to determine the most critical measures and focus on promoting only those, says Woodcock.
Gerth van Wijk agrees that narrowing the recommended measures to a critical few could help people carry out doctors' instructions. Mitchell and his colleagues probably overcame that hurdle, he says, because they had an extraordinary amount of contact with the families in their study.
"Education is one of the cornerstones of their intervention," Gerth van Wijk says. But most doctors aren't paid for taking extra time during office visits to fully explain the importance of reducing exposure to allergens and the methods of doing so.
The odds of a significant payoff may be best when pediatricians provide patient education, says Woodcock, because steps taken early in life to reduce allergen exposure might prevent the lasting lung damage that accumulates in chronic asthma.
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20041127/bob9.asp
Nevada taxables sales again rise
November 26, 2004 at 11:15:03 PST
By Cy Ryan SUN CAPITAL BUREAU
CARSON CITY -- Nevada recorded $3.6 billion in taxable sales in September, a 17 percent increase over the previous month's total.
It was the biggest month-to-month percentage jump in at least eight years, and was the ninth consecutive month of double-digit increases. The September 2004 total also was 12 percent more than the total in September 2003.
"The news of this high double-digit growth in taxable sales and excise taxes is right in line with out latest announcement this past week of job growth at three times the national average and the lowest unemployment rate for Nevada in 25 years," Gov. Kenny Guinn said.
"As we transition into our second quarter of this fiscal year these latest numbers speak greatly about Nevada's current economy and its outlook." The state reported last week that the unemployment rate for October fell to 3.6 percent, its lowest point in 25 years.
September sales in Clark County rose 16.7 percent to $2.6 billion while Washoe County reported a gain of 16.3 percent to $592.5 million.
In Clark County, car sales shot up 20.3 percent to $339.8 million in September, wholesale trade-durable goods rose 25.8 percent to $162.3 million, building material sales increased 33.5 percent to $177.2 million while general merchandise stores reported $194.8 million in taxable sales, up 10.1 percent. Clothing stores had $143.7 million in sales, up 19.6 percent, home furnishing sales increased 18.6 percent to $170.5 million and eating and drinking places reported $519.4 million in taxable sales, an increase of 13.6 percent.
The department also reported the state's 2 percent sales tax yielded $75.1 million in September, a 19.1 percent increase compared with a year ago. So far this fiscal year, the state has received $217.32 million ub sales tax revenue, up 17.2 percent.
The department said statewide sales in bars and restaurants jumped 12.8 percent. General merchandise stores business was up 16.4 percent; home furniture sales rose 14.3 percent; car sales increased 17.9 percent; clothing stores posted a 19 percent gain in sales and wholesale durable goods rose 22.5 percent.
Eureka, Mineral and Pershing counties were the only ones to show decreases in taxable sales in September. Eureka was down 2.1 percent, Pershing fell 8.7 percent and Mineral was off 0.3 percent.
The department said the collections from the cigarette tax fell 2.5 percent to $8.6 million in September; liquor tax receipts rose 8 percent to $3.2 million and the insurance premium tax was up 9.7 percent to $55.2 million.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/business/2004/nov/26/517888341.html
Posted at 1:45 am by looped_ca
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