Smoking these days can be lonely business, what with smoking now banned in many bars and other traditional smokers’ hangouts. But a new hand-held device is designed to help smokers find each other – and it might even help them kick the habit. Meet the “blu Smart Pack,” the world’s first social networking cigarette package. The rechargeable package – scheduled to go on sale in June for $80 – connects wirelessly to social networking sites and even flashes a blue light and vibrates if it detects other packages nearby.

“You’ll meet more people than ever, just because of the wow factor,” Jason Healy, the company’s founder told the New York Times.

Not everyone’s as convinced it’s such a great idea.

Adam Alfandary, 24, a smoker from Brooklyn, N.Y., called it one of the dumbest thing he’s ever heard. “And I’m saying that in full acknowledgment that smoking is one of the dumbest things I can do,” he told the Times.

Smoking cessation experts aren’t sure the device, which is designed for use not with traditional cigarettes but with so-called “e-cigarettes,” which delivers nicotine-laced water vapor instead of tobacco smoke, is anything more than a gimmick.

Dr. Alan Blum, director of the University of Alabama Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society, told CBS News the idea of a social network is “wonderful.” Blum points to a 2008 “New England Journal of Medicine” study that showed smokers who joined others in trying to stop smoking were more likely to succeed than smokers who tried kicking the habit on their own.

“But I really don’t understand how this e-pack signal is going to do anything other than help you pick up girls.”

Almost 50 million Americans are regular smokers. Smoking can cause heart attacks, stroke, and many forms of cancer, in addition to other health problems.

Smoking these days can be lonely business, what with smoking now banned in many bars and other traditional smokers’ hangouts. But a new handheld device is designed to help smokers find each other–and it might even help them kick the habit. Meet the “blu Smart Pack,” the world’s first social-networking cigarette package.
The rechargeable package–scheduled to go on sale in June for $80–connects wirelessly to social-networking sites and even flashes a blue light and vibrates if it detects other packages within 50 feet.

“You’ll meet more people than ever, just because of the wow factor,” Jason Healy, the company’s founder, told The New York Times.
Not everyone’s as convinced it’s such a great idea.
Adam Alfandary, 24, a smoker from Brooklyn, N.Y., called the pack one of the dumbest ideas he’s ever heard. “And I’m saying that in full acknowledgment that smoking is one of the dumbest things I can do,” he told the Times.
Smoking cessation experts aren’t sure the device–which is designed for use not with traditional cigarettes but with so-called “e-cigarettes,” which deliver nicotine-laced water vapor instead of tobacco smoke–is anything more than a gimmick.
Dr. Alan Blum, director of the University of Alabama Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society, told CBS News the idea of a social network is “wonderful.” Blum points to a 2008 New England Journal of Medicine study (PDF) that showed smokers who joined others in trying to stop smoking were more likely to succeed than smokers who tried kicking the habit on their own.
“But I really don’t understand how this e-pack signal is going to do anything other than help you pick up girls.”
Almost 50 million Americans are regular smokers. Smoking can cause heart attacks, strokes, and many forms of cancer, in addition to other health problems.

Health advocates have been trying for years to encourage smokers to quit the habit due the side effects and high medical costs. The latest move to steer smokers away from the habit is to remove all forms of advertisement on a package of twenty.

With this new plan of a plain cigarette package, displaying primarily the surgeon general’s warning or one of several others, it is the hope that smokers will be diverted away from the inviting packaging that they were used to and pay more attention to the warnings that have been gracing these packages of tobacco.
Although it appears that smokers have little concern about what appears on the package, some tobacco producers in Australia have decided that this move will certainly affect their sales. Other tobacco manufacturers are presently considering their legal options. The end result is that most tobacco manufacturers see this as a personal attack against their ability to promote their products, again!

Smokers in Western countries continue to falsely believe that some cigarette brands may be less harmful despite bans on the words “light” and “mild” on packaging, a study finds. For the study in Tuesday’s online issue of the journal Addiction, researchers polled 8,243 current and former smokers 18 and over in Canada, the U.S., United Kingdom and Australia about their beliefs on the risks of cigarettes.

One-fifth of smokers believed incorrectly that “some cigarette brands could be less harmful” than others, David Hammond of International Tobacco Control and his co-authors found.

False beliefs were higher in the U.S. and U.K.

In more than 50 countries, cigarette manufacturers are no longer allowed to use labels such as “light” and “mild.” In some cases, they’ve switched to “silver” and “gold” brands.

Research suggests smokers base their perceptions of risk on package colouring.

“These beliefs are associated with descriptive words and elements of package design that have yet to be prohibited, including the names of colours and long, slim cigarettes,” the study’s authors concluded.

The smokers in the study showed they also falsely believed that:

Slim cigarettes are less harmful.
Cigarettes with harsh taste are riskier to smoke than smooth-tasting cigarettes.
Filters reduce risk.
Nicotine is responsible for most of the cancer caused by cigarettes.
“The findings highlight the deceptive potential of ‘slim’ cigarette brands targeted primarily at young women,” Hammond said in a release.

“The findings also support the potential benefits of plain packaging regulations that will soon take effect in Australia, under which all cigarettes will be sold in packages with the same plain colour, without graphics or logos.”

But smokers were immune to the change in packaging, viewing equally the health warning and the product information, regardless of whether it was with plain or branded labeling. “Repeated exposure to health warnings on cigarette packs might mean that daily smokers may be able to over-ride the automatic tendency to focus more on these (warnings) on plain packs — in other words, ignore them,” said Marcus Munafo, a professor at the University of Bristol and lead researcher on the small study, published in “Addiction.”

Australia is set to be the first country to require plain packaging on cigarettes and from 2012 cigarettes sold in the United States will be required to carry pictorial warnings.

Researchers tracked eye movements of 43 people as they looked at cigarette packs that had either branded information or plain packaging, each paired with pictorial health warnings — such as those of lungs damaged by smoking.

When looking at branded cigarette packs, which included colors, graphics and styled text, non-smokers, light smokers and smokers split their gaze equally between the brand part of the pack and the health warning.

But on packs that used a plan black font to say only the name of the brand and “20 cigarettes,” non-smokers and light smokers looked at the health warning more frequently.

Non-smokers glanced 16 times at the health warning compared to 12 times at the product information, while smokers kept splitting their views evenly between the two parts of the pack.

“Taken together with the existing literature,” Munafo and his fellow authors wrote, the findings make it “plausible” that plain packaging will increase the impact of health warnings in people who haven’t established a smoking habit and are potentially more open to being influenced.

The researchers didn’t measure the attitudes or behavior of the participants after the experiment, but wrote that perhaps the longer time spent viewing health warnings could potentially deter non-smokers and infrequent smokers from lighting up.

“In other words, if you don’t look at a health warning it won’t influence your behavior, but if you do it might,” Munafo wrote.

A major tobacco-industry funded advertising blitz has backfired, with new research revealing the “It won’t work, so why do it” campaign persuaded more people to support the plain packaging of cigarettes than oppose it. The Cancer Council Victoria survey of 2,101 Victorians who recalled the ad campaign found has found that more than eight out of ten (86.2%) respondents said the ad didn’t affect their view of plain packaging 8.4% of respondents said the ad actually increased their support of plain packaging.

Only 3.9% of respondents felt the ad reduced their support of plain packaging.

Additionally, just over half of those surveyed (56.5%) recognised the ads, under the moniker of the ‘Alliance of Australian Retailers’, were funded by the tobacco industry.

Quit Executive Director Fiona Sharkie said the study showed the public wasn’t falling for the industry’s dirty tricks.

“The fact that more people actually supported plain packaging after seeing an ad that was

meant to turn them against it really shows how laughable this multi-million dollar campaign is. The public isn’t buying it. Plain packaging will not cause mass job losses or make the jobs of

retailers incredibly hard. Research shows plain packaging will stop young people taking up

smoking. That’s why it’s being implemented and has the industry running scared,” she said.

Ms Sharkie said although the public wasn’t falling for the ads, it was concerning that just over

half of respondents knew the ads were funded by the tobacco industry.

“Alarmingly it’s only a small majority of people who know who’s behind this campaign, and

that’s exactly what the tobacco-industry wants. It knows people don’t trust it, but hope it will

trust this sham front group the ‘Alliance of Australian Retailers’,” Ms Sharkie said.

“It’s vital more Australians realise who’s orchestrating this campaign: it’s not shopkeepers, but

big tobacco putting profits over saving lives.”

Groups calling for a $1 increase in the cigarette tax announced Wednesday that they had gathered more than 1,000 signatures on an online petition in 48 hours. Representatives of the groups delivered printouts of the signatures to the governor’s office, but a spokesman for Gov. Nathan Deal said they didn’t change the governor’s opposition to tax increases.

The groups, which include the American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, the American Lung Association and the retiree group AARP, remain determined even though the deadline passed a week earlier for the legislation to remain viable.
“This is an ongoing problem. If we don’t get it this year, we’re going to keep advocating for this,” said Eric Bailey, a representative for the American Cancer Society.
Doctors who treat smoking-related illnesses were at the groups’ news conference at the Capitol to express frustration with legislators’ reluctance to boost the tax high enough to discourage teenagers from picking up the smoking habit.
“The real tragedy for me, the real crime, is that there are proven policies that we know will not only reduce smoking in adults but also reduce the likelihood of kids beginning to smoke and then becoming lifelong smokers as adults,” said Dr. Harry Heiman, a professor at Morehouse School of Medicine. “That’s important because we know that half of the children that start smoking before age 18 will die of tobacco-related illnesses.”
To retailers who worry a higher tax will cost them to lose business, he was unsympathetic.
“My response to them, as a physician and someone engaged in public health in Georgia, is, candidly, too bad,” he said. “It’s the same as my response to drug dealers in our neighborhoods and those pushing for payday loans.”
Legislation that would raise the tax is pending in the House but for less than the $1 per pack the groups want. The legislation is part of a sweeping package stemming from recommendations from a council on ways to reform the tax code to lower personal and corporate income taxes while raising various sales taxes. That legislation is stalled until next year, partly because of public reaction to the package’s added taxes on groceries and services.
Heiman said the medical groups weren’t concerned about the procedures of the General Assembly that essentially make it impossible to pass a higher cigarette tax this year.
“Our responsibility isn’t dictated by the legislative calendar,” he said.

Doubt was cast yesterday on the introduction of plain packaging for cigarettes after the Government gave the idea only lukewarm support. Plain brown or white cigarette packs carrying nothing but a health warning have been widely promoted by the anti-smoking lobby as an important measure to deter young smokers from adopting the habit that kills 80,000 people a year.

Brightly coloured logos are seen as an important way in which tobacco manufacturers market their products to new smokers who may be unfamiliar with the different brands.

But in a report published on No Smoking Day yesterday, the Government offered only muted backing for the idea, committing to “consult on options to reduce the promotional impact of tobacco packaging, including plain packaging, before the end of 2011″.

Analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, described the announcement as a “big relief” for the tobacco companies which had expected tougher measures. In a briefing for investors, they noted several caveats in the report, including the Government’s acknowledgement that it needed “evidence that plain packaging would have an additional public health benefit,” the “likely impact on the illicit tobacco market” [plain packs are easier to counterfeit] and the need to explore “competition, trade and legal implications”.

The ban on the display of cigarettes in shops, introduced by the former Labour government, has also been delayed by six months for large shops, to April 2012, and by 18 months for small shops, until April 2015. Government targets to reduce smoking among adults from 21.2 per cent to 18.5 per cent by the end of 2015 were “not aggressive” and implied no reduction in cigarettes sold, after allowing for population growth, they said.

The proposals were welcomed by health organisations, but the Royal College of Physicians criticised the delay to the ban on shop displays. It said “urgent measures” were required if the new target to reduce smoking was to be met.

Professor John Britton, chairman of the college’s Tobacco Advisory Group, said: “The Government has accepted that legislation is needed [on shop displays], so we fail to see why its implementation has been pushed back.”

The Association of Convenience Stores protested that the measure would cost £40m to implement, and there was no evidence it would work.

Several countries, including Canada, Ireland, Iceland and Finland, have introduced similar shop display bans.

Harpal Kumar, chief executive of Cancer Research UK, said the delay to the display ban was “very disappointing,” but plain packaging would be “a giant leap forward”. He said: “Research shows that plain packaging reduces false beliefs about how harmful different tobacco products are. We also know that plain packs are less attractive, especially to young people, and they make the health warnings on cigarette packets more effective.”

If proposals to put cigarettes in plain, unbranded packs are given the green light by the Government, the UK would become the first country in Europe to make such a move. Australia is due to introduce plain packs in 2012. The British Heart Foundation described the measures as “a victory for public health”. Treating smoking-related illnesses costs the NHS more than £50m a week.

Two images of dying anti-smoking crusader Barb Tarbox will be included among Health Canada’s 16 new “high-impact” package warnings. The new larger warnings will come out in January 2012. “Telling the story of Barb Tarbox to every Canadian smoker and to kids who are experimenting with smoking is going to save lives,” says Rob Cunningham, a senior policy analyst with the Canadian Cancer Society.

The new warnings have faced stiff resistance from the tobacco industry, Cunningham says, but are now winding their way through the final regulatory process. Along with the 16 new health warnings there will be eight health information messages and four toxic emissions statements. The warnings will increase in size from 50 per cent to 75 per cent of the front and back of cigarette and little cigar packages. Health Canada officials bill them as “new, high-impact warnings that are more noticeable, memorable, and engaging.”

The new packages also must display a Canada-wide toll-free quit line telephone number.

The Tarbox images were deemed among the most harrowing by smokers in focus groups.

In September 2002, Tarbox, 41, an Edmonton woman who had been smoking since she was 11, was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. Until her death in May 2003, she toured the country, telling more than 50,000 Canadian schoolchildren about the dangers of smoking. Journal photographer Greg Southam followed Tarbox’s crusade to her deathbed. His images of her being comforted by her friend Tracy Mueller and having a final smoke in the Grey Nuns’ palliative care smoking room are the two that Health Canada selected.

Along with the image of Tarbox smoking in palliative care is a quote from her: “Look at the power of the cigarette … Remember this face and that smoking killed me.”

Graphic images with messages about smoking-related vision loss, heart disease, mouth cancer, stroke and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome are also on the new warnings.

Other warnings include a photo of a man identified as LeRoy, who has a gaping hole in the middle of this throat. “I was diagnosed with cancer of the larynx when I was 48,” he says. “I had to have my vocal cords removed, and now I breathe through a hole in my throat.”

The new cigarette warnings come after 10 years of Health Canada using the same warnings on cigarette packages. Health policy experts argued the old warnings had lost their impact. Government research found the old warnings were failing to reach people with low literacy skills, older smokers and hard-core smokers.

But Cunningham says the new cigarette package warnings will be effective. “Our reaction is very positive. These set of 16 warnings tell the truth about what smoking does to people. Health Canada is to be commended.”

In its policy paper on the new warnings, Health Canada reports that tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of illness and premature death in Canada.

The new warnings will cost the Canadian government roughly $12 million over the next decade, with tobacco manufacturers and importers paying as much as $72 million, says Health Canada. But the benefits of the new warnings include reduced sickness and death for those who quit smoking, which will result in health care savings of $4 to $12 billion.

It’s estimated that smoking costs the health care system $4 billion a year right now.

Health Canada’s goal is to reduce smoking prevalence from 19 per cent to 12 per cent.