Smokers had much incentive Thursday to quit for a day – it was the annual Great American Smokeout. Today, tomorrow and the next few weeks are tougher for smokers wanting to drop the habit permanently. Smoking is responsible for more than 440,000 deaths each year, and nearly 21 percent of Americans smoke. In Indiana the rate of adults who smoke is closer to 23 percent.

New warnings on tobacco products announced by the federal Food and Drug Administration last week may help persuade those trying to quit from succumbing to nicotine cravings. The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act requires large graphic warnings on cigarette packages. In June the FDA will select the final designs for labels, and then cigarette companies will have 15 months to update packaging and advertising.

Among the potential options for the new warning labels are pictures from autopsy photos and diseased lungs. The labels have to take up half the space on a pack and must include “color graphics depicting the negative health consequences.” The new warnings are also required in all tobacco advertising and have to take up at least 20 percent of content.

If an understanding of the health threats of smoking and the new stomach-turning labels still don’t dissuade committed smokers, there are always the high financial stakes. A pack of Marlboros now costs $5.34 a pack, and a pack-a-day habit costs close to $2,000 a year – that’s a really nice big-screen TV.

Recycling options about to explode

Residents are catching on to how much easier recycling is going to be, but may not yet understand the dramatic increase in the types of things the city soon will want residents to recycle.

Residents can currently recycle only No. 1 and No. 2 plastics. But after the new recycling contract takes effect in January, residents will be able to recycle plastics No. 1 through No. 7. That means that all the egg cartons, meat trays, old toothbrushes, plastic shopping bags and straws can be recycled instead of heading to the landfill.

It also means the city could get revenue from selling those commodities rather than paying to dump them.

US alcohol and tobacco firms have been withdrawn from a meeting with the public health minister after activists complained their presence might lead to interference with the government’s drinking and smoking policy. Public Health Minister Jurin Laksanavisit said alcohol and tobacco issues had not been discussed when he met US ambassador Eric GJohn and representatives from the US-Asean Business Council yesterday. Representatives of those industries were not present at the meeting.

The minister did not say if the representatives’ absence was linked to a demand by anti-alcohol and tobacco activists to exclude them from the meeting.

Tobacco and alcohol makers and pharmaceutical firms have been represented at past meetings between the US-Asean Business Council and the public health minister and senior civil servants.

The US ambassador took the team in 2006 to meet then health minister Phinij Jarusombat to call for his help in “strengthening alcohol and tobacco businesses in Thailand”. The US argued the government’s alcohol and tobacco advertising ban was an unfair trade barrier.

Thailand has adopted the World Health Organisation’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control as a basis for its strict anti-tobacco policies.

The FCTC requires restrictions on all forms of tobacco advertising, trade, sponsorship and promotion. It also calls for measures to protect the public from tobacco smoke, taxation on tobacco, pictorial health warnings on packaging and an end to duty-free tobacco sales.

The Alcohol Beverage Control Act, a linchpin of the government’s alcohol control policy, restricts alcohol advertising. Alcohol commercials are permitted on TV only after 10pm.

Mr Jurin said yesterday’s meeting discussed cooperation against counterfeit drugs and the government’s drug purchase policy.

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturing Association told the meeting it was worried the government’s drug supply and purchase policy could prevent hospitals from buying drugs from a range of suppliers.

Smoking baby stops smoking cigarettes. Smoking baby Aldi Suganda has gone into rehab to break the nicotine habit. Suganda smokes about 40 cigarettes per day. Baby Aldi Suganda is only 2-years-old and he smokes 40 cigarettes a day. He is known as the “Smoking Baby” because it is so rare, as shown in the video below. He has gone into rehab to stop smoking.

Stop smoking rehabs do help people to quit the nictotine habit. However, there is fear that he may give in to temptation and resume smoking once he gets there. This young boy was smoking 2 packs of cigarettes a day.

Aldi and his mother, Diana, were taken to the Jakarta capital for intensive medical and psychological treatment. The trip was paid for by the local government. As one would expect, Aldi Suganda was not a happy camper when he arrived at the hospital and was denied a cigarette.

Suganda then underwent a variety of tests, including a chest X-ray and ultrasound on his heart and lungs. They showed a thickening on the left wall of his heart. The thickening of a wall is due to obesity, so his heart has to work harder. Doctors say it hasn’t affected his health yet.

“The youngest smokers found were 5 to 9 years-old,” Aris Merdeka Sirait, CEO of the National Committee of Child Protection, said in a statement. “This year, we found that there are baby smokers, who start from a year old,” Sirait said. “Indonesia has long been a country with virtually no regulations of its tobacco industry.”

Article from: newsoxy.com.

As states make it tougher to light up in public, tobacco manufacturers are rolling out new smokeless tobacco lines — some flavored, some spitless, prompting worries from public health officials about potentially unknown risks of these new products and their appeal to underage users. Among the new offerings in Michigan is Snus — tiny tea-bag-like pouches of tobacco that don’t require spitting.

Other products, such as tablets that look like small breath mints or dissolvable strips and sticks made of finely milled tobacco, are being test-marketed elsewhere, and, if profitable, also could arrive in Michigan.
The Michigan Department of Community Health has asked tobacco advocates to begin collecting information on who is selling the items.
“The more you can make a drug easier and cheaper to get, the more kids will use it,” said Jeanne Knopf DeRoche, whose Plymouth-based company receives state funding to do prevention campaigns and help monitor retail outlets in much of Wayne and Monroe counties.
“It’s not just about cigarettes,” said David Howard, spokesman for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. “It’s about offering adult tobacco consumers options.”
Where There’s No Smokes, There Could Be New Danger
Nahla Khobeir stands in front of rows of new smokeless tobacco products — and smack dab in the middle of another public health debate.
An old lollipop container holds hundreds of coupons that customers have brought to her for their free packets of Snus, small tea-bag-like packets of spitless tobacco that come in flavors like spearmint and peppermint.
“Honest to God, when you open these” — Khobeir, a nonsmoker, said as she peeled back the packaging of some loose tobacco and took a deep whiff — “you want to eat it.”
That’s just one of the reasons public health officials worry youths would be intrigued by the new products. Others worry that a battered economy has made it even tougher to keep the products away from underage consumers.
On The Lookout
Even with new federal laws on how products can be labeled and displayed, retailers may be more willing to take risks in order to make a sale, and police departments have a tougher time finding the manpower to enforce the law, said Knopf, whose Plymouth-based company receives state funding for prevention campaigns and monitoring retail outlets in Wayne and Monroe counties.

Material by: freep.com

U.S. health officials say they are concerned about candy-like smokeless tobacco products that are brightly packaged and flavored and, they fear, enticing to youngsters.

The tablets, strips and sticks are flavored like coffee or mint. The companies that make the products say they are marketed to adults who smoke but may be trying to quit or are looking for a nicotine fix while they are at a place that does not allow them to smoke.

The companies also point out that it’s illegal for anyone under 18 to purchase tobacco products, but the FDA is still concerned and has asked the makers of these products for information about their research and marketing for these items.

We share that concern. Cigarettes and smokeless tobacco have always been illegal to sell to people under the age of 18, yet studies have shown most people addicted to cigarettes and tobacco started using when they were teens, many under the age of 18.

We’re concerned young people who might be turned off to actually smoking may see these candy-like products as more acceptable, cool or trendy. The packaging is appealing and small, so they can easily be concealed. We’re also concerned that if so many people have been able to get cigarettes under the age of 18 it’s likely these products will be as easy to get as well.

We support the efforts of the FDA to get more information and we urge parents and others to educate youngsters about these products and their addictive nature.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Customers may already have noticed the change—although it has been subtle thus far. But they will starting March 1. That’s the official launch date of the latest line extension from R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.’s Camel brand: menthol cigarettes containing a menthol burst capsule that enhances menthol flavor when squeezed.

The new cigarette supplanted Camel Menthol cigarettes in August 2009 and evolved from the “wonderful success” of Camel Crush (launched September 2008), according to Brian Stebbins, senior marketing director for Camel cigarettes. Crush also contains the menthol capsule, but squeezing it turns that cigarette from nonmenthol to menthol. “Whenever we launch something new, we try to find out who’s interacting with it, who likes it, who doesn’t like it and who has an idea of how to make it even better,” Stebbins told CSP Daily News.

“We identified that there’s a pretty large group of adult menthol smokers who are interested in the capsule technology, but they want to see us use it differently,” Stebbins said, adding that they want to use it to use it to make menthol cigarettes “even fresher and even cooler at the moment of their choosing, or on demand.”

The soft launch in August included “very minimal communication on packs and on the website for those who were interested.” Stebbins added, “And the idea there was to let those smokers who already choose Camel Menthol have an opportunity to experience the innovation first, let them experience the product first, let them let us know what they think and the response has been very positive.”

As for March 1, Stebbins said, “That is where we actually go out and try and tell the story to a broader audience about the innovation on Camel menthol.” The launch will mean a new look for the packaging, retail communications, retail merchandising and a “very solid” launch promotion program—including direct mail, emails and person-to-person engagements in bars, nightclubs and festivals.

Stebbins described the new packaging as having “a fresher, cooler color pallet that menthol smokers respond very nicely to” and said it will also “tell the story of the product within,” using the Camel mascot. Stebbins also said the name of Camel Menthol Lights will change to Camel Menthol Silver; Camel Menthol will keep the same name. He added, “We will still have a couple of menthol products that are in the market that will not have capsules in them, but they are not a primary marketing emphasis…. That really just kind of depends upon the business opportunity in those markets and retailer choice about what they carry.”

He said the product’s demographics are wide ranging. “Our testing indicates that the adult smokers who are interested span different age groups, they span different brands that they buy from today and it’s male/female. It’s a very broad opportunity, and I think that’s mostly because it’s a provocative innovation. We’re talking about a category, menthol cigarettes, where there’s a lot of sameness, and Camel cigarettes is the exact opposite of that.”

According to a Jan. 17, 1997 New York Times article, Reynolds briefly tested a menthol version of Camel in 1966, but never sold it nationally. Camel Menthols were nationally launched in 1997.

“I think the ‘new news’ here is menthol is growing considerably in the category, and to be frank, until we had introduced Camel Crush, Camel wasn’t getting its fair share of that growth,” Stebbins said.

Although menthol is “expressly permitted” under the recent flavored cigarette ban, there has been concern in the industry. David Howard, an R.J. Reynolds spokesperson, told CSP Daily News, “Obviously, as [U.S. Food & Drug Administration] regulations take effect, one of the things is that there will be a committee looking into menthol…. And certainly, whatever information is needed from us, we’re going to cooperate for any information that they need or assistance that we can provide in that study. But at this time, menthol is specifically not part of the flavored bans and permitted by FDA regulations…. And certainly, we believe it’s a viable product category, obviously; it’s a very large and growing category with adult smokers.”

According to the National Survey on Drug Use & Health Report, published by the Office of Applied Studies, Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration, on Nov. 19, 2009, among past-month smokers, the rate of smoking menthol cigarettes increased from 31% in 2004 to 33.9% in 2008. Past-month smoking of menthol cigarettes was more likely among those who were recent smoking initiates (i.e., began smoking in the past year) than among those who were longer-term smokers (i.e., initiated use more than a year ago) (44.6% vs. 31.8% respectively).

By Linda Abu-Shalback Zid, Cspnet.com
February 5, 2010

The Missouri Division of Alcohol and Tobacco Control announces free training opportunities for managers and retail clerks who sell cigarettes and tobacco products to the public in retail stores, according to a news release.

The training will cover a wide range of topics, including: a detailed explanation of Missouri laws regarding youth access to tobacco, tips to help prevent selling to minors and techniques for spotting fraudulent IDs.

The free training is designed to assist owners, managers and front-line staff with proper service techniques and takes about 90 minutes. Three sessions will be offered to accommodate as many people as possible.

The 90-minute training sessions will begin at 9 a.m., noon and 2:30 p.m. Feb. 17 at the Cowan Civic Center in Lebanon. Space is limited, and registration is required.

For more details, contact Vanessa Mure at 573-751-5448 or vanessa.mure@dps.mo.gov.

In a recent study, scientists from UC Berkeley led by Matt Francis have demonstrated how to program tobacco plants to take advantage of the efficient way that they collect sunlight. Rather than attempt to reprogram all the cells of a mature tobacco plant, the scientists genetically engineered a virus called the tobacco mosaic virus to do the job for them.

The researchers sprayed the modified virus on a crop of tobacco plants, and the virus caused the plant cells to produce lots of artificial chromophores, which turn photons from sunlight into electrons.

In order for the chromophores to work, however, they must be spaced at a precise distance from one another – about two or three nanometers. A little closer or further apart, and the electric current will either be halted or the electrons will be very difficult to harvest.

Thankfully, tobacco plant cells have evolved to space chromophores at this exact distance, lining them up in a long spiral hundreds of nanometers long. By exploiting this structure, the researchers could take advantage of billions of years of evolution to grow perfectly spaced strands of chromophores.

“Over billions of years, evolution has established exactly the right distances between chromophores to allow them to collect and use light from the sun with unparalleled efficiency,” said Francis.

Since the modified tobacco plants themselves don’t generate electricity, the researchers must harvest the plants and extract the chromophore structures. Then, the scientists can dissolve the structures in a liquid solution, and then spray the solution on a glass or plastic substrate to create a solar cell. So far, the scientists have not yet demonstrated that the resulting solar cells can turn light into electrical energy.

Compared with traditional solar cells, those made from plants could have several potential advantages. For instance, they don’t require the use of toxic chemicals, they’re biodegradable, and they’re inexpensive to produce. On the other hand, bio-based solar cells would likely have a shorter lifetime than silicon solar cells.

In addition to using tobacco, the researchers also demonstrated how to manipulate E. coli bacteria to produce chromophore structures. In this case, the researchers didn’t use a virus, but modified the bacteria directly.

More information: Michel T. Dedeo, Karl E. Duderstadt, James M. Berger and Matthew B. Francis. “Nanoscale Protein Assemblies from a Circular Permutant of the Tobacco Mosaic Virus.” Nano Lett., 2010, 10 (1), pp 181-186. doi:10.1021/nl9032395
Via: Discovery News
© 2010 PhysOrg.com

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which regulates products that account for 25 cents of every dollar spent by consumers, is always embroiled in controversy.

Some say it approves new drugs too quickly, while others say its delays cost lives. Some say our food supply is relatively safe, while others point to unsafe foods that have entered the market. Some say the FDA should take more aggressive enforcement actions, while others say it should rely on voluntary compliance.

But there’s one thing that virtually everyone agrees on: The FDA needs more money to do its job properly. This consensus includes patient organizations, consumer and research groups, the professional community, and all the industries the agency regulates.

Consider this anecdote from a report presented to the FDA by its own science committee: The agency had to bring in retired computer experts to repair its servers, because the equipment was so out of date that younger repairmen did not know how to fix it.

Or consider that the FDA inspects less than 1 percent of the food imported into the country each year, and it sometimes goes years without inspecting facilities where prescription drugs and medical devices are made.

The agency has the same number of employees it had in 2004, though Congress has given it much more responsibility since then.

Added duties
Consider these points:

The FDA has been given new responsibility to establish more modern systems to gather and evaluate adverse drug reactions, but there is no added money to do so.

Congress assigned the FDA to regulate tobacco products, and it can charge the tobacco companies fees. But the fees cannot cover the time needed to oversee the new regulatory activities at the most senior levels of the agency.

If a health-care reform bill does pass, the FDA is likely to have still more responsibility, without more funding.

Budget experts estimate that the FDA needs an increase of $120 million next year just to maintain its present staffing and activities. Undoing the consequences of years of budgetary neglect will require several hundred million dollars more the following year. And the significant new authority that Congress is in the process of giving the FDA will require $400 million or more in new funding over the next three to four years.

No relief in sight
Every year at this time, the president sends a budget to Capitol Hill. All indications are that the one being prepared will provide no increases for the FDA.

There may be debate about what role the federal government should play in education, transportation, or health care. But there is little debate over whether the federal government must play a role in assuring that our food is safe, and that our drugs and medical devices are safe and effective. This assurance comes from the activities of the FDA, which sets and enforces standards for food and drug quality, and which approves new drugs and medical devices before they can be marketed.

Imagine if we as consumers had to fend for ourselves in the supermarkets or restaurants, or if we did not know that the prescription drugs we get at the pharmacy or hospital had been tested thoroughly.

National resources are scarce, and priorities are hard to set. Our leaders face delicate balances. But let’s hope that the essential services the FDA provides get the attention they deserve. We cannot afford to take the risk of continuing to deny the agency the money it needs to protect us.