According to a recent study, long-term pot smokers are 62 percent less likely to develop head and neck cancers than people who do not smoke marijuana.

The study featured 434 patients suffering from head and neck cancers, and compared them with 547 individuals without head and neck cancers. All participants in the study were living in the Boston area from December 1999 to December 2003.

Researchers found that smoking marijuana from once every two weeks to three times every two weeks cut the risk of head and neck cancer in half.

Individuals who began smoking pot at an older age also had less risk than those who started smoking marijuana at a younger age.

Compared to people who do not smoke marijuana, those who began smoking pot between the ages of 15 and 19 years were 47 percent less likely to develop head and neck cancer, while users age 20 or older were 61 percent less likely.

The researchers are unsure why marijuana would prevent the cancers, but noted that chemicals in pot called cannabinoids have previously shown antitumor effects.

Marijuana has also been linked to the reduced risk of other cancers in previous studies.

Smoking marijuana has also been suggested to help prevent Alzheimer’s disease, fight weight loss associated with AIDS, and reduce nausea in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.

The medical field has mixed feelings about the effects of marijuana on human health.

Some studies suggest the drug causes lung cancer and increases the risk of heart attack or stroke.

According to the journal Cancer Prevention Research, researchers noted that further research is needed to verify the link between the reduced risk of head and neck cancers and marijuana.

Even if the link is found to be true, the risks of smoking pot may still outweigh the cancer risk benefit, the researchers said.

“Marijuana is an entry-level drug and can be associated with later use of more serious addictive drugs, as well as other risk behaviors,” Dr. Karl T. Kelsey, from Brown University, told Reuters.

Policies regarding marijuana “should not be made based on one study’s results,” the researchers noted.


© Redorbit

If you have college-aged kids, you’re probably already thinking about what the coming school year will bring – exposure to different ways of thinking, a curiosity in other cultures, an increased drive to try new things and a sense of freedom that makes experimentation a lot easier.

By now, you’ve talked to your kids about sex. You’ve warned them about the dangers of drugs and alcohol. But have you told them about hookah?

Hookah is essentially a water pipe. Called the first new tobacco trend of the 21st century by the American Lung Association, hookah use is especially popular among 18- to 24-year-olds. But don’t write this off as just a harmless fad or an interesting Middle Eastern custom. The poisonous smoke one inhales during a typical 45-minute session is equal to four to five packs of cigarettes.

A hookah pipe has a bowl for tobacco that is heated by burning embers or charcoal. The smoke chamber is partly filled with water. A pipe or stem connects the bowl to the smoke chamber with a tube, which carries smoke into the water. Smoke is drawn up from the chamber and into the mouth and lungs of the user through a hose with a mouthpiece.

Recently there has been an explosion of hookah establishments in large cities and near college campuses across the country and Iowa. (These establishments are classified as tobacco retailers and are therefore not regulated by the Iowa Smokefree Air Act.) Hookahs and the tobacco mix used to smoke them are not only readily available, they’re also inexpensive.

Hookah tobacco mixtures consist of about 30 percent crude cut tobacco fermented with about 70 percent honey, molasses and the pulp of different fruits. Although many find the hookah smoke pleasantly aromatic, it is no less dangerous than cigarettes.

Like cigarettes, hookah smoke has been found to contain high levels of carbon monoxide, tar, nicotine and heavy metals. Because hookah smoking involves using charcoal or wood cinders, these heat sources add extra carbon monoxide, metals and carcinogens to the inhaled mixture.

For more information from the Iowa Department of Public Health about preventing tobacco use, visit www.idph.state.ia.us/tobacco or call (866) 227-9878.

As all people know, the color green means life and renaissance. That’s why is unnecessary to say that smoking is not very green.
Almost all people know how harmful can be a cigarette, that’s why many of them started to smoke e-cigarettes – a stylish new smoking alternative that dispenses nicotine through vapor, rather than smoke, in a reusable, odorless cigarette-like device. E-cigarette users can also “smoke” indoors without affecting others. They never need a lighter, and prevent hundreds of butts from being stubbed out on the pavement, since the device uses rechargeable batteries and refillable cartridges.

However, absolutely green smoking even e-cigarettes are too good to be true. Turns out, the electronic smokes, which are marketed on several websites as healthier than real cigarettes, can be as harmful as traditional kind.
These two smoking products have not been obeyed to the FDA for evaluation or approval, at this time the agency has no way of knowing, except for the limited testing it has executed, the levels of nicotine or the amounts or kinds of other chemicals that the various brands of these products give to the user.
The FDA’s Division of Pharmaceutical Analysis analyzed the ingredients in a small sample of cartridges from two leading brands of electronic cigarettes. In one sample, the FDA’s analyses detected diethylene glycol, a chemical used in antifreeze that is toxic to humans, and in several other samples, the FDA analyses detected carcinogens, including nitrosamines.
These tests indicate that these products contained detectable levels of known carcinogens and toxic chemicals to which users could potentially be exposed.
However the harmful chemicals aren’t the only reason for the warning. The FDA is more concerned about the safety of these products and how they are marketed to the public.
Margaret A. Hamburg, M.D., commissioner of food and drugs said that the e-cigarettes are sold in malls, and the flavored nicotine may tempt kids. These kinds of smoking products are also touted as “healthy,” “green,” and “environmental.”
Traditional cigarettes, too, will tout their green certificates. For example, American Spirit brand uses USDA-certified organic tobacco, avoiding the pesticides that other growers use (tobacco farmers use 27 million pounds of pesticides each year).
Statistics show that the global tobacco industry manufactures approximately 5.5 trillion cigarettes annually.

SALEM, Ore. ONS – Oregon is the first state to ban the sale of so-called electronic cigarettes, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will soon be in court to fight the same battle nationally.

The battery-operated tube looks like a real paper-and-tobacco cigarette, but contains nicotine and flavors that can be inhaled without producing smoke. The FDA wants to regulate them as drug devices.

Some makers of e-cigarettes call them a safer alternative to smoking. For Dana Kaye, executive director of the American Lung Association of Oregon, that doesn’t fly.

“My fear is just the opposite with these. If people are using them thinking they’re not going to get addicted, we’re going to have a new culture of folks that are hooked on nicotine, who weren’t previously.”

Kaye says electronic cigarettes don’t make nicotine any less addictive, and the FDA has found other chemicals in them, including diethylene glycol, a common ingredient of antifreeze.

“I think we see it in some other things, makeup and lotions and that kind of stuff. There’s a safe limit of that particular chemical, but not necessarily as an inhaled substance.”

Kaye says most of the electronic cigarettes come from China and their health effects have not been thoroughly tested. Two distributors of the products are challenging the FDA for confiscating shipments; the court date is August 17. E-cigarettes cannot legally be sold in Oregon, but she says people are buying them online or in neighboring states.


© Salem-news

The Greene County Medical Society Alliance is launching a new interactive tobacco prevention program targeting middle school students.

“Smoking Makes Me Ugly” consists of an animated video that will show students what smoking could to do their appearance and health if they choose to smoke.

There will be a kiosk demonstration 9 a.m. Thursday during Safe Kids Boot Camp at Pathways United Methodist Church, 1232 E. Dale St.

Erin Kirk, St. John’s Trauma Educator, is in charge of taking the kiosk into the classrooms.

“The students could not believe all the effects of smoking,” Kirk said in a press release. “The groups [of students] openly discussed smoking and their personal experiences being around smoke. The best part of the presentation was the reaction from the students when the pictures revealed the age progression of their classmates as smokers at the age of 72. The kids really got into the whole idea that smoking really does make people ugly.”

The program is funded by St. John’s Clinic, Ferrell Duncan Clinic, individual donors, and Smith-Glynn-Callaway Foundation. St. John’s and CoxHealth each donated $5,000 and the American Medical Association (AMA) Foundation Fund for Better Health provided $1,000. Those donations, combined with the funds raised at the Greene County Medical Alliance Arts of Medicine event eventually led to the hiring of H Design Group LLC who produced the interactive video and kiosk.

Altria Group Inc.’s Philip Morris USA is introducing a new menthol version of its Marlboro cigarette this week that will compete with Lorillard Inc.’s Newport and Reynolds American Inc.’s Camel Crush.

The cigarette, called Marlboro Blend No. 54, has a “richer, bolder” flavor than Philip Morris USA’s regular Marlboro menthol and Marlboro Smooth menthol cigarettes, Greg Mathe, an Altria spokesman, said by telephone today.

Retailers and distributors began receiving shipments on June 17, according to an information sheet distributed to wholesalers and confirmed today by Bill Phelps, another spokesman for Richmond, Virginia-based Altria. It’s the first new Marlboro menthol cigarette since 2007.

Tobacco companies are pursuing menthol sales, which account for a growing share of the shrinking cigarette market. Reynolds, the second-largest U.S. tobacco company after Altria, has introduced products such as Camel Crush, a cigarette that contains a menthol capsule in the filter that provides flavoring when compressed.

“If Altria wants to obtain more market share, it has to expand where the consumer has shown a preference,” Thomas Russo, who manages $2.5 billion of assets at Gardner Russo & Gardner, said in a telephone interview. Menthol is “the only territory where Altria can probably hope to gain share from other brands.”

Gardner Russo & Gardner, based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, owned 6.9 million Altria shares as of March 31.

Marlboro Blend No. 54 follows Philip Morris USA’s introduction of Marlboro Smooth in March 2007, Phelps said.

‘Modern, Contemporary’

“We saw consumers respond” to Marlboro Smooth, said Phelps. A “small” sampling of adult smokers in December described the new cigarette as “modern” and “contemporary,” according to the wholesaler information sheet.

The company won’t discuss how it creates different flavors and it won’t comment on how the new cigarette compares with rivals’ menthol offerings, Mathe said.

Altria advanced 3 cents to $16.41 at 4:15 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have risen 9 percent this year, compared with a 23 percent gain for Lorillard and a 6.3 percent decline for Reynolds.

Philip Morris USA trails Lorillard in the menthol category and is using promotions to increase initial deliveries of Marlboro Blend No. 54.

Cigarette Promotion

To spur distribution to retailers, wholesalers that ship the cigarette to more than 90 percent of their retail customers between June 17 and July 4 will get $5 per store, according to the information sheet. Retailers will receive $2 for each pack of the new cigarette they sell through July 26.

On average, a pack of Marlboros sold for $4.50 in the first quarter.

Hannah Sloane, a Lorillard spokeswoman, declined to comment.

“Certainly the industry recognizes that menthol in the cigarette category is a growing segment,” David Howard, a spokesman for Reynolds’s R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. unit in Winston Salem, North Carolina, said today by telephone. He declined to comment on Marlboro’s new cigarette.

Reynolds makes Camel in menthol and non-menthol varieties.

Manufacturers shipped about 100 billion menthol cigarettes last year, or 28.6 percent of the total U.S. market, according to the Web site of Greensboro, North Carolina-based Lorillard. Menthol’s share has advanced for four straight years from 26.4 percent in 2004, according to the Web site.

Menthol Market

Total U.S. cigarette shipments dropped 3.4 percent last year, said Lorillard, the third-largest U.S. tobacco company. It says on its Web site it’s the biggest in menthol cigarettes with its Newport brand accounting for 33.7 percent of shipments in 2008. Marlboro’s menthol market share is about 18 percent, Phelps said.

Philip Morris USA makes about half of the cigarettes sold in the U.S. It relies on Marlboro, the top-selling cigarette, to drive profit and market-share gains.

Altria anticipates 2009 profit will increase to $1.70 to $1.75 a share from $1.65 last year, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Michael Szymanczyk said last month.
© Bloomberg

TWILIGHT actresses ASHLEY GREENE and NIKKI REED are desperately trying to kick their nicotine habit with the help of fake cigarettes.
The two stars are conscious of their status as role models for their young fans and want to set an example by quitting smoking. And they’ve turned to imitation cigarettes SmokeStiks to aid them in their challenge.

A source tells Eonline.com, “Everyone on the cast (of Twilight and sequel New Moon) smokes, and they are all trying to quit because they are on Twilight and know they are in the public eye.
“(Greene and Reed) know they are role models for little kids. If there are a ton of paparazzi photos of them smoking, that’s not a positive image.
“SmokeStiks look like those fake cigarettes actors use in plays. There’s no smoke; it just lights up when you puff.”

Source: Contactmusic

Tobacco companies are targeting blacks using every trick in the book to get them hooked on their products, according to William S. Robinson. He spoke at a Saturday morning forum at the Muskogee Civic Center on tobacco and the African-American community.

The event was attended by black clergy from the Muskogee area and representatives of public health groups such as Muskogee Against Tobacco.

Robinson, executive director of the National African American Tobacco Prevention Network, said the results of advertising targeting blacks is poor health and death for those who are persuaded to smoke.

Ron Venters, with Christ’s Kingdom Builders church and a former city council member, agreed that blacks are suffering more than other ethnic groups.

“I lost a father to tobacco,” he said. “His life was cut short.”

Venters said he has seen how tobacco advertising targeting young Muskogee blacks has succeeded.

“They start out not smoking when they enter high school, then later on I see them smoking the flavored cigars,” he said. “It starts somewhere after 18 years of age. It’s the same pattern as what’s going on nationally. In the African-American community, they start with menthol cigarettes or flavored cigars. In this part of the country, you also see them using the smokeless tobacco products; you can see that circle on the back pocket of their jeans.”

Robinson said during his presentation that tobacco companies have more than 100 years experience studying African-American culture.

That is used to develop advertising and products to get blacks to use tobacco.

“This is a full frontal assault on our community,” he said.

Robinson showed tobacco-oriented magazines that featured prominent American blacks on the cover.

“They are co-opting our icons in our community,” he said. “They released ‘X’ cigarettes the same week as the opening of Spike Lee’s movie about Malcolm X.

“You can look at the design of the X on the cigarette packages, and it’s the same design as the one used on the DVD covers.”

Robinson said in areas that are predominately African-American, uneducated and poor, there is seven times as much tobacco advertising as other areas. He encouraged the audience to do everything they could to halt the use of tobacco products. That included organizing grass roots organizations and spreading the message through churches.

“We are not going to be enslaved to anything, including tobacco,” he said.

Corey Love, with the Tulsa City-County Health Department Tobacco Program, said that the tragic results of nicotine addiction have touched his life.

“I lost a mentor and I lost an uncle to tobacco,” he said.

Love talked about information gathered through the free Oklahoma Tobacco Helpline.

“More than 22,000 Oklahomans have been served by the helpline,” he said. “About 5,000 blacks used the helpline. Most of them were women. We need to reach out to more African-American men.”

Love said a survey showed 81 percent of callers were satisfied with the helpline.

“They are most likely to hear about it from friends or family,” he said. “That’s why we need to rely on small, grass roots organizations.”
Source: Muskogeephoenix

If I were a smoker, I’d be feeling pretty guilty every time a chunk of ice in the Antartica melts and breaks off. Puffing on a cigarette is not that much different from driving a car–both emit CO2 into the atmosphere.

So how about smoking a battery-operated zero-emission electronic cigarette instead? The cigarette works like a mini-shisha. There are five flavors to choose from, but unlike a shisha which does not provide nicotine (as far as I’m aware), the Green Smoke Electronic Cigarette does give smokers the nicotine that they are used to.

I’m thinking they probably shouldn’t make it look exactly like a normal cigarette, though. You could be puffing away on this e-cigarette, doing your part for the environment, and yet because it looks so similar to a normal cigarette, passersby still give you the evil eye.