British American Tobacco Plc (BATS)’s Australian unit said it will cut prices if the country passes legislation to ban branding on cigarette packages. BAT Australia Chief Executive David Crow told reporters today in Sydney that the legislation wouldn’t reduce smoking rates and would result in a flood of cheap and illegal products. The company, Europe’s largest cigarette maker, has a 42 percent share of Australia’s tobacco market and makes Lucky Strike and Pall Mall cigarettes.

“We will be forced to lower price over the short term to compete with the illegal tobacco market,” Crow said. “They will sell for 30 to 40 percent lower than normal cigarettes, which means more people will smoke.”

Health Minister Nicola Roxon unveiled the proposal on April 7 that would force cigarettes to be sold in plain dark olive packages with health warnings. Company names will appear on the boxes in uniform size and style of printing. The legislation, if passed by parliament, will take effect Jan. 1, 2012.

Opposition Liberal-National leader Tony Abbott said the coalition would support the laws if there was evidence it would reduce the number of smokers.

Australia last year increased tobacco taxes 25 percent and began an A$85 million ($90 million) four-year advertizing campaign to combat smoking. Smoking costs Australia A$31.5 billion each year, mainly through health expenses.

The Australian Greens party today said it wants a floor put in tobacco prices.

Raising the surcharge on cigarettes to generate revenue for the financially ailing national health insurance (NHI) system, as some have proposed, could only be done if the law were revised, a Department of Health (DOH) official said. An amendment to the Tobacco Hazard Prevention Act (菸害防制法) would have to be proposed and passed if the government wanted to increase the tobacco health and welfare surcharge, Bureau of Health Promotion Director -General Chiou Shu-ti (邱淑媞) said. The department doubled the tobacco health surcharge to NT$20 per pack of cigarettes last year by the same process she said.

Chiou was responding to a suggestion made earlier in the day by Vice Premier Sean Chen, who said that increasing the tobacco surcharge would be the best way to bridge the health -insurance system’s deficit if expanding -premium revenues did not fully cover it.

Although the law stipulates that the surcharge can be reviewed every two years and allows it to be raised further, Chiou said she believed another hike would still not be enough to free the health insurance system from its financial woes.

Raising the surcharge again would not necessarily mean that the NHI’s revenue would continue to grow, Chiou said, because the higher prices charged for cigarettes could just as easily reduce the smoking population and therefore the revenue base.

According to the department the Bureau of National Health Insurance had an accumulated deficit of about NT$53.3 billion (US$1.7 billion) as of the end of August.

Most of the compulsory system’s revenue comes from insurance premiums, but it has also drawn funds from the tobacco surcharge, which raises NT$36 billion a year after the surcharge hike took effect in June last year, nearly double the NT$20 billion a year it raised previously.

The NHI system received 70 percent of the revenue, or about NT$25 billion, this year to help fund its operations.

High proportions of youths with types 1 or 2 diabetes mellitus use tobacco, which adds to their already elevated risk for developing cardiovascular disease, according to a study published online Dec. 6 in the Journal of Pediatrics. THURSDAY, Dec. 9 (HealthDay News) — High proportions of youths with types 1 or 2 diabetes mellitus use tobacco, which adds to their already elevated risk for developing cardiovascular disease, according to a study published online Dec. 6 in the Journal of Pediatrics.

Kristi Reynolds, Ph.D., M.P.H., of Kaiser Permanente Southern California in Pasadena, and colleagues surveyed 3,466 youths (aged 10 to 22 years) with diabetes from the SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth study about their use of tobacco. The researchers also analyzed the association of smoking with cardiovascular risk factors, including waist circumference, blood pressure, physical activity, and lipid profile.

For those with type 1 diabetes, the investigators found that tobacco use was 2.7 percent in the 10 to 14 age group, 17.1 percent in the 15 to 19 age group, and 34.0 percent in the 20 and older age group. For type 2 diabetes, tobacco use was found to be 5.5, 16.4, and 40.3 percent in those age groups, respectively. Among the 10 to 14 age group, only 47.2 percent of those with type 1 disease and 40.7 percent with type 2 disease said they had ever been counseled about not smoking by a health care provider. Cigarette smoking was associated with physical inactivity and high triglycerides in youths with type 1 diabetes.

“Tobacco use is prevalent in youth with diabetes mellitus. Aggressive tobacco prevention and cessation programs should be a high priority to prevent or delay the development of cardiovascular disease,” the authors write.

Health Canada is being criticized for its “senseless policy” on tobacco warning labels after delaying plans to force tobacco companies to increase the size of health warnings on cigarette packages. “We should all be outraged about the suspension of efforts to renew tobacco warning labels,” reads an editorial in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, released Monday. The new labels were supposed to cover 50 to 70 per cent of the package’s surface, and have updated, more graphic images.

The official process to modernize Canada’s tobacco product labels began in August 2004, nearly four years after Canada became the first country in the world requiring tobacco companies to cover half the pack with government-mandated graphic warning labels.

“Ten years ago, Canada was a leader,” the Canadian Cancer Society said in a statement. “Abandoning this labelling policy may be a setback for efforts in Canada, particularly as labels are now the government’s only remaining mass communication initiative warning of the dangers of smoking.”

Health Canada moved to mandate new and bigger warnings after its own public-opinion research showed current warnings, which have been on packages since 2000, were no longer eliciting strong reactions from smokers.

Independent research pointed to the same trend, showing a decline in the effect of warning labels in Canada over time.

Some countries, such as Thailand and Uruguay have updated their labels several times over the past five years, according to the Cancer Society.

There were murmurs, among industry executives, of the impending label changes more than one year ago. And with Health Canada apparently ready to implement the new labels, the regulations were expected to be tabled in January 2010.

In reaction to the criticism, government said it hasn’t abandoned the planned regulations, and while it continues to review research on health warning messages, it isn’t ready to move forward.

“Health Canada reviews information to determine whether new evidence has emerged clearly linking tobacco usage to specific diseases,” Stephane Shank, a spokesman for Health Canada, said in a written statement to Postmedia News. “As well, the impact and possible effectiveness of any new messages on the smoking behaviour of Canadians needs to be determined before new messages are considered.”

A trendy new type of hangout is popping up like wildfire across Florida: hookah bars. And at least one doctor says they’re not as safe as you might think. “We’ve tried out like three. I like them just because they like, just calm you down. They have strawberry kiwi, they have every flavor you can imagine,” said David Rodriguez, a smoker who says he prefers hookahs to cigarettes.

While inhaling flavored smoke may be enjoyable for some, there are some health risks to be considered.

“It’s safer than cigarettes, I’ll tell you that. With all the stuff in cigarettes, it’s more soothing to me without all the nicotine and rat poison and bad stuff,” said Rodriguez.

According to Dr. Robert Green with the Palm Beach Cancer Institute, that just doesn’t make sense.

Dr. Green wants to clear the air about the health dangers faced every time someone gets “hookah’d up”.

“There is evidence that hookah smoke is harmful in the same ways that cigarette smoke is harmful,” said Dr. Green.

Many of the same dangerous chemicals are present in the smoke, and since the bars promote social smoking, the harmful effects of inhaling are stretched out over a greater period of time.

“We now know that there is a high risk from second hand smoke related to cigarettes. My concern is people who are spending an extensive amount of time in an environment where there is smoke like this, that does pose a real risk for their health,” said Dr. Green.

Some believe the smoke is less harmful, since it’s filtered through water.

“There is no evidence that the smoke passing through water filters it or removes any of the toxins,” said Dr. Green.

Even with warnings from health professionals, some smokers just don’t want to clear the air.

“I would say life is too short. I would still probably smoke it anyways,” said Rodriguez.

(HealthDay News) — Long linked to physical ailments such as asthma, heart disease and lung cancer, secondhand smoke may now be tied to an increase in mental woes, new research suggests. Prolonged exposure to another’s noxious tobacco fumes could up the odds for psychological distress, depression, schizophrenia and delirium, British researchers say. “In the U.S., an estimated 60 percent of non-smokers have biological evidence of exposure to passive smoke. Thus, in order to improve mental and physical health, people should be made aware of these harmful effects,” said lead researcher, Mark Hamer, from the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London.

“Exposure to passive smoke was associated with higher levels of psychological distress and greater risk of future psychiatric illness,” he said.

The report is published in the June 7 online edition of the Archives of General Psychiatry.

For the study, Hamer’s team collected data on over 5,500 non-smokers and nearly 2,600 smokers. None of these people had any history of mental illness at the start of the study, the researchers noted. In addition, the researchers measured levels of cotinine in saliva, which indicates an individual’s level of exposure to tobacco smoke.

Over six years of follow-up, 14.5 percent of the individuals were found to be suffering from psychological distress. People who did not smoke, but who were exposed to high levels of secondhand smoke, were almost 50 percent more likely to suffer from psychological distress than those not exposed, the researchers found.

In addition, during the six-year follow-up period, 41 of the participants were admitted to psychiatric hospitals for problems such as depression, schizophrenia, delirium or other psychiatric problems. Those with high exposure to secondhand smoke were nearly three times as likely to be admitted versus people unexposed to the fumes, the study authors found.

Stanton A. Glantz, a professor of medicine and director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California, San Francisco, commented that “this is an important and well-done study that shows that secondhand smoke is even more dangerous than we previous thought.”

Dr. Norman H. Edelman, a scientific consultant for the American Lung Association, agreed that “this is a very well done, potentially important study.”

Edelman said, “It’s not just that people with psychiatric symptoms tend to smoke more or be around those who smoke more, it may be that the exposure to smoke adds to their symptoms.”

However, another expert questions the validity of the findings. While smoke may make one more susceptible to mental problems, people predisposed to mental health woes may find themselves in smoky environments more often.

Dr. Ted Schettler, the science director of the Science and Environmental Health Network, reasoned that, perhaps “nicotine is associated with an increased likelihood of psychological problems.”

But, he added, “On the other hand, you can easily imagine that people who are in stressful life circumstances are also finding themselves in more smoke-filled environments. I don’t know that you can separate it out.”

June 8, 2010, health.usnews.com

More than 35,000 Americans will be diagnosed with Oral Cancer this year. Most of them will be tobacco users of some kind — smokers, former smokers, and smokeless tobacco users.

A few statistics:

There is no nice way to paint the picture, so I’ll just start swinging away with my brush — of people 50 years of age or older and diagnosed with oral cancer, more than 75% of them are/were tobacco users. And some studies I’ve seen that include throat and larynx cancers put the number closer to 90%. That’s nine out of ten. That’s a HUGE correlation that is worthy of any tobacco user’s attention.

I’m not saying that if you smoke or dip you are definitely going to get oral cancer, but with numbers like I just mentioned above, the risks you are taking with every smoke or chew are profound. I realize talking about this kind of thing to anyone who smokes is sometimes futile. Plus, whenever you use any kind of statistics, there are counterpoints to be made. In short, statistics can largely mean what you want them to mean, and many can be skewed or argued against (for example, I would guess 100% of people diagnosed with oral cancer drink water. And probably 90% of them ate sandwiches from time to time. And it’s likely 90% of them watched a movie in the last five years as well. See what I mean? People will counter with something like that, as if the tobacco numbers mean nothing.)

But as a dentist, I can tell you that I have seen the damage that smoking and tobacco use cause firsthand. My sandwich and water examples above notwithstanding, there is no getting around the fact that tobacco use is the leading cause of oral cancers — by a MILE. You can throw alcohol use in there as well — heavy alcohol use (20+ drinks a week) is almost as bad as tobacco use.

Now, here’s the real kicker… you know how some people say smoking and drinking go together? Oral cancer thinks so as well. Smoking and drinking together, especially when both are done in above-average quantities, increase your chances of contracting oral cancer markedly. People who smoke and drink heavily are almost 15 times more likely to contract oral cancer. That guy you see in the bar four times a week smoking and doing shot after shot of whiskey? His chances of getting oral cancer when he’s older are pretty darn good (although I’d like to ask what YOU are doing in the bar four times a week also! But that’s for another day. J )

Again, there is no way to say this nicely or tactfully – if you use tobacco or alcohol with any kind of regularity, you are at a significantly higher risk for oral cancer. And if you use tobacco and alcohol together? The risk increases exponentially.

When to see your Dentist about Oral Cancer Symptoms:

There are likely 4 million web pages out there with Oral Cancer symptoms. I won’t be the four millionth and first. Just type “Oral Cancer” into Google and take your pick of what comes up. The nature of the internet is that it’s very informative in regards to disease symptoms. The downside to that is it can make you think that every bump in your mouth is oral cancer.

My advice is pretty simple: get two dental checkups/cleanings a year (which you should be doing anyway.) And specifically ask your dentist to do an oral cancer screening. He or she will check for the most common signs. Doing this twice a year will ensure that you will catch anything fairly quickly (the survival rate is much higher the earlier any cancer is caught.) Some progressive dentists even have a new light (called a VELscope) that can detect possible cancer trouble spots before they can be seen by the naked eye.

In regards to sores or such that you can see/feel, let me start by saying that the mouth is an incredibly diverse place, with all kinds of things happening. Sores, bumps, bleeding, etc are all quite common. Anything from a simple canker sore to biting your cheek can produce a “cancer-like symptom” and scare the daylights out of anyone. My standard advice here is almost any mouth sore that does not show signs of healing in two weeks should be looked at. This will eliminate 99% of sores/lumps/etc in the mouth, as most either heal outright or show marked improvement in two weeks time. So if you notice a red or white sore, etc, give it two weeks before you start worrying yourself to death.

To wrap this up, watch the tobacco and alcohol, and see your dentist. And may you be oral cancer free for life.

By Thomas P. Connelly, Huffingtonpost

An Auckland academic says smoking rates in New Zealand would plummet if tobacco products could not be displayed at shops.

Dr Marewa Glover of Auckland University told a select committee today that progress in tobacco control was poor and it was having a particularly bad effect among Maori.

She said outside the hearing that she disagreed with tobacco industry giant British American Tobacco New Zealand (BAT) that banning smoking or restricting its sale would merely produce an uncontrolled black market.

“There just will not be the death and illness to such an extent from so few people smoking, and the fastest way to do that is to get rid of the product off the shelves,” Dr Glover said.

She said BAT’s suggestion that they were offering a legal product which people were choosing to use was “a pack of lies”.

“Nicotine is highly addictive and people do not have freedom of choice. It’s a psychoactive drug, it works on the brain, it manipulates thought, it manipulates motivation and they are driven to smoke.”

Dr Glover said she didn’t want smoking banned but she wanted its over-the-counter sale banned, leaving it for internet purchase or grow-your-own customers only.

When asked about removing the product from visibility in stores but not removing them altogether, BAT managing director Graeme Amey said research showed this would have little impact on the prevalence of smoking.

But after Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei asked why BAT opposed this move if it would make no impact on smoking, Mr Amey said his company could lose market share as a result.

“We operate a commercial business and we are in the business of improving market share,” he said. “Brand switching would become an issue.”

Mr Amey would not tell the committee its marketing strategies in an open hearing, saying it was commercially sensitive. He said he would provide them to the committee confidentially.

Maori Party MP Hone Harawira thanked BAT for addressing the committee, but said he hoped that once the inquiry was complete, “we can ban these products forever”.

Dr Glover said much of tobacco marketing came via its packet design, and removing these from public view would therefore help reduce smoking.

She told the committee that more than half Maori women of childbearing age were smokers, more than double the rate of the whole population, and that smoking among Maori women 14-18 weeks into pregnancy was still high at 45 per cent.

She said 62 per cent of the 328 sudden unexpected deaths among infants (sudi) between 2003 and 2007 were Maori.

“Smoking during pregnancy is a key risk factor for sudi,” she said.

As well as restricting sale, Dr Glover said services to help people quit smoking needed to be easier to access.

“That sort of help needs to be as easy as going to the dairy to buy a packet of smokes.”

Several people told the committee how smoking-related illnesses had claimed the lives of loved ones in their families.

Ngaire Rae of Manaia Public Health Organisation in Whangarei said she had just buried her father, who died from a smoking-related disease at the age of 68.

She said her story was all too common in Northland, where a huge proportion of Maori were smokers.

“He should be sharing his life stories with his whanau, and instead we are deprived of his wisdom and his life stories,” she said.

“I am pleased make sure that there are some strong actions as a result of this inquiry. Let’s not make this a talkfest, let’s make sure your time and ours is not a waste.”

A subsidiary of Reynolds American Inc. has agreed to alter its marketing to specify that organic tobacco does not provide safer tobacco or cigarettes for smokers.
The settlement agreement involving Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Co. and the attorneys general of 33 states, including North Carolina, took effect Monday.

Santa Fe sells Natural American Spirit cigarettes and organic tobacco for roll-your-own tobacco users. Two cigarette styles — “light mellow taste” and “regular full-bodied taste” are listed on the pack as being made with 100 percent organic tobacco.

On its Web site, Santa Fe already has a disclaimer similar in size to the surgeon general’s warning. The disclaimer reads “no additives in our tobacco does not mean a safer cigarette.”

The disclaimers substitute “organic tobacco” in the place of “no additives.”

Edmund Brown Jr., the attorney general for California, said that the states were concerned that Santa Fe’s advertising may have been misleading consumers into believing that its organic products were less harmful than other tobacco products.

“There is currently no competent or reliable scientific evidence to support this conclusion,” the attorneys general said in the agreement.

The attorneys general had considered taking legal action because they felt the advertising may have been in violation of the Master Settlement Agreement.

“Stamping an organic label on tobacco products is ultimately a distinction without a difference,” Brown said. “Organic or not, cigarettes are bad for your health.”

Santa Fe said it agreed to make the changes even though “we believe our advertising is, and has been, truthful and not misleading.” The agreement states that the settlement is not an admission by Santa Fe that it has violated the MSA.

Santa Fe said that its organic tobacco is certified through the National Organic Program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Certified organic tobacco is grown without the use of pesticides and fertilizers prohibited under the program. The agreement allows it to continue to advertise its tobacco as organic or 100 percent organic.

“We came to an amicable agreement, and there was no fine involved,” said Alexandra Pratt, a spokeswoman for Santa Fe. “It made sense to make the agreement, which adds more clarity, which is what the California attorney general wanted.”

Santa Fe said it is sending new marketing materials to distributors and retailers. They have to be in place by March 23.

By Richard Craver, Journalnow