The Alberta government is missing its own targets for reducing smoking among teens, according to the Alberta Health and Wellness annual report. Thirteen per cent of Alberta youth between 12 and 19 smoked last year, compared to the province’s target of no more than 10 per cent. Little has changed among these youngest smokers between 2003 and 2009, with teen smoking in this province fluctuating between 11 and 14 per cent.

“It’s a very disturbing trend. It means governments will have to redouble their efforts to reduce and prevent tobacco use among young people,” said Les Hagen, executive director of Action on Smoking and Health.

The lack of progress convincing kids to avoid cigarettes comes despite the province having recorded smoking levels at an all-time low in 2009 — with national statistics showing only 18 per cent of all Albertans over the age of 15 are smokers.

“We don’t want to see any kids take up tobacco. It’s a long-term process. But we’re pretty confident we can meet our targets,” said Alberta Health and Wellness spokeswoman Micky Elabdi.

The province has made positive strides against smoking, but is unlikely to meet its youth smoking targets by 2012 because it is not stepping up prevention strategies such as education efforts, said Tony Hudson, president and CEO of the Alberta branch of the Lung Association.

Youth tobacco consumption is a top health concern for Alberta Health Services, said medical officer of health Dr. Brent Friesen.

“There is good evidence to support that the more you can delay somebody from experimenting and starting to smoke, the easier it will be in the future in terms of that individual stopping smoking,” said Friesen.

Provincial policies prohibiting smoking in public places and workplaces has certainly helped with prevention, as has the push to have smoking appear less in films and television, said Friesen.

But Alberta youth continue to be attracted by flavoured tobacco products and spit tobacco, he said.

In July, the federal government banned the sale of flavoured cigarettes to protect young people from marketing practices directed at them.

But critics say the ban was too restrictive.

While the flavoured cigarettes are prohibited, tobacco companies began developing other products such as flavoured cigars to get around the ban, said Evie Rodway, Canadian Cancer Society, Alberta division.

“It masks the harsh flavour of tobacco. It is a very effective way of hooking younger generations who might have been turned off by the taste,” Rodway said.

Once hooked, youth often graduate to regular cigarettes.

Alyssa King, 19, has been smoking for seven years and said she started largely because the people around her were smoking, too.

She likes to smoke but said someone explaining “the fact that it’s gross and expensive” might have prevented her from starting in the first place.

Rae Boss, 15, refuses to light up, mostly because her parents smoke and seeing what it has done to their teeth is a real turnoff.

While she’s constantly telling her friends smoking will give them cancer, she knows many teens who started young.

“They started because of stress and some picked it up in junior high because it was cool,” Rae said.

Alberta’s relatively high wages for youth mean they can afford to buy a pack of cigarettes faster than most other provinces, said Hagen.

There are no indications of the government moving to increase taxes on cigarettes in the upcoming budget, Elabdi noted.

The government’s antismoking policy will be under review next year.

Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/health/progress+keeping+teens+from+tobacco/3881962/story.html#ixzz16HlwlYwe

THE IRISH Cancer Society and Irish Heart Foundation came together yesterday to urge the Government to increase tax on tobacco by 50 cent in the budget. Increasing tax by this amount on loose tobacco and cigarettes would generate €85 million in much-needed revenue for the State, they said, while at the same time higher prices would help encourage existing smokers to quit and discourage young people from experimenting with tobacco. The charities want to see €12 million of the money raised in tax to be ring-fenced for smoking cessation programmes.

Kathleen O’Meara, head of advocacy and communications at the Irish Cancer Society, said our health services spend €2 billion each year treating tobacco-related illness. “So if we reduce prevalence we don’t just save lives, we also reduce the massive cost of treating the harmful effects of smoking addiction,” she said.

In their pre-budget submission, the charities also called for a comprehensive package of measures to tackle tobacco smuggling, which could potentially save the exchequer about €67 million each year.

Based on 2009 receipts, the Department of Finance estimates the exchequer loses €200 million in duty each year due to the illicit trade in tobacco.

Chris Macey, head of advocacy at the Irish Heart Foundation, said a three-pronged approach is required to tackle smoking prevalence, including price increases for tobacco products, comprehensive smoking cessation programmes and stronger smuggling controls.

“If we don’t tackle smoking rates by helping people to quit, we are in grave danger of seeing the benefits of the very progressive anti-tobacco legislation we have introduced seriously undermined, with addiction and inevitably deaths from tobacco, increasing,” he said.

Irish smoking rates remain stubbornly high, at 29 per cent, and 16 people die every day in Ireland from the effects of smoking.

The Lake County Health Department’s Tobacco Free Lake County program will hold teacher training for school-based Tobacco Education on the day of the Great American Smokeout, Thursday, Nov. 18. The free training for teachers, social workers, school nurses, scout leaders and D.A.R.E. officers includes hands-on training in learning effective tobacco prevention strategies and helping to increase each school’s support for tobacco-free youth.

Participants will receive up-to-date tobacco-related information, learn about new FDA regulations, and get educated on new smokeless tobacco products such as the E-Cigarette, Sticks, Strips and Orbs. Participants will discover new activities to engage students in the learning process, be pre-approved to borrow educational supplies for use in their classroom, and also receive a free teaching manual filled with reproducible handouts, activities and resources.

The training will take place from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. at the Lake County Central Permit Facility, 500 West Winchester Road in Libertyville. A light dinner will be provided and all participants will receive free classroom posters. There is no entry fee; however, pre-registration is required. Participants can register by calling Tobacco Free Lake County at (847) 377-8090 by Friday, Nov. 12.

The Great American Smokeout, held on the third Thursday of November each year, is a nationally recognized event that challenges people to stop using tobacco for a day or longer. Each day, about 4,000 youth in the United States try their first cigarette and an additional 1,000 children under 18 years of age become new regular, daily smokers.

It’s been a while since we gave much thought to tobacco litigation, which arguably peaked in the late 1990s. But it turns out, lawsuits seeking compensation from cigarette makers for cancers and other illnesses are still booming in one state, Florida. Nathan Koppel has the story in Thursday’s WSJ. So what makes the Sunshine State so special? Plaintiffs in Florida were aided in their efforts by a 2006 state Supreme Court ruling that told jurors in future cases to accept that cigarette makers had misled smokers about the dangers. The ruling has paved the way for hundreds of millions of dollars in verdict awards.

About 8,000 lawsuits claiming injuries or death due to smoking are pending, more cases than the tobacco industry is facing in all other states combined. And since 2009, when the first of these cases went to trial, plaintiffs have won 19 out of 25 verdicts against three tobacco companies in different courts across the state. Plaintiffs have amassed more than $250 million in damages, according to Morgan Stanley and company filings. That compares to about $24 million won in damages against the same companies in cases outside the state during the same time period.

It all owes largely to one ruling — the so called “Engle” case, named after one of the lead plaintiffs in a 1994 class-action suit. Four years ago, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the factual findings made by the jury in that case would be binding in future smoking cases heard in Florida. Among the findings: tobacco companies sold cigarettes that were “defective” and “unreasonably dangerous” and concealed the dangers of smoking.

That “gives plaintiffs an immense leg up,” in Florida, said Murray Garnick, associate general counsel for Altria Group.

One attempt to stem the tide for the tobacco industry: a constitutional attack on using the Engle findings in later suits. The industry contends that it violates their due-process rights to be bound by factual findings that they have no opportunity to adequately contest.

“Findings from Engle are being read to juries, and we are not allowed to say, ‘wait a minute, we’re not sure whether these findings have anything to do with the plaintiff in this case,’” said Jones Day’s Stephanie Parker, a lead trial lawyer for R.J. Reynolds in Florida . No Florida appellate court has granted the constitutional challenge.

You passed away just a short time ago. I was with you when you took your last breath. Your decline was quick, regardless of its inevitability. My sister and I watched every breath in those last days, as you struggled to take one breath in, one breath out. You couldn’t communicate, couldn’t even open your eyes. Your whole being was focused on breathing.

We held your hand. I wasn’t mad at you anymore, my anger having drained away. Peace was what you needed.

When you were diagnosed with lung cancer, I wasn’t surprised. You had, after all, smoked a pack a day for 50 years, all of my life. I spent my entire youth hiding, or tossing your cigarettes, lighters and matches. Didn’t matter. You still smoked.

I grew up, and I wouldn’t let you smoke around me, in my house or around my children. Didn’t matter. You were imprisoned by nicotine addiction. All logic, intelligence and common sense were words that went up in smoke when you needed a cigarette.

When you were diagnosed, I did what I do best, and read all I could about the disease. I was appalled that I found no hope in those pages, just grim realities: 77 percent of smokers who get lung cancer will die.

Lung cancer is the deadliest cancer. You were Stage IV by the time you were diagnosed: Your lymph system was involved — there was already cancer in your bones. I learned in my reading that the cancer had probably been with you 10 years, silently killing you long ago.

I was impossibly furious at you for not quitting smoking. Now, you wouldn’t be around another 20 years to help me raise my children, see your granddaughters graduate from high school, see them become confident, independent, wonderful women. You wouldn’t be around to try once again to teach me how to cook a turkey.

You took your fate with stoicism. No bitterness, just frustration that you had lost control of being an independent woman and had to rely on others in a way you hadn’t ever otherwise. You went from being a business owner, repairing and reupholstering furniture by yourself, to shuffling backwards in a wheelchair, because you couldn’t handle the effort of walking. Went from someone who mothered, to someone who needed care 24 hours a day. Homebound because of the amount of oxygen you were on, forcing your lungs to stay open.

Every time I see someone who smokes, it reminds me of the time that cigarettes robbed me of time with you. I want to go up to that person, young and old, mother and grandfather, and slap them upside the head. Show them that all their struggles to be a better person are lost every time they smoke. Show them that all their dignity, control, money, hopes and dreams are robbed by every puff they take.

When you can’t breathe, everything else becomes irrelevant.

• For a change: Read about lung cancer. It will have a sobering, humanizing effect. Visit www.kp.org, www.lungusa.org or www.webmd.com.

• To make a difference: Regardless of your health, fill out an Advance Directive Form. This will give your loved ones information about how to take care of you when you can’t.

• To make a stand: Stop smoking, or you will die. The statistics are on my side. It’s more likely that you will get cancer if you keep smoking than for me to be statistically wrong. Do it for your family and friends. Do it for your legacy.

Read more: Tracy Press – Living Green Kick the cigarettes and take control

This is the first installment in our new series on personal vices. NYU Local writers have plenty of them, but we know we’re not alone. Before I left for NYU my parents made something clear: they would fuck me up if I started smoking cigarettes. They have no hard feelings towards weed or alcohol, but the idea of their niño paying a lot of money to slowly kill himself makes them freak. They also run a fitness/wellness company, there’s that. No one in my high school smoked tobacco, either.

Why, then, is this freshman and supposedly strong willed person falling to the awesome powers of marketing/peer-pressure now?

When in doubt, I ask myself: what would Don Draper do? The answer is almost always look cool while casually smoking a butt. I knew that cigarettes would be big in New York, so I had to brace myself for some type of decision once arriving. It’s easy (read: a cop-out) to say “I’ll only smoke when I drink,” or “it will be casual, not a regular thing,” but not for me. I’ve got an addictive personality, and it’s either go all in or don’t.

As I left for NYU, I made a mental pro’s and con’s list, regarding the benefits of smoking. The result was that I believed I could easily get by and be social without spending twelve dollars on a pack that donkey punches my lungs. I even came up with options in which I can hang around cigarette smoker without feeling the need to smoke:

I could just wall lean and talk to my cool-looking friends who smoke.
I could smoke a huge, Winston Churchill-esque cigar to somewhat prevent the possibility of habit.
I could hold a lit cigarette (as an acquaintance used to do) but never actually take drags from it.
I could be the kid who’s always got a yo-yo instead of a cigarette.
I could always have a joint on me.
But no, I’m slowly evolving (devolving?) into a user. It’s a slow progression (I am yet to smoke more than two cigarettes in a day, and I have not bought a pack myself), but I still notice that it’s happening. I find it even more interesting that direct peer pressure has not really been an issue. A lot of the time a friend will leave whatever place we’re at to go outside and smoke. If previously engaged with said person in an interesting conversation, it is so hard not to go outside and continue to shoot the shit with them (whilst smoking, of course). It is way less likely that I will be offered a cigarette, being that cigarettes are fucking expensive.

Not to mention, it is still only week three of school, and everyone is still searching for a group of friends. I will take any chance given to continue a conversation and form a bond. So far, the majority of every real conversation I’ve had in Hayden dorm has been outside, bumming a cigarette off some other freshman. I catch up with people about what they did in a night while outside leaning against the brick building, American Spirit in hand. After asking a friend why she started smoking here, the response was that “not only is asking for a cigarette the easy conversation starter, it gives me something to do with my hands so I don’t look nervous or awkward when talking to someone new.” That sounds like a solid argument to me.

While countless parents, teachers, and those guilt-tripping Truth commercials have warned me about the dangers of smoking, I really just don’t give a fuck. Sure, I could save myself the health damages and money if I stop now. On the other hand, I’m young and will probably live forever.

The 33 miners trapped 2,300 feet underground in a mine in Chile have persuaded officials to meet one of their most ardent requests since making contact with the surface: cigarettes. The regional governor in Atacama, where the San Jose mine is located, told reporters this weekend that the miners will now receive two cigarette packs a day, or 40 smokes, to ration among them.

“We’re ready to do what we can to lift the miners’ spirits,” said Chilean Health Minister Jaime Manalich. A doctor in the rescue operation told the Agence France-Presse news agency that the miners were “responsible people” who could administer the cigarettes on their own.

The decision to send down smokes came after ventilation was improved in the shelter where the miners await their rescue. Previous measures to alleviate the miners’ craving for cigarettes, nicotine patches and gum, were not effective, reports said.

The men are still not being allowed alcohol, however, another request they’ve insisted on.

“For tobacco companies chafing at advertising restrictions it could be a promotional dream, though it was not immediately known which brand was delivered, nor how many of the miners smoke,” reported the Guardian.

The miners have been trapped underground since Aug. 5. Three holes are now being dug concurrently to reach them, but that’s not expected to occur until November or even Christmas. As reported previously on La Plaza, the Chile mine rescue effort is now considered one of the most complex and difficult rescue efforts in history. Experts from NASA have been brought in to assess and advise on the effort. (The NASA people had recommended against cigarettes for the men.)

The miners are also expected to begin receiving electricity to improve lighting in the shelter and help the miners’ sleeping patterns. They are also beginning an exercise regimen.

– Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City

Photo: A message of ‘Be strong, miners!’ adorns a structure at the San Jose mine surface camp for rescuers and relatives. Credit: Associated Press

There’s always a good Justin Bieber rumor to keep everyone on their toes. Tonight’s big rumor is that Justin Bieber has been smoking weed. The rumor has circulated through the Internet and comes close to topping the number one Justin Bieber rumor, ‘Is Justin Bieber dead?” Justin Bieber has made headlines recently for several things. He is starring in the season premier of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation in September and he has been targeted by the anti-gay pseudo church Westboro Baptist.

Justin Bieber has not been caught smoking weed, photographed with weed or arrested for smoking weed. It is possible that this rumor extends from Justin’s acting debut on CSI and the fact that he posted a photo of himself wearing an orange jumpsuit on his Twitter and referred to himself as a bad man. For those who were unaware that Justin is acting in the hit show, it is understandable that confusion may have set in.
Rest assured, Justin Bieber is still holding fast to his image and hasn’t done anything to rock the boat. Apparently, the most scandalous thing Justin has really done is flirt with Tina Fey during an SNL skit and skipped through the waters of the Caribbean while holding Kim Kardashian’s hand.

material from health-beauty-2468.blogspot.com.

Several important changes took place in late June that impact the way tobacco is sold and marketed, thanks to the Tobacco Control Act, which granted the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate tobacco to protect public health and reduce its use by youths. This was followed by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that tobacco companies conspired to deceive the public and addict children, and by enactment last week of the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act, which places strict requirements on Internet and mail-order cigarette sellers.
These developments will help prevent youths from starting a deadly habit and ease tobacco’s toll on human lives and health care costs. But the fight is far from over. It’s imperative that we keep tobacco prevention at the forefront in Oregon.

First, let’s look at the good news. The Tobacco Control Act gives young people increased protection from deceptive tobacco advertising. This is particularly important now: Despite declines in youth tobacco use, an estimated 39,000 Oregonian youths smoke, and 20 kids start every day. According to the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, at this rate 74,000 of Oregon’s kids will one day die prematurely from smoking.

The act is to be phased in over an extended period, with several key provisions recently taking effect.

For example, smokeless tobacco ads and products will carry stronger warning labels. This is particularly meaningful for Oregonians, who have been subjected to a barrage of ads for smokeless products that have been test-marketed here over the past few years, including dissolvable tobacco candy.

Thanks to this federal law and recent actions of the Oregon Legislature, many practices that hook new smokers now are prohibited, including labeling tobacco products “light,” “low” or “mild”; sale of tobacco through vending machines accessible by youths; sale of packs of fewer than 20 cigarettes; keeping tobacco products anywhere but behind retail counters or in locked cases; free samples; free products such as T-shirts; and sponsorships of athletic or cultural events.

In Oregon, most smokers start before age 18; almost no one starts after age 21. The tobacco industry has hooked young smokers for years by adding sweet flavors and the word “mild,” by selling single (more affordable) cigarettes, and by using advertising that implies that everyone smokes. The FDA Act creates a significant barrier to these deceptive practices.

Now for the fight ahead. Seventeen percent of Oregonians smoke. Four out of five smokers want to quit but struggle to break the addiction. Tobacco accounts for 22 percent of all Oregon deaths and costs our state more than $2.2 billion every year.

It is imperative that we continue to fund tobacco prevention programs that help smokers quit, prevent young people from starting, and protect us all from secondhand smoke.

Oregon’s tobacco prevention budget is just $7.1 million this year. This pales in comparison to the tobacco industry’s $137 million annual marketing budget in Oregon. For every $1 we can spend to protect Oregonians from tobacco, the tobacco industry spends $20 to get our residents hooked.

Raising the price of tobacco is a key motivator to help people quit and prevent young people from starting. For every 10 percent rise in the price of cigarettes, youth cigarette use drops by 6 percent. It’s time for Oregon to reconsider raising taxes on tobacco products.

I applaud and support the work of Oregon’s congressional delegation and that of our state Legislature, which has passed important policies like our Smokefree Workplace Law, and I encourage all Oregonians to do the same. Together, we can create a smoke-free culture in Oregon and look toward the day when tobacco no longer claims Oregonians’ lives and pocketbooks.

From oregonlive.com, By Mel Kohn