An advocacy group says Wisconsin falls short when it comes to protecting residents from the harms of tobacco. Wisconsin got an A for smoke-free air — protecting people in public and at work, but Dona Wininsky with the American Lung Association-Wisconsin chapter says the Badger State only got a B for its cigarette tax. She says Wisconsin’s tax is higher than the national average. The tax increases the overall price, which is a great deterrent for using the product.

The group’s State of Tobacco Control 2012 report grades the state based on existing policies. As for tobacco control and funding, the state got an F. The report also gives Wisconsin an F for its coverage of cessation treatments and services. Wininsky says the state’s Quitline is underfunded. The CDC’s recommendation is $10.50 per smoker to adequately help them quit; instead, the Quitline is currently funded at 73 cents per smoker. Wininsky says she doesn’t have huge expectations to be funded at the high levels recommended by the CDC, but says she would at least like to see the program restored to where it had been before the cuts in the recent budget.
Wininsky says, at 20.7 percent, the high school smoking rates are still “uncomfortably” high, but she says the good news is the percentage of youth smokers is down from previous years. According to the American Lung Association, 443,000 people die from tobacco-related illnesses and secondhand smoke exposure each year. Tobacco causes an estimated 7,240 Wisconsin deaths annually and costs the state’s economy $3.7 billion in healthcare costs and lost productivity. Compared to the rest of the nation, Wisconsin falls somewhere in the middle.
Wininsky says up until last year, Wisconsin was getting an F in smokefree air, too. So, going from F to A is a leap forward. Also, the cigarette tax has been increased a couple of times, which helps deter people from smoking in the first place.

Progress made but too many still fall victim to smoking-related illness
Today is Weedless Wednesday, a day created to promote a “one day at a time” approach to quitting smoking.
The idea is that, while the thought of giving up cigarettes might be a daunting prospect for most smokers, many might be willing to try it for a day . . . and one day is a start. As anyone who has given up tobacco knows, it always starts with that first day.

Weedless Wednesday is part of National Non-Smoking Week, which has been observed for more than 30 years. It was established in 1977 by the Canadian Council for Tobacco Control, and its goals included to educate Canadians about the dangers of smoking and to help people quit. It also works toward creating a smoke-free society in Canada. Since the week was introduced, great strides have been made in that regard.
The Canadian Public Health Association says on its website that the first real strides toward establishing smoking restrictions began in the early 1970s when non-smokers became more assertive about demanding clean air to breathe. This push was fuelled by a growing realization of the harm secondhand smoke could cause to non-smokers.
Today most public places are smoke-free, a significant change from a few decades ago when smokers could, and did, light up at public events, in workplaces and in restaurants, to name a few. But while things are better for non-smokers these days, there are still too many Canadians falling victim to the health consequences of tobacco. The Canadian Cancer Society says lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death, and smoking is linked to 85 per cent of those cases. Smokers are about 10 to 20 times more likely to develop lung cancer than non-smokers, says the Cancer Society.
The positive news is the declining smoking rate, which has been aided by increasing knowledge and education about the dangers of tobacco. That has brought about huge changes in the promotion of tobacco products. In 2008, an exhibit was held in New York which featured hundreds of print ads and television commercials dating from a time when smoking was an accepted practice. The exhibit featured ads such as one which stated “More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette.”
How things have changed. Today the organization Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada works to discourage people from smoking.
The CPHA says Canada has made more progress in the area of tobacco control in recent years than most other countries, and from 1999 to 2008, there has actually been a decline in the overall smoking rate among Canadians aged 15 years and older from 25 per cent to 18 per cent. Even more remarkable is the smoking decline over the past four decades. In 1965, a whopping 49 per cent of Canadians over age 15 were smokers.
So progress has been made, and continues to be made . . . but there’s still work to be done. As Cheri Langhofer from the Lethbridge branch of the Cancer Society noted in a letter to the editor in Tuesday’s Herald, flavoured tobacco products threaten to ensnare a new generation of smokers.

As of Wednesday, December 21, it is against the law to install cigarette vending machines within 1,000 meters of schools and other educational institutions. Starting on January 1, 2014, the use of tobacco vending machines will be completely barred. The delay for the complete prohibition resulted from objections by vending machine companies and others, who said they would lose money and needed time to make up for their losses, although proponents of an immediate ban said vending machines for cigarettes could easily be changed to sell anything from stamps and envelopes at the post office to healthy foods and toys.

Last May, the government decided on the basis of Health Ministry recommendations to adopt a national program for reducing smoking and damage from tobacco, especially among children and youths. One of the regulations was to bar tobacco vending machines in two years and those within a kilometer of educational institutions now.

The ministry said it plans to enforce the rules against vending machine owners who violate the law; the fine will be a prohibitive NIS 226,000. Until now, although cigarettes cannot be sold legally to minors, any child could buy them from vending machines.

Cigarette manufacturer Phillip Morris is gone and now smoking is on its way out, too, as Concord City Council bans smoking and the use of tobacco products from city parks. Concord City Council voted 4-3 Thursday to ban smoking and tobacco use from the city’s parks to encourage healthier choices for residents and to reduce the effect of secondhand smoke on the children and adults who use the parks.

Council members Dr. Hector Henry, John Sweat, Lamar Barrier and Ella Mae Small voted for the ban. Council members David Phillips, Jim Ramseur and Alfred Brown voted against it.

The “Prohibiting Ordinance” prohibits all smoking and the use of tobacco products in the parks and places enforcement with the Concord Police Department. This model mirrors the one used by Cabarrus County and Harrisburg in their parks.

Council members were presented with two options before the vote. One option was to completely ban smoking and tobacco use from the parks and the other was to ban it from most the park, but allow it in parking lots at the parks.

Small said she voted for the total ban because she wants to protect youth from secondhand smoke.

“I used to smoke years ago. Because of my smoking, I do have a lung problem now. It’s not anything that’s life threatening, but cigarette smoke can damage your lungs,” Small said. “There are a lot of children in the parks and I would not like to have them exposed to even secondhand smoke. If (people) want to smoke, they can drive away from the park and smoke and then come back.”

Ramseur said he supported banning smoking from the parks, but preferred the option that still allowed it in the parking lots.

“I’d like to speak for the restricted portion where we still allow smoking in the parking lots only. I’d like to try it out and stick our foot in the water before we jump in the water,” he said during the Concord City Council meeting on Thursday.

Henry said he thought allowing smoking and tobacco use in the parking lots, but not the parks would be confusing for patrons of the parks.

“It is the way things are done at the Cabarrus parks and the Harrisburg parks,” he said. “It does bring consistency to the park system everybody uses.

“There’s no question that there are going to be people who will not follow the rules,” he said. “I think we need to be very aggressive about this. There’s a tremendous amount of support for this. I really think this is a good step forward.”

The official, on condition of anonymity, told The Express Tribune that “it is obvious” that the cell cannot survive without the ministry. “This will give a free hand to the people. There would be no check and balance on the consumption and sale of tobacco products,” the official said. “The tobacco lobby is very strong, there is hardly much interest within the Ministry of Health to strengthen tobacco regulatory process in spite of all the commitments made by Pakistan under The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC),” the official said.

He said there is a need to strengthen and streamline tobacco regulatory processes and not allow the tobacco industry an open field to sell its products. Otherwise deaths related to tobacco will increase.
Right now, according to National Coordinator, Coalition for Tobacco Control, about 100,000 people die from diseases related to the use of tobacco every year in Pakistan.
Sharing the cell’s background, he said it was set up in 2007 in the Ministry of Health and became a national focal point for tobacco control activities in the country.
The cell brought in new anti-tobacco regulations, like the pictorial health warnings, removal of designated smoking areas at airports and hotels, ban on promotion of cigarettes through free gifts to consumers, restrictions on tobacco promotion through electronic and print media advertisements and ban on manufacturing of small packs.
It also worked to ensure implementation of the existing laws including The Prohibition of Smoking and Protection of Non-Smokers Health Ordinance 2002 and The Cigarettes Printing of Warning Ordinance, 1979.
He said Pakistan was obligated under the FCTC to set up a “national coordination mechanism” to implement tobacco control policies. It is a mandatory requirement under Article 5 of the FCTC.
Now who is going to do all this and more for curtailing the activities of “tobacco giants” in the country, asked the official.
Talking to The Express Tribune, a constitutional expert who has also served in the Ministry of Law, said, “International treaties, conventions, agreements on tobacco control and there implementation is an exclusively federal subject.”
“Without a focal office to implement FCTC, the government would never be able to fulfil its obligations under the international treaty,” he said.
Talking to The Express Tribune, another official in Tobacco Control Cell, asking not to be named said that many projects funded by foreign donors stand to be cancelled if the cell stops working.
The Tobacco Control Cell had already negotiated the continuance and strengthening of these projects with concerned foreign donors. These programmes aim at better anti-tobacco advocacy and awareness, assistance for drafting new laws, capacity building for enforcement, he said.
Dr Nabila Ali, a consultant with the Ministry of Health, said that she did not have any knowledge of the cell becoming “dysfunctional” after the devolution of the health ministry.

The Harvard Undergraduate Global Health Forum held a panel on tobacco control and mitigating global tobacco use yesterday. The United States has seen a dramatic decline in tobacco use since its peak in the 1950s, though most developing countries are now seeing a surge in smoking rates, according to Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dean Allan M. Brandt.

One of the greatest difficulties in preventing tobacco use is the difference in tobacco regulation across countries.

“There is a great future in the tobacco market and it is in the developing world,” Brandt said. “Global health is about the relations of problems across nations.”

Most tobacco control issues now focus on the developing world and spreading awareness of the health risks associated with smoking through government policy.

“You need to make sure there is no local corruption, a free press, and a strong judicial system,” Harvard School of Public Health Professor Gregory N. Connolly said. He is fond of the acronym “KILLS: Keep It Loud and Local Stupid” as a basic approach to working with tobacco control in developing countries.

The World Health Organization has established uniform standards for production, taxation, distribution, and advertising of tobacco products. Currently, 172 countries have ratified the standards laid out in the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. The United States has signed but not ratified the treaty.

Connolly said this is because the United States values the free market over global health. Connolly said that in Thailand, the government was forced to permit the importation of U.S. cigarettes, even though it was shown that this would probably increase smoking rates and result in worse health outcomes.

In the first world, the health concerns associated with smoking have led some groups to propose a divestiture from tobacco companies. Harvard divested its tobacco securities in the early 1990s, according to Connolly.

Connolly advocated for other academic institutions to follow Harvard’s example.

“You should write an admissions guide warning people that Yale takes tobacco money,” Connolly joked, referencing the professorship in wildlife ecology and policy sciences endowed by former Phillip Morris CEO, and Yale alum, Joseph F. Cullman.

The Public Health Ministry plans to raise the legal age to buy cigarettes from 18 years old to 20 years old. The decision was reached during the meeting of the National Cigarette Control Committee Wednesday. The meeting was chaired by Public Health Minister Jurin Laksanavisit. The move was seen as the toughest measure so far to discourage smoking among youths.

The meeting Wednesday also came up with several tough measures to control smoking.

Among other things, cigarette vending machines and online vending will be banned, Jurin said.

Vendors will not be allowed to divide up the cigarette pack and sell by counting the cigarettes. Manufacturers will not be allowed to reduce the prices for marketing campaigns, Jurin said.

New data announced today in the University of Michigan’s Monitoring the Future study shows that the decline in youth smoking rates has remained at a standstill for another year and appears to reflect a small uptick by students in the nation’s 8th and 10th grades. As states have shifted their tobacco settlement dollars away from effective tobacco control and prevention programs to fill budget shortfalls, it is our youth who are paying the price. It is critical that we renew efforts to reduce tobacco consumption if we are to reverse these troubling new smoking rates in order to meet the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Healthy People 2020 objectives, which projects youth smoking rates at 16 percent by 2020.

Monitoring the Future, now in its 36th year, is the most respected source for current data on youth smoking. In light of the findings in today’s report, we must redouble our efforts to jumpstart the historic declines in smoking the country witnessed in the late 1990s.
The survey found that the percentage of 8th graders who had smoked over past months had increased from 6.5 percent in 2009 to 7.1 percent in 2010, and for those in 10th grade, it increased from 13.1 percent to 13.6 percent. The perceived risk of smoking and the negative attitudes towards smokers seem to be reversing itself. According to Lloyd Johnson, lead investigator on Monitoring the Future, “Cigarette smoking is no longer declining and is increasing for the youngest surveyed.”
Legacy®, the national public health foundation devoted to keeping young people from smoking and helping all smokers quit, is committed to finding new ways to reach and engage with the teen audience, with the ultimate goal of reducing youth smoking prevalence. This is especially important as the tobacco industry continues to successfully market its products and new smokers are addicted.
The foundation’s evidence-based truth® youth smoking prevention campaign is a national effort that delivers facts and messages to teens about tobacco, but avoids giving directive statements telling youth not to smoke. Research has indicated that in the first four years of the campaign, 22 percent of the overall decline in youth smoking was directly attributable to truth. It is critical that funding continues to grow for efforts like truth campaign and state-specific smoking prevention campaigns. While the proven-effective campaign celebrated its 10th year in 2010, its national broadcast presence has been diminished by a lack of funding that is mirrored in the increase in smoking rates over the same time period when the U.S. youth smoking declines began to level off.
About eighty percent of all smokers have their first cigarette before age 18, and every day 1,100 youth become daily smokers. These daily smokers will continue down a path of tobacco-related diseases and will incur higher healthcare costs than nonsmoking Americans. Funding youth smoking-prevention efforts and encouraging parents to be roll models and quit, could prevent these ill effects.

A coauthor of a research paper that found cigarettes produced in China contained three times more heavy metals than in Canada-manufactured brands denied that the team conducted the research in order to help foreign cigarette brands enter the Chinese market. The International Tobacco Control (ITC) Project published the paper in the UK-based journal Tobacco Control last month, raising concerns about tobacco industry practices and control policies in China, and the health impact had on people.

Li Qiang, a member of ITC, said in an interview with the Beijing Times that the research was part of a global project to assess the impact of the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, a treaty China signed in 2006, on smoking-ban policies in member countries.

The research was sponsored by the US National Institute of Health and Canadian Institute of Health Research.

When asked whether the sponsoring agencies were impartial, Li replied that the research was not influenced by any tobacco company.

“This research is a health-related issue. You may think that we are helping foreign cigarette brands enter the Chinese market. That is only a smokescreen created by certain interest groups to shift the public’s attention from health issues to trade issues,” he said.

The team conducted similar research in 20 countries including the US, the UK, Canada and Australia, as well as some developing countries.

The research in China took four years and began at the end of 2005. Researchers from Canada, the US and the UK selected 78 Chinese cigarette brands purchased from seven Chinese cities between 2005 and 2007 for testing, 13 of which were found to contain excessive heavy metals, including Baisha from Hunan Province and Daqianmen from Shanghai.

“In order to maintain impartiality, we purchased the cigarettes when staff from the tobacco control office of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and local office for disease control and prevention were on the scene,” he said.

“When the results first came out, we were very surprised since the heavy metal content was much higher than those from other countries,” he said.

However, he also pointed out that their paper appeared to have little impact on Chinese tobacco companies, which have not held direct talks with them since the research was published.

Consumption of cigarettes in China reached 38.9 million cartons last year, according to the China National Tobacco Corporation.