ASH Daily News for 23 June 2008

Smokers offered money to quit

Smokers could be paid £150 each if they manage to kick the habit for three months.

Health chiefs and anti-tobacco campaigners think the incentive will be worth it compared to the £1.5billion a year it costs the NHS to deal with smoking related diseases. Smokers who take the money will have to take weekly carbon monoxide breath tests at a pharmacy to prove they are not cheating.

A £500,000 trial scheme will be launched in Dundee, Fife, later this year. Smokers will get £12.50 a week to give up cigarettes for 12 weeks.

The payments will go on a special credit card that can be used to buy groceries, but not alcohol or tobacco.

Tayside NHS Trust, Dundee Council and the Scottish Government are behind the plan.

Tayside public health chief Paul Ballard will target 1,800 of Dundee's 36,000 smokers and hopes for a 50 per cent success rate. He said: "We will be delighted if this means people quit who would otherwise have developed a heart condition or cancer."

A Whitehall source said: "If other trusts and local authorities want to do it they can."

Amanda Sandford, of Action on Smoking and Health, said: "This would save more money than the huge social and health costs of smokers."

Most adults want more done to curb smoking - with three in four calling for it to be banned in cars carrying children, according to a new poll.
 

Source: The Sunday People, 22 June 2008
Link: http://tinyurl.com/6ep96g

Smoking figures at record low

According to latest figures released by Roy Castle FagEnds, fewer people are smoking in Liverpool than ever before.

Almost five thousand people have quit smoking in the last year thanks to the smoking cessation service which is funded by Liverpool Primary Care Trust (PCT) and almost 23,000 have quit in the past five years.

Miriam Bell of FagEnds said: “Even if you have smoked for a long time it is never too late to give up and the health benefits are enormous. Two weeks after quitting, circulation will begin to improve and within five years the risk of having a heart attack will halve.”

Source: IcSeftonandWestLancs, 19 June 2008
Link: http://tinyurl.com/57k255

New Zeland: Tobacco walls tempt children and quitters

The latest research from the University of Otago, Wellington shows that tobacco wall displays in convenience stores and other retailers have an unhealthy influence on children and people trying to quit smoking.

Lead research Dr George Thomson said, "This is a serious issue affecting children and smokers struggling to quit. Tobacco companies use these wall displays and pay retailers to keep them up because they work; in essence, they normalise smoking."

Tobacco displays are commonly funded by tobacco companies. Calls for the removal of the displays have already met with opposition, particularly from 24 hour convenience store owners who claim a ban would have a serious effect on business.

However the study, 'Evidence and arguments on tobacco retail displays: marketing an addictive drug to children', just published in the New Zealand Medical Journal, indicates that in countries which have imposed a ban on tobacco 'power walls', there is little financial effect on retailers.

Professor Janet Hoek and Dr Heather Gifford, two of the study co-researchers, say interviews with former smokers and lapsed quitters show that tobacco displays are highly visible and tempt people struggling to give up.

"Despite the ban on tobacco advertising, wall displays are de facto advertising in over 5000 retail outlets across the country," researchers say.

The study analysed evidence from a wide range of international research papers on the effects tobacco displays. Documents and interviews were used to explore the effects of display bans in such countries as Canada and the study found arguments against a ban were flawed or contradictory:

Associate Professor Richard Edwards said that this research helps to clarify the facts about this contentious issue by analysing international findings. He believes overseas experience would have a similar application in New Zealand.

New Zealand also has a legal obligation to undertake a comprehensive ban of all tobacco promotion within five years of its 2004 ratification of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).

Source: Science Alert, 23 June 2008
Link: http://tinyurl.com/67essp

Scotland: Smoking's hidden death toll revealed

New scientific research has revealed that smoking causes hundreds of thousands more deaths each year than previously thought.

A study, led by experts in Glasgow, showed heightened chances of dying from cancers of the colon, rectum and prostate, as well as from lymphatic leukaemia.

Scotland's health minister and anti-smoking campaigners have welcomed the study as further proof of the need to clamp down on the habit.

The Scottish Government has unveiled controversial new plans to curb smoking, by proposing a ban on cigarettes being displayed in shops.

The new study, which has been published in the journal Annals of Oncology, was carried out by a team led by experts at Glasgow University and was based on data from 17,363 male civil servants based in London.

Information about their health and habits has been collated since the 1960s in an effort to gain information about health trends and find links between lifestyle and illness. The original link between smoking and lung cancer was found through similar analysis of medical data.

The study concluded: "Cigarette smoking appears to be a risk factor for several malignancies of previously unclear association with tobacco use."

Dr David Batty, of the Medical Research Council Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, based at the University of Glasgow, said: "What this study shows is that smoking is linked to more kinds of cancer than previously thought. It's important to remember that cancer is not a single disease and that the various kinds of cancers are different illnesses so you couldn't necessarily assume that smoking was linked to them in the same way. What's unclear is how exactly smoking causes these cancers."

Health Minister Shona Robison said: "This study appears to demonstrate that smoking is even more carcinogenic than was realised.

Sheila Duffy, chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health Scotland, said: "This large-scale study adds to the weight of existing research confirming the harmfulness of smoking. It's vital that smokers receive support and encouragement to quit and as a nation we take steps to ensure future generations avoid getting hooked on this lethal and highly addictive substance."

Meanwhile, smokers' groups insisted the research should not be used to push through tougher anti-smoking rules.

Neil Rafferty, spokesman for the smokers' lobby group the Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco, said: "We are not suggesting that smoking is anything other than bad for you. People enjoy it, but they know that it's not good for them and they take the choice. No doubt the anti-smoking lobby will want to use this to erode our freedoms still further. At the end of the day, we are adults. Let us get on with our lives."

Source: The Scotsman, 22 June 2008  
Link: http://tinyurl.com/565a6c