ASH Daily News for 23 March 2009

Ken Clarke fears for pubs on visit to Cardiff

The ban on smoking in public places was denounced as the “last straw” for the pub trade by former Conservative Health Secretary Kenneth Clarke.

Speaking on a visit to Cardiff that took in Brain’s brewery and the city’s threatened 156-year-old Vulcan pub, he described the rate at which pubs are closing as alarming.

He said: “It’s a combination of the extraordinary levels of tax that are imposed, changing social habits, undoubtedly, and the smoking ban was a large, last straw, and the rate at which they are closing has become really rather alarming.”

Turning his guns on successful anti-smoking activists, he said he doubted the ban would be overturned.

He said: “I don’t think it will be revisited. Popular opinion is going through a puritan phase and newspapers run health scares twice a week, science and pseudo-science is brought into play for all kinds of puritan causes and I watch with some amazement the way perfectly sensible campaigns about social and health risk get taken to absurd extremes by ardent campaigners.”

He continued: “I do recall how ASH [Action on Smoking and Health] were extremely vehement that the smoking ban would have no effect on the licensed trade at all and produced the completely untrue assertion it had had no damaging effect on bars in Dublin. That seemed to be swallowed by most of the public and unfortunately – what mattered – the vast majority of Members of Parliament.”

At the Vulcan, a Victorian pub in Adam Street, Cardiff, which is set to be demolished to make way for a high-rise development, Mr Clarke, a member of the Campaign for Real Ale, drank a pint of bitter with the locals.

He said: “I like the traditional pub, as do most other people living in Britain. It is always very sad to see them go,” said Mr Clarke.

Earlier in the day, the Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform gave the keynote speech at the Federation of Small Businesses conference at the Celtic Manor Resort.

Martin Dockrell, a spokesman for ASH, rejected Mr Clarke’s criticism of the ban and drew attention to his historic links with the tobacco industry as a former non-executive deputy chairman of British American Tobacco. He said: “The business that has been worst hit by the smokefree law has been the tobacco business with sales down by around 5%. Meanwhile, the licensed trade has done rather better, with the number of licensed premises up by 5%.

“When the law was first discussed around 50% of the public thought it would be a good idea, the latest polls say four out of five can see that it is. That’s what happens when health policy is set by the public and not tobacco executives.”

Alun Michael, Labour MP for Cardiff South and Penarth, described Mr Clarke as a “disaster”, saying: “This shows what a dinosaur this man is. He wants to turn the clock back.

Liberal Democrat AM Jenny Randerson said: “I’m sure in some cases [the ban] has been a factor but a lot of pubs have been very proactive in dealing with the issue and cope very well.”

She argued that cheap alcohol sold in supermarkets and the fact that drinking and driving is now socially unacceptable were other reasons – alongside the recession – why many pubs are struggling to attract customers.
 

Source: Wales Online, 21 March 2009
Link: http://tinyurl.com/de89vr

Continued smoking increases pain from lung cancer

Smokers who still refuse to kick the habit after being diagnosed with lung cancer experience higher levels of pain from the disease than nonsmokers and former smokers, according to research reported in The Journal of Pain,peer-reviewed publication of the American Pain Society,

Duke University researchers surveyed some 900 lung cancer patients and classified 17 percent of them as persistent smokers. The objective of the study was to assess the relationship of smoking status after a diagnosis of lung cancer with ratings of usual pain. Several studies have examined the effects of continued smoking after a lung cancer diagnosis and found that it impairs healing, lowers efficacy of cancer treatments, hampers overall quality of life, increases risk for recurrence and secondary tumors, and decreases survival.

The study results showed that patients who continued to smoke after diagnosis reported higher levels of pain and other lung cancer complications, such as shortness of breath and fatigue, than non smokers and former smokers. The authors concluded that pain coping skills training should be included in smoking cessation protocols for lung cancer patients who have not stopped smoking.

Source: Medical News Today, 19 March 2009
Link: http://tinyurl.com/d99tl9

USA: Light and intermittent smokers overlooked in traditional tobacco research

To date, the majority of research conducted about tobacco use has been related to the impact of moderate to heavy smoking. The March 2009 issue of Nicotine and Tobacco Research is focused on examining light and intermittent smoking. Several of the America's preeminent public health experts and researchers worked together to uncover trends related to light smokers, those who smoke less than 10-15 cigarettes per day and intermittent or occasional smokers, those who may not smoke every day.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), one-fifth of U.S. smokers are intermittent or occasional smokers. Yet, existing research and public health efforts have targeted moderate to heavy smokers. There is no safe level of cigarette smoke, though, and for this reason, the American Legacy Foundation, the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institutes of Health Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research co-funded Light and Intermittent Smoking, a special issue of Nicotine and Tobacco Research.

The issue includes 13 original, peer-reviewed articles that stemmed from recommendations made at a meeting of 29 collaborative scientists held in 2005. This unprecedented meeting yielded a concerted effort by the public health community to reduce light and intermittent smoking, and this compilation of research is the beginning of curbing that trend and helping to avoid the 1 billion projected tobacco-related deaths in the 21st century.

"This special issue is chapter one of a very important volume in the overall fight against tobacco," said Cheryl G. Healton, Dr. P.H., president and CEO of the American Legacy Foundation. "We are yet to fully understand the best ways to help these light smokers quit, a very important goal, as they represent an increasing percentage of the smoking population."

Source: Medical News Today, 21 March 2009
Link: http://tinyurl.com/cdc9cc

Scotland: £12.50 a week offer to quit smoking

A scheme which offers smokers in Scotland £12.50 a week to kick the habit has been launched.

Smokers in deprived areas of Dundee will get the cash in the form of a credit which they can spend on groceries - as long as they stay off cigarettes.

The scheme was launched by public health minister Shona Robison. She said: "This is an innovative project and I'll be following the results with interest to see if lessons can be learned for the rest of Scotland."

Health chiefs say 1,800 people will take part in the two-year scheme and believe 50% could be successful. Once accepted onto the scheme, those taking part make weekly visits to their local pharmacy.

A breath test on a carbon monoxide testing machine will show if they have been smoking or not, and for every week they stay smokefree they receive a £12.50 electronic card credit up to a maximum of 12 weeks. This can be spent on groceries at Asda supermarkets.

It follows the success of a similar scheme by NHS Tayside for pregnant mothers.

The health board's deputy director of public health, Paul Ballard, said: "Currently there are 36,000 smokers in disadvantaged areas in Dundee and, although current smoking cessation services are working well, we know we need to do more to tackle this."

"That is why we were keen to work with local communities to find ways which they themselves believe will help them make changes to their health behaviours."

Source: The Press Association, 23 March 2009
Link: http://tinyurl.com/c8lldr

New Zealand: Smokefree law has support of smokers, survey suggests

Health campaigners are urging MPs to extend smokefree laws after a survey found strong support from smokers.

In a poster displayed at an Indian conference, New Zealand university researchers showed that a majority of smokers surveyed expressed support for a range of measures to increase the control of tobacco.

These included banning retail tobacco displays (60 per cent support); extending smokefree laws to outdoor eating areas (78 per cent) and council playgrounds (68 per cent); and increasing tobacco tax (59 per cent) as long as the extra revenue was used to promote healthy lifestyles, including helping smokers who want to quit.

Labour MP Iain Lees-Galloway wants to introduce a bill to ban retail displays - after the National-led Government refused to do so and cited lack of evidence of a direct link to reduced smoking rates. The Government, however, said it would consider supporting any new initiatives proven to reduce tobacco use significantly.

The health select committee said last year that Iceland's reduction in smoking of 3.8 percentage points from 2001 to 2005, the largest drop in Europe, could not be attributed solely to the banning of display units, because the measure was part of a comprehensive tobacco control programme.

One of the poster's authors, Dr Nick Wilson, a senior lecturer at Otago University, Wellington, said yesterday that smokers' views on where they wanted smoking bans imposed were "nuanced".

While almost all supported outlawing smoking in cars with preschoolers, nearly 90 per cent opposed banning it in the outdoor seating areas of pubs. And despite more than half supporting increasing taxes if they went into health promotion and quit-smoking schemes, a majority had said existing taxes on tobacco were too high.

The poster said the possible adverse effects of additional tax increases on the poor had been a political obstacle to their adoption.

But the findings of the Health Ministry-commissioned survey of 1376 smokers made a dedicated tax for quit-support and health promotion "more achievable".

"Higher support for dedicated tax revenue by the more deprived smokers indicates that smokers' desire for quitting support outweighs short-term financial self-interest."

At present the excise tax on tobacco is around $6 for a $10 pack of 20 cigarettes. It is increased annually in line with the consumer price index.

But anti-smoking groups, including Dr Murray Laugesen's Smokeless NZ, want additional excise tax increases - and an even greater increase for roll-your-own tobacco, because its harm per cigarette is as great as that of factory-rolled cigarettes, despite being thinner and consequently incurring less excise tax.

Source: The New Zealand Herald, 20 March 2009
Link: http://tinyurl.com/dks37v