New tobacco products lure younger smokers

By Adelaide Effie Beckman
For The TimesDaily
It remains illegal to market tobacco products to teenagers, but some health experts argue it hasn’t stopped some companies from finding a way around the law.
Tobacco companies are now targeting teens with cheap nicotine products in colorful packaging, according to Melanie Dickens, tobacco prevention and control coordinator for the Lauderdale County Health Department.
Dickens said teens are more susceptible to the new flavored tobacco products such as nicotine sticks and orbs.
However data collected by the Alabama Department of Public Health shows that the number of high schools students who smoke has significantly decreased. Nearly 19 percent of high school students in Alabama smoked in 2010, compared to 30.2 percent in 2000.
Nicotine sticks look like toothpicks, but they are pure nicotine. Dickens said teenagers can easily have them in their mouths without attracting attention from their parents or their teachers. She added nicotine orbs are small dissolvable tablets of nicotine that come in different flavors, which “look like little Tic-Tacs.”
Dickens said parents don’t always know if their children are using tobacco because the new nicotine products don’t create the smoke or smell of cigarettes and cigars.
“A lot of times if the kids are not using cigarettes . . . mom and dad might not be aware,” she said.
Dickens said teens often don’t realize how much nicotine they’re using. One Black and Mild cigar has the same amount of nicotine as 10 cigarettes, and one pinch of smokeless tobacco has the same amount of nicotine as three or four cigarettes. Both products are popular with teens, she said.
“They feel invincible; that’s why they don’t want to quit,” she said. “It’s an addiction and a habit.”
Talking to children early on about the dangers of tobacco use is the best way to keep them from becoming smokers, according to Valerie Thigpen, prevention specialist for the Lauderdale County schools district.
“If you wait until they’re in the sixth grade, they’ve already been exposed,” she said.
Thigpen said children need to be taught the risks associated with tobacco and how to say no to peer pressure.
“I am a major believer in if you can prevent someone from starting, it’s a whole lot easier than getting someone to stop once they’ve started,” Thigpen said.
There are lots of reasons teens smoke or use smokeless tobacco, Dickens said. Peer pressure, boredom and marketing all play a role. Thigpen said teens often smoke because their parents do.
University of North Alabama student Jestin Coats said he only smokes when he’s stressed after a long day. He said he rarely smokes, maybe once every nine months, and he has no trouble stopping once he’s started.
Coats said he had his first cigarette when he was 19 and his parents didn’t know. “I don’t want them to.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say other factors that contribute to tobacco use in teens are low socioeconomic status, lack of parental support or involvement, low self-image or self-esteem, low levels of academic achievement and exposure to tobacco advertising.
Religious participation, racial/ethnic pride and higher academic achievement or aspirations are factors that have been found to protect teens from tobacco use.
“Tobacco is a huge issue with a lot of our high school students,” Thigpen said. “They tell me, ‘I just like it. I like the way it makes me feel. It calms me down.’ The kids seem to live by ‘if it feels good, do it,’ because if it brings them pleasure they can’t get enough of it.”
Officials with the disease control center say tobacco use in teens is associated with high-risk sexual behavior, use of alcohol and use of marijuana and other drugs.
“Tobacco is still truly the gateway drug,” Thigpen said.
“We’re not saying that everyone who uses tobacco is going to use bigger things,” Dickens said, adding it’s a risky behavior that leads to other risky behaviors.
Katelyn Cosby, 22, a resident of Rogersville, said she started smoking when she was 14 or 15.
“My mom was not happy,” Cosby said. “She used to steal my cigarettes out of my purse and put ‘how to quit smoking’ pamphlets in my purse. I usually just gave them back to her.”
Cosby said she started smoking because many of her friends were smoking. She quit smoking while she was pregnant with her children, but she said she hasn’t made the effort to quit permanently because it’s too much of a habit.
“It’s weird to try not to (smoke),” she said.
Dickens said 6.3 million children who are alive today will eventually die of tobacco related illnesses if the current rates of tobacco use do not change.
“(Not using tobacco) is the one thing you can do to reduce your risk of cancer,” said Amy Fields, a spokeswoman for the American Cancer Society. “People who quit at any age, whether they’re young or old, they’re going to live longer.”
Fields said as many as one-third of cancer deaths could be prevented if people avoided tobacco products. Lung cancer is the cancer most commonly associated with smoking, but using tobacco products increase a person’s risk of developing all types of cancer.
“Kids have no idea the damage they do to themselves (by smoking),” Thigpen said.
Dickens said teens should try to break their smoking habits as soon as possible because the longer a person smokes, the harder it is to quit.
For information on how to quit, Dickens suggested calling 1-800-QUIT-NOW or talking to a health care provider.
Fields said her advice to parents whose children smoke is to do everything possible to help their children kick the habit immediately.
http://www.timesdaily.com/news/local/article_4488ab9a-ec3a-11e2-bb9b-10604b9f6eda.html

North Dakota puts $2,500 in anti-smoking funds toward Fargo pride festival

By: Kyle Potter, The Forum, INFORUM
BISMARCK – A division of North Dakota’s health department that aims to help smokers quit is putting $2,500 toward a gay pride festival in Fargo later this summer.
Officials from North Dakota Quits and the health department say they’re trying to target populations with high smoking rates, but it’s raised a question of whether the state should put public dollars toward endorsing a cause – whether it’s a gay pride festival or just trying to get North Dakotans to kick the habit.
Krista Fremming, director of the Department of Health’s Tobacco Control Program, said their $2,500 contribution for this summer’s pride festival is not a simple sponsorship but a means to reach the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender population, which is 70 percent more likely to smoke than the general population, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
That contribution covers setting up a booth and handing out brochures, plus advertising in the F-M Pride’s guide and on their website.
“We have a limited budget,” she said. “What we want to do is reach the people who are most in need of our services. It’s not just the LGBT community.” She said other populations targeted include Native Americans, oil workers in the Bakken region and pregnant women who struggle with quitting.
Fremming said they attend 5 to 10 such events a year, such as the Women’s Health Conference in Fargo and an expo for oil workers in Minot.
North Dakota Quits spent about $854,000 on promotion over the last two years – 15 percent of its $3.5 million in expenditures, according to the agency’s budget. Three-quarters of that spending paid for TV, magazine and newspaper advertising to recruit people into quitting smoking.
The remainder of its promotional budget is split between attending events like Fargo-Moorhead Pride and printing informational brochures to hand out and put in doctors’ offices.
ND Quits specifically targets current smokers. A separate state agency focuses on smoking prevention programs and advertising. About $2.6 million of ND Quits’ expenditures cover the direct costs of smoking cessation programs, including the cost of medications.
The agency’s programming is funded with both state and federal money. About $2.3 million of its last two-year budget came from grants from the Centers for Disease Control, which is funded with federal taxpayer dollars. Fremming said the CDC encourages each state to direct some of that money toward outreach and advertising.
North Dakota’s $3.2 million share doesn’t come through general tax revenues, but from a state fund filled with money from North Dakota’s settlement with tobacco companies. The tobacco industry agreed to pay out $206 billion over 25 years to 46 states, including North Dakota, to cover some of the health care costs of smoking. To date, North Dakota has received about $360 million.
But whether they’re from a dedicated state fund or from federal coffers, those are public dollars and that’s the problem, the North Dakota Policy Council’s Zack Tiggelaar said.
Tiggelaar, the group’s executive director, said he supports efforts to encourage smokers to quit, “but is it something that the public and the taxpayers should be funding?” he asked.
“The government shouldn’t be using taxpayer dollars to support specific causes. If the money was completely private and there were no public dollars at all, there would be no issue,” he said.
Rep. Joshua Boschee, a Democrat who represents Fargo in the Legislature and is one of the organizers of this year’s pride festival, said the festival has partnered with other anti-smoking groups in the past. He calls it an “education partnership.”
The festival runs from Aug. 8 through Aug. 11.
“Would we rather the government pays for it on the front end?” to try to curb the negative health effects of smoking, Boschee asked.
“Or do we want to pay for it in the long run when Medicaid and Medicare are covering the costs?”
http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/406135/

E-cigarette maker targets Colorado

By Carol McKinley
Colorado Public News
The arrival of electronic cigarettes has raised a red flag for health officials and others who worry the activity of “vaping” nicotine will hook young people into a new addiction that could last a lifetime.

In Colorado, the concern is heightened by the arrival of tobacco giant R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. Beginning this month, the maker of Camel cigarettes and other tobacco products began selling its new e-cigarette – called Vuse – along Colorado’s Front Range as one of four test markets.
“We’ve done a lot of work to make it not cool to smoke, and we’d hate to see that rolled back,” said Stephanie Walton, youth policy coordinator for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
Pat Senecal, director of health policy and systems at San Juan Basin Health Department in Durango, said Friday that the Federal Drug Administration is worried about test marketing and availability of e-cigarettes.
“The FDA has no regulatory authority yet over e-cigarettes, so the risks aren’t known,” Senecal said. “E-cigarettes have flavoring, and studies of other tobacco products show that flavoring appeals to youths.”
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment said in a statement Friday: “Too much remains unknown about the potential health risks of these new nicotine products. We are concerned that the tobacco industry is introducing yet another product to Coloradans that is addictive and potentially harmful to their health.”
Also known as personal vaporizers, e-cigarettes broke into the American market six years ago. They look like cigarettes, but do not contain tobacco. They actually are battery-operated inhalers that turn nicotine into a vapor. The liquid, or “E-Juice” that is vaporized can carry a range of tasty-sounding flavors such as cotton candy and peach and names like “Bikini Martini” and “Choco Loco.” E-cigarettes aren’t “smoked,” they are “vaped.”
Studies long have determined that nicotine is as addictive as heroin and cocaine, leaving health officials such as Walton concerned.
“If children see e-cigarettes as popular and fun and start using them, that can lead to a lifetime of nicotine addiction,” she said.
Many Americans report they’ve never heard of e-cigarettes, but the industry now is generating $500 million in sales annually. Business is expected to surpass $1 billion annually within the next couple of years.
E-cigarettes generally are sold in places where tobacco products are available, as well as in specialty shops and in shopping malls. Since at least 2009, the federal Food and Drug Administration has warned about potential health risks associated with e-cigarettes. In addition to nicotine, the products contain substances such as propylene glycol and artificial flavors that might, the agency warns, penetrate deeply into the lungs. However, the products – at least for now – are not regulated.
More than a dozen states, including Colorado, have banned the sale of e-cigarettes to minors. But Walton and others are concerned that advertising, and the tasty-sounding flavors, will directly appeal to young people.
“We would love to see the FDA look into this, especially with some of the larger tobacco companies really taking an interest in these products now,” Walton said.
But some vendors who sell e-cigarettes say they promote the product as a healthier alternative to traditional cigarettes and a way to wean people off of tobacco products.
Within three days of last summer’s mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado-based e-cigarette company VeppoCig.com began offering trial kits for free to anyone who had been at the theater and was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
“Above all, we are a company that cares for the health of our customers. We understand that they are going through a difficult time, and we want to help,” the company announced.
John Paul Pollock of The Vapor Store in Golden described e-cigarettes as “a dignified alternative for people who smoke.”
However, Walton rejects comparison to other stop-smoking products – such as the FDA-approved nicotine patch and nicotine-infused gum.
“There is no research that shows that (e-cigarettes) are an effective cessation or stop-smoking aid or device,” she said.
Still, e-cigarettes are catching on worldwide. A recent survey found that nearly 10 percent of Parisian schoolchildren between the ages of 12 and 17 have tried them. There are many active e-cigarette forums and Facebook pages. One website discussion in Colorado asks if people can “vape” in casinos in the mountain gambling town of Black Hawk and advertises meet-ups where fellow “vapors” can connect.
Because e-cigarettes are not a tobacco product, companies can get around 42-year-old laws that ban cigarette advertising. Currently, the largest concentration of e-cigarette ads is online. But with big companies such as R.J. Reynolds entering the marketplace, some predict advertising on TV, radio and billboards is not far behind.
“By around August, we should start seeing significant TV advertising, as well as online,” said Colorado-based marketing executive Brent Green. In addition, he said, “there will be live sampling at nightclubs and festivals where people gather.”
Green, a critic of e-cigarettes, highlighted the dangers of romanticizing e-cigarettes. For example, recently, actor Leonardo DiCaprio was seen vaping in public.
“You show celebrities, you show cool adults using the product – kids always aspire to act and react like adults. They want to be grown up,” said Green.
It is unclear why R.J. Reynolds selected Colorado as its test market for the new product. During a recent press conference, R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co. president Stephanie Cordisco would say only that “Colorado represents just one of our major states as we are rolling this out.”
Company officials did not return subsequent calls from Colorado Public News.
Even the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment says it can’t get a definitive answer as to why Colorado was selected.
“We’re not sure why. We would love to know,” said Walton.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports nearly 1 in 5 Coloradans smoke cigarettes, ranking the state 10th nationally.
Durango Herald Staff Writer Dale Rodebaugh contributed to this report. Colorado Public News, a nonprofit news organization, reports on issues of statewide interest. It partners with Colorado Public Television 12, Denver’s independent PBS station.
http://durangoherald.com/article/20130713/NEWS01/130719776/E-cigarette-maker-targets-Colorado

Electronic cigarettes could rekindle battles over smoking in public

Article by: ANDREW WAGAMAN, Star Tribune
It was trivia night, and Michael Jamnick didn’t want to leave the TGI Friday’s in Maple Grove to go outside and have a smoke. So he started puffing right where he sat.
The 27-year-old from Minnetonka wasn’t breaking the law: He was using an electronic cigarette.
Still, Jamnick said he felt uncomfortable vaping (the e-cigarette term for lighting up).
“It’s been, what, six years now since they passed the smoking ban in Minnesota?” he said. “You give it a funny look because you haven’t seen it in a while.”
Electronic cigarettes have been on a slow burn for years, but they’ve recently caught fire. National sales jumped to $500 million in 2012 and are projected to clear $1 billion this year. In the Twin Cities, at least a dozen e-cigarette specialty shops have opened and shop owners say the growing business will likely see a boost from the $1.60-a-pack tobacco tax hike, which went into effect July 1.
The e-cigarette industry is promoting vaping as a hip, healthier alternative to smoking — and as a way to quit. But while health experts largely agree that the vapor from e-cigarettes poses less of a threat to public health than tobacco cigarettes, some worry that welcoming the so-called “clean nicotine” could erode smoking bans, encourage smokers to trade one addiction for another and hook nonsmokers.
“Shifting entirely over to vaping from smoking would be a big public health plus,” said Robert Proctor, a history of science professor at Stanford University. “But the question of whether e-cigarettes are good or bad isn’t that simple.”
Supplanting cigarettes?
E-cigarettes are battery-powered devices that create a vapor mist from a heated liquid solution when the user inhales on a mouthpiece. The solution, or “e-juice,” and vapor mist, which looks like smoke, typically contain nicotine, but users can regulate the amount. That’s why some vapers say e-cigarettes have helped them quit tobacco — and wean themselves off nicotine altogether.
Research released in late June by Italy’s University of Catania lends support to those claims. The study found that 13 percent of participants who used high-dose e-cigarettes quit smoking. Seventy percent of those who quit smoking eventually gave up e-cigarettes, too.
“As evidenced in this study, when people switch to electronic cigarettes, it absolutely makes it easier to quit nicotine use completely,” said Michael Siegel, a professor at Boston University School of Public Health who studies e-cigarettes. “It’s not as simple as saying people are substituting one addiction for another.”
In fact, Siegel said the quit-rate for e-cigarettes is comparable to rates in other nicotine-replacement therapy studies.
But others maintain that it’s not yet known how harmful vaping could be.
“We frankly don’t know much about them,” said Robert Moffitt, an American Lung Association media relations director.
Concerns about harm from secondhand vapor are not at the forefront. While a 2012 German study found that the vapor is an “aerosol of ultrafine particles,” no studies have shown it to be dangerous. But Moffitt and others question claims that e-cigarettes can help smokers quit.
“We’d strongly recommend anyone from using them,” he said, “especially with so many other valid smoking-cessation devices and techniques that we know work.”
He also doubts that the e-cigarette industry, which includes big tobacco companies, would encourage people to stop using nicotine entirely. “They’re looking for new young people to get hooked on nicotine products,” he said, “and e-cigarettes seem to be the latest.”
Stanford’s Proctor, however, sees both the promise and the threat in the recent rapid spread of e-cigarettes.
“E-cigs seem to offer us the possibility of keeping the addiction, while losing the cancer,” he said. “But is addiction itself a bad thing? That question is splitting the public health community, and it’s not yet clear which direction we’ll go.”
Bans cropping up
Michael “Troop” Wolberg, 41, used to smoke two packs of cigarettes a day. After trying to quit several times, he turned to e-cigarettes. On his third day of vaping, the Stacy, Minn., man says he lit his last cigarette. Since then, he’s become a champion of e-cigarettes. He’s written online reviews of vaping products, become a member of the Minnesota Vapers Club and helps run an online business that sells flavored e-juice.
Wolberg, who calls himself an advocate of “tobacco harm reduction,” isn’t shy about using his e-cigarette. “I’m rather proud to display it in public because I think it needs to be seen,” he said.
Cynthia Hallett couldn’t disagree more. Hallett, executive director of Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights, says vaping could undermine the hard-won battles to establish non-smoking areas.
Proctor echoes her concerns. “If you can’t tell whether someone is vaping or smoking, that could work to erode established no-smoking zones,” he said.
So far, e-cigarettes aren’t widely regulated.
In 2012, Minnesota passed a law banning the sale of e-cigarettes to minors. But, in part because e-cigarettes don’t burn anything, they haven’t been legally prohibited in public places. (This spring the St. Paul City Council proposed banning e-cigarettes in indoor public spaces, but the proposal was dropped.)
However, the electronic cigarettes have been banned in K-12 schools in the state and some colleges and universities also have moved to ban them.
“It was part of promoting a healthier lifestyle and clean environment for our students,” said Amber Luinenberg, coordinator of communications for Minnesota West Community and Technical College, which prohibits vaping on its five outstate campuses. “I think students in particular are very accustomed to tobacco-free locations, so there was no controversy at all. They were very receptive to it.”
Managers at local restaurants and bars say they are just starting to see people use e-cigarettes in their establishments. While some have banned them, others are taking a wait-and-see approach.
Parasole Restaurant Holdings bans vaping at its restaurants, said Kip Clayton, public relations director. “To not do so when dealing with thousands of people a night,” at restaurants like Uptown Cafeteria and Chino Latino, “would be inviting trouble,” he said.
The Lung Association’s Moffitt hopes legal measures will be taken to ban e-cigarettes in public places before they become more common.
“Maybe we need to put the kibosh on these right now,” he said.
For now, using e-cigarettes may come to down to common courtesy.
Jamnick, who has quit smoking cigarettes, doubts he’ll use his e-cigarette much anymore when he’s out.
“Generally, I try to avoid using it around other people,” he said, “because some people just don’t like it.”
http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/health/215258211.html?page=1&c=y

Cigarette smoking at new low among youths, survey finds

Cigarette smoking hit the lowest point ever recorded among American eighth-graders and high school sophomores and seniors last year, a newly released report shows.

Last year, only 5% of high school sophomores said they had smoked cigarettes daily in the previous 30 days, compared with 18% of sophomores who were smoking daily at one point in the 1990s. The numbers have also plunged for eighth-graders and high school seniors, hitting their lowest point since the surveys began.
The change is just one of the findings in a vast new report on the well-being of American children, compiled by the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. The report draws together research from a host of government agencies and research groups, including smoking surveys from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Besides being less likely to smoke, U.S. children are also less likely to be exposed to secondhand smoke than in the past, the report showed.
Danny McGoldrick, vice president for research for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, credited tobacco taxes, laws limiting where people can smoke and smoking prevention programs with reducing the numbers. However, the surveys show progress has slowed in recent years, with teenage smoking rates falling only slightly from 2011 to 2012.
“We need to invest in more of what has worked in the past to accelerate these declines,” McGoldrick said.
Other findings from the report included:
• Birth rates have continued to drop among teenagers, falling for the fourth year in a row, according to preliminary data. As of two years ago, there were 15 births for every 1,000 teenagers ages 15 to 17 — a striking decrease from four years earlier, when the rate was 22 per 1,000.
• Last year, nearly a quarter of high school seniors reported binge drinking in the previous two weeks, a slight increase after earlier declines.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0712-kids-wellbeing-20130712,0,7542363.story

Mental illness, tobacco turn out to be deadly combo

By: John Lundy, Duluth News Tribune
It’s hard to quit smoking.
For individuals struggling with a mental illness, it’s even harder.
“They have higher levels of biological or physical addiction to nicotine, in many cases,” said Dr. Jill Williams, an addiction psychiatrist. “In illnesses like depression, studies show that they’re more addicted than other smokers.”
Yet mental health treatment is lagging when it comes to tobacco addiction, said Williams, who specializes in mental health and tobacco at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey.
Her effort to correct brings Williams to Duluth today. At the behest of the American Lung Association in Minnesota, Williams is conducting a daylong conference for mental health professionals at the University of Minnesota Duluth.
About 75 people were signed up for the event, said Pat McKone of the lung association. Earlier this week, Williams led a similar conference in Moorhead, Minn., with 100 in attendance.
The Minnesota group brought Williams to the state because of the toll smoking takes on people with mental illness, an American Lung Association news release said. It cites studies from several states showing that people with severe mental illness die, on average, 25 years earlier than the general public. Their No. 1 cause of death? Heart disease related to tobacco use, the studies show.
Moreover, the percentage of people with mental illness who smoke is much higher than that of the general population, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported earlier this year. From 2009-11, 36 percent of adults with mental illness smoked, compared with 21 percent of the rest of the population, the CDC said.
The numbers in Wisconsin are similar, but the discrepancy in Minnesota is even greater: Just over 40 percent of Minnesota adults with mental illnesses smoke, compared to just under 20 percent of the rest of the population.
Part of the problem, Williams said in a telephone interview, is the lack of treatment.
“If you get your care from the behavioral health system, it’s just unlikely that you’ll be able to get treatment for your tobacco addiction in those settings,” she said. “Traditionally, that’s not been offered there.”
People with mental illness respond to medication and counseling to treat tobacco addiction, Williams said, although it may need to be more intense. And the mental health treatment centers and residences already have the counselors trained in addiction treatment, she said. They just need the specific training for tobacco.
“That’s why these trainings are so important,” Williams said. “When we do the training, it’s not unusual that people say this is the first time they ever had training on tobacco addiction in their professional career.”
Another issue, Williams said, is addressing public policy so that people who provide tobacco treatment are reimbursed as well as people who treat other forms of addiction.
“If we paid people better to do tobacco treatment, I think a lot more of it would be available,” she said.

New, desirable norm with tobacco

By: Ryan Bakken, Grand Forks Herald
Usually, cultural change in North Dakota starts in the bigger cities and seeps down to less populated towns.
That isn’t necessarily the case when it comes to tobacco, however.
Earlier this year, Cooperstown, N.D., a town of about 1,000 people in Griggs County, passed a tobacco ban in its city park. The ban includes the use of smokeless tobacco.
The Grand Forks Park Board hasn’t taken that extra step.
“We accepted the state law, which has no ban on smokeless,” said Bill Palmiscno, Park District director. “And, the way it was explained to us by the city health department, the smoking ban is about being around activities. If you go off alone somewhere in the park, you’re OK to smoke.”
Leading the charge in Cooperstown was Julie Ferry, administrator of the Nelson-Griggs Health Unit.
“I can’t take credit for it,” Ferry said. “The credit needs to go to health-minded people on the Cooperstown Park Board and their employees.”
A popular – and somewhat defensible – argument for not including smokeless tobacco is that there’s no second-hand damage to non-users, as there is with smoke. But Ferry comes well-armed to argue that point.
Her case is that: 1) Chew can have second-hand damage because it’s spit on the ground and can be consumed by youngsters and pets; 2) Chew sets a bad example; and 3) Banning chew can help to set a new, more desirable norm.
“If we adopt policies that limit places you can do something, that creates a new social norm,” Ferry said. “The social norm used to be that you could smoke on airplanes. Now you can’t.
“The consequence to others is them seeing it and thinking it’s an acceptable behavior. We need to role model for our youth.”
Molly Soeby, a first-term commissioner who has brought diversity to the Grand Forks Park Board in more ways than her gender, hasn’t given up her efforts to make parks tobacco-free. She has applied for a grant to conduct two surveys about the issue. One would be for the general public and the other specific to golfers and softball players, anticipated to be the demographic most opposed to a ban.
“The whole purpose behind this is to not get kids started because it’s so addicting,” Soeby said.
If the grant comes through, the survey should be completed by the end of summer. If the survey is favorable to her cause, Grand Forks may become the next Cooperstown.
“It’s sometimes easier to watch what bigger cities do, so you can find out where the battlegrounds are,” Ferry said. “On the other hand, because everyone knows everyone else, small towns can get things done faster.”
http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/267941/publisher_ID/40/

Letter: Use all anti-tobacco strategies

By: Rep. Blair Thoreson, Fargo, N.D., INFORUM
Several weeks ago, a letter from Dr. Eric Johnson appeared in The Forum in which Johnson made inaccurate accusations regarding a resolution I introduced in the 2013 North Dakota Legislature aimed at reducing the risk of death and disease among smokers. By attempting to distort my motives and tie me to special-interest groups with which I have never had any affiliations, the letter’s author distracted from what should be a productive conversation.
Because smoking harms us all, the state ought to pursue an all-of-the-above strategy to reduce cigarette consumption. In addition to conventional anti-smoking measures, like messaging to youths and promoting smoking cessation, one strategy our state should consider is tobacco harm reduction, which seeks to minimize the damage tobacco does to users and society alike.
Tobacco harm reduction is a secondary strategy that could be used when traditional anti-smoking measures fail. It’s not in question that quitting is the single best thing smokers can do for both themselves and society, but despite our efforts to encourage quitting, thousands of smokers remain unable or unwilling to snuff out their addiction. Tobacco harm reduction targets these individuals by accepting that they will continue to use nicotine, and explores ways to reduce the costs and harmful effects of their nicotine usage.
One alternate product current smokers could turn to is the electronic cigarette, which delivers nicotine without the toxic carcinogens and doesn’t produce secondhand smoke. In fact, a study by the Boston University School of Public Health found that electronic cigarettes are significantly safer than conventional ones, with carcinogen levels 1,000 times lower. If smokers who refuse to quit entirely could be persuaded to switch to electronic cigarettes, North Dakota would pay less in smoking-related health costs, and our children would be at less risk of secondhand smoke exposure.
It may seem like an unconventional method of reducing risk, but studies have shown that smokeless tobacco carries significantly lower health risks than cigarettes. No one should mistake smokeless tobacco for a healthy product, but compared to smoking, it may be less deadly and a better choice.
National and state anti-smoking campaigns have been highly effective, as the smoking rate is half of what it was 50 years ago, and smoking among teenagers is at an all-time low. Yet there remains a persistent minority of nicotine users for whom our conventional outreach has failed. In efforts to promote public health, cut health care costs and reduce preventable deaths, we can’t afford to give up on messaging to these smokers.
It’s clear, however, that we need to think outside the box to reach them. Tobacco harm reduction, endorsed by the American Association of Public Health Physicians, won’t eliminate all the health risks created by persistent smokers, but it could lower their death rate and medical expenses, and take secondhand smoke out of the air.
Instead of making false claims, I believe it would be much more productive to work together and address the public health problems created by smoking on as many fronts as possible. The Legislature’s interim Health Services Committee recently launched a study of the overall effectiveness of North Dakota’s tobacco control programs, which gives us the opportunity to expand and improve our outreach. As we move forward with developing the next generation of public health strategies, tobacco harm reduction should at least be part of the conversation.
Thoreson, R-Fargo, is a small-business owner and represents District 44 in the North Dakota House.

Tobacco taxes, smoking bans set to save millions of lives: study

RECORDER REPORT
Anti-smoking measures including higher taxes on tobacco products, bans on adverts and controls on lighting up in public places could prevent tens of millions of premature deaths across the world, researchers said on Monday. Similar steps taken by Turkey, Romania and 39 other countries between 2007 and 2010 were already saving lives, the independent study published by the World Health Organisation (WHO) said.
“If the progress attained by these countries were extended globally, tens of millions of smoking-related deaths could be averted,” Professor David Levy, the study’s lead author from Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, said in the WHO’s monthly bulletin.
Wider use of the controls could also lead to lower health care costs and higher birth weights for babies, he added. Tobacco-control measures already introduced in the 41 countries, that also included Pakistan, Argentina and Italy, were on track to persuade an estimated 15 million people not to smoke, the study said. That would prevent around 7.4 million smoking-related deaths by 2050, it added. The researchers found the most effective measures were increasing taxes and banning smoking in offices, restaurants and other public places. The first method would prevent 3.5 million smoking-attributable deaths, while the second would prevent 2.5 million, they said.
“If anything it is an under-estimate,” Dr Douglas Bettcher, director of WHO’s department of non-communicable diseases, told Reuters in an interview in his Geneva office. “It is a win-win situation for health and finance ministries to generate revenues that have a major impact on improving health and productivity,” he added.
Turkey’s steps led to a sharp drop in smoking rates to 41.5 percent among men in 2012 from 47.9 percent in 2008, he said. Six million people die every year from smoking and the toll is projected to rise to eight million by 2030, according to the WHO, a United Nations agency waging war on “Big Tobacco”.
The WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which came into force in 2005, lays down measures to curb smoking and tobacco use. About 175 countries have ratified the pact, shunned by others that are home to large tobacco companies, including the United States, Switzerland and Indonesia.
Measures include raising taxes on tobacco products to 75 percent of the final retail price, smoke-free air policies, warnings on cigarette packages, bans on advertising, promotion and sponsorship, and offering treatments to kick the habit. “We know that in many poor countries, the poor spend a lot of money on tobacco. They would be able to use it for nutrition and education which is a huge opportunity cost,” said Dr Edouard Tursan d’Espaignet, from WHO’s Tobacco Free Initiative.

Red River Valley Fair limits smoking to three designated areas

WEST FARGO – This year’s Red River Valley Fair here will be smoke-free.
Management for the fair, which runs at the Red River Valley Fairground here July 9-14, announced Monday that smoking will largely be banned at this year’s event, except for three designated areas.
The fair had to come into compliance with the new statewide ban on public smoking, which went into effect last winter, general manager Bryan Schulz said.
The grandstands are considered an “outdoor athletic venue” under that law, and therefore smoking in that area must be outlawed, Schulz said.
Schulz said fair management then had to consider the smoking law’s provision that bans puffing within 20 feet of any door, window or ventilation opening.
“That would eliminate just about every building on the grounds,” Schulz said.
Schulz said besides the state ban, the “trend” to ban smoking at fairs got a kick start last fall, when a child was poked in the eye by a cigarette at the Minnesota State Fair.
Schulz said the Minnesota State Fair is installing a similar smoking ban this fall.
The attractions company that the Red River Valley Fair hires for carnival rides has been notified of the change. It could be a “tough sell” for the carnies who are used to smoking around their rides and attractions, Schulz said, but he’s not expecting major problems.
The attractions company is aware that fines can be levied against it and any of its employees who run afoul of the ban, Schulz said.
The fine for a person smoking where it is outlawed is $50 per violation.
There is a $100 fine per violation that can be levied against an owner or person with “general supervisory responsibility over a public place or place of employment who willfully fails to comply” with the law, according to state law.
Smoking will be allowed in parking lots and the campground area, Schulz said. There will be three designated open-air spaces for smoking within the general fairgrounds.
Fairground staff and security will enforce the ban, and there will be signs to inform fairgoers of the change, said Schulz, who doesn’t expect any issues with the ban.
“I think people realize, when the law changed, they knew that things were going to happen,” he said.
http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/404939/