Posts

Letter to the Editor: E-cigarettes aren’t a solution for those addicted to nicotine

By: Jim Tennant, Napa
After reading the story about a new e-cigarette store in Napa, I was disappointed that your reporter uncritically repeated the propaganda that the e-cigarette industry (which is being taken over by the traditional tobacco industry) has been feeding the public (“E-cig entrepreneur hopes to blow away tobacco cigarettes,” Nov. 20).
In fact, there is no evidence that e-cigarettes are any safer than the deadly, traditional tobacco products. E-cigarettes are not useful as a way to quit or cut down smoking. Nicotine is one of the most addictive drugs known to man and e-cigarettes are another way of delivering this terrible drug to your body. E-cigarettes seem to me to be like washing your glass before drinking poison.
Flavored e-cigarettes are a blatant attempt to market to children — adult smokers would not buy them. Napa County has regular, free, effective quit-smoking classes available to the public and I hope that anyone who wants to quit smoking will use this service and not switch to another form of this deadly drug.
 http://napavalleyregister.com/news/opinion/mailbag/e-cigarettes-aren-t-a-solution-for-those-addicted-to/article_a25bbf74-5705-11e3-9c78-001a4bcf887a.html

U.S. Colleges and Universities Deserve an 'A' for Going Tobacco-Free

, Assistant Secretary for Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Co-authored by
Cynthia Hallett, MPH
Executive Director
American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation
The Great American Smokeout (GASO), sponsored by the American Cancer Society, encourages smokers to quit for a day and plan to quit smoking for good. This year, celebrating GASO also involves recognizing the growing leadership of our nation’s colleges and universities in making campuses smoke- or tobacco-free.
Our physical environment affects the daily choices we make about life and health. For decades, such environments have promoted a cultural norm glamorizing tobacco use that has led to devastating outcomes. College and university campuses can prevent nicotine addiction among students by implementing tobacco-free campus policies and promoting healthy lifestyle choices.
As the 2012 Surgeon General’s Report Preventing Tobacco Use Among Youth and Young Adults illustrates, many lifestyle choices that lead to future health risk, including tobacco use, peak between 21 and 25 years of age. The number of smokers who started after age 18 has recently increased from 600,000 (2002) to 1 million (2010). This means that, ultimately, up to 1 million current college students could die prematurely from tobacco use.
In September of 2012, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), together with several key partners, launched the Tobacco Free College Campus Initiative (TFCCI) to encourage the voluntary adoption of tobacco-free policies at institutions of higher learning across the nation. It has been a remarkable year since the launch. Colleges and universities everywhere have launched campus conversations that remind their students, faculty and administration that the tobacco epidemic is far from solved. They have initiated inclusive dialogues about possible policy change options, and have considered new policies that could restore their campuses to places where health, not addiction, is the norm.
The Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights (ANR) Foundation, a non-lobbying, educational, nonprofit organization (501(c)3), creates comprehensive programs that support smoking prevention, the benefits of smoke-free air, and the right to breathe smoke-free air. The ANR Foundation has tracked, collected, and analyzed tobacco control laws around the country since the early 1980s. Each quarter, the ANR Foundation unveils updated information to communicate the current status of smoke-free air environments. Today, in honor of GASO, ANR Foundation has released the latest list of smoke- and tobacco-free schools.
When the TFCCI began in September 2012, 774 colleges and universities were smoke- or tobacco-free. Today, there are more than 1127 100% smoke-free campuses and 758 of those are 100% tobacco-free. We celebrate the dramatic rise in that number, not only because it represents a rapidly growing percentage of the 4,583 colleges and universities in the United States, but also because it reflects the improved health of students today that will reduce risk of illness and death tomorrow.
We can offer many resources for user-friendly information about tobacco prevention and cessation. Everyone who is interested in quitting should seek help from a tobacco cessation program such as smokefree.gov, 1-800-QUIT-NOW or through their health insurance plans. As a result of the Affordable Care Act, most private health insurance plans will now cover the cost of cessation interventions for tobacco users. HHS’ website,BeTobaccoFree.gov, represents another valuable resource that includes user-friendly information on the health impact of tobacco use, federal and state laws and policies, and the best guidance on how to quit. Also, January 2014 marks the 50th anniversary of the first Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking and Health. A new Report will highlight a half-century of progress in tobacco control and prevention, as well as present new data on the health consequences of tobacco use.
Deglamorizing and denormalizing tobacco use for adolescents and young adults can help our country reclaim a social norm of health and wellness. As we encourage our loved ones to quit today, let’s also recognize the leadership of colleges and universities around the country that will make our country stronger and healthier for the future.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-howard-k-koh/us-colleges-and-universit_b_4312131.html

Great American Smokeout an Opportunity for Congress to Decrease National Tobacco Burden by Increasing the Federal Cigarette Tax

Statement from John R. Seffrin, PhD, CEO of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN) 
WASHINGTON, D.C. – November 21, 2013 – “Today is the American Cancer Society’s Great American Smokeout, a day that smokers are encouraged to make a plan to quit their deadly habit and lawmakers are urged to support proven tobacco control policies that save lives. The American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN) is urging members of Congress to support a proposal that would increase the federal cigarette tax by 94 cents and prevent 626,000 children from smoking-related death. S. 826, originally co-sponsored by Sens. Blumenthal, Harkin and Durbin, would also raise taxes on other tobacco products. ACS CAN estimates that the proposed cigarette tax increase would prevent 1.7 million children from becoming addicted smokers.
“Raising the price of tobacco products is one of the most effective approaches to encourage people to quit and prevent kids from picking up the deadly habit in the first place. Research has consistently shown that every 10 percent increase in the price of cigarettes reduces youth smoking by 6.5 percent and overall cigarette consumption by about 4 percent.
“The benefits of an increase in the federal tobacco tax are not just limited to children. Congress can reduce the number of adult smokers by nearly 2.6 million over 10 years by passing a 94-cent cigarette tax increase. Furthermore, this proposal comes at a time when there is a lot of discussion about how to reduce health care costs. ACS CAN estimates show that a 94-cent increase would save the country more than $63 billion in long-term health care costs from fewer youth and adult smokers, in addition to generating more than $78 billion in new revenue.
“January will mark the 50th anniversary of the landmark U.S. Surgeon General’s report that scientifically linked smoking to disease and death. The smoking rate has been cut in half in the ensuing decades, but more than 443,000 Americans will still die from smoking-related diseases this year. Tobacco use remains the nation’s most preventable cause of death.  Increasing the federal tobacco tax will save lives, save money and prevent numerous tobacco-related diseases. There has never been a better time for Congress to become heroes in the fight against tobacco use by helping to protect kids from lifelong addictions.”
ACS CAN debuted a new advertising campaign in Washington, D.C., this month that challenges Congress to become heroes and save lives by increasing the federal tobacco tax. Click here to view the ad: ht.ly/qivrQ.
ACS CAN, the nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy affiliate of the American Cancer Society, supports evidence-based policy and legislative solutions designed to eliminate cancer as a major health problem. ACS CAN works to encourage elected officials and candidates to make cancer a top national priority. ACS CAN gives ordinary people extraordinary power to fight cancer with the training and tools they need to make their voices heard. For more information, visit www.acscan.org.

###

Forum editorial: Smokeout still has work to do

In 1976 a group of anti-smoking activists got the idea of having a national day when smokers would be urged to not smoke. From that modest beginning at the California Division of the American Cancer Society emerged The Great American Smokeout, which has been observed every year since then on the third Thursday of November. By any measure, it’s been a success. There is more work to do.
These days, the only people who deny the dire health effects of tobacco use are, well, not bright. Only those who cling to peculiar notions of “personal freedom” and business privilege sans business responsibility dismiss the damage to personal health and public health from tobacco use. They comprise a smaller minority every day, as more enlightened Americans favor laws and regulation to protect individual and public health.
It’s not a new concern. Efforts to restrict smoking in public places go back to 1908 in New York City, where the city council approved a ban on women from smoking anywhere except in their homes. The mayor vetoed the ordinance.
Since then, the nation, often led by states, has moved steadily toward smoke-free environments in public venues and private places that cater to the public, such as restaurants. Today only a handful of states do not have statewide smoking bans. Minnesota approved a ban in 2007. North Dakotans had to go to the polls in 2012 to secure a comprehensive ban after session after session of the Legislature capitulated to the tobacco lobby and refused to enact a statewide ban. Before the 2012 vote, voters in several cities, including Fargo and West Fargo, had pointed the way.
Smoking has not gone away. It won’t anytime soon. About 19 percent of Americans still light up, but that level is way down from the days when up to 60 percent of adults in many states used tobacco in its various forms. Progress has been steady and impressive, and it’s not always been a legislature or ballot measure that drove the issue. In many cities and states, private sector businesses were ahead of public policy in imposing smoking bans.
Credit must go to the American Cancer Society’s Great American Smokeout for keeping the issue in front of Americans. Together with a plethora of medical organizations, public health agencies, schools, attorneys general who were willing to challenge Big Tobacco (and win) and many other efforts, the message has been received. Even those people who smoke for reasons they believe to be legitimate understand what they are doing to themselves by smoking and to others via secondhand smoke. Given the unassailable science and medical evidence, how could they not know?
And so to that dwindling group, today’s Smokeout says: “Give it up for the day. Try to quit.” If a few do, that’s more progress.
——–
Forum editorials represent the opinion of Forum management and the newspaper’s Editorial Board.
http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/418984/

Quitters are winners: The benefits of kicking the tobacco habit

By Richard A. Claiborne

We all know the bad news about smoking, including health risks, expense and even criticism from non-smokers. But, for many people, scare tactics are not helpful when it comes to quitting. To put a positive spin on smoking cessation, let’s look at the benefits of living tobacco-free and how to go about quitting.
The greatest benefit to kicking the habit is dramatically improving your health. According to a report from the Surgeon General, as soon as you take that last puff, your body is busy repairing itself. Just one day after stopping, the heart rate and blood pressure drop and the carbon monoxide level drops to normal. By nine months, coughing and shortness of breath decrease; lungs start to regain normal function, increasing the ability to handle mucus, clean the lungs and reduce the risk of infection. At one year, the risk of coronary heart disease is half that of a smoker, and by five years, the report says the risks of cancer of the mouth, throat, esophagus and bladder are cut in half. After 15 years of living smoke-free, the risk of coronary heart disease and many cancers is that of a non-smoker.
Other benefits of living nicotine-free include:
•  Feeling in charge of your actions.
•  Knowing you are not bothering others with your smoke.
•  Saving money (not to mention time looking for a place to smoke).
•  Smelling better! Your hair, clothes, breath, care, home and kids won’t smell like smoke.
•  Enjoying an increased sense of smell.
•  Having fewer worries – about health, money, having to make sure you have a cigarette supply.
•  Looking and feeling better! Your skin will look healthier.
•  Having more energy.

How to quit

Those most successful at quitting are those who make a firm commitment, have a plan and work hand in hand with their physician to tailor a program to meet their unique needs. So:
•  Make a commitment and pick a “quit day.” Mark it on your calendar, tell friends and family and seek out support systems so you will feel accountable to achieve your goal.
•  Prepare your surroundings. Get rid of cigarettes and remove smoking triggers, including inviting smoking areas.
•  Stock up on suckers and gum to satisfy oral cravings.
•  Create distractions and have plans for how you will stay busy. Make a list of friends to call.
•  Make an appointment with your doctor. Your doctor can help you decide if you would benefit from anti-smoking medication or a support group.

Nicotine replacement therapy

Nicotine replacement therapy involves replacing cigarettes with other nicotine substitutes. Therapies work by delivering small and steady doses of nicotine into the body to relieve some of the withdrawal symptoms without the tars and poisonous gases found in cigarettes. This helps smokers focus on breaking their psychological addiction and learn new behaviors and coping skills.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved five types of nicotine replacement therapies: gum, lozenges and patches, which can be purchased over the counter; and nasal sprays and inhalers, which require a prescription. These products can be very helpful in the initial stages of quitting and withdrawal. However, nicotine is addictive and a person can transfer their dependence from cigarettes to the other therapy, particularly the fast delivery of nasal spray. Use only as prescribed by your doctor.

Prescription medications

These oral medications help you stop smoking by reducing cravings and withdrawal symptoms without the use of nicotine. Some can be used along with nicotine replacement therapies, and some must be started before your planned quit day.
Varenicline (Chantix) is a prescription medicine developed to help people stop smoking by interfering with nicotine receptors in the brain. It has a duel effect: It reduces the pleasure a person gets from smoking, and reduces the symptoms of nicotine withdrawal. It is typically started before your quit date. Bupropion (Zyban) is another effective prescription smoking cessation medicine. Several studies have shown taking medication can more than double the chances of quitting compared to taking no medicines at all. Medications are most effective when used as part of a comprehensive cessation program monitored by your physician.

Alternative therapies

•  Hypnosis – Places you in a deeply relaxed state where you are open to suggestions that strengthen your resolve to quit smoking.
•  Behavioral therapy – Nicotine addiction is related to the habitual behaviors involved in smoking. Behavior therapy focuses on learning new coping skills and breaking those habits.
•  Counseling – Participating in individual or group counseling can be beneficial in the educational and motivational aspects of smoking cessation. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the combination of medication and counseling is more effective for smoking cessation than either medication or counseling alone.
Kicking the habit is hard work but it can be done. With a plan tailored to your needs, you can break the addiction, manage your cravings and join the millions of people who have quit smoking for good. If you are ready to quit, talk to your physician.

Richard A. Claiborne practices in pulmonary medicine at Via Christi Clinic, 3311 E. Murdock. He may be reached at 316-689-9325.

http://www.kansas.com/2013/11/09/3106682/quitters-are-winners-the-benefits.html

Maryland should hike tobacco taxes again

By , Washington Post

BOOSTING TAXES on cigarettes is an effective way to cut smoking rates among adults and, even more, among those college-age and younger, along with tobacco-related disease and death. A case in point is Maryland, where the incidence of smoking fell by a third from 1998 to 2010, a period during which the state more than quintupled its cigarette tax.
By the same token, states that have allowed cigarette levies to remain low, under the sway of Big Tobacco or anti-tax sentiment, generally suffer from higher smoking rates and the resulting impact on public health. Virginia’s cigarette tax is second-lowest in the nation, after Missouri’s; it is an example of a state that extends its smokers a license to kill — themselves.
Pleased with the results in Maryland, anti-
tobacco advocates want to build on their success. On the merits, they have an easy case to make. After the state doubled its levy in 2008, to $2 per pack, cigarette sales dropped sharply. Now advocates want to raise the per pack tax again, to $3. Lawmakers should take note.
Higher taxes are particularly effective in cutting tobacco use among younger smokers, whose habits are less entrenched and who are more sensitive to price. As a direct result of the 2008 tax increase, youth smoking rates plummeted by almost a third in two years. In 2009, just 12 percent of Maryland youths were smokers, compared with a national rate of almost 20 percent.
And while adult smokers are somewhat less sensitive to price increases, Maryland’s 2008 tax hike helped cut the number of adult smokers by about 13 percent.
Complacency is the wrong course of action. Anti-tobacco advocates point out that following the big drop after 2008, smoking rates in Maryland have started to inch up again over the past few years. That coincides with an 80 percent cut in spending on the state’s main anti-smoking program, which aims to help people to quit or not start in the first place. Despite its relatively high tax rate on cigarettes, Maryland ranks just 34th nationally among the states in spending on its anti-smoking program.
Each of the three increases in Maryland’s cigarette tax over the past dozen years has been followed immediately by a sharp drop in sales. True, some Maryland smokers may simply cross the border to buy their cartons in low-tax Virginia. But more have quit or cut back, as state-by-state smoking rates suggest.
The tobacco lobby remains strong enough to push back against further increases. In Annapolis, a bill this year to raise the state’s per-pack tax to $3 died in committee. A similar effort in the legislative session starting in January may suffer the same fate. Anti-smoking advocates are focusing their efforts on the next year or two in the legislative calendar. They should be helped both by the counter-example of Virginia — and by the facts.
Washington Post Editorials –  Editorials represent the views of The Washington Post as an institution, as determined through debate among members of the editorial board. News reporters and editors never contribute to editorial board discussions, and editorial board members don’t have any role in news coverage.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/maryland-should-hike-tobacco-taxes-again/2013/11/03/820e5ffc-433b-11e3-a624-41d661b0bb78_story.html

Mondays Might Be Your Best Day to Quit Smoking

Smokers most likely to seek online advice about quitting on the first day of the workweek, study finds

By: Robert Preidt
——-
(HealthDay News) — Smokers are most likely to think about kicking their habit on Mondays, according to a new study, and this finding may help boost the effectiveness of anti-smoking campaigns.
For the study, the investigators monitored online searches about quitting smoking that were conducted in English, French, Chinese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish worldwide between 2008 and 2012.
The results showed that people searched about quitting smoking more often early in the week, with the number of searches highest on Mondays. The number of searches on Mondays was 25 percent higher than the combined average number of searches on Tuesday through Sunday.
This pattern was consistent across all six languages, according to the study, which was published Oct. 28 in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.
On Mondays, searches in English for information about quitting smoking were 11 percent higher than on Wednesdays, 67 percent higher than on Fridays and 145 percent higher than on Saturdays, the results showed.
These findings may lead to changes in the way health officials and providers design anti-smoking programs, said study lead author John Ayers, of San Diego State University.
“Popular belief has been that the decision to quit smoking is unpredictable or even chaotic,” Ayers said in a university news release. “By taking a bird’s-eye view of Google searches, however, we find anything but chaos. Instead, Google search data reveals interest in quitting is part of a larger collective pattern of behavior dependent on the day of the week.”
Study co-author Joanna Cohen, director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Global Tobacco Control, suggested that “campaigns for people to quit may benefit from shifting to weekly cues. We know it takes smokers many quit attempts before they succeed, so prompting them to try again on Mondays may be an effective and easy-to-implement campaign.”
Further research is needed to learn more about the reasons for these findings and how they could help boost quit rates, Ayers said, but the immediate message for smokers is straightforward: “If you’re a smoker, just remember: Quit this Monday. Everyone else is doing it.”
More information
The American Cancer Society offers a guide to quitting smoking.
http://consumer.healthday.com/cancer-information-5/cigarette-smoking-tobacco-health-news-665/briefs-emb-10-28-4pmet-smokers-mondays-jama-ia-sdsu-release-batch-991-681544.html

To quit smoking, he sketched a cigarette every time he wanted to light up

By Cara Pesek / World-Herald staff writer
On May 12, at 9:31 a.m., Brian Tait opened a small, homemade notebook and drew a small picture of a cigarette.
Normally at that time, he would have smoked a cigarette.
But Tait was trying to quit, as he had tried to do many times before. This time, he was serious. This time, he had a deadline — the impending birth of his daughter.
Three days later, Janie Wren was born.
In the following weeks and months, the 38-year-old artist and part-time stay-at-home dad drew cigarettes after meals, while paying bills, while taking a break from remodeling his home or painting. He drew them on shopping lists, envelopes, napkins and scraps of paper. He drew them any time he would normally smoke, and sometimes when he just needed to do something with his hands.
In this unconventional way, Tait quit smoking entirely. In the months since May 12, he estimates he’s drawn hundreds of cigarettes. He hasn’t smoked any.
Tait started smoking when he was 15, and he was quickly hooked. He was a skateboarder and street artist as a kid. He and his friends sought out “old guy stuff” — Pall Mall non-filters, Marlboro Reds.
“Branding and stuff got me pretty early,” Tait said.
Through his 20s and 30s, he continued to smoke. He worked as a professional sign painter (he’s painted the signs for the Boiler Room, Big Brain Tattoos and the Nomad Lounge, among others) and as an artist. Smoking was a break when he was stuck, a treat when he liked how things were going, a way to enjoy the weather when he was inside the studio on a nice day.
During that time, he also drank. He was a self-described wild guy, occasionally out of control.
But life changed. He started to date a woman who wanted a family. Tait, who has a 14-year-old daughter, wanted another child, too.
About a year and a half ago, he gave up drinking. He quit cold turkey, without even the assistance of pen and paper. He knew that cigarettes should come next. But no one who knew him knew him as a non-smoker, he said.
“I’ve always been personified as this working-class artist that chain smokes or drinks two pots of coffee a day, which is true,” he said.
He may have been a smoking artist, but he was an artist first. At the same time Tait was thinking of quitting smoking (and the same time the ever-nearing arrival of baby Janie was causing him to mull quitting more seriously), he was also wanting to refine his drawing skills, which after years of computer-aided work didn’t feel as sharp as they once did.
And with that, quitting smoking became an art project.
“Everything at some point is technical ability,” he said. “It’s the constant over and over that makes good people great.”
So he drew, and drew, and drew.
He drew unsmoked cigarettes, partially smoked cigarettes, packs of cigarettes. He drew them all the time — after meals, around the house, while waiting in line to apply for a building permit — and then less often, and then, not at all, though he still runs across the occasional scrap of paper with a cigarette sketch.
Laura Krajicek, who works with smoking cessation patients at Methodist Hospital, had never heard of anyone quitting cigarettes that way before.
She had heard of people quitting through prayer or chewing gum or wearing patches. She knew of people who smoked while driving who took to holding a pen instead of a cigarette while on the road.
“You can’t quit driving, so you have to find something else to do with your hand,” she said.
She heard from one woman who repainted the smoke-stained walls in every room in her house in an effort to remain smoke-free.
“I’ve got to say, I’ve never heard of drawing a cigarette, but good for him,” said Krajicek.
While Tait’s method was unconventional, Krajicek said it also had one key thing in common with other successful smoking cessation techniques — he found a way to fill the time normally spent smoking with something else.
Tait doesn’t need so much to fill the time anymore.
Baby Janie came, and Tait has been busy with her since. He also shares a studio space at 26th and Harney Streets with several other artists, including some younger ones whom he mentors. The giant space, which Tait refers to as “the shop,” includes a stage, homemade skateboarding ramp and various studios, and he’s converting part of the area into a gallery. He began work on a stay-at-home dad blog, and on a couple of other projects, too, and Tait found the time previously reserved for smoking filled with other duties.
Tait’s girlfriend, Jessica Brown, said it’s been a while since she even ran across one of the cigarette drawings that not so long ago seemed to be all over their home. The smell of smoke that clung to his clothes is gone, which is just as well as she doesn’t think her heightened post-pregnancy sense of smell would do very well with it anyway. She’s used to her new, non-smoking boyfriend, and she thinks it will stick.
Tait is an all-or-nothing kind of guy, Brown said, and she’s not surprised that he’s stuck to his experiment.
“He’s extreme,” she said. “He keeps it interesting.”
http://www.omaha.com/article/20131021/GO/131029960/1696#.UmVgaJRUM0M

Costly cigarettes and smoke-free homes: Both effectively reduce tobacco consumption

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine say high-priced cigarettes and smoke-free homes effectively reduce smoking behaviors among low-income individuals – a demographic in which tobacco use has remained comparatively high.

Writing in the October 17, 2013 issue of theAmerican Journal of Public Health, principal investigator John P. Pierce, PhD, professor and director of population sciences at UC San Diego School of Medicine, and colleagues found that expensive cigarettes – $4.50 or more per pack – were associated with lower consumption across all levels.

Writing in the October 17, 2013 issue of theAmerican Journal of Public Health, principal investigator John P. Pierce, PhD, professor and director of population sciences at UC San Diego School of Medicine, and colleagues found that expensive cigarettes – $4.50 or more per pack – were associated with lower consumption across all levels.
“Living in a state where the average price paid for cigarettes is low ($3.20 or less per pack) means that all , regardless of income, will smoke a lot more than those who live in a state with higher prices,” said Pierce. “This is the case for those living below the  as well as for the wealthy.”
When smokers agreed to a smoke-free home, not only were they more likely to reduce their smoking but, in addition, if they quit, they were less likely to relapse.
“Price is a deterrent to smoking,” said Pierce, “but successful quitting (90 or more days) was associated in this study only with a smoke-free home.”
The challenge to anti-smoking groups is that low-income smokers are less likely to adopt a smoke-free home environment. Pierce offered several possible explanations: “First, there’s a higher prevalence of smoking in people with lower incomes, which means that there will be more spouses who smoke as well. When both adults smoke, there is much lower motivation to introduce a smoke-free home. Also, social norms against smoking have historically been lower in those with lower incomes.
“No one is mandating a smoke-free home,” Pierce continued. “We are telling people that if they really want to quit, then introducing a smoke-free home will help them be successful. This study supports the current policy of increasing (cigarette) prices and building social norms that protect against secondhand smoke. These policies will reduce consumption among all smokers – reducing potential harm – and the ensuing smoke-free homes will help smokers quit successfully.”
The findings are derived from the 2006-2007 Tobacco Use Supplement to the Current Population Survey, a monthly nationally representative cross-sectional survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. The researchers analyzed three sets of supplement data containing responses from more than 150,000 participants aged 18 and older who self-reported both income and smoking habits.
Maya Vijayaraghavan, MD, assistant clinical professor in the Department of Family and Preventive medicine and the study’s first author, said one potential avenue for intervention was to increase regulation of  in public housing.
“This may change norms around smoking among low-income populations living in public housing,” Vijayaraghavan said. “What is important is that clinicians need to emphasize  concerning tobacco use and should encourage and discuss strategies for adopting smoke-free homes among all smokers. Additionally, there is a lot of interest in raising cigarette price to reduce smoking. While we have evidence that moderate increases reduce  behavior in all income groups, it is important to match such a policy with support to help lower income smokers to quit successfully.”
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-10-costly-cigarettes-smoke-free-homes-effectively.html

Forum editorial: Minn. tax on tobacco is a health tax

Opponents of Minnesota’s new tobacco tax seem to believe the $2.83 per pack of cigarettes tax is about only revenue and business. It’s not. It’s first and foremost about public health.
While the tax has had expected impacts on revenue and business since it went into effect July 1, its primary purpose is to discourage smoking. The tax is having the predicted results: Sales of cigarettes are down. Early evidence suggests the steep rise in the tax will generate a corresponding decline in smoking. That has been the experience of every other state that raised its cigarette tax substantially. Young smokers or potential smokers are especially sensitive to price.
Even as sales of cigarettes slipped as the tax took hold, revenue increased, as forecast. The tax is up 30 percent, after all. Some of that additional revenue will be used to fund the new Vikings stadium.
However, as fewer Minnesotans take up the habit and others quit or reduce cigarette purchases, revenue will decline. The ideal situation, of course, would be that tobacco use falls so far as to make revenue from the tax unimportant to the state’s overall financial picture.
Reacting to the decline in sales, one person at a retail store said: “It’s very bad.” No, it’s not. In the long term, fewer people smoking cigarettes is a good thing. It’s good for their health, their medical bills and the nation’s health care system.
Often characterized as “sin taxes,” taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products are in effect health taxes. There is no sin in public policy that aims to improve and protect health. The real sin is peddling a product that sickens and kills people.

Forum editorials represent the opinion of Forum management and the newspaper’s Editorial Board.
http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/414349/