Friends drive you to pick the butt more than kick it

Washington, June 12 (IANS) Friends can influence behaviour of your kid a lot and researchers have found that friends exert influence on their peers to both start and quit smoking, but the influence to start is stronger.

"What we found is that social influence matters. It leads nonsmoking friends into smoking and nonsmoking friends can turn smoking friends into nonsmokers," said Steven Haas, an associate professor of sociology and demography at Pennsylvania State University in the US.

However, the impact is asymmetrical - the tendency for adolescents to follow their friends into smoking is stronger, Haas explained.

There are a number of reasons why peer influence to start smoking is stronger than peer influence to quit.

"In order to become a smoker, kids need to know how to smoke, they need to know where to buy cigarettes and how to smoke without being caught, which are all things they can learn from their friends who smoke," Haas noted.

But nonsmoking friends are unlikely to have access to nicotine replacement products or organised cessation programmes to help their friends quit.

The findings may also apply to other aspects of adolescent behaviour.

"This may apply well beyond smoking," Haas said, adding, "There may be similar patterns in adolescent drinking, drug use, sex, and delinquency."

Sweets makers work to keep names off e-cigarettes

Owners of brands geared toward children of all ages are battling to keep notable names like Thin Mint, Tootsie Roll and Cinnamon Toast Crunch off the flavored nicotine used in electronic cigarettes.
Now the owners of those trademarks are fighting back to make sure their brands aren’t being used to sell an addictive drug or make it appealing to to children.
The issue of illegally using well-known brands on e-cigarette products isn’t new for some. For a couple of years, cigarette makers R.J. Reynolds Tobacco and Philip Morris USA have fought legal battles with websites selling e-cigarette liquid capitalizing on their Camel and Marlboro brand names and imagery.
The companies have since released their own e-cigarettes but without using their top-selling brand names.
“It’s the age-old problem with an emerging market,” said Linc Williams, board member of the American E-liquid Manufacturing Standards Association and an executive at NicVape Inc., which produces liquid nicotine.
“As companies goes through their maturity process of going from being a wild entrepreneur to starting to establish real corporate ethics and product stewardship, it’s something that we’re going to continue to see.”
Williams said his company is renaming many of its liquids to names that won’t be associated with well-known brands. Some companies demanded NicVape stop using brand names such as Junior Mints on their liquid nicotine.
In other cases, the company is taking proactive steps to removing imagery and names like gummy bear that could be appealing to children.
“Unfortunately it’s not going to change unless companies come in and assert their intellectual property,” he said.
And that’s what companies are starting to do more often as the industry has rocketed from thousands of users in 2006 to several million worldwide, bringing the issue to the forefront.
“We’re family oriented. A lot of kids eat our products, we have many adults also, but our big concern is we have to protect the trademark,” said Ellen Gordon, president and chief operating officer of Tootsie Roll Industries Inc.
“When you have well-known trademarks, one of your responsibilities is to protect (them) because it’s been such a big investment over the years.”
General Mills Inc., the Girl Scouts of the USA and Tootsie Roll Industries Inc. are among several companies that have sent cease-and-desist letters to makers of the liquid nicotine demanding they stop using the brands and may take further legal action if necessary.
The actions highlight the debate about the array of flavors available for the battery-powered devices that heat a liquid nicotine solution, creating vapor that users inhale. The Food and Drug Administration last month proposed regulating electronic cigarettes but didn’t immediately ban on fruit or candy flavors, which are barred for use in regular cigarettes because of the worry that the flavors are used to appeal to children.
It’s growing pains for the industry that reached nearly $2 billion in sales last year in the face of looming regulation. E-cigarette users say the devices address both the addictive and behavioral aspects of smoking without the thousands of chemicals found in regular cigarettes.
There are about 1,500 e-liquid makers in the U.S. and countless others abroad selling vials of nicotine from traditional tobacco to cherry cola on the Internet and in retail stores, often featuring photos of the popular treats. Using the brand name like Thin Mint or Fireball conjures up a very specific flavor in buyers’ minds, in a way that just “mint chocolate” or “cinnamon” doesn’t.
“Using the Thin Mint name— which is synonymous with Girl Scouts and everything we do to enrich the lives of girls— to market e-cigarettes to youth is deceitful and shameless,” Girl Scouts spokeswoman Kelly Parisi said in a statement.

Smoking campaign targets women

Former Miss Universe Rachael Finch underwent a dramatic makeover to show just how lighting up accelerates the aging process by decades.
The former beauty Queen is used to getting made up but today she underwent a transformation of a different kind - the 25-year-old was given a much older and less glamorous look.
Research shows for young women, appearance is a driving factor, in the decision to give up smoking. That's why this campaign aims to highlight the detrimental effects
It shows how cigarettes lead to deeper wrinkles a dull complexion and stained teeth. Cigarettes also prematurely age a person by 10 to 20 years.
Doctors say they see the immediate effects of smoking in patients every day.
"I feel like if they saw what I could see they wouldn't smoke," dermatologist Dr Claudia Curchin said.
"They would realise they look terrible as a result of smoking."
"It was very confronting, scary but I was really happy to do it to see, to be able to show my face and show what it can look like," Ms Finch said.The stunt was designed to show what smoking will do, to a young women's face. Figures show the habit is higher among females aged between 18 and 24.
"We are very concerned about what is an alarming upswing in the number of young women and girls that are taking up smoking and we have to something differently," Health minister Lawrence Springborg said.

In Russia, new anti-smoking law alarms tobacco giants

Tough new anti-smoking legislation that comes into force on Sunday in Russia has dismayed cigarette companies as they face the prospect of declining sales and tighter regulation of their industry.

Russia was once seen as a key emerging market for the tobacco industry with its high number of heavy smokers keen to switch to Western brands, but from June 1 there will be a blanket ban on smoking in restaurants, cafes and hotels.

In the first stage of the ban, Russia last year outlawed smoking on municipal transport as well as in public spaces such as schools, administrative buildings and hospitals.

The stringent new law also bans all forms of tobacco advertising and requires that packs of cigarettes be hidden from customers at the point of sale. Smokers will have to choose their brand using a catalogue without images or logos.

"This is some of the harshest anti-smoking legislation in the world," said Alexander Lyuty, the communications director in Russia of British American Tobacco (BAT).

According to the state statistics agency Rosstat, the number of smokers in Russia -- 40 million out of a population of around 143 million -- has remained the same since 2010.

Every year, 400,000 Russians die from smoking-related illness.

But Russia's smokers are gradually cutting down. Only 19 percent of smokers get through more than a pack a day, half as many as seven years ago, according to state polling agency VTsIOM.

In 2013, the tobacco market in Russia contracted 7.5 percent, Lyuty said.

The reasons included rising prices for packs of cigarettes, which Russia is taxing more heavily.

"In the last five years, taxes on cigarettes have grown by 25 percent," said Lyuty. A pack that cost around 25 rubles in 2010 is now sold for 59 rubles ($1.70/1.25 euros).

The price still seems derisory to Western Europeans, but Russians with their lower spending power are already seeking out cheaper alternatives.

- Rise of counterfeit brands -

"As a result, the demand for fake cigarettes is growing," said Lyuty.

Fake or counterfeit cigarettes are designed to resemble well-known brands but sold much more cheaply.

Their sales more than doubled in the third quarter last year, reaching almost 20 percent of sales in some Russian regions such as Dagestan in the North Caucasus, which borders Azerbaijan, according to Rosstat.

Others are buying cigarettes smuggled from Belarus and Kazakhstan -- where their sale price is 30 to 50 percent cheaper than in Russia, Lyuty said.

But despite the steady growth of counterfeit cigarettes, some in the tobacco industry said that their impact should not be overestimated.

"We are mainly talking about a very convenient excuse to hide our falling sales," said an employee at one of the major tobacco companies, asking to remain anonymous.

"The main concern of the tobacco industry participants in Russia is more and more harsh regulation of what we do for publicity, which prevents us from recruiting new consumers and therefore reaching our targets," the source said.

"We are being forced into invisibility," said one official at the US tobacco giant Philip Morris, who declined to give his name.

- New law targets youth -

The average age when Russian children first try smoking is among the lowest in the world, with some puffing on cigarettes from the age of 10 or 12, according to the Russian Union of Paediatricians.

It is the young who are the most sensitive to price hikes and a ban on advertising, meaning that these measures have had a stronger effect on them than on older people, said Roman Grinchenko, an analyst at Investcafe.

"As a result of the rise in prices, the tightening of regulation and the measures that the government is using to fight the promotion of smoking, the number of minors who are smoking has fallen," Grinchenko said.

The new measures made no impression on long-term smoker Irina Stonyakina, 42, who has smoked heavily for 20 years.

"I prefer saving money on food to stopping smoking, even if the price of a pack goes up five times."

"This new law won't lead to anything, even under the Soviet Union we didn't stop lighting up," Stonyakina told AFP.

The new legislation may not become truly effective until the depths of winter when smokers find themselves forced to light up on pavements in freezing conditions outside cafes and restaurants, said Maxim Korolyov, an analyst at Russia Tobacco Media Group.

As smokers opt for e-cigarettes, are they really safer?

Jessica Zelonis feels healthier since she quit tobacco nearly eight months ago, but she hasn't quit smoking. Well, she doesn't smoke tobacco, she “vapes” — ihaling a vapor from “juices” in her electronic cigarette device. Zelonis, 31, of Pittston, is one of many people who have stopped lighting up and started igniting electronic cigarettes. They inhale a flavored vapor, some with high level of nicotine. “I still get the sensation of smoking,” Zelonis said. “But I don't wake up every morning coughing, I have no chest congestion and my clothes don't stink.” Zelonis said she was vacuuming her carpet at home when she got winded. She said she immediately quit tobacco and went to the e-cigarette device. She went from smoking a pack and a half day to occasionally taking hits on her e-cigarette.

On this recent day, Zelonis was inhaling an orange crush juice with a medium level of nicotine. Her goal is to get off of nicotine. Response to FDA The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) just released its long-awaited draft regulations for electronic cigarettes, commonly called e-cigarettes and other alternatives to smoking. The proposed rules that would: • Ban sales of e-cigarettes to anyone under 18; • Add warning labels; • Require FDA approval for new products. The FDA followed that up with proposing to extend its authority to regulate cigars, hookahs, nicotine gels and pipe tobacco. The Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives Association (CASAA) said the regulations offer little benefit. According to CASAA, the leading advocate for the current and future consumers of low-risk alternatives to smoking, the FDA proposed rules will inflict harm on consumers. “This is a classic case of government imposing a 'solution' and then looking for a problem,” CASAA President Julie Woessner said in a news release. “The regulations do nothing to address real concerns, and instead are a slow-motion ban of the high quality e-cigarettes that have helped so many smokers quit. The rules would mostly require busy-work filings that impose huge costs with little apparent benefit.” CASAA Scientific Director Dr. Carl V. Phillips said the FDA has “cherry-picked the available evidence, blindly accepting any assertion that favors aggressive regulation and ignoring the overwhelming evidence about the harms that these regulations would cause.” While the regulations don't openly ban the refillable devices, proponents say they impose a costly registration and approval process that would effectively eliminate them. In the CASAA release, Phillips said the higher quality the e-cigarette device is — along with the appealing flavors of the juices used to create the vapor — the better chances are for smoking cessation. “Many former smokers report that they were always tempted to go back to smoking while using the smaller devices with imitation tobacco flavoring, but they quit smoking for good when they found better hardware and flavors that no longer reminded them of smoking,” Phillips said. According to CASAA: • It is estimated that as many as a million American smokers have quit or substantially reduced their smoking thanks to e-cigarettes. • Many are already making plans for a “black market” if the FDA regulations take effect. • Those smokers who are using e-cigarettes in a transition stage could easily return to smoking — and future potential switchers may never be able to make the transition — if the restrictions on high-quality products are imposed. CASAA President Woessner, who quit smoking thanks to e-cigarettes, fears such impacts. “If I had been limited to only those products that would exist under this regulation, I would probably still be smoking,” she said. Favoring flavors Local e-cigarette users, like Zelonis, raved about the products, claiming better health and a more enjoyable experience over tobacco smoking. “I just feel healthier,” Zelonis said. “I recently had a head cold and I had no chest congestion issues. I feel like I have more lung capacity.” And Zelonis said she has no desire to return to tobacco, even with her husband, Kristopher, still smoking cigarettes in her presence. She said peer pressure got her into smoking years ago, but she said she will never go back. “And it's much cheaper,” Zelonis said. “My initial cost was $40 and the juice I use costs about $10 per month. Plus I find myself taking fewer hits during the day.” Zelonis bought her e-cigarette device at Primal in the Pine Mall on Kidder Street. She learned about the products and the juices and she found the staff at Primal to be knowledgeable and the products sold are high quality. Mark Sweeting, 27, of Kingston and formerly of North Carolina, works at Primal. Sweeting started smoking tobacco at age 13, but he quit a year ago when he started using e-cigarettes. “I haven't smoked tobacco since,” he said. “At first I was using a juice with a high level of nicotine and I gradually went down. A lot people people ween themselves off of nicotine.” Sweeting says he no longer feels congested when he wakes up, and he generally feels much healthier. Sweeting said Primal deals with “top-notch” companies, like Mount Baker Vapor, who he says is a self-regulated company that conducts studies and uses pharmaceutical grade ingredients in its juices.

Sweeting said e-cigarette products are sold in varying degrees of quality. He said the lower-priced products are not as effective as the devices sold in high-end stores like Primal. Even though there are no age restrictions on the sale of e-cigarette products,

Primal doesn't sell to anybody under 18. E-cigarette option Cooper Sechrist, 19, of Mountain Top, smoked tobacco for five years before opting for e-cigarettes. “I haven't touched a cigarette since,” he said. “My clothes don't smell anymore, I don't have the bad taste of stale smoke in my mouth and I feel better.” Sechrist said he was concerned about the health effects from smoking tobacco. Now, he said he enjoys the fruitier flavored juices in his e-cigarette device. “I definitely recommend e-cigarettes,” he said. “It's much cheaper too; I've saved a lot of money by quitting tobacco.” But Sechrist's girlfriend, Rachel Skiro, 18, of Mountain Top, still smokes tobacco, a habit she began seven years ago. “I'm not ready to quit,” she said. “I think you have to be ready to quit something you're addicted to. There's a lot of psychological stuff involved. I will quit eventually, and I'm sure I'll save a lot of money.” Rick Eisenhauer, 46, of Berwick, is a corporate trainer who started using e-cigarettes on Oct. 15, 2012. He said he and a group of about 60 co-workers decided to go the e-cigarette route to stay off tobacco. “I just had a medical check-up and I have 97 percent lung capacity,” Eisenhauer said. “And I don't wake up constantly coughing and hacking.”

North Carolina to consider new e-cigarette tax

North Carolina, the nation's longtime leader in tobacco production, is now considering a new tax on its tobacco-free relative — the electronic cigarette — after a state committee approved draft legislation Tuesday.
The proposal will now head to the Republican-led North Carolina General Assembly to consider during its upcoming session, which begins Wednesday. A House-Senate study committee unanimously approved draft legislation for the new excise tax and support was widespread across the aisle, even coming from some unlikely groups.
The typically anti-tax Republicans are on board and Winston-Salem based tobacco giant Reynolds America essentially asked for it.
The tax rate would be applied by volume, at 5 cents per milliliter of the liquid used in e-cigarette cartridges; significantly less than current tax rates on traditional tobacco products.
Reynolds America, based in Winston-Salem, is the nation's second-largest cigarette producer and has historically opposed higher state cigarette taxes.
"I promise you, you've never heard me or anyone in any other industry stand up and ask for their products to be taxed, but yes, ma'am, we are (asking to be taxed,)" said company Vice President David Powers.
A Reynolds electronic cigarette carries a 0.5 milliliter cartridge and is equivalent in puff counts to a pack of tobacco cigarettes. Other brands can carry a cartridge of 1 milliliter or more. The new tax would add about 2.5 cents to the cost of lighting up one e-cigarette compared to the 45 cents currently added to a pack of regular cigarettes. All other tobacco products, such as snuff or pipes, are taxed at 12.8 percent of their price, according to documents produced by the state Revenue Laws Study Committee.
Powers said because the federal government has already classified e-cigarettes as a tobacco product, the company asked legislators to create the tax to ensure it would be applied fairly, and reflective of the lower health risk e-cigarettes pose.
"It's eventually going to get taxed. We want it to be done the right way," he said. By taxing the liquid volume of the e-cigarette, the proposal covers all the e-cigarette products on the market in the same way at a fair rate, he said.
Electronic cigarettes neither have tobacco nor emit smoke, but create a vapor from a nicotine liquid that is heated up with a battery.
Powers said it is hard to predict how many cigarette users will eventually move from traditional tobacco to e-cigarettes because the Reynolds company currently only sells its brand of e-cigarettes in Colorado and Utah. It plans to launch the product nationwide later this month.
Sen. Floyd McKissick, D-Durham, noted that the low rate could cause significant state revenue losses down the road.
"That will have an impact upon us when we do our budget projections for lost revenues ... moving from 45 cents to 5 cents," he said.
If the tax passes, it is expected to generate about $5 million in revenue by 2015, according to the state Revenue Laws Study Committee.
The new tax proposal also includes a provision to ban e-cigarettes from state jails and prisons and prohibits them from being distributed to minors.
Only one other state has passed an excise tax on e-cigarettes, though several others are considering similar taxes. South Carolina is proposing the same 5 cent volume rate. Minnesota adopted a plan to tax e-cigarettes at 95 percent of their wholesale rate and Washington state is considering a 75 percent tax, according to research conducted by committee staff.
The e-cigarette industry generated $1.8 billion in sales in 2013, according to Nielsen data. The state estimates that 87-102 milliliters of e-cigarette liquid is sold in North Carolina each year.

How to Quit Smoking: Practice

A fundamental step in the process of learning how to quit smoking is plain old practice is a must. Smoking cessation can't be rushed, so try to relax and think of time as your quit buddy. The more of it that you put between you and that last cigarette you smoked, the stronger you'll become. We spent years learning to associate smoking with literally every activity in our lives, good, bad or indifferent. Unlearning those associations takes time and practice.

 So, it’s true that people quit smoking every day without the benefit of this forum. I believe, though, and I can’t imagine who would disagree, that support is vital to smoke-freedom for most. The articles that you can access from the site home and the posts here will reinforce your resolve. Education is key and essential for long-term success.

I’ll say it again…quitting smoking cigarettes is not easy. It’s exhausting at times, and there are mood swings and minds games, and it is all part of the process of becoming someone who is not a slave to cigarettes. Quitting smoking is not easy, but is it easier that living with or dying from a smoking-related illness. It can be tiring, but not as tiring as chemotherapy and radiation treatments. It takes some effort, but not as much effort as it takes some to try to take their next breath. If you are in your 20’s or 30’s and think you have decades to smoke before you do any real damage, please think again. It is about perspective, and as you progress through this process, your perspective will change. Mine has…for the better and forever.

We have become a society who demands instant gratification, and patience has gone by the wayside. I believe some things are still worth waiting for, and I KNOW that smoke-freedom is one of them. The veterans who stick around here do so because we know how great it feels to be smoke-free. It does get better, and it does get easier, and you owe it to yourselves to give yourselves however long it takes to feel good about being smoke-free.

So…rant, whine, scream…whatever it takes to get you from where you are to where you want to be, but PLEASE DON’T SMOKE! I promise that quitting smoking will not kill you, and if you let it, it can even be one of the most amazing experiences of your life.