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.

Common habit as smoking and movies

Since media is one of the major factors that bring up a child’s mind, the authorities are anxious about the information the teens get from TV, radio, Internet. There are several filters that allow caring parents control the videos watched by children or block the websites that would bring wrong message to teens.
All the films have ratings according to which a parent can decide if it is ok to show the movie to children. There are strict rules for language, violence, drugs and sex in films, but what about such common habit as smoking?

The research made by Dartmouth Medical School and Norris Cotton Cancer Center shows that one-third of the American teenagers start smoking because they learn it from movies. “We found that as the amount of exposure to smoking in movies increased, the rate of smoking also increased,” says Dr. James Sargent, one of the leaders of the research.
The other studies show 38% of 6,500 American teens under 14 say they were initiated to smoke by the way it is featured in movies. Another interesting thing is almost all smokers start the habit at their teens, but only 50% of them have enough strength to give it up.
AMAA has been protesting trying to make Hollywood stop advertising the bad habit in so many pictures and making them rate the films with smoking at adult rating: R in the USA. Although Motion Picture Association of America promised in 2007 to do something about exposure of smoking, there has not been much result.
Such popular latest summer movies among the teenagers as The Dark Knight, The Incredible Halk and Iron Man feature actors smoking cigars. Out of top box-office or rental movies there are G-rated ones with smoking like: 102 Dalmations, Muppets from Space, Tarzan; and PG-rated Atlantis: The Lost Empire, George of the Jungle and The Rainmaker.
One of the main fighters for smoke free movies is American Medical Association Alliance (AMAA). According to their studies more than half of the films which are connected to children or teens show the characters smoking. In more than 25% of them the actors feature lighting cigars.
The study shows while in 2002 57% of G, PG and PG-13 have some kind of smoking episodes, in 2007 this number went down only to 49%. It is not that big of a difference and Hollywood has to do better than that.
While a child is growing up it is up to parents to show a good example and talk about the harmful effect smoking does to a person’s body. Just because Mother or Father smoke doesn’t mean they should let the children decide to chose for themselves whether to have this habit or not. The talks about tobacco and smoking influence on person’s everyday life should be done with children while it is possible and they are young enough to accept the right point of view.

Cigarette Sales Decline as TV Features Fewer Smokers

Annenberg Public Policy Center researchers make the case that fewer depictions of smoking on TV hastened the drop in cigarette sales.

In what they are calling the largest-ever study linking tobacco use to television, researchers on Thursday said that a decline in the depiction of characters smoking in TV shows has led to a significant drop in the sales of cigarettes.

Researchers analyzed 1,838 hours of primetime dramas on broadcast TV -- cable was excluded -- that aired from 1955-2010 and determined that, at its peak in 1961, there were 4.96 instances of tobacco use per hour of programming. In 2010, that had dropped to just 0.29 instances per hour.
The researchers at the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, after adjusting for the rising cost of cigarettes, concluded that each instance of tobacco use was associated with 38.5 fewer cigarettes sold per person, per year in the U.S.

The study makes that case that TV wasn't merely reflecting a drop in cigarette smoking, but in part causing the drop. The study determined this by attempting to adjust for the impact of TV commercials for cigarettes, which have were banned in 1971, as well as for the rising number of news reports about the harmful effects of smoking.
"We've been telling people for years that smoking is bad for their health, and it hasn't been working because it's so powerful an addiction, and on-screen portrayals of tobacco use is a powerful incentive to smoke," study co-author Dan Romer told The Hollywood Reporter.
"TV characters who smoke are likely to trigger the urge to smoke in cigarette users, making it harder for them to quit," added lead author Patrick Jamieson.
While researchers looked at all tobacco use -- including pipes, cigars and chewing tobacco -- all categories were lumped together and correlated with cigarette sales. Romer said, though, that roughly 90 percent of instances of "tobacco use" in the TV shows watched were, indeed, the smoking of a cigarette.
The study estimated that the decline in tobacco use on TV had almost half as much impact on smoking as did price increases -- as price increases led to a per capita decrease in cigarettes of 18 packs a year, while declining TV depictions can be credited for a per capita decrease of nearly nine packs annually.
For the study, researchers analyzed shows culled from the Top 30 primetime broadcasted dramas each year as measured by Nielsen, including such shows such as Dragnet, Gunsmoke, Perry Mason, The Fugitive, Charlie's Angels, Miami Vice and ER.
"Hollywood can take credit for reducing smoking," Romer said. "On the other hand, it may have contributed to smoking by its portrayal on cable TV ... but we did not include that in our research."