Cigarettes // Current

We’ve Cut Cigarette Smoking By Half and We Didnt Have To Arrest 20 Million Americans To Do It

November 17th, 2008

According to a new report released by the Centers for Disease Control, fewer Americans are smoking cigarettes than at any time in modern history.

The number of U.S. adults who smoke has dropped below 20 percent for the first time on record, Reuters reported. This is less than half the percentage (42 percent) of Americans who smoked cigarettes during the 1960s.

Imagine that; in the past 40 years tens of millions of Americans have voluntarily quit smoking a legal, yet highly addictive intoxicant. Millions of others have refused to initiate the habit. And they’ve all made this decision without ever once being threatened with criminal prosecution and arrest, imprisonment, probation, and drug testing.

By contrast, during this same period of time, state and local police have arrested some 20 million Americans for pot law violations ‹ primarily for violations no greater than simple possession. And yet marijuana use among the public has skyrocketed from an annual rate of 0.6 million new users in 1965 to some 2.5 annual new users today.

There’s a lesson to be learned here, of course. Tobacco, though harmful to health, is a legally regulated commodity. Sellers are licensed and held accountable by federal and state laws. Users are restricted by age. Advertising and access is limited by state and federal governments. And health warnings regarding the drug’s use are based upon credible science.

By contrast, marijuana remains an unregulated black market commodity. Sellers are typically criminal entrepreneurs who, for the most part, operate undetected from law enforcement and are free to sell their product to any person of any person. Unlike tobacco, marijuana’s packaging carries no warning label, and government ‘education’ campaign’s regarding pot’s use are based almost explicitly upon hyperbole, propaganda, and laughable stereotypes.

Is it any wonder why use of one drug is going down at the same time that use of the other is rising?

If federal lawmakers truly wished to address marijuana use, they would take a page from their successful campaign to reduce the use of cigarettes. This would include taxing and regulating cannabis with the drug’s sale and use restricted to specific markets and consumers.

While such an alternative may not entirely eliminate the black market demand for pot, it would certainly be preferable to today’s blanket, though thoroughly ineffective, expensive and impotent criminal prohibition.

Paul Armentano is the Deputy Director of NORML and the NORML Foundation in Washington, DC. He may be contact by e-mail at: paul@norml.org.November 17th, 2008 According to a new report released by the Centers for Disease Control, fewer Americans are smoking... more

simplecj
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10 hours ago

Fewer Than 1 In 5 U.S. Adults Now Smoke : NPR

Great News! The drop continues a decades-long decline that, despite having slowed in recent years, has brought the smoking rate... more

ESKCSG
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4 days ago

Smoking Kills 443,000 Prematurely in U.S....that's retarded

2nd of Friday's picks - Can't people just stop smoking? Ok, sure, maybe its hard but I guess dying is easier...

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4 days ago

Cigarette to blame for twenty dead in bus fire

A German tour bus caught fire and twenty people were killed in the blaze. Police are saying the cause of the fire was a passenger... more

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13 days ago

Car explodes from cigarette lighter

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18 days ago

Fancy a smoke? Pour yourself a cigarette

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22 days ago

...Please Do Not Smoke....but if you must....

....It just came out that Philip Morris posted a 20% gain this quarter.... ....MacDonalds posted a 11% gain this quarter.......... more

Relevations
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27 days ago

SuperSlim targeted at teenagers

Tobacco companies are increasingly targeting teenage girls, using cynical marketing ploys that tap into young women's fears about their weight, and introducing "female-friendly" packaging, campaign groups warned yesterday.

Silk Cut will next month launch a range of "Superslims", which will be sold in "perfume-shaped" boxes designed to appeal to image-conscious women.

"Silk Cut is using the terminology 'super slim' to make the link between smoking their product and losing weight," said Deborah Arnott, director of the Action on Smoking and Health (ASH). "Like a dog whistle that is inaudible to humans, this message is only heard by those it's aimed at: in this case girls anxious about their weight and desperate to stay slim. It's despicable for the industry to target vulnerable young women in this way."

Silk Cut's new marketing ploy is just the latest device that tobacco companies are using to appeal to women. Research published in the US journal Tobacco Control last month revealed that stars of Hollywood's golden age also promoted smoking, with Clark Gable and Bette Davis paid the equivalent of £35,000 a year by tobacco companies. "These companies are trying to glamorise smoking, just as they try to get celebrities to be associated with their brand to boost sales," Ms Arnott said.

Many tobacco companies have tried to forge a link between smoking and slimness. The first ad which emphasised the "benefits" of smoking for weight control was brought out in the late 1920s, with the slogan "Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet".

The popular US brand Virginia Slims hammers the message home with varieties Virginia Slims Super Slims Lights and Virginia Slims Super Slims Ultra Lights. In early 2009 the company will also launch sleek pink "Purse Packs" aimed at women.

Some believe that tobacco companies are using distinctive packaging to get around the restrictions put in place by the 2002 Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act, which banned all cigarette advertising except alongside Formula One racing. "Wrapping cigarettes in attractive packaging is one of the last marketing tools left for tobacco companies," said Elspeth Lee, head of tobacco control at Cancer Research UK.

Gallaher Group, the company that produces Silk Cut, was unavailable for comment yesterday.
Tobacco companies are increasingly targeting teenage girls, using cynical marketing ploys that tap into young women's fears... more

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1 month ago

Hong Kong to lift ban on TV ads for anti-smoking patches and gum ?

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1 response

1 month ago

Smoking makes you old before your time

Everyone knows smoking isn't good for you, but now Finnish researchers report that men who smoke not only die younger but they have a poorer quality of life than those who never smoked.

This deterioration in quality of life continues even after quitting. In fact, heavy smokers typically have the health-related quality of life of someone 10 years older than themselves, the researchers said.

"An especially large negative effect was seen for heavy smokers [more than 20 cigarettes daily], who lost about 10 years of their life expectancy, and those who survived experienced a significant decline in their quality of life," said lead researcher Dr. Arto Y. Strandberg, from the University of Helsinki.

The report was published in the Oct. 13 issue of theArchives of Internal Medicine.

For the study, Strandberg's team collected data on 1,658 men born between 1919 and 1934 and interviewed in 1974. Over 26 years of follow-up, 372 men had died. Men who had never smoked lived an average of 10 years longer than men who smoked more than 20 cigarettes a day, the researchers found.

Non-smokers also scored better on quality-of-life measures, compared with smokers. "Especially significant differences were seen in physical functioning, general health, vitality and bodily pain," Strandberg said. "The impairment of the physical functioning score of smokers was equal to a 10-year age difference in the general population."

Quality of life was worse even among men who stopped smoking. "On the individual level, the bad news is that while beneficial compared to continued smoking, cessation of smoking after midlife could not fully recover the higher risk in mortality and poorer health-related quality of life seen in smokers," Strandberg said.

"Smoking is not only a risk factor for future illness or death, it is present in the smokers' everyday life," Strandberg said. "The earlier one quits, the better; the best option being not to start at all."

Dr. David M. Burns, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Diego, and author of an accompanying journal editorial, said that smoking is no way to live.

"Many folks, particularly young folks, say, 'I want to live now, and I don't care if I die early when I'm old -- I really want to live hard, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse,'" Burns said. "That's not what smoking does to you. What happens is it makes you old before your time."

Smoking does not enhance your lifestyle, Burns added. "What it is, is a route to an early old age."

Three additional reports in the same journal issue reviewed hospital programs that help people quit smoking and concluded that:

Counseling patients on stopping smoking can be effective if there is follow-up for more than a month after hospital discharge, according to a Harvard report.Hospital smoking cessation programs included in referrals to cardiac rehab appear to increase the rates of quitting, according to researchers from Emory University in Atlanta.Paying clinics $5,000 to refer 50 patients to quit line programs appears to increase the number of referrals compared with clinics not offered the incentive, according to University of Minnesota scientists. Everyone knows smoking isn't good for you, but now Finnish researchers report that men who smoke not only die younger but... more

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1 month ago

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1 month ago

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1 month ago

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1 month ago

Bootleg tobacco from smugglers 'causes 4,000 deaths a year'

Cheap cigarettes and other tobacco products smuggled into Britain cause 4,000 or so premature deaths a year, four times the number of fatalities occurring through illegal drugs, doctors claim.

High tobacco prices are drive a flourishing black market for contraband tobacco in Britain, with more than one in five cigarettes known to be smuggled goods.

A study led by Robert West, a professor at the Cancer Research UK Health Behaviour Research Centre in London, found that if smuggling were stopped tobacco prices would rise by about 12%.

Writing in the British Medical Journal, West and his colleagues estimate that such a price increase would encourage between 5%-8% of smokers to stop smoking, and the outcome would be about 4,000 lives saved each year.

"Britain already has one of the world's toughest tobacco control policies, but greater action on smuggling might help cut smoking further," the doctors write.

Tobacco smuggling has fallen substantially since the government announced a strategy against the problem in 2000, but the doctors say more needs to be done. They urge the government to follow other European countries in signing legally enforceable agreements with the tobacco firms Philip Morris International and Japan Tobacco International, to ensure these companies control tobacco distribution and stop supplying contractors who have smuggling links.

The doctors believe clamping down on smuggling could also reduce the huge disparity in health problems between socioeconomic groups, as poorer smokers might quit if prices rose.

This year Customs officials seized contraband tobacco at British ports and prior to shipment of the material. In April 101m cigarettes destined for Britain were taken in Liege, Belgium. The following month 8m Regal King Size cigarettes were seized at Belfast docks; the £2.4m haul would have evaded duty taxes of about £1.8m.

Responsibility for tackling smuggling is soon to pass to the UK Border Agency.

The doctors call on the government to restrict tobacco sales and distribution, and use methods such as overt and covert marking of tobacco products to track items from makers to retailers. They suggest manufacturers should be responsible for controlling the supply chain of their products and face serious financial penalties for failing to do so.

The World Health Organisation says smoking kills one third to a half of all those using tobacco, amounting to more than 5 million people a year worldwide.
Cheap cigarettes and other tobacco products smuggled into Britain cause 4,000 or so premature deaths a year, four times the number... more

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1 month ago

Suit on Tobacco Ads Sparks Feisty Debate - washingtonpost.com

The Supreme Court waded yesterday into a complicated legal debate over whether tobacco companies can be sued in state courts for deceptive advertising of "light" cigarettes, a dispute that has divided government regulators and the business community.

As the justices began their new term, they engaged in a spirited oral argument over a lawsuit filed in Maine by three smokers against Philip Morris USA and its parent company, Altria Group. Using internal company documents and supported in part by the Bush administration, which helped them argue their case, the smokers accused Philip Morris of falsely marketing low-tar and low-nicotine cigarettes as less harmful than regular brands.

The tobacco company said it should be shielded from such state law claims by federal law, a position that drew skepticism from several members of the court's liberal wing. Conservative justices seemed generally more receptive to Philip Morris's argument, with Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Antonin Scalia suggesting that if consumers were misled into thinking that light cigarettes are safer, the fault is more the government's.

"The FTC's position seems to me incomprehensible," Alito told a Justice Department lawyer, referring to the Federal Trade Commission's regulation of the industry through a controversial test that measures tar and nicotine yields. Alito added: "You've created this whole problem by, I think, passively approving the placement of these figures . . . in the advertisements. And if they are misleading, then you have misled everybody who's bought those cigarettes for a long time."

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, often the deciding vote when the court divides along ideological lines, told an attorney for the smokers that he is probably "going to have difficulty in accepting your position in this entire case."

The argument in Altria Group v. Good was the latest in a growing national debate over "preemption," a doctrine under which state product liability lawsuits against companies can be thrown out under federal law. Courts are filled with such cases, and the Supreme Court decided several last term in favor of corporations. The justices will hear another major preemption case, involving the pharmaceutical industry, in November. The Supreme Court waded yesterday into a complicated legal debate over whether tobacco companies can be sued in state courts for... more

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1 month ago

Couple beaten to death in bizarre stop-smoking ritual

A Malaysian couple have been beaten to death by four close family members in a ritual apparently intended to help one of them stop... more

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1 month ago

Pharmacy cigarette ban can start Wednesday

(09-30) 13:21 PDT San Francisco - -- Cigarettes must be taken off San Francisco drugstore shelves starting today after a judge rejected a last-minute bid to temporarily halt the city's groundbreaking law forbidding the sale of tobacco products at pharmacies."This is part of the government's long-term and multiprong battle to undercut the message, particularly to teenagers, that smoking is acceptable," Deputy City Attorney Vince Chhabria said after defending the ban Tuesday in San Francisco Superior Court.

Judge Peter Busch's ruling was a blow to Walgreens, the national pharmacy chain that had sought an emergency injunction preventing the law from taking effect today. Walgreens has vowed to appeal Busch's ruling and continue its fight to have the ban overturned, said Daniel Kolkey, an attorney for the drugstore chain.

In July, San Francisco became the first city in the nation to ban the sale of tobacco products in pharmacies such as Walgreens and Rite Aid, saying sick people getting medication shouldn't be presented with cancer-causing products. The ban doesn't extend to grocery stores or big-box stores that also have pharmacies, and Walgreens contends that violates the law.

"The distinction being made by the city - it's very ephemeral, it's very fleeting and it's very arbitrary," Kolkey said. "The bottom line is the city should not be in the business of favoring some stores over others."

Chhabria countered that drugstores represent something different to consumers than a grocery stores, and thus send a stronger message about smoking.

"They do, if they sell cigarettes, send an implicit message that smoking is acceptable because the public views those stores as health-promoting businesses, places they go to get well," he said. "If a doctor's office sold cigarettes, that would clearly give people the wrong idea about cigarettes."

Busch noted that the Board of Supervisors relied on figures indicating that almost two-thirds of retail sales revenue in drugstores was generated from the pharmacy business, compared with less than 10 percent in grocery stores and less than 2 percent in big box stores.

"The Legislature could conclude that the mixed message is much stronger at the drugstore than at the grocery store," Busch said.

Kolkey said he is confident of Walgreens' eventual success in the case, but the company didn't appear to be banking on it Tuesday. Cigarette stocks in at least two stores were picked over and staff said some brands hadn't been reordered. At a third Walgreens downtown, John Lieberman, 38, an information technology professional at a San Francisco law firm, said a store clerk slipped a coupon into his bag for $1.75 off a future purchase of two packs of Virginia Slims cigarettes.

"I got a chuckle out of it," Lieberman wrote in an e-mail.

The ban, which Chhabria said will probably serve as a catalyst for similar legislation in other cities across the country, is also facing a legal challenge in U.S. District Court, where cigarette-maker Philip Morris has said the ordinance would violate its freedom of speech. (09-30) 13:21 PDT San Francisco - -- Cigarettes must be taken off San Francisco drugstore shelves starting today after a judge... more