RI health officials launch anti-tobacco campaign

Rhode Island health officials have launched an anti-tobacco campaign featuring the voice of a tobacco industry lobbyist who died of throat cancer in 1996.

The Department of Health says the campaign targets young people and includes television and radio spots, a Facebook page and outdoor advertisements.

Health officials say the radio and television spots feature the voice of the late lobbyist Victor Crawford, who is heard saying that he lied about how the tobacco industry targeted the young with its marketing. The ad also includes an apology from Crawford.

The print ads feature the faces of young people branded with product barcodes that include the word "Replacement." The print ad slogan is "Don't be a replacement, be an original."

Smoking issue is not complicated

This is such an outdated argument regarding legislation that restricts smoking in public areas ("Passing laws, blowing smoke," Feb. 23), I am surprised you printed this editorial.
Smoking restrictions are about moving the smoke so that people in a public park do not have to breathe it. There are no safe levels of secondhand smoke.
This is not about fining people; it is not about big brother overstepping; it is not about unhealthy behavior; it's not about getting smokers to quit; it is not about ostracizing smokers; it's not about cars and buses.
It is solely about telling smokers to emit their smoke where others do not have to breathe it.

Xenophon supports ban on net tobacco ads

Federal parliament has been told the government needs to play tough against "sneaky" tobacco companies who use the internet to promote their products.

"We must head them off, beat them to the punch," Labor senator Lisa Singh told the upper house on Wednesday.

She was speaking before government legislation passed, making it an offence to advertise tobacco products on the internet, other electronic media and future technologies, unless the advertising complied with Australian legislation or regulations.
Senator Singh said big tobacco was using the virtual world to compensate for a ban on advertising in the traditional media and at retail points of sale.

"There are serious concerns that both online advertising and social networking sites are being used to promote tobacco to young people," she said.

"We know big tobacco are sneaky and we have to play tough in doing that."

Independent senator Nick Xenophon said he strongly supported the government move, but called for online problem gambling to be targeted as well.

"I don't agree (cigarettes) should be promoted as fun or fashionable," he said, adding everyone knew tobacco was highly addictive.

"Everyone knows chemicals in cigarette smoke slowly destroy you from the inside out."

Tobacco companies no longer needed film stars to promote their cigarettes, because people were more likely to relate to messages posted by well-known bloggers and friends who tweeted.

"We can't discount the power of advertising on social networks, where word of mouth can literally spread to thousands of people each time someone updates their status," Senator Xenophon said.

He suggested the government also expand its flagged measure against problem gambling to include internet gambling.

"If the government acknowledges there needs to be greater regulation of internet advertising... then they also need to consider the effect of poorly-regulated gambling activities on the net," he said.

The Tobacco Advertising Prohibition Amendment Bill 2010 now awaits Royal Assent.

Vero Beach playgrounds now tobacco-free

The city-owned playgrounds will be tobacco-free zones as a result of a resolution passed by the City Council on Tuesday.

The Council in a 5-0 vote Tuesday approved the resolution that will also allow for signs notifying the public of the ban to be installed at these areas..

The resolution does not carry any penalties, but Mary Burkins of the Substance Abuse Council, said at an advisory board meeting earlier that most people will self-enforce the policy once signs are installed. The Department of Health provides such signs free. Breathe Free Indian River County will purchase 10 cigarette-butt receptacles to be placed at designated city locations.

Japan Tobacco Lifts Dividend; Toyota Quartely Net Drops 57%

Stocks in Japan traded sideways after Japan Tobacco lifted its annual outlook and Dainippon Screen Manufacturing indicated weak orders in the current quarter. After the close, Toyota Motor reported better than expected unit sales and rising revenues.

Stocks in Japan traded mixed as European leaders haggle to bring a quick resolution to the ongoing debt talks in Greece and Japan Tobacco reported better than expected outlook.

Stocks meandered in the early morning trading but were anchored in consumer stocks and edged slightly higher with the broader Topix Index reached a 5-month peak.

The Nikkei 225 Stock Average fell 0.1% to 8,917.52 and the broader Topix index increased 0.4% to 772.77.

After the close, Toyota Motor reported nine month net income declined 57.5% to 162 billion yen or $2.12 billion and revenues fell 10% to 12.88 trillion yen.

The global auto maker also estimated worldwide unit sale of 7.41 million to March, 30,000 units higher than its December forecast and estimated revenues in the full-year period of 18.3 trillion yen.

FDA Tobacco Science Panel Headed in Wrong Direction

The Food and Drug Administration’s Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee (TPSAC) has posted a draft summary of their report on dissolvable tobacco products. The report is available for download here. The report was required by Congress and will be considered by the FDA is it evaluates how to regulate newer dissolvable tobacco products.

I attended portions of the meetings held in preparation for this report, and offered my comments as part of the open hearing. A video of my testimony is available here. I am disappointed with TPSAC’s approach so far.

The draft report fails to properly take into account the potential, as well as documented benefits of switching from the most harmful form of tobacco use, cigarette smoking, to lower-risk, but still not safe products, such as dissolvable tobacco and snus.

An examination of the beginning of the report makes the approach clear.

Facebook More Addictive Than Tobacco

It has long been known that certain substances are addictive to us. Things like tobacco, drugs and alcohol are frequent offenders. New research suggests that social media might beat them all.

The research, conducted by the University of Chicago's Booth School of Management, found that people are more addicted to social media and email than they are to traditional vices such as smoking and drinking.

The researchers enrolled over 200 Germans from the city of Wurtzburg to test what kind of things they could not live without each day. Each participant was equipped with a BlackBerry and asked several times throughout the day to identify desires they were having, and the strength of those desires.

The results were quite startling. Whilst it is perhaps understandable, not to mention healthy, that sleep and leisure time topped the list, what is more surprising is that the next most addictive activity was social media usage. This was followed by checking our emails.

"Desires for media may be comparatively harder to resist because of their high availability and also because it feels like it does not 'cost much' to engage in these activities, even though one wants to resist," said lead researcher Wilhelm Hofmann at Chicago University's Booth Business School.