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February, 2010:

Bay Area Smokers Beware; a Crackdown Is in the Air

Feb 22nd, 2010
by AdminCTA.
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The governator smokes here

First published: February 22, 2010

Source: The New York Times

It was a typical photo of teenage mischief, posted on MySpace last fall, featuring four cheerleaders from California High School in San Ramon at a party. The event did not happen on campus or during class hours, but when the coach saw the picture, her reaction was swift: two-week suspensions from the squad.

The girls’ crime: smoking from a hookah — not any illegal drug either, but tobacco.

“The girls admitted to smoking tobacco,” said Eileen Mantz, the school’s athletic director. “This just holds them and their parents accountable.”

(more…)

Taiwan to include tobacco in film rating scheme

Feb 22nd, 2010
by AdminCTA.
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Three Caballeros

First published: February 22, 2010

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer

Taiwan is planning to change its movie rating system to take account of characters who smoke, the government said Saturday, as part of a bid to reduce the number of youngsters taking up the habit.

The Department of Health wants to make tobacco use one of the criteria for deciding what age rating to give a film, a move that could mean some animated movies are out of bounds for children.

“Smoking (in movies) has a much worse impact on health than sex and violence,” the department said in a statement posted on its website.

(more…)

Risk factors for lung cancer in people with HIV: smoking vastly outweighs HIV

Feb 22nd, 2010
by AdminCTA.
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NAM, Keith Alcorn, 2010-2-17

Smoking vastly outweighs HIV infection as a risk factor for lung cancer in people with HIV, a large study of US veterans has revealed.

The findings, from the United States Veterans Administration Aging Cohort Study, were presented today at the 17th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in San Francisco.

The risk of lung cancer is known to be increased in people with HIV, but until now there has been no clarity about the relative contributions of HIV infection and other risk factors to the likelihood of developing lung cancer.

The Veterans Administration provides care for large numbers of ex-military personnel in the United States, and so provides a large population for the study of HIV-related conditions.

This study took individuals with HIV from the Veterans Aging Cohort Study and matched each one with two individuals of similar age, race and gender.

The cohort was then refined by eliminating all those who had not provided detailed smoking information to a 1999 study of health behaviours, to ensure that detailed baseline information on smoking was available for all participants.

The cohort for analysis comprised 3707 people with HIV (98% male) and 9980 HIV-negative controls, who had been followed for a median of eight years.

The only significant differences between the HIV-positive and HIV-negative groups were in smoking habits (32% of people with HIV smoked daily, compared to 28% of people without HIV infection), history of drug or alcohol abuse (16% vs 10%), and in the incidence of lung cancer during the study (see below).

Investigators used cancer data from cancer registries to ascertain the baseline prevalence and longitudinal incidence of cancer in the cohort.

During a total of 28,500 person years of follow-up, the incidence of lung cancer among patients with HIV was 0.26 per 100 person years. There were 76,800 person years of analysis available for the HIV-negative controls, and their incidence of lung cancer was 0.16 per 100 person years.

After controlling for potentially confounding factors, the investigators calculated that patients with HIV had an 80% increase in the risk of lung cancer (risk ratio, 1.80; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.28-2.15).

However, current smoking hugely outweighed HIV as a risk factor for lung cancer.

Calculation of the adjusted incidence rate ratio showed an incidence rate of 1.80 for HIV, compared to 9.80 (95% CI 4.4-21.4) in current daily smokers, and an incidence rate of 5.1 (95% CI 2.4-11.2) in people who had stopped smoking at least a year prior to entering the study (so-called distant quitters).

Current occasional smoking was associated with a threefold increase in incidence (3.4, 95% CI 1.0-11.6), while chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) was associated with an incidence of 1.50 (95% CI 1.1-2.1).

Dr Keith Sigel of Mount Sinai School of Medicine, who presented the findings, told aidsmap: “Stopping smoking is now my second priority at every HIV patient visit and I raise it with every patient at every visit because of the cancer and the cardiovascular risk. Patients with HIV tend to be younger than the average internal medicine patient and so will have many more years of potential smoking exposure if they continue.”

The researchers plan to conduct further analyses to look at the interaction between immunodeficiency and smoking as risk factors for lung cancer, as well as the influence of duration of smoking.

In a second study on cancer and HIV presented at the conference, Dr Michael Silverberg reported that a low CD4 count was associated with an increased risk of a number of non-AIDS defining cancers.

Investigators from Kaiser Permanente in California identified 20,227 HIV-infected individuals and 202,313 HIV-negative controls who were matched for age and sex.

Cancer registries showed that the most common non-AIDS-defining cancers in individuals with HIV were anal, prostate, lung, melanoma, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, oral/throat, and colorectal cancers.

The incidence of cancers in both the HIV-positive and HIV-negative controls was monitored between 1996 and 2007. The cancer risk for those with HIV was stratified by CD4 cell count and viral load, and the results were controlled for potentially confounding factors including age, sex, smoking, alcohol and drug use, hepatitis co-infections, and diabetes.

The risk of cancers of the anus, lung, mouth and throat and Hodgkin’s lymphoma were all increased in patients with HIV.

Compared to the HIV-negative controls, patients with CD4 cell counts below 500 cells/mm3 had an increased risk of anal cancer (p < 0.001) and Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

A CD4 cell count below 200 cells/mm3 significantly increased the risk of lung cancer (p < 0.001) and cancers of the mouth and throat (p < 0.001).

Compared to HIV-negative controls, the risk of anal cancer was especially high for patients with the lowest (<200) CD4 cell counts (hazard ratio [HR], 164.2, p < 0.001).

But the researchers found that even HIV-infected patients with CD4 cell counts above 500 cells/mm3 were more likely than HIV-negative individuals to develop anal cancer (HR = 34.2, p < 0.05) and Hodgkin’s lymphoma (HR = 11.6, p < 0.001).

Reference
Sigel K et al. HIV infection is an independent risk factor for lung cancer. Seventeenth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, abstract 30, San Francisco, 2010.

Silverberg M et al. Immunodeficiency, HIV RNA levels and the risk of non-AIDS-defining cancers. Seventeenth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, abstract 28, San Francisco, 2010.

Further information
You can view abstract 30 and abstract 28 on the official conference website.

Healthy tax for New York

Feb 22nd, 2010
by AdminCTA.
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http://www.pressconnects.com/, Sharon Fischer-February, 2010-2-20

Maintaining adequate funding for New York’s Tobacco Control Program and increasing the tobacco excise tax by $1 are wise strategies to contribute to the health and financial stability of the residents of New York State.

If you think tobacco use and tobacco excise taxes don’t affect you, think again. Both measures are effective in deterring youth from initiating smoking and assisting established smokers to quit. Lower smoking rates, in turn, reduce the costs to treat illnesses caused by tobacco use. Each New York household pays $822 in state and federal taxes for treatment of smoking-related diseases, a burden New Yorkers cannot continue to pay.

New York‘s Tobacco Control Program is one of the few state programs that is required to be assessed annually by an independent evaluator. Research Triangle Institute, the program evaluator states, “The TCP’s efforts have led to declines in youth and adult smoking rates that have outpaced national declines from 2003 through early 2008.” History shows us that when other states have reduced their tobacco control budgets, higher smoking rates among youth and adults resulted, in turn causing increases in health care costs to treat the tobacco-related illnesses that ultimately result.

An increase in the price of tobacco is also an effective deterrent to youth smoking and a strong motivator to quit among adult smokers. Every 10 percent increase in the price of cigarettes will reduce youth smoking by about 7 percent and overall cigarette consumption by about 4 percent.

According to estimates by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, an increase of $1 per pack would be expected to prevent more than 100,000 children from becoming smokers and cause more than 50,000 adult smokers to quit. In New York, 59 percent of adults support a $1 increase in the cigarette tax. If revenue from the tax is used to help smokers quit, 77 percent of New Yorkers support a tax increase.

Both of these measures – increasing the excise tax on tobacco and maintaining funding for New York’s Tobacco Control Program – directly contribute to the personal and financial health of the residents of New York State.

Sharon Fischer is tobacco control coordinator for the Broome County Health Department

http://www.pressconnects.com/article/20100220/VIEWPOINTS02/2200301/1120/Healthy-tax-for-New-York

Letter from Kenneth

Feb 21st, 2010
by AdminCTA.
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香港吸煙與健康委員會各位委員：

香港地少人多，人口密度世界最高，為保障全民呼吸健康，禁煙措施有需要做到全世界最嚴厲。

銅鑼灣行人專用區，整天都充斥著二手煙，途人根本避無可避。商場的廁所內，經常有人藏匿於廁格內抽煙，彌漫著陣陣煙味。事實上如無必要，本人是不會到銅鑼灣或旺角等鬧市逛街。

本人建議特區政府：

(1) 立法嚴禁18歲以下人士抽煙
(2) 每年大幅增加煙草稅，協助煙民戒煙
(3) 加強教育，減少青少年受煙毒影響

Source: Kenneth

U.S., big tobacco take racketeering case to top court

Feb 19th, 2010
by AdminCTA.
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Reuters, Dan Margolies,

19th Feb, 2010

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The government and three cigarette makers separately asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday to review a racketeering verdict against major tobacco companies that was upheld by an appeals court last year.

Altria Group Inc’s Philip Morris USA unit and two co-defendants filed to overturn the verdict, while the government argues the appeals court wrongly denied the disgorgement of billions of dollars in ill-gotten gains by the tobacco industry.

In May, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia affirmed a trial judge’s verdict against the cigarette makers, finding they violated federal anti-racketeering laws by conspiring to lie about the dangers of smoking.

If the Supreme Court agrees to take the case, it could redefine the reach of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

Besides Philip Morris, maker of Marlboro cigarettes, the appeals court ruling was challenged Friday by Lorillard Inc, home of the Kent and Newport brands, and the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco unit of Reynolds American Inc, maker of Camel and other cigarettes.

The case was filed in 1999 by the Clinton administration, which originally sought $289 billion in damages. During the original trial, which began in 2004, the Justice Department under the Bush administration scaled back its demands to $14 billion for anti-smoking campaigns.

The government had also sued Vector Group Ltd’s Liggett Group, British American Tobacco Plc and its Brown & Williamson unit and two now defunct industry groups: the Council for Tobacco Research and the Tobacco Institute.

U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler ruled in 2006 that the companies broke the law and could no longer use expressions such as “low tar” or “light” in their cigarette marketing. But she said she did not have the authority to force them to fund a smoking cessation program.

The appeals court found that Kessler was limited to “forward-looking” remedies aimed at future racketeering violations but properly precluded imposing smoking-cessation and public-education remedies.

The Supreme Court may take months to decide whether to review the case.

“There is a lot of risk here for the industry,” said Edward Sweda, senior attorney for the Tobacco Products Liability Project at Northeastern University School of Law in Boston.

Sweda said that if the Supreme Court agreed with the government, cigarette makers might find themselves ordered to cough up hundreds of millions, or even billions of dollars, for anti-tobacco advertising.

EVISCERATED RELIEF

In its petition to the Supreme Court, the government argued that the appeals court had “eviscerated the relief available” in the biggest civil racketeering case ever brought by the United States.

The ruling “thwarted” the trial court’s efforts to craft appropriate relief “to remedy the ongoing effects of fifty years of unlawful racketeering activity — unlawful acts that have harmed and continue to harm the lives and health of many millions of Americans,” the government stated.

The tobacco companies argued in their petitions that the government had improperly invoked the racketeering statute and that the appeals court was overly deferential to Kessler.

“Given the critical underlying legal issues in this case, we strongly believe it is ripe for review by the Supreme Court,” said Michael Robinson, a spokesman for Lorillard.

Because the case raised free speech issues, the companies argued, the appeals court was obliged to make an independent examination of the record.

A judge or jury “should not have the virtually unreviewable authority to make factual findings that deny a defendant its fundamental First Amendment freedoms,” Philip Morris said in its petition.

The companies also argued that the appeals court erred when it found that a group of corporations could form a racketeering “enterprise” — a notion they said conflicted with the language of the racketeering law.

The appeals court found that Philip Morris, Lorillard, Reynolds and the other defendants had formed such an enterprise, by informally associating, coordinating research and conducting marketing activities with one another.

(Reporting by Dan Margolies; Editing by Tim Dobbyn and Gerald E. McCormick)

Smokes and mirrors

Feb 19th, 2010
by AdminCTA.
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The Standard – Thursday, February 18, 2010


I refer to the articles “Failed tobacco tax sees hopes go up in smoke” (The Standard, January 25) by Nicole Alpert of the Lion Rock Institute and “Youth quitters find smokes too much of a temptation” (The Standard, February 10), which quoted Deanna Cheung of the Tobacco Control Concern Group.

Alpert states that tobacco taxation does not work, increases tobacco smuggling and refers to a previous “study” issued by the self-interest TCCG as if it were gospel.

This non-peer-reviewed study, which represents just 0.25 percent of Hong Kong’s total smokers, interviewed 2,008 smokers with the offer of replacement packs of toxic cigarettes in return for the toxic ones the smokers held. The TCCG implied that this study applied across the board in Hong Kong.

It claimed that 49.9 percent of cigarettes sold in Hong Kong in 2009 (5.8254 billion) were not duty paid, hence the government was losing vast tax amounts; that 18.9 percent could be illicit (1.1 billion); 11.1 percent fake or parallel imports (646.6 million); 7.8 percent were from magical unknown sources (454.3 million); and of the remaining 12.1 percent (704.87 million), 192.42 million sticks came from legal duty free border shops and 26.78 million were bought legally overseas.

It omits the missing portion of this total figure, which amounts to 485.65 million sticks. Hence they allege, without a shred of evidence, that 280 40-foot containers filled with contraband tobacco evaded Hong Kong tobacco tax last year.

The World Health Organization and World Bank say tobacco taxation is the single most effective fiscal health measure governments can take to prevent youths starting smoking and to reduce overall smoking by 4 to 7 percent.

The Tobacco Atlas reveals 30 percent of cigarettes worldwide are smuggled and that the source of the smuggling is the tobacco companies themselves as admitted in online UCSF Legacy tobacco documents and a Guardian newspaper quote from Kenneth Clarke of British American Tobacco.

The TCCG stated that Hong Kong tobacco tax is the second highest in Asia. Actual comparisons per 1,000 sticks are: Hong Kong 159 euros (HK$1,703), Melbourne 203 euros, Paris 265 euros, Singapore 265 euros, New York 300 euros, London 369 euros, and Dublin 423 euros. Hence the cigarette price in Hong Kong is only 60 percent, 53 percent and 43 percent of that in Singapore, New York and London, respectively.

In an Economist Intelligence Unit survey of the world’s most expensive places to live, Hong Kong is 11th, ahead of Dublin in 13th. Yet cigarettes cost 423 euros per 1000 in Dublin versus just 159 euros for the like amount in Hong Kong in 2009.

Hong Kong people should treat this attempted misinformation with the contempt it deserves, emanating from an industry whose chief executives swore on oath that nicotine is not addictive and whose major players were convicted under US RICO anti- racketeering laws.

James Middleton

Chairman anti tobacco committee

Clear the Air

In preparation to the Vote on the Budget, an Open Letter to the HK Government on Tobacco Tax

Feb 18th, 2010
by AdminCTA.
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Clear The Air

18th Feb, 2010

If you want to look at the open letter to HKSAR  Government on tobacco tax, please download here:

English Verison

Chinese Version

A letter to Financial Secretary

Feb 18th, 2010
by AdminCTA.
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www.cleartheair.org.hk, James Middleton, Chairman of anti tobacco committee, 2010-2-18

James Middleton had written a letter to Financial Secretary about Tobacco tax. Click here to download the letter.

Tax has made no impact on teen smoking

Feb 16th, 2010
by AdminCTA.
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SCMP, Jeff Leung, Quarry Bay

16th Feb, 2010

I wrote to these columns more than two years ago about an increased tax on tobacco.

I said that the only people who would benefit from such a policy would be criminals and that the problem of smuggling cigarettes from over the border would get worse.

I was rebuked by other correspondents who argued that raising the levy had been shown to be the most effective way in other countries to deal with the problem of teenagers smoking.

However, smuggling activities have increased and I believe the problem of youngsters smoking is getting worse.

I also raised concerns about the Tobacco Control Office and said that it should be given more teeth. I said that prompt enforcement action would act as a wake-up call and deterrent for the public. However, I still read reports about people suspected of breaking anti-smoking laws refusing to show their identity cards when asked to do so by tobacco control officers.

Some officers have complained about low morale because of a lack of training and sometimes having to deal with people who are agitated and drunk.

Some officers have resigned as they think there is a lack of respect on the part of the public. Also they do not feel their career prospects are good.

The government does not seem to think there is a problem. It should try to clamp down on cigarette smuggling and impose tougher penalties on smugglers and on those individuals who sell illegal cigarettes wholesale.

The duties and benefits that are offered to tobacco control officers should also be reviewed.

An effort should be made to persuade disillusioned officers to stay on.

This can help improve the situation in Hong Kong and enable us to deal with the problems I have described.

Finally, people who have behaved badly when these officers approached them should take a long, hard look at themselves and consider their behaviour.

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