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June, 2012:

Introduce tobacco-free HK in phases

Jun 18th, 2012
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In a world of growing complexities, arguments and counter-arguments, one can debate about a person’s right to smoke in public. There is overwhelming evidence of health hazards – heart attack, stroke, cancer, just to name a few – associated with direct smoking as well as passive, or second-hand, smoking.

Despite these harmful effects, society must also balance the interests of smokers, non-smokers and the tobacco industry. Smokers have the right to smoke as long as this does not impose a health risk to people around them. Tobacco companies have a duty to highlight the harmful effects of their products.

It is possible for the government to implement such a policy, in stages, starting perhaps in the tourist districts, or in piecemeal fashion. Special zones will need to be made available for smokers, with suitable law reinforcement outside these zones to safeguard the rights and health of others. This ban will send a clear message to both smokers and non-smokers about their rights and responsibilities. Having a tobacco-free city will raise Hong Kong’s status internationally about our health values and commitment.

Dr Peter Wong Sze-chai, Kowloon

Thailand urged to hasten tax reforms on imported cigarettes

Jun 17th, 2012
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http://www.bworldonline.com/content.php?section=Economy&title=Thailand-urged-to-hasten-tax-reforms-on-imported-cigarettes&id=51879

THE TRADE Department on Thursday urged Thailand to hasten reforms on its tax policies covering Philippine-made cigarettes, noting that the May 15 deadline for changes recommended by the World Trade Organization had already lapsed.

Second-hand smoke tied to health effects

Jun 17th, 2012
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http://www.health24.com/news/Smoking/1-1250,75083.asp

People regularly exposed to second-hand smoke may have increased risks of dying from various causes, a long-term study from China suggests.

Researchers found that compared with adults who lived and worked in smoke-free environs, those exposed to second-hand smoke were more likely to die of heart disease or lung cancer over 17 years.

And they were also more likely to die of stroke or the lung disease emphysema – two diseases that have had relatively weaker links to second-hand smoke.

The findings, which appear in the medical journal Chest, cannot definitively prove that second-hand smoke is the culprit. But the researchers were able to account for some other key factors, like a person’s age, education, job, and blood pressure and cholesterol levels.

Link between smoke and mortality remain

And the links between second-hand smoke and mortality remained, say the researchers, led by Dr Yao He of Chinese PLA General Hospital in Beijing.

“This is exactly the type of study design you want to see,” said Joanna Cohen, director of the Institute for Global Tobacco Control at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.

Cohen, who was not involved in the research, pointed out that the study followed people over many years, and it found evidence of a “dose-response” relationship – meaning people’s risks climbed as their second-hand smoke exposure increased.

Those things are considered key in building the case for a cause-and-effect relationship.

Smoke boosts COPD

A number of studies have found that non-smokers who regularly breathe in other people’s tobacco smoke have an increased risk of developing heart disease or certain cancers, including lung tumours.

In the US, the most recent Surgeon General’s report said there was “suggestive” evidence that second-hand smoke might boost people’s risk of stroke and emphysema, also known as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or COPD.

But the evidence was considered insufficient to say there was a “causal relationship,” Cohen noted.

“This type of study,” she said, “is important for adding to evidence of a causal relationship.”

Cohen also said it was “huge” that the information was coming from China. “It’s the country with the most number of smokers,” she pointed out. And, she said, it is trailing other nations in anti-smoking education and tobacco control.

Lung cancer deaths higher

The current findings are based on 910 adults who were followed over almost two decades.

At the start, 44% said they lived with a smoker, while 53% said they inhaled second-hand smoke at work.

Over the following years, 249 study participants died. And the risks of death from heart disease, stroke, lung cancer and emphysema were all two to three times higher among people exposed to second-hand smoke.

Men die of stroke

Among men, for example, 11% of the 271 men exposed to second-hand smoke died of stroke. That compared with 6.5% of the 168 men who lived and worked in smoke-free surroundings.

The numbers of people who died of each specific cause were fairly small, which is a limitation.

“When numbers get small,” Cohen said, “it makes it more difficult to get a precise estimate” of risks.

But she said the results do support evidence that second-hand smoke may boost the risks of not only heart disease and certain cancers, but stroke and emphysema as well.

(Amy Norton, Reuters Health, June 2012)

Read more:

How passive smoking hurts

Second hand smoke affects the brain

Rio Ferdinand criticised over advert linked to Asian tobacco firm

Jun 17th, 2012
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Manchester United footballer was unaware of company’s profits from cigarettes when he starred in adverts

Description: Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand

Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand meets his fans in Jakarta, Indonesia. Photograph: Achmad Ibrahim/AP

Footballer Rio Ferdinand, of Manchester United and England, is at the centre of a row over tobacco advertising after anti-smoking charities accused him of promoting a company that owns one of Asia’s biggest cigarette brands.

Ferdinand, an active supporter of the global children’s charity Unicef, appears in billboard advertisements and YouTube videoclips streamed in Indonesia that promoteGudang Garam International’s internet-based sports channel, Intersport, which broadcasts Premier League football matches and helps to raise the profile of English football in Asia.

GGI is one of Indonesia’s largest tobacco companies and its cigarettes, which are flavoured with spices such as cloves and cinnamon, are particularly popular with children.

A spokesman for the United player insisted that the footballer, a fervent anti-smoker, was not advertising tobacco but the sports channel. It appears that Ferdinand, who is only one of many international football stars to appear in the GGI ads, had been unaware that GGI, a conglomerate, makes a large amount of its profits from tobacco or that his image would be used on billboards which carry the cigarette brand logo. The spokesman said Ferdinand was consulting lawyers about the use of his image in the campaign.

Deborah Arnott, chief executive of the anti-smoking group Ash, said such sponsorship deals were banned in the UK because of concerns that they promoted cigarettes to young people. She called on Ferdinand to dissociate himself from GGI, particularly given his relationship with Unicef.

“Rio talks a good talk about ‘putting children first’ when he tweets for Unicef, but he has to put his money where his mouth is,” Arnott said. “Well over a third of 15-year-old boys in Indonesia smoke and smoking rates among the young have increased sixfold since 1995. Rio is estimated to be worth £40m and to earn more than £100,000 a week; does he really need to do this? I hope now he realises what he’s done he’ll apologise.”

The row has threatened to embroil Ferdinand’s club. Indonesia’s National Commission for Child Protection has written to United’s manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, urging him “to have this unhealthy promotion removed immediately”.

In the YouTube videos, Ferdinand, wearing a red football kit similar to that of United and displaying the GGI corporate badge, describes how “football is everything and everything about football is only on Gudang Garam Intersport”. The final scene cuts to the Gudang Guram Intersport logo, which is then followed by the GudamGarang International logo and a tobacco health warning.

Tobacco firms worldwide are keen to cultivate the next generation of smokers, but their efforts are hampered by blanket advertising bans in Europe. However, no such laws apply in Indonesia, where GGI also operates a website promoting music which anti-smoking groups claim is another attempt to reach young people.

“I don’t believe that it is a coincidence that Gudang Garam chose a Manchester United player to promote their brand sponsorship of Indonesian football, as the iconic Manchester United kit so closely resembles their own cigarette brand colours,” said Andrea Crossfield, the director of Tobacco Free Futures, which is leading the UK campaign for cigarettes to be sold in plain packaging.

“The tobacco industry thrives on marketing to young people through associating their brand with aspirational figures. The World Health Organisation predicts smoking will kill one billion people this century; this is an industry which uses manipulative marketing to hook kids worldwide into a lethal habit that kills one in two of every lifelong smoker – the vast majority of whom start smoking before the age of 18.”

Ian Gray, the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health’s principal policy officer, said role models had a part to play in ensuring children were not encouraged to smoke. “We must be concerned about the prevalence of smoking internationally, particularly in the developing world, where it is a major killer,” Gray toldEnvironmental Health News. “It is particularly galling to see a prominent UK celebrity recognised by young football supporters the world over participating in such a distasteful and ill-advised campaign.”

A spokeswoman for United said: “The contractual agreement between Rio and Gudang Garam Intersports runs to 31 October 2012, at which time all forms of advertising will cease. Both Manchester United and Rio Ferdinand are sorry for this misunderstanding and will endeavour to ensure that it is not repeated in the future.”

News

Jun 17th, 2012
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Smoking may increase risk of death in older patients

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News-Medical.net – 4 days ago

An analysis of available medical literature suggests smoking was linked to increased mortality in older patients and that smoking cessation was…

Quitting smoking at the age of 60 or older could prolong your life …‎ Daily Mail

Expert: Organized tobacco’s days are numbered

Jun 15th, 2012
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http://www.jpost.com/LandedPages/PrintArticle.aspx?id=273787

By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH
14/06/2012
Cigarette merchants will be tried for crimes against humanity, says head of Israeli smoking prevention group.
It is inevitable that “the days of organized tobacco around the world are numbered” as exemplified by the declaration of the government of New Zealand, which will be smoke free by 2025 along with a growing number of other countries.”

This was the surprising and optimistic prediction on Wednesday of long-time smoking-prevention lawyer Amos Hausner, the head of the Israel Council for the Prevention of Smoking.

Hausner, the son of Gideon Hausner – Israel’s late attorney-general and prosecutor of Nazi murderer Adolf Eichmann – echoed the famous characterization of the Nazis by describing tobacco sales as the “the banality of evil.”

This phrase was coined by Jewish political philosopher Hannah Arendt in her 1963 work Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil.

Her thesis was that the great evils in history generally, and the Holocaust in particular, were not executed by fanatics or sociopaths – but by ordinary people who accepted their state’s norms and therefore regarded their actions as normal.

Hausner said in Tel Aviv on Wednesday that tobacco companies’ actions also exemplify this because they know their products will kill half of their users, but they continue to make them even deadlier and market them.

“Unlike the Nazis, who were motivated by hate, anti-Semitism and vicious racism, the tobacco companies are motivated by greed,” the jurist said.

Hausner was one of the speakers at the first Israeli Conference on Tobacco or Health, which was held at Tel Aviv University and attended by over 150 people.

As for the “numbered days of organized tobacco,” Hausner said that public opinion surveys in New Zealand show that two-thirds of the public – including many smokers – advocate a “completely tobacco-free country.” Other countries will follow, he said, adding that he hoped Israel would eventually be among them.

A 2011 book with the title comparing tobacco to “a holocaust” called for its abolition, a term that was used in mid-19th century America, when slavery was legal, regarded as economically beneficial and widely supported in the South. But just a few years later, slavery was completely abolished – as if it never happened. The same, said Hausner to much applause, can happen with smoking.

“Today, we are in the midst of an irreversible process that will lead to the termination of organized tobacco,” he said.

“The environment will be completely tobacco-free. This is what people all over the world want.”

“Only last year, a book was published that asked: ‘What will happen if all Americans stopped smoking?’ Many people think this already. The public mind is already set for this process,” Hausner declared.

He added that last month, a small shareholder in a US tobacco conglomerate said when the CEO was about to retire: “Don’t you think that you will be subject to indictments on the basis of your crimes against humanity? Tobacco is killing 5.7 million people every year around the world.”

Hausner commented that instead of just suing tobacco companies for damages – such as the $245 billion judgement against organized tobacco in 1998, which ordered the companies to compensate the 50 US states for the costs of treating tobacco-related diseases – the legal action will focus against “crimes against humanity, of homicide, even the genocide of people by smoking their products.” Thus he predicted that such lawsuits will replace settlements of compensation for financial loses.

Health Ministry director-general Prof. Ronni Gamzu said that despite the slow decline in adult smoking rates in Israel to a little over 20 percent, the percentage of those who smoke must drop to 10% or less.

The country cannot afford to spend huge sums to treat patients harmed by tobacco, he said, and the ministry will take increasingly strict measures to raise tobacco taxes, restrict places where smoking is allowed and limit advertising of tobacco products.

However, Gamzu erred when he declared that “there is not a single newspaper in Israel that does not accept tobacco advertising,” even though he heard from The Jerusalem Post at a No Smoking Day press conference a few weeks ago that it has not run tobacco advertising for many years. The English-language Post also does not use photos of celebrities, models and others who smoke or hold cigarettes. Editor-in-chief Steve Linde confirmed this no-tobacco advertising policy, which the paper’s readers demand.

Gamzu later apologized for his comment that all Israeli newspapers advertise tobacco.

He added that he indeed heard that the Post has followed this policy for many years but “forgot.”

However, newspapers read by the haredi community – including Deputy Health Minister Ya’acov Litzman – regularly run tobacco advertising, with one ad employing havdala candles to remind readers to light up their cigarettes when Shabbat ends.

Prof. Gregory Connolly, a veteran researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health, said at the conference that tobacco killed 100 million people globally in the last century, with about five million people now dying from tobacco-related causes annually.

The figure will rise to eight million by 2030 until serious action is taken, he cautioned. “It could cost a billion lives in the 21st century,” Connolly said.

He noted that in the last two decades, while local companies like Dubek historically controlled tobacco production and sales in Israel, multinational companies such as Philip Morris have taken over the majority of the industry here, reaping the profits and leaving behind huge damage to the public health at the cost of billions of shekels a year.

Connolly noted that the tobacco industry conducts much research to make cigarettes and other products more addictive to children and adults, adding “pellets of menthol” that give the false impression that they are “lighter and easier to smoke,” as well as selling nicotine-packed, short cigarettes that enable employees to fully consume them before their smoking breaks end.

Statement Regarding Second Release of Global Adult Tobacco Survey Results by Thailand

Jun 15th, 2012
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Office on Smoking and Health is pleased to share with you the news below.

Statement from CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health

Statement Regarding Second Release of Global Adult Tobacco Survey Results by Thailand

On May 28, 2012, Thailand released its Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) results. In Thailand, GATS was first conducted in 2009 and repeated in 2011.  Many countries conduct surveys to monitor adult tobacco use, but until recently, no one standard global survey for adults has consistently tracked tobacco use, exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke, and tobacco control measures. A factsheet summarizing results from the 2011 Thailand GATS and a second factsheet comparing 2009 and 2011 results can be found here.

Highlights from the 2011Thailand GATS include:

  • ·        Overall tobacco use was essentially unchanged from 27.2% in 2009 to 26.9% (46.6% of men and 2.6% of women) in 2011.
  • ·        Quit attempts in the past 12 months declined from 49.8% in 2009 to 36.7% in 2011 among current smokers.
  • ·        The proportion of adults who noticed cigarette advertising in stores increased from 6.7% in 2009 to 18.2% in 2011.
  • ·        Among men, 30.1% currently smoked manufactured cigarettes and 28.1% currently smoked hand-rolled cigarettes in 2011.
  • ·        Among current smokers of manufactured cigarettes, 10.0% purchased the new inexpensive brands that were introduced in the market by the Thailand Tobacco Monopoly (TTM) following the 2009 tobacco tax increase.

Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of premature disease and death in the world and kills up to half of those who use it. In the 20th century, the tobacco epidemic killed 100 million people worldwide; during the 21st century, it is estimated that it could kill one billion. Containing this epidemic is one of the most important public health priorities of our time.

To effectively combat the tobacco epidemic, CDC and the World Health Organization (WHO) recommend MPOWER, a set of six proven strategies: monitoring tobacco use and prevention policies; protecting people from tobacco smoke; offering help to quit tobacco use; warning about the dangers of tobacco; enforcing bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship; and raising taxes on tobacco. Monitoring the tobacco epidemic is a key step in managing it. CDC oversees GATS, which is designed to produce national and sub-national estimates on tobacco use, exposure to secondhand smoke, and quit attempts among adults. GATS also indirectly measures the impact of tobacco control and prevention initiatives.

Thailand is the first country to repeat the survey.  In 2011-2012, other countries participating in the second phase of GATS include: Argentina, Indonesia, Malaysia, Panama, Qatar and Romania. From 2008-2010, fourteen countries participated in the first phase of GATS: Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Mexico, Philippines, Poland, Russian Federation, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, Uruguay and Vietnam. As with the other participating countries, results from GATS will assist Thailand in translating data into action through improved policies and programs. GATS is a nationally representative household survey of all non-institutionalized men and women aged 15 years and older using a standard and consistent protocol. Survey data are collected electronically during in-person interviews.

In Thailand, GATS was implemented by the Department of Disease Control, Ministry of Public Health, National Statistical Office and Mahidol University. The survey had the support of the Southeast Asian Regional Office of the World Health Organization and the country office.

Funding for GATS is provided by the Bloomberg Philanthropies as part of the Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use (partners include the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, CDC, CDC Foundation, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, WHO, and the World Lung Foundation). Technical assistance is provided by CDC, WHO, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and RTI International. Program support is provided by the CDC Foundation.

tobacco news

Jun 15th, 2012
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1.

Trade pact could weaken Australia’s tobacco fight

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ABC Online – 1 day ago

There are concerns a new trans-Pacific trade agreement could weaken Australia’s defences against challenges to its planned tobacco …

Australia to be hit with 3rd WTO suit – diplomats‎ Reuters UK
Australia to be hit with third WTO suit: diplomats‎ Updated News
all 14 news articles »

Updated News

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Secondhand smoke tied to more health effects: study

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Reuters AlertNet – 15 hours ago

A number of studies have found that non-smokers who regularly breathe in other people’s tobacco smoke have an increased risk of developing …

Secondhand smoke tied to more health effects‎ Fox News
all 33 news articles »

Updated News

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U.S. surgeon general joins effort to reduce smoking in youths

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New York Daily News – 3 hours ago

More than 1200 people die nationwide every day from tobacco use, Benjamin said. Benjamin, who lost her mother to lung cancer due to …

Students to participate in Tobacco Town Hall‎ Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
US Surgeon General brings nonsmoking message to Seattle‎Bizjournals.com
US Surgeon General In Seattle To Lead Town Hall‎ KUOW NPR
KUCB– Q13 FOX
all 10 news articles »

The Seattle Times

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Dusit Thani employees butt out for No Tobacco Day

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Pattaya Mail – 12 hours ago

The Dusit Thani Hotel marked World No Tobacco Day when General Manager Chatchawal Supachayanont and hotel anti-smoking campaign

Why is US proposing TPPA tobacco exception?

Jun 15th, 2012
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http://www.voxy.co.nz/politics/why-us-proposing-tppa-tobacco-exception/5/126474

Friday, 15 June, 2012 – 15:53

“US plans to table a specific exception of tobacco contradict the government’s reassurances that a Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement would not restrict New Zealand’s right to introduce plain packaging or other tobacco control laws”, according to University of Auckland Law Professor Jane Kelsey.

“If the existing treaties are fine, why is the US introducing an exception?”.

Both sides of the tobacco debate have been lobbying intensively throughout the TPPA negotiations, especially in the United States.

The Obama government has been under intense pressure from public health advocates since a recent from the World Trade Organization struck down America’s ban on importing clove flavoured cigarettes from Indonesia.

The US had planned to table an exception specifically targeted at tobacco at the last round of negotiations in Dallas. It backed off after last minute interventions by Big Tobacco and politicians from the tobacco states. The US is now expected to table the compromise proposal before or at the next round that begins in San Diego on 2 July.

In stark contrast to the secrecy that surrounds the negotiations the US trade negotiations have been consulting extensively with a range of public health and industry groups, not just cleared advisers whom the US allows to see the text. While the actual wording has not been released, the content effectively has been.

Despite early excitement, it is clear that the US is not proposing a ‘carveout’ of tobacco from the TPP. This is a new exception, with familiar provisos that tobacco companies will be able to contest. Ironically, it could create even more uncertainty.

“In true US style, this exception only addresses issues of concern to the US. It does not apply to the investment chapter, so the special protections that Philip Morris is relying on in its investment disputes against Australia and Uruguay are not affected. Nor is their right to sue the government directly for allegedly breaching those rules”. , said Professor Kelsey.

“I understand that Australia and New Zealand are opposing the US measure – not because it is inadequate but because they cannot afford to concede that there are problems with the rules they has negotiated previously and are trying to defend now”, according to Professor Kelsey.

“The situation is a shambles. The only way to exclude tobacco from the TPP is a provision that reads: ‘Nothing in this Agreement applies to any measures that relate to tobacco’. Will our government do that? No.”

Teen pushed Brookline bylaw raising tobacco-buying age

Jun 15th, 2012
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http://bostonglobe.com/metro/2012/06/15/teen-pushed-brookline-bylaw-raising-tobacco-buying-age/6NKi6X9ZpgD1ZVruNKapzO/story.html

Essdras M Suarez/Globe Staff

Eric Dumas learned the antismoking lesson at an early age.

SAVE

BROOKLINE – When Eric Dumas was 4, he asked his father if a man standing nearby was going to die. Taken aback, his father, Rob, inquired why his son would ask such a question. His son’s response: “That person is smoking.’’

“I thought, ‘Oh my God, maybe I have gone too far,’ ’’ Rob said, referring to the “smoking-is-bad message’’ he engrained in his son as a toddler. “But I think I got the message through.’’

The message stuck. Dumas, now 18 and a recent graduate of Brookline High School, persuaded Brookline’s Town Meeting to raise the legal age for buying tobacco products from 18 to 19. The town bylaw change, approved by a 169-1 vote May 25, now needs approval by the state attorney general before the 31 retailers that carry tobacco products in Brookline must stop selling them to 18-year-olds.

Dumas and Brookline High School administrators say they hope increasing the tobacco buyer age will cut down on the number of students who smoke outside while chatting on cement benches across from the school’s main doors.

Sitting in a school hallway after graduation rehearsal last week, Dumas said the outdoor smoking scene was the first thing he noticed when he arrived at Brookline High. Four years later, he says smoking isn’t actually a huge problem at the school – a 2011 survey found 11 percent of the school’s 2,000 students had smoked in the past 30 days. Yet Dumas believes he can help his peers kick the habit.

‘It isn’t something that we should just let grow.’

Eric Dumas On smoking

“It isn’t something that we should just let grow,’’ he said. “It is something you can put a lid on and stop.’’

Attempts to discourage teen smoking are not limited to Brookline.

Needham was the first town in Massachusetts to raise the tobacco buyer age to 19 in 2001. The town then upped the age to 20 in 2002 and 21 in 2003. Dumas hopes Brookline High students will use that model next year as an example and campaign to raise Brookline’s tobacco buyer age to 20.

In early May, Belmont raised its tobacco buyer age to 19 after the Board of Health heard about Dumas’s efforts. Arlington and Watertown officials are also thinking about implementing a similar policy.

Dumas – who played on the football, basketball, and baseball teams – first got involved with antismoking efforts in his sophomore year, when he joined the school’s Peer Leadership program, a class in which 60 students discuss how to discourage smoking and drinking. The class met three times a week at 7:20 a.m. –50 minutes before school starts.

“The fact that these kids are getting up at an ungodly hour shows their commitment,’’ says Hope Schroy, a Peer Leadership adviser.

With Schroy’s help, the students successfully lobbied school administrators to restrict student smokers to one corner of the public property across the street. They also proposed a town article that prohibits Brookline pharmacies from selling tobacco products. As a result, the CVS near the school now carries smoking cessation products instead of cigarettes.

Even town visitors have noticed the group’s efforts, Dumas said. “My friend was telling me the other day he went to CVS, and some guy from Virginia was in front of him and was outraged that he couldn’t buy cigarettes,’’ he said.

In March, the Peer Leaders tackled a new proposal to raise Brookline’s tobacco buyer age to 19, up from the age 18 requirement in state law.The Peer Leaders needed an 18-year-old registered voter to sponsor the petition, and Dumas volunteered.

Until then, smoking had not been a big issue in the Dumas family. No one in the house smokes, and no family members have died from smoking-related illnesses.

When Eric came downstairs one night with a tie on, it caught his father off guard.

“He’s saying, ‘I’ve got to go out tonight,’ and I ask, ‘Where are you going?’ ‘I’m going to Town Meeting.’ I’m like, ‘You go!’ ’’ About 10 Peer Leaders attended the meeting with Dumas.

Alan Balsam, director of Brookline’s Public Health and Human Services, who helped Dumas craft the bylaw, said Dumas’s role as a star player helped draw attention to the tobacco policy. “I think when Eric and his friends speak it resonates with his peers and the community at large,’’ Balsam said.

But not all Brookline students were pleased.

Gabriella Zutrau, 18, said the proposed change won’t stop teens from smoking because seniors will go to Allston to buy cigarettes and give them to underclassmen. “It will look good for the town,’’ she said. “But that’s all it will do.’’

Will Cooper, 16, said he smokes about six or seven cigarettes a week and wasn’t pleased with Dumas’s efforts. He said some of his friends under age 18 are upset about the age increase because they are “hooked on cigarettes and don’t want to wait that extra year.’’

Still, Dumas said there has been no large public outcry. After the article passed at the Town Meeting, he said, he saw only one Facebook post by a student against the proposal.

Tharindu Weeresinghe, a Peer Leader who has been friends with Dumas since fourth grade, worked closely with Dumas on the article. Weeresinghe praised Dumas, who is known among students for his athletic success, for taking on the smoking issue. “Even his success in sports hasn’t changed the person he is. He’s always willing to give a helping hand,’’ Weeresinghe said.

Next fall, Dumas will attend Wheaton College in Norton, where he plans to pitch for the baseball team and study international relations. He envisions a career in law enforcement; his dream job is to work for the FBI.

Joe Campagna, the Brookline High varsity baseball coach, who has coached Dumas since age 7, did not know about his pitcher’s tobacco policy work but said it was not a surprise.

“He’s got a very endearing personality,’’ he said. “Kids respect him on the team.’’

Campagna said he had to drop one of his players this year because the student was caught in violation of smoking.

“I see plenty of kids with cigarettes in their mouth,’’ he said. “It’s pretty disturbing.’’

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