Tobacco News

A Strathcona County program created to help discourage underage smoking is being picked up by other municipalities in an attempt to curb teen tobacco use.

Back in April 2011, Strathcona County RCMP introduced the Option Four program — a program that allows teens who received a fine for underage smoking to take a three-hour information session that focuses on the dangers of smoking, rather than paying the $115 fine associated with the ticket.
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Teens struggling with smoking addictions have a new gizmo guide to help them get rid of that addiction.

Smokefree has launched its first text-only support program, which delivers a series of automated text messages directly to the smoker’s mobile phone over a period of up to 12 weeks, designed to help them kick the butt.
“Quit programs are often designed for adults, and teens are not little adults – they think and talk differently, and have different smoking patterns,” says teen smoking expert Dr. Yvonne Hunt of the National Institutes of Health. Ream more »

A SCHOOL in the district is helping its pupils to quit smoking by giving out advice and stop-smoking aids that include nicotine patches.

Robert Smyth Academy in Burnmill Road is offering the sessions and aids to all pupils at its school regardless of their age.

The legal age for buying cigarettes is 18.
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Teens and middle school children are “smoking” and snorting crushed up Smarties candy. Many teens are uploading their Smartie snorting and smoking adventures on You Tube and surprisingly, many of the uploaded videos are filmed while students are in class.

When “smoking Smarties,” the kids aren’t actually lighting a match to the candy. Instead, they crush it into a fine powder in its wrapper, draw it into their mouths and then blow it out in a cloud of dust. Some more advanced Smarties “smokers” are even learning to blow “smoke rings” with the candy.
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More Kern County retailers sold cigarettes to minors during an annual health department survey in 2011 than in 2010.

Sixty-nine stores, or 13.3 percent of the retailers surveyed, sold tobacco to undercover minors, up from 10 percent of stores surveyed in 2010, according to the 2011 Kern Youth Tobacco Purchase Survey. High school volunteers, ages 16 and 17, tried to buy cigarettes from 520 tobacco retailers across Kern County.
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Despite regulations and health education, tobacco companies continue to thrive. Tobacco products are easily available to kids. According to the CDC, each day in the United States, approximately 3,450 young people between 12 and 17 years of age smoke their first cigarette, and an estimated 850 youth become daily cigarette smokers.
Through the efforts of our Chippewa County communities, sales to minors in 2002 were at 44 percent and have since dropped to an impressive 1 percent in 2011. A comprehensive community approach to the prevention of illegal tobacco sales to minors has proven to be effective over the past 10 years. Ream more »

Fewer North Dakota teenagers are smoking than did two years ago.
The Youth Risk Behavior Survey, conducted every other year by the Department of Public Instruction, found that 19.4 percent of students in the state smoke compared with 22.4 percent of teenagers in 2009. The 2011 survey was administered in the spring and the findings were published last month.
“This is the first time we’ve seen youth rates dip below 20 percent,” said Jeanne Prom, executive director of the North Dakota Center for Tobacco Prevention and Control Policy. Ream more »

While the majority of students drink once they get to college, whether it’s explicitly legal or not, many also try smoking around the same time.

For many people, it’s a Right of Passage into the college scene. Whether it’s bumming a menthol off a stranger at a party or going with a group of friends to a hookah lounge, smoking is a part of college life.

According to the American Lung Association, 85 percent of people who smoke regularly began smoking by the age of 21, the majority of those were college students. Ream more »

Maine is one of the top states in terms of spending on tobacco prevention and cessation programs, a new report finds, yet more kids are picking up the habit.

Maine is spending $9.4 million in fiscal year 2012 on its anti-tobacco programs, according to a report released Tuesday by a coalition of public health groups. That’s barely half the $18.5 million recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and $500,000 shy of what the state spent in the last fiscal year. Still, Maine ranks sixth in the country in anti-tobacco spending. Ream more »

Sir, The plain truth is that while Australian health minister Nicola Roxon is entitled to her own opinion on the best way to reduce smoking, she is not entitled to her own evidence (“Tobacco groups challenge Australia’s new law”, November 22).
The actual evidence in support of the plain packaging of cigarettes is embarrassingly thin. Most studies show that plain packaging will have no statistically significant effect on youth smoking. Ream more »