Tobacco News

THERE are plenty reasons to give up smoking – from the impact on your health to the sheer cost – and of course that stale smell on your clothes.
But even if that’s not enough, many do so for their kids’ sake.
Doctors recently called for people to be banned from lighting up in cars because of the dangers of passive smoking to their passengers – especially children.
The British Medical Association called for the extension of the ban on smoking in public places after it was found toxins in a car can be 23 times greater than in a smoky bar. Ream more »

Randy Ellison has been smoking cigarettes on and off since he was 14. He’s tried to kick the habit multiple times, but had nearly given up on trying to quit.
But after being hospitalized for 19 days due to congested heart failure, the 51-year-old Meriden resident decided that it’s time to quit smoking.
“They said that if I didn’t quit, I’d die,” he said.
Doctors gave Ellison a prescription for the nicotine patch, but he neglected to buy it after he saw the price of one box. Ream more »

The recent article “Tennesseans suffer fewer heart ills” noted the decrease in heart disease mortality over the past four years. While this is good news, it also serves as a reminder still that we have work to do on major health issues in our state.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that the mortality rate for heart disease in Tennessee dropped 16 percent from 2006 to 2010 — that’s the good news. However, our heart disease rate of 6.9 percent for adults is the ninth-highest in the U.S.
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Those highly graphic images the government hoped to use as warning labels on cigarette packages will not appear – at least not anytime soon.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon has granted a stay for tobacco companies, who have sued to block the use of the labels, arguing they violate the companies’ First Amendment rights. Leon granted the stay, saying he believes the tobacco companies will win in their suit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
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Tobacco users in Kentucky aren’t being urged to quit smoking.

Instead, The James Graham Brown Cancer Center and the University of Louisville, with their “Switch and Quit” campaign, are suggesting smokers simply switch to smoke-free tobacco.

“Switch and Quit” is using print, radio, billboard and other advertising methods “to urge smokers to swap their cigarettes for smokeless tobacco and other products that do not deliver nicotine by smoke,” AP reports.
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We’ve known a long time that smoking causes lung cancer. Now researchers are a step closer to understanding how. How quickly the damage starts may surprise you.

Thinking about lighting up for the first time? Consider this new finding from a study on how cigarettes cause lung cancer. “We found that the first time that you smoke, that very first puff, in our model, it was one one-hundreth of a cigarette, it was a tiny amount, was added to millions of cells and we found that just after one puff that you lose expression of this one protein. And this protein is called fancd2,” said cancer biologist Dr. Laura Hays. Ream more »

An increased risk of neurobehavioral disorders among children should be added to the list of the adverse effects of secondhand smoke, according to the results of a nationwide telephone survey.

For U.S. children exposed to secondhand smoke at home, the weighted prevalence of learning disabilities was 8.2% (95% CI 7.5 to 8.8), according to Hillel R. Alpert, ScM, of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, and colleagues.
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I have been a smoker for 40 years. I don’t want to be, but I am. Still. I have tried to quit more times than I’d like to admit. I have come to the realization that I probably won’t until cigarettes are not available in almost every store on almost every street corner. They’re just too available.

I see that public health officials and some local governments, in all their wisdom, may consider banning the new electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) used by adults in public places. The reason? Ream more »

Children and adolescents in the United States exposed to secondhand smoke (SHS) are at risk of developing major depressive disorder (MDD), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and conduct disorder, new research suggests.
In a national survey study of more than 2000 nonsmokers between the ages of 8 and 15 years, investigators found that serum cotinine levels, signifying SHS exposure, were positively associated with symptoms of all these disorders — and were especially correlated for boys. Ream more »

Many smokers in western nations still incorrectly believe that certain types of cigarettes, such as “mild” and “low tar” brands, are less of a health risk than others, a new study shows.

Researchers surveyed more than 8,000 smokers in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, and found that about one-fifth of them wrongly believed that “some cigarettes could be less harmful than others.”
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