Careless disposal of smoking materials blamed for $300,000 fire

A fire that started on a backyard shed and fence and wound up causing $300,000 in damage Thursday afternoon is being blamed on careless disposal of smoking materials.
Fire crews were called at 1 p.m. to a fire in the 600 block of Taylor Street East to find the flames had spread to two adjacent homes, resulting in firefighters having to call for reinforcements from four additional fire stations, Saskatoon Fire and Protective Services said in a news release.
The fire was contained and brought under control in 25 minutes but both homes sustained substantial damage.
No one was injured in the incident.

U.S. Funds New Tobacco Regulation Research Centers

A new program creating 14 first-of-a-kind research centers for tobacco regulation in the United States was announced by the federal government on Thursday.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. National Institutes of Health awarded a total of up to $53 million to the 14 centers for the first year, with a potential sum of more than $273 million over the next five years.
Despite decades of work to reduce tobacco use, smoking continues to be the leading cause of preventable death and disease in the United States. The new Tobacco Centers of Regulatory Science will conduct research to help in the development and evaluation of tobacco product regulations meant to protect public health.
Researchers will focus on seven specific areas: diversity of tobacco products, reducing addiction, reducing toxicity and carcinogenicity, harmful health consequences, communications, marketing of tobacco products, and economics and policies.
The program will be coordinated by the NIH's Office of Disease Prevention and administered by three NIH institutes: the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
The program will "bring science-based regulation to the manufacturing, marketing and distribution of tobacco products," FDA commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg said in an FDA news release.
The agency is also establishing science and research programs designed to increase understanding of the risks associated with tobacco use.
"While we've made tremendous strides in reducing the use of tobacco products in the U.S., smoking still accounts for one in five deaths each year, which is far too many," NIH director Dr. Francis Collins said in the news release.

Staying Smoke-Free

Smoking cessation treatment program effective and lowered rates of psychiatric readmission

(dailyRx News) Low-cost treatment and support programs can help people quit smoking. Such programs may even help psychiatric patients quit long-term and avoid returning to the hospital.

A recent clinical trial tested a smoking cessation treatment program on a group of patients in an in-patient psychiatric hospital.
The results of this trial showed that patients in the treatment program were more likely to quit smoking for up to 18 months after discharge and less likely to return to the hospital for psychiatric illness compared to patients who were not in the treatment program.
In this clinical trial led by Judith Prochaska, PhD, MPH, an associate professor of medicine at Stanford University, researchers investigated a smoking cessation treatment program offered to psychiatric patients during their hospitalization.

Parents, Teach Your Children About Smoking

Teens more likely to smoke if their parents smoke now or in past

(dailyRx News) "Do as I say, not as I do," may be an attractive saying for parents, but it may not work very well. When it comes to smoking in particular, children often follow their parents' examples.
A recent long-term study found that children were much more likely to smoke if their parents smoked — even if their parents had quit before having kids.

Health Advocates in Bali Opposed to World Tobacco Asia Conference Set for Bali

The Jakarta Post reports that an anti-smoking group – The Bali Tobacco Control Initiative is urging the government to cancel the World Tobacco Asia (WTA) conference planned in Bali in 2014.

The anti-smoking Initiative is comprised of members from Bali’s Udayana University’s Public Health Department.

Coordinator of the Bali Tobacco Control Initiative, Made Kerta Duana, said: “The conference in Bali is against our commitment to encourage people to live healthily without cigarettes. We are urging the government to ban the conference from being held in Bali.”

WTA is held annually at different locations around the world within the international tobacco industry.

Report: Fewer Alaskans are smoking

Fewer Alaskans are smoking these days. That’s the word from the recently released update on tobacco use in Alaska.
The annual “Alaska Tobacco Facts” update is produced by the Tobacco Prevention and Control Program, which is part of the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services. The report introduction says the document is designed to be a “brief, annual update of key indicators from state data sources” and that it can be used to educate Alaskans “about the toll that tobacco continues to take on the health and well-being of our citizens.”

Statistics cited in the report are measured from the year of 1996, before two key events: the tobacco tax increase in 1997 and Alaska’s decision to join in the national multi-state Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement in 1998.
Here are some of the key findings, taken from the report’s summary page:
• Per adult cigarette consumption declined 55 percent from state fiscal year 1996 to fiscal year 2011; 433 million fewer cigarettes were sold in 2011 compared to 1996.
• In 2011, tobacco use cost Alaska $327 million in direct medical expenditures and an additional $236 million in lost productivity because of tobacco-related deaths.

Smoking ban needs clarification

You have to feel even a little sorry for smokers these days. Not only do they have to be reminded that 'SMOKING KILLS' each time they reach for a pack, but they've also been, for a while now, a preferred beating stick of the tax man.

Taxing cigarettes is a largely guilt-free way of raising revenue. They shouldn't be smoking anyway, the thinking is. So year after year, smokers have been hit with state-imposed increases. With all that pressure, no wonder they smoke cheapest Dunhill cigarettes.

This new ban on smoking in public places will only add to the indignity of being a smoker in 2013. For years, they've been prevented from lighting up on airplanes, even though, given news reports of drunken pilots, terrorist plots, and faulty landing gear, a cigarette might have done the nerves a world of good. They've had to contend with strict no-smoking rules in all sorts of places when they travel to the US and even parts of one-time smoker-friendly Europe.

Yes, the walls have been closing in. Now, even in good old Jamrock, the land of anything goes, smokers are faced with the reality that the only really safe place to smoke is at home. Who wants to smoke at home? That's like drinking at home. I'm not a smoker, never been, but I imagine that there's a social aspect to smoking that can't be fulfilled if you're puffing on a cig, alone, between an ironing board and a garden hose. It just doesn't work.

BAN WELCOMED

Personally, I welcome the ban. Growing up, I never had a problem inhaling second-hand smoke. In fact, I rather liked the scent of a burning cigarette. (As an aside, this might explain why I'm still mystified by mathematical equations made up of three or more Xs and Ys). But as the anti-smoking campaigns started growing and I began to realise the ill effects the smoke could cause, I started avoiding second-hand smoke whenever possible.

If nothing else, this ban will help eliminate some awkward conversations I've had to have with smokers. I was in a cramped restaurant once when a clearly agitated woman next to me retrieved from the confines of her ample bosom a pack of cigarettes and a lighter ironically emblazoned with a picture of the Pope. Here we go, I thought. I'll have to move. To my surprise though, the woman turned to me and said, "Does the smoke bother you?" Pleased by her thoughtful consideration, I wanted to find a nice way to say yes, it does bother me. "Well, I do kind of have a ..."

Cigarette smoking advertising online

A history of tobacco as well as cigarette advertising is one of the most interesting and educational for marketers, makers,
PR-specialists and doctors. That evidently shows precisely how trends and views change as the time passes. The first cigarette advertising
appeared with the very first cigarette package. Inside 1884, when people considered using tobacco to be rather unique habit and the simply smoking