Alberta Health advocates want flavored tobacco products banned

"Sugar-coating" of tobacco products to make them more appealing to young people is unacceptable, according to health organizations in the province, who say they hope that the Alberta government will introduce legislation in the spring, which bans the sale of flavored tobacco products.

Members of the Campaign for Smoke-Free Alberta say flavored cigarillos, menthol cigarettes, chewing tobacco, and tobacco in water pipes are favored by nearly two-thirds of smokers and 18. "You take very toxic, very exciting product and make it more attractive," said Les Hagen of Action on Smoking and Health.

Legislation that would support a ban was proposed in the fall. The Bill 206, a private member's bill auspices of the Minister Lloyd MLA Dr. Richard Stark, received first reading last week. He seeks to amend the Tobacco Act to ban the sale of reduction of flavored tobacco products. 10-year-old provincial government tobacco reduction strategy, introduced in late November, aims to limit the sale of flavored tobacco between 2012 and 2015.

But after the fall legislative session adjourned this week, it is not clear how the province will approach legislation on banning or restricting flavored tobacco in the spring session, said Stark. Bart Johnson, a spokesman for Health Minister Fred Horne said that restricting sales of flavored tobacco will be "priority" for the next meeting of the legislature.

Stark said that this is an important step to curb tobacco use among young people. "These products are specifically designed and targeted at young people and trying to get young people addicted to nicotine, and therefore become smokers," he said, noting that among adult smokers, flavored tobacco accounts for only two per cent of consumption. Stark said that the work of high school students in his district was a big factor in the authors of the bill.

Lloydminster students attended the national "A Taste of ... Gone!" Canadian Cancer Society campaign against flavored tobacco by running a postcard campaign. "I have been in contact with them throughout the process, and they are just glad that they started is now part of the law," said Stark.

But as Stark and Barb Borkent, program specialist in tobacco with Lung Association of Alberta and NWT, said that there are other initiatives that can be taken to reduce youth tobacco use. Borkent said she would like to see the government follow through on educational initiatives outlined in the strategy to reduce tobacco use, including the expansion of the tobacco education programs in schools, as well as peer-led commitments. She said that peer education programs were the best practices to prevent youth tobacco use.

Source: http://www.calgaryherald.com/health/Advocates+want+flavoured+tobacco+products+banned/7684652/story.html

California's Tobacco Control Program Generates Huge Health Care Savings, Study Shows

Over a span of nearly 20 years, California's tobacco control program cost $2.4 billion and reduced health care costs by $134 billion, according to a new study by UC San Francisco (UCSF). Additionally, the study -- covering the beginning of the program in 1989 to 2008 -- found that the state program helped lead to some 6.8 billion fewer packs of cigarettes being sold that would have been worth $28.5 billion in sales to cigarette companies. The study was designed to calculate the fiscal impact of California's large public health program on smoking prevalence and cigarette consumption. UCSF has been at the forefront of tobacco research for decades, disclosing how the tobacco industry manipulated its products and led the public into cigarette addiction. The UCSF Legacy Library houses more than 13 million documents on file that were released as a result of litigation against the major tobacco companies related to their advertising, manufacturing, marketing, sales, political, public relations and scientific activities.

The new research shows that tobacco control funding is directly tied to reductions in both the prevalence of smoking and cigarette consumption per smoker -- and generates significant savings in overall health care expenditures. "These health care cost savings began to appear almost immediately after the program started and have grown over time, reaching more than $25 billion a year in 2008," said first author James Lightwood, PhD, a UCSF associate professor of clinical pharmacy. The study was published online on Feb. 13 in the journal PLOS ONE. Every year, an estimated 443,000 people in the United States die from smoking or exposure to secondhand smoke, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Another 8.6 million people suffer from a serious smoking-related illness. Annually, costs associated with smoking-related illness account billions in medical expenses and lost productivity, and 5.1 million years of potential life lost in the United States, the CDC reports.

To help save lives and lower health care costs, California passed Proposition 99 in 1988 to create a tobacco control program. The voter-funded state program centers on changing social norms around smoking to reduce smoking and tobacco-induced diseases. The program combines an aggressive media campaign with community programs emphasizing three themes:

• That the tobacco industry lies;

• That nicotine is addictive;

• That secondhand smoke kills.

The new UCSF research updates an earlier study by the same authors, adding five years of data and a more sophisticated economic analysis. The earlier paper covered 1989 through 2004. The researchers found a significant association between cumulative per capita tobacco control funding and both smoking prevalence and cigarette consumption per smoker. Every cumulate per capita hundred dollars spent on the state's tobacco control wound up reducing smoking prevalence by 5 percent and reduced cigarette consumption per smoker by 139 packs a year, the authors reported. Both a reduction in the percentage and number of people smoking, and the numbers of packs each remaining smoker consumed contributed to dropping health care costs, the authors found. The reduction in smoking prevalence accounted for 36 percent of the health care cost savings, with the rest due to less consumption among continuing smokers.

"Our research shows that large-scale aggressive tobacco control programs not only save lives, but make an important contribution to health care cost containment," said senior author Stanton A. Glantz, PhD, a UCSF professor of medicine and director of the UCSF Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education. The authors obtained these estimates by comparing smoking and health costs in California with 38 other states that did not have substantial state tobacco control programs or cigarette tax increases prior to 2000. "The results show that the California tobacco control program had a substantial effect on both smoking prevalence and cigarette consumption per smoker, and both in turn had a substantial effect on per capita health care expenditures," the study concluded. The estimated health care expenditures associated with smoking analyzed in the study included the short- and long-term direct effects on not only smokers but the effects of second- and third-hand smoke exposure to nonsmokers.

"Our research confirms that California voters made a good decision when they passed Proposition 99 in 1988," said Glantz. "The problem is that inflation is eroding the purchasing power of the California Tobacco Control Program at a time when cigarette companies are still aggressively promoting their products." Tobacco companies narrowly defeated Proposition 29 last year, which would have increased the tobacco tax to reinvigorate the tobacco control program and to fund medical research.

Source: from universities, journals, and other research organizations http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130213173133.htm

Ban on gifts by tobacco firms to schools

The school education department has issued an order preventing students or staff in its schools from participating in events sponsored by tobacco manufacturers. School teachers or students have been clearly told that participating in, or receiving gifts (in the form of stationery or books) from tobacco manufacturers is prohibited.

This was done after the State Tobacco Cell pointed out instances of sponsorship of competitions by companies that also sell tobacco. “We requested the school education department to regulate this rampant sponsorship, and they were prompt in responding,” said P. Vadivelan, State Tobacco Control Officer.

This form of sponsorship clearly comes under the category of surrogate advertising. Clearly, the notebooks or stationery contain information about the companies’ activities or provide a link to its website, where they can get all details,” explained Prasanna Kannan, consultant, State Tobacco Cell. The gifts mostly are notebooks, pencils, pens. In most cases, even teachers or headmasters have no clue that the gift comes from the factories of a company that makes cigarettes or other tobacco products, she added. Access to information on tobacco products at a school-going age has been shown to have an influence on the youth, leading to smoking, she added.

Anti-tobacco control authorities are also excited about the fact that the order from the education department replicates almost exactly, the wordings specified in the International Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. It is most likely the first time that such an order has been issued in the country, Dr. Vadivelan said.

The order has been circulated to all government and government-aided schools in the state and headmasters and teachers are being trained on how to recognize surrogate advertising and shield students from it. The chief education officers of each district will also receive training, as any sponsorship in government schools must be cleared by them first, Ms. Prasanna added.

Source:http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/ban-on-gifts-by-tobacco-firms-to-schools/article4373167.ece