Smoking


Smoking

EU votes through new draconian anti-smoking rules

David Atherton
BreitBart
Wed, 26 Feb 2014 00:00 UTC
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After three years of tortuous debate, the European Parliament voted and passed the Tobacco Product Directive by 514 votes to 66. Certainly, the sacking by Manuel Barroso of Maltese Health Commissioner John Dalli for allegedly soliciting a bribe of €60 million from a Swedish snus manufacturer did nothing to speed matters up.

The main points of the TPD are:
  • Banning the sale of packs of ten cigarettes and small pouches of tobacco
  • Health warnings to cover 65 percent of the front and back of all packaging
  • Banning of flavours like menthol
  • Minimum sized packets
  • Allows member states to ban internet sales, specifically aimed at electronic cigarettes
  • Regulation of electronic cigarettes
  • Continuing ban on Swedish snus, a tobacco-based alternative to smoking

Comment: Smokers' lungs used in half of transplants: Improves Survival Rate!
Smoking Does Not Cause Lung Cancer (According to WHO/CDC Data)
Air pollution causes lung cancer in non-smokers (erm, can't it cause it in smokers too then?)
Government Suppresses Major Public Health Report
Air pollution leading cause of cancer, World Health Organisation warns
'World No Tobacco Day'? Let's All Light Up!

Read More...
Smoking

Smoking toddler seen puffing on a cigarette in video causes public outrage

Tara Brady
Daily Mail, UK
Tue, 04 Feb 2014 07:14 UTC
Footage has emerged which shows a toddler appearing to smoke a real cigarette. The young girl, aged about two or three, puts the cigarette into her mouth and inhales several times before breathing out dark smoke. The clip, which has been uploaded to LiveLeak, is believed to have been taken in Finland and has caused public outrage.
toddler smoking
© Unknown
One person wrote: 'Must originate from her sick parents or siblings. Persons under 18 are not allowed to either sell or purchase tobacco in Finland.

'The country has among the toughest smoking laws in the world.'

Some others have also suggested she could be smoking an e-cigarette.

A two-year-old from Sumatra in Indonesia shocked the world after he was photographed chain-smoking cigarettes.

Comment: The 'outrage' is understandable given that people today have been led to believe that smoking is the root of all evil, but according to one A.J. Bell, writing in about 1700:
"For personal disinfections nothing enjoyed such favour as tobacco; the belief in it was widespread, and even children were made to light up a reaf in pipes. Thomas Hearnes remembers one Tom Rogers telling him that when he was a scholar at Eton in the year that the great plague raged, all the boys smoked in school by order, and that he was never whipped so much in his life as he was one morning for not smoking. It was long afterwards a tradition that none who kept a tobacconist shop in London had the plague."
And from another source:
When plague was abroad even children were compelled to smoke. At the time of the dreadful visitation of 1665 all the boys at Eton were obliged to smoke in school every morning. One of these juvenile smokers, a certain Tom Rogers, years afterwards declared to Hearne, the Oxford antiquary, that he never was whipped so much in his life as he was one morning for not smoking. Times have changed at Eton since this anti-tobacconist martyr received his whipping. It is sometimes stated that at this time smoking was generally practised in schools, and that at a stated hour each morning lessons were laid aside, and masters and scholars alike produced their pipes and proceeded to smoke tobacco. But I know of no authority for this wider statement; it seems to have grown out of Hearne's record of the practice at Eton.


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Smoking

Brits ban subjects from smoking in their own cars

Rowena Mason
The Guardian
Mon, 10 Feb 2014 19:28 UTC
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© Clive Gee/PAUnder the proposal, the government will now have powers to introduce a new offence of exposing children to smoke in vehicles.
Shadow public health minister hails great victory for child health after vote which divided Conservative backbenchers

Smoking in cars carrying children is set to be banned after MPs overwhelmingly backed the plan in a free vote.

The House of Commons supported the plan, first put forward by Labour, despite the misgivings of some cabinet members, including Nick Clegg, over whether it will be too difficult to police.

Under the proposal the government will now have powers to introduce a new offence of exposing children to smoke in vehicles, with breaches of the law likely to incur a small fine.

David Cameron, who missed the vote, gave his personal backing to the idea, despite the government saying last week there was no need for the legislation.

"While he understands the concerns that some have expressed, his view is that the time for this kind of approach has come," the prime minister's spokesman said.

The shadow public health minister, Luciana Berger, who campaigned on the issue, said it was a "great victory for child health which will benefit hundreds of thousands of young people".

She added: "It is a matter of child protection, not adult choice. The will of parliament has been clearly expressed today and this must be respected. Ministers now have a duty to bring forward regulations so that we can make this measure a reality and put protections for children in place as soon as possible.
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Smoking

Junk Science: Hundreds of U.K. "health experts" call for smoking ban in cars carrying children


The Telegraph
Fri, 07 Feb 2014 00:00 UTC
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© AlamyIn a letter to the British Medical Journal, respiratory experts said second-hand smoke was a “major cause of ill health in children”
Around 700 doctors, nurses and other health experts have called on the Government to ban smoking in cars carrying children ahead of a Commons vote on Monday.

In a letter to the British Medical Journal, respiratory experts said second-hand smoke was a "major cause of ill health in children", damaging the lungs, causing sudden infant death and leading to thousands of hospital trips a year.

They claimed those objecting to a change in the law assumed there was a "right to force children to breathe tobacco smoke". Objectors "seem to value this more highly than the children's right to breathe clean air", they added.


Comment: Good luck with that. Open your car window in any city and you'll breathe in much worse than cigarette smoke. Once again so-called "experts" show a profound lack of critical thinking as they push their agenda further and further.


Comment: Some more links to enjoy!
Smokers' lungs used in half of transplants: Improves Survival Rate!
Smoking Does Not Cause Lung Cancer
Smoking Does Not Cause Lung Cancer (According to WHO/CDC Data)
Air pollution causes lung cancer in non-smokers (erm, can't it cause it in smokers too then?)
Government Suppresses Major Public Health Report
Air pollution leading cause of cancer, World Health Organisation warns
5 Health Benefits of Smoking
'World No Tobacco Day'? Let's All Light Up!

Read More...
Smoking

Start of the trend to eradicate cigarette sales? CVS pharmacies to stop selling tobacco

Elizabeth Landau
CNN
Wed, 05 Feb 2014 10:04 UTC

Want to pick up a pack of cigarettes with your prescription refill? A major U.S. pharmacy chain is breaking that habit.

CVS Caremark announced Wednesday it will stop selling cigarettes and other tobacco products at its CVS/pharmacy stores by October 1.

The retailer said the move makes CVS/pharmacy the first chain of national pharmacies to take tobacco products off the shelves.

"Ending the sale of cigarettes and tobacco products at CVS/pharmacy is the right thing for us to do for our customers and our company to help people on their path to better health," Larry J. Merlo, president and CEO of CVS Caremark, said in a statement. "Put simply, the sale of tobacco products is inconsistent with our purpose."

CVS Caremark is the largest pharmacy in the United States based on total prescription revenue, according to the company. It operates more than 7,600 CVS/pharmacy stores nationwide in addition to more than 800 MinuteClinics, which are medical clinics within the pharmacy locations.

Health-oriented organizations and President Barack Obama praised the move.

Comment: Also see:
Smoking Does Not Cause Lung Cancer

Does cigarette smoking really cause heart disease?

100,000 Americans Die Each Year from Prescription Drugs, While Pharma Companies Get Rich

Poisoning by prescription drugs on the rise

27 Years: No Deaths from Vitamins, 3 Million from Prescription Drugs

The devious plan of anti-smoking campaigns to control people and stop them from using their brain

Read More...
Smoking

Worldwide cancer cases (in particular lung cancer) expected to soar by 70% over next 20 years


UK Guardian
Mon, 03 Feb 2014 08:41 UTC
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Is the Sun setting on the human species?
Cancer cases worldwide are predicted to increase by 70% over the next two decades, from 14m in 2012 to 25m new cases a year, according to the World Health Organisation.

The latest World Cancer Report says it is implausible to think we can treat our way out of the disease and that the focus must now be on preventing new cases. Even the richest countries will struggle to cope with the spiralling costs of treatment and care for patients, and the lower income countries, where numbers are expected to be highest, are ill-equipped for the burden to come.

The incidence of cancer globally has increased in just four years from 12.7m in 2008 to 14.1m new cases in 2012, when there were 8.2m deaths. Over the next 20 years, it is expected to hit 25m a year - a 70% increase.

The biggest burden will be in low- and middle-income countries. They are hit by two types of cancers - those triggered by infections, such as cervical cancers, which are still very prevalent in poorer countries that don't have screening, let alone the HPV vaccine, and increasingly cancers associated with more affluent lifestyles "with increasing use of tobacco, consumption of alcohol and highly processed foods and lack of physical activity", writes the World Health Organisation director general, Margaret Chan, in an introduction to the report.

Lung cancer is the most commonly diagnosed among men (16.7% of cases) and the biggest killer (23.6% of deaths). Breast cancer is the most common diagnosis in women (25.2%) and caused 14.7% of deaths, which is a drop and only just exceeds lung cancer deaths in women (13.8%). Bowel, prostate and stomach cancer are the other most common diagnoses.

Comment: Note the disconnect. The number of people smoking has been reducing for the past 10 years, yet these 'scientists' claim that in the next 20 year the incidence of cancer, of which lung cancer is the most prevalent, will increase by 70%.

Apparently, the anti-smoking propaganda is so effective that even scientists can't draw simple conclusions from simple data.

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Smoking

Smokers' lungs used in half of transplants: Improves Survival Rate!


Independent
Sun, 02 Feb 2014 04:55 UTC
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Evidence suggests smoking natural tobacco has health benefits for humans
Almost half of lung transplant patients were given the lungs taken from heavy smokers, with one in five coming from donors who had smoked at least one packet of cigarettes a day for 20 or more years.

Despite this, new research shows that those people given the lungs of smokers were just as likely to be alive up to three years after transplantation as those who had organs from non-smokers. In some cases, they had improved survival rates.

Comment: Smoking Does Not Cause Lung Cancer (According to WHO/CDC Data)

5 Health Benefits of Smoking

Air pollution causes lung cancer in non-smokers (erm, can't it cause it in smokers too then?)

U.K. Lung Cancer Survival 'Depends on Where You Live'

Read More...
Arrow Up

Signs point to sharp rise in drugged driving fatalities


Science Daily
Thu, 30 Jan 2014 05:55 UTC
Marijuana
© Minyanville
The prevalence of non-alcohol drugs detected in fatally injured drivers in the U.S. has been steadily rising and tripled from 1999 to 2010 for drivers who tested positive for marijuana -- the most commonly detected non-alcohol drug -- suggesting that drugged driving may be playing an increasing role in fatal motor vehicle crashes.

To assess these trends researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health examined toxicological testing data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's Fatality Analysis Reporting System and found that of 23,591 drivers who were killed within one hour of a crash, 39.7% tested positive for alcohol and 24.8% for other drugs. While positive results for alcohol remained stable, the prevalence of non-alcohol drugs rose significantly from 16.6% in 1999 to 28.3% in 2010; for marijuana, rates rose from 4.2% to 12.2%. Findings are online in the American Journal of Epidemiology.
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Stormtrooper

Following the Nazi Model: British elites move to ban parents from smoking in their own vehicles - homes next

Tamara Cohen
Daily Mail, UK
Thu, 30 Jan 2014 05:12 UTC
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'Ma'am, please step out of the vehicle'... The fascist net closes in.
Smoking in a car that is carrying children could be banned within days after the Lords threw its weight behind a controversial plan to outlaw the practice.

Peers last night unexpectedly backed the Labour move, which would give ministers the power to make it a criminal offence in England, punishable by a fine or points on a motorist's licence.

The Government had argued this would be very difficult to enforce, and might risk infringing on civil liberties. They favour an awareness campaign to highlight the dangers of smoking around children.

But Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, Labour health spokesman, persuaded colleagues it was a matter of child protection and crucial for the future.

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff, a former president of the Royal Society of Medicine, said: 'A child in the back seat is effectively imprisoned in the vehicle for their own safety. Whatever adults do they have no control over.'
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Smoking

E-cigarettes are a calming vapor for inmates

Timothy Williams
The New York Times
Thu, 23 Jan 2014 10:15 UTC
e-cig smoker
© Christopher Berkey/NYTLogan Smith with his e-cig
As city governments and schools across the country move to ban or restrict the use of electronic cigarettes, one place increasingly welcomes the devices: the rural county jail.

Though traditional cigarettes are prohibited from most prisons and jails because of fire hazards and secondhand smoke, a growing number of sheriffs say they are selling e-cigarettes to inmates to help control the mood swings of those in need of a smoke, as well as address budget shortfalls, which in some jails have meant that guards are earning little more than fast-food workers.

Inmates are addicted to cigarettes and pay what the market bears to get their fix. Prisons and jails earn a little extra money to pay their guards and provide a safer environment for inmates. Everybody wins. It is obviously not a utopia, but this system logically seems to be one where everyone is relatively content with the outcome.

The trend stands in contrast to restrictions on e-cigarettes approved in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and other big cities. County jails in at least seven states have permitted the sale of a limited selection of flavors of e-cigarettes to inmates. They have quickly become one of the most sought-after items in jail commissaries. And although federal prisons ban e-cigarettes, the inmate market has so much potential that Chinese and American manufacturers now produce "jail-safe" versions made of plastic instead of metal.

Comment: A good example of the benefits of smoking on mood. Here's more:

5 Health Benefits of Smoking

Health Benefits of Smoking Tobacco

'World No Tobacco Day'? Let's All Light Up!

Read More...