Cigarettes As Gifts Undermines China's Anti-Smoking

BEIJING, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Despite knowing all the harms of smoking, Li Pingping, who lives in Shanghai, still decided to buy two cartons of cigarettes as presents for her father back in southwest China's Chongqing.

"When you pick up gifts for the elders during festivals or anniversaries, cigarettes are a nice choice," she said.

Li will take the cigarettes with her on the three-hour-flight to her hometown Chongqing Municipality.

It's Chinese tradition to give cigarettes when meeting new friends or visiting relatives, either to show friendliness or respect.

But the tradition has long stood in the way of the government's and anti-smoking organization's efforts to discourage smoking.

Xu Guihua, deputy director of Chinese Association on Tobacco Control (CATC), said "the lack of understanding and support" has made their job difficult.

The truth is, in China, not only are the smokers exchanging cigarettes as gifts, nonsmokers are also fanning the flame by buying cigarettes for their friends and family and are unwittingly exposing themselves to second-hand smoke.

Li Pingping said her father is the only smoker in the family off our, but no one minds him smoking when they spend time together, nor do they mind when he meets with chain-smoking guests in their apartment.

"I always buy cigarettes for elders, they could send those cigarettes to their friends even when they quit smoking. It is a practical gift and, most often, they like it," she said.

But it is not easy to break the habit of smoking.

Yang Xu, doctor at the Cardiovascular Institute of Fuwai Hospital, said, "A small percentage of heavy smokers face the potential danger of sudden death as abrupt smoking cessation can cause many health disorders."

The Chinese anti-smoking authorities are aware of this problem.

Yang Gonghuan, director of the National Tobacco Control Office, has called for more effective publicity to help people understand the hazards of smoking.

And just days ahead of the Spring Festival, the Ministry of Health(MOH), the World Health Organization, and the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention jointly launched a program to distribute 200,000 anti-smoking posters across the country.

"You have sent your friends both blessings and respiratory problems such as lung caner; you have sent your colleagues both respect and cardio vascular diseases such as heart disorders and stroke; you have sent your family love, care and death," a poster reads.

Non-governmental organizations and individuals are also joining the fight against smoking advertising campaigns.

Wu Yiqun, deputy director of the Think tank Research Center for Health Development, a Beijing-based non-governmental organization, often asks anti-smoking experts to write complaint letters to health authorities.

His proposals included banning tobacco companies' sponsorship in Shanghai's Formula One, smoking scenes in the popular TV series the Shanghai Grand, accentuating warning signs on cigarette packs and dissuading tobacco companies from attending quake relief charity awards.

In spite of all the endeavors made, the result is far from satisfactory.

According to the annual smoking control report by MOH, the number of young smokers are on the rise.

MOH statistics show that about 350 million people smoke in China, or almost 36 percent of the population aged above 15, and about one million die of smoking-related ailments annually.

The number of young smokers aged from 13 to 18 has hit 130 million in China.

The tobacco control difficulty is that "a nonsmoking, no cigarette-distributing and no cigarettes as gifts has not emerged in the society," said Yang Gonghuan.

"It's part of the Chinese custom to send cigarettes as gifts. Sending cigarettes is, in fact, planting dangers," he said.

Chen Wei, 36, a primary school teacher who has smoked for 20 years, is fully aware of the hazards of smoking and has heard all the discouragement from health organizations.

But he still expects his friends to send him cigarettes.

"I would still buy cigarettes anyway. And if someone gave me cigarettes as a gift, I would save some money on that."

"A lot of guys smoke around me, and it's impolite if I don't get a pack ready to give them or not to receive my friends' or relatives' cigarettes when they want to show some closeness," he said.

source: chinaview.cn

Healthcare Group Eyes Fees On Small Florida Tobacco Companies

BY CAROL MARBIN MILLER
cmarbin@MiamiHerald.com
With deep cuts looming in the state budget, children's advocates are eyeing a potentially bountiful source of new dollars: small tobacco companies.

As the nation's largest cigarette makers battle upstart companies that sell smokes for half the price of older brands in Florida, a new combatant with a singularly sympathetic agenda has entered the fray: mothers and babies.

Leaders of Florida's Healthy Start, which provided prenatal care to almost 196,000 Florida mothers last year, are asking Gov. Charlie Crist to levy a 40-cent-a-pack assessment on a handful of small cigarette makers that have won about 20 percent of the state's cigarette market by pricing their product well below the large manufacturers.

The money, children's advocates say, should be set aside to fund Healthy Start, which is facing a 20 percent budget cut next year, with the state's sagging economy expected to force $3 billion in trims. Currently, the program only meets about half the demand for prenatal care statewide, the advocates say.

Smoking by pregnant women is a leading cause of low birth weight among infants, a condition that can lead to myriad health problems, they note.

''The irony of this situation is that it would cost much less to provide prenatal care and education, including smoking cessation services, to every woman who needs it than to pay the intensive care hospital bills of the babies who are born to mothers who received no care,'' Healthy Start's leaders wrote in a letter to Crist Monday.

Advocates of the fee -- and of a similar proposal to raise the tobacco tax across the board to raise revenue -- face a stiff head wind with lawmakers. Though many in the Legislature have found the constant cutting of jobs and programs withering, few say they have the stomach for new taxes, even so-called ''sin'' taxes.

CRIST TO REVIEW

Sterling Ivey, a spokesman for Crist, said the governor received the letter Monday, and staff will review it.

''The governor has said on numerous occasions that he is not interested in considering any tax increases,'' Ivey said.

Rep. J.C. Planas, a Miami Republican who said he needs to study the proposal before making a decision, fears the fee could siphon millions out of an already sagging economy. Assuming a smoker pays $5 a week in new tobacco fees, he said, ``that's $5 not going to Pablito's Cafe for weekly coladas.''

''In this economy, that's a problem,'' Planas said.

In 2007, Florida reported more than 1,680 infant deaths, and Healthy Start leaders wrote in the letter to Crist that the state's infant mortality rate in some counties ``approaches the rates of developing nations.''

Also in 2007, 20,767 Florida infants were born with a low birth weight. ''Maternal smoking is a leading preventable cause of low birth weight and premature babies, so it is very appropriate to hold cigarette companies accountable for the health costs they inflict on the state,'' the advocates wrote.

In February 1995, the state sued the largest tobacco companies, claiming they had unjustly enriched themselves by hiding the health costs of smoking. State leaders sought billions in damages to cover the costs of indigent health care for Floridians whose smoking made them sick.

Florida entered into a landmark $368 billion settlement with the so-called Big Four tobacco companies -- Phillip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, Brown & Williamson and Lorillard -- in August 1997. At the time, the Big Four held a 97 percent share of the U.S. tobacco market.

Over time, however, the smaller cigarette makers -- which can price their product considerably lower than the large companies paying the assessment -- have garnered a larger share of the market, a 2004 state Senate report said.

NEW REVENUE

Adding the nonsettling companies to the assessment could generate between $50 million and $86 million, the state Revenue Estimating Conference reported in 2005.

Sarah Bascom, a spokeswoman for Opa-locka-based Dosal Tobacco, one of the companies being targeted for the fees, accused the large tobacco companies of exploiting ''well-deserving and noble'' groups like Healthy Start by convincing them to ``do their [Big Tobacco's] bidding so they can gain market share.''

Leslie Spurlock, the Vero Beach-based president of the Florida Association of Healthy Start Coalitions, strongly denied being in cahoots with Big Tobacco. ''I'm just speechless,'' she said. ``We stand for moms and babies and health. Big Tobacco would be the furthest thing from our thoughts.''

State Sen. Michael S. Bennett, a Bradenton Republican, said he does not favor any new fees on the tobacco companies that did not settle with the state a decade ago, but could support as much as a $1-a-pack hike in the tobacco tax that hits all companies.

''To me, if you're going to tax them, tax them all,'' Bennett said.

source: miamiherald.com

Genes Explain Why Some Drinkers And Smokers Die Young, While Others Escape

Two newly identified genes can increase the chances of an unhealthy lifestyle giving you cancer, scientists believe.

Scientist hope to explain why some smokers' lives are cut short due to their habit, while others continue into old age Photo: GEOFF PUGH

The findings could explain why some heavy drinkers and smokers live to a ripe old age while others have their lives cut short by their habits.

The genes put carriers more at a heightened risk of developing five different types of cancer, the researchers found - skin, lung, bladder, prostate and cervical cancer.

Buy Online Stop Smoking

Lung cancer in particular is one of the most deadly, killing around 35,000 sufferers in Britain every year.

The findings could allow scientists to identify those most at risk from suffering the potentially deadly conditions because of a combination of genetics and their lifestyle.

The researchers estimate that around one quarter of the population have the highest risk that their unhealthy lifestyle would give them cancer.

Another quarter of the population have the lowest risk, because they do not carry these genes, they estimate.

These could be the people who remain hale and hearty into old age even in spite of smoking, drinking, using sunbeds of having a poor diet.

However, as yet the scientists did not know by how much these two genes can increase the overall lifetime chance of developing a form of the disease.

On average humans have a one in three chance of developing some form of cancer over their lifetime.

Scientists have long known that lifestyle and environment can affect a person's risk of developing many types of cancer.

Smoking has previously been linked to lung and bladder cancer, drinking to different types of cancer including liver cancer, and eating a diet high in red meat to an increased risk of bowel cancer.

But researchers have never been clear on the exact nature of how these exposures increase risk, and why some people appear more prone to their effects than others.

Tim Bishop, professor of genetic epidemiology at the University of Leeds, and one of the co-authors of the paper, said that cancer was often caused by a "complex" interplay between genetic and environmental factors, and that these newly identified genes could go some way to explaining their relationship.

The scientists were able to isolate the genes by looking at the genetic make up of more than 33,000 cancer survivors and another 45 ,000 people who had never suffered from the disease.

They then compared the genes against their carrier's lifestyle and history of the disease.

While they increased the chance of suffering from five types of cancer the genes were not linked to an increased risk of another nine cancers for which the researchers could test, including breast cancer, the most commonly diagnosed form of the disease in women, according to the findings, published in the journal Nature Genetics.

Source: telegraph.co.uk