The efforts of TC are further hampered by the very voices of those in control...like this NAZI nurse practitioner who boldly asserts that smokers who fail to quit, "well, then, they'll just have to DIE."
http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=Z71Vv6QAmiw
or some other NAZIS practicing medicine at an Indian hospital
http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=6HrDUH9E_ yM&feature= related
Links did not work. Here they are.
http://tinyurl.com/ltxl4m
http://tinyurl.com/kphja6
(Note: Bits and pieces, not in the order of the the article.)
http://www.forces.org/Forces_Art...ewer.php?
id=664
Obama Signs Big Pharma/Big Tobacco Subsidy Bill into Law II
Norman Kjono
Article Published: 2009/06/27
As presented in the three-page statistical reference that accompanies this work, Youth Smoking Update June 2009, youth prevalence is today double what it would be if tobacco control had no material impact on youth smoking since 1992, which is to say had allegedly anti-tobacco done nothing.
It is axiomatic that if, as tobacco control oft proclaims, Philip Morris needs new youth smokers to replace Marlboro customers who die or quit smoking then Johnson & Johnson shares the same vested interest to have a sustaining market for smoking cessation products.
Where would future customers for Johnson & Johnson’s smoking cessation NicoDerm CQ Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) come from if kids quit smoking?
The refreshed and expanded youth nicotine consumer base was created under the auspices of nationwide Project ASSIST management by the American Cancer Society (ACS).
During the period of ACS management of Project ASSIST youth smoking prevalence experienced five consecutive years of increases 1992 to 1997 that totaled to a 43 percent escalation of teen smoking. ACS’ anti-tobacco advocacy was funded in large part by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) through its SmokeLess States program.
According to its publications, the foundation began its funding of tobacco control in 1992. Through 2005, RWJF committed $465 million toward that agenda, including $99 million to SmokeLess States and more than $84 million in cash grants to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
Today, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation retains a $1 billion-plus holding of JNJ common stock.
In the interim, Johnson & Johnson began manufacturing NicoDerm CQ patches through its Alza Corp. subsidiary in 2001.
The company also acquired an interest in Nicorette gum when it purchased Pfizer Consumer Healthcare for a reported $16.6 billion in 2006.
The forgoing organizations and corporations were principal powers behind lobbying for FDA regulation of tobacco, spearheaded by the former Executive Director of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free-Kids, William Corr.
Dr. Siegel, this sounds an awful lot like Robert West's 2006 BMJ paper to which many of us responded, including Saul Shiffman (who even then was spinning West's finding), Joel Spitzer (my mentor) and myself (commenting on how West turned real news into an NRT sales commercial):
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/f...ll/332/7539/
458
Buy thank you for hitting this issue!!! I encourage anyone interested in this topic to call the NCI's national quitting line at 1-877-44U-QUIT and listen to recorded info that is totally contrary to the findings of both of these papers. After selecting 1 for English, select 2 to hear recorded info, then select 3 (thinking about quitting) and then select 1 (stages of quitting). Let me give you a samples of what you'll hear:
"Many people think that quitting smoking is just that, you get up one morning and you don't smoke. However, research has shown that quitting smoking is actually a long process that starts with just thinking about quitting, before you have a plan about what to do exactly. This is the first stage." ... "The next stage is to make a decison to quit. At this point you set a quit date. Some people pick a meaningful date such as New Years ..." The third stage is actually quitting smoking... You might want to talk to your doctor about medications [reviews medicines]... We hope you'll make a plan to quit smoking"
This stages of change stuff is utter non-sense yet together with pharmacology forms the foundation of U.S. cessation policy. Why? Because as you point out, unless there's planning there isn't any pharmacology purchase. It's why GSK has brought in Saul Shiffman, to re-test and if necessary spin West's earlier UK finding that unplanned quits are twice as successful.
It's time for the U.S. government to end discrimination against cold turkey quitters. As you know, since June 2000, U.S. cessation policy has forbid any U.S. health official or website from recommending cessation without purchase and use of quitting pharmacology products. Think about it, these unplanned cessation attempts are succeeding (unsupported), and blowing pharmacology out of the water despite our government doing everything it can to discourage them.
http://www.SmokeFree.gov is the #1 U.S. "quit smoking" and "stop smoking" Google link. It's quitting advice tells smokers to:
"Pick a date within the next 2 weeks to quit. That gives you enough time to get ready. But it's not so long that you will lose your drive to quit. Think about choosing a special day: Your birthday or wedding anniversary; New Year's Day; Independence Day; World No Tobacco Day (May 31); The Great American Smokeout (the third Thursday of each November)."
"Talk to Your Doctor About Getting Help to Quit. Quitting "cold turkey" isn't your only choice. Talk to your doctor about other ways to quit. Most doctors can answer your questions and give advice. They can suggest medicine to help with withdrawal. You can buy some of these medicines on your own. For others, you need a prescription."
There are medicines that can help with feelings of withdrawal: Nicotine gum, Nicotine inhaler, Nicotine lozenge, Nicotine nasal spray, Nicotine patch, Bupropion SR pills, Varenicline pills. Using these medicines can double your chances of quitting for good. Ask your doctor for advice."
The section on Withdrawal links back to medications and there is zero encouragement or support offered to cold turkey quitters. None!
I'll say it once more. It's pretty much impossible to blind any of us with significant quitting histories as to the onset or absence of full-blown withdrawal. We know how it feels. Some of us have been there many, many times. It's why more than 200 placebo controlled pharmacology studies served as the industry's license to rob, steal and kill, all in the name of science! Having joined the study hoping for a free 3 months supply of replacement nicotine, how many of us would have stuck around and allowed researchers to toy with us if we knew that our gum or lozenge was instead a placebo? These trials didn't measure efficacy. They measured fulfilled and frustrateed expectation levels.
As for Saul Shiffman, frankly, I have yet to read the full-text of any study by him that hasn't left me wondering how he types these conclusions with a straight face. Most are laughable. What's sad is that he uses the University of Pittsburgh as his store front for the sale of pharmaceutical grade nicotine, and the University doesn't seem to care.
Sadly, we should not expect things to change before millions of additional U.S. smokers have needlessly had their lives cut short by years of believing their government and toying with sham science. The industry's long-term bail out plan includes arrival of a highly effective quitting product some day soon, which will allow nearly 3 decades of sham science to be swept under the study rug.
Regards,
John
John R. Polito
john@whyquit.com
(843) 797-3234
I agree with Mike's posting, and partly agree with the study's conclusion: "The results suggest, similar to previous research, that a substantial proportion of quit attempts are unplanned and that such attempts can be a successful route to cessation. Given the frequency of such attempts, methods of making treatment available to assist unplanned quitting should be considered."
I'd be more supportive of the study's conclusion if it used the term "NRT products" instead of "treatment", as "Chantix" and "Zyban" should not be made more available for smokers who are contemplating quitting cold turkey.
While 80+% of the tens of millions of exsmokers in the US quit cold turkey, NRT's smoking cessation success rate has been just 7% after 6 months, and just 2% after 20 months.
Although NRT products haven't been very effective for smoking cessation, they (and many other smokefree tobacco/nicotine products) are effective harm reduction alternatives to cigarettes.
But the FDA hasn't approved (and I'm not aware that any drug company has applied) truthful marketing claims that NRT products are less hazardous alternatives to cigarettes).
But even if GSK doesn't want to truthfully market its products to cigarette smokers as less hazardous nicotine alternatives, GSK could more aggressively urge the FDA to approve the NY State Health Commissioner's petition (filed 16 months ago) to allow NRT to be sold in $5-$10 daily dose unit packages, allow NRT to be sold at all stores that sell cigarettes, and to modify the package warnings (so they don't scare smokers).
The petition is at:
http://www.regulations.gov/fdmsp...FDA-2008-P-
0116
While GSK/Pinney/Zeller filed a comment in support of the NY State Health Commissioner's petition, I'm not aware that GSK has urged any of its many funding recipients to submit supportive comments.
Ironically and notably, the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, the American Heart Association and the national office of the American Cancer Society have NOT YET submitted any comments to the FDA docket.
Norman Kjono wrote (and copywrote):
"youth prevalence is today double what it would be if tobacco control had no material impact on youth smoking since 1992, which is to say had allegedly anti-tobacco done nothing."
No wonder everyone laughs at FORCES. Kjono didn't even cite any youth smoking data, but rather data for 18 year olds (who can legally be sold cigarettes in 47 states).
The 60%-70% reduction in youth smoking since 1997 is the result of state/local smokefree workplace laws, state/local cigarette tax hikes, state AG lawsuits and settlements, and state/local tobacco marketing restrictions.
And the recently increased federal cigarette excise tax is in the process of reducing youth smoking by an additional 15%-20%.
"My own work and experience and that presented in the published literature support the conclusion that the most effective way to enhance smoking cessation is to put resources into aggressive anti-smoking media campaigns that give smokers a major jolt and spur them to make spontaneous quit attempts."What is more AGGRESSIVE than denormalisation Dr Siegel ? Or have you forgotten that you are still a part of it ? Giving smokers a "MAJOR JOLT" would be TC owning up to the lies and deceit they constantly spout.Include your SHS studies in that as well Dr Siegel.
Mre good news for public health, as this morning Goldman Sachs' David Adelman reported that the weighted-average state cigarette excise tax is expected to increase by $.22/pack in 2009 (up from $1.22/pack on 11/31/0
.
Earlier this year, the federal cigarette tax increased by $.61/pack.
Unfortunately CTFK, ACS, AHA, ALA and Congressional Democrats have already duped the public to believe that the new FDA law will be responsible for this huge decline in cigarette consumption.
"The 60%-70% reduction in youth smoking since 1997 is the result of state/local smokefree workplace laws, state/local cigarette tax hikes, state AG lawsuits and settlements, and state/local tobacco marketing restrictions.
And the recently increased federal cigarette excise tax is in the process of reducing youth smoking by an additional 15%-20%.
Bill Godshall | 07.08.09 - 1:44 pm | #" You may laugh at FORCES Bill,but the joke is on you as a vain TC advocate who refuses to see that the figures you constantly quote just don't add up in the real world,only the world those of your persuasion inhabit.If your figures hold true,there would be little reason for TC to exist,there wouldn't be any smokers.Some people become so reliant on pocket calculators that even the most mundane of sums need to be done on one.When the wrong button is pushed,the wrong answer occurs but is never noticed.The ability to think for oneself,and hence approximate an answer has been lost.
I'd like someone to do a study on NRT usage in the Boston area this year compared to last year.
Cigarettes were banned for sale in all pharmacies as of February. With taking the point-of-purchase spontaneous suggestion of quitting away from consumers who buy cigarettes, I am guessing the numbers will be off for Boston.
I don't see many NRT products in gas stations and convenience stores next to the cigarette displays as there were in pharmacies.
Bill has a point on reducing the cost/amount of the NRT packages, it should be a daily purchase price point, cigarette smokers for the most part don't buy cartons at a time.
Per Bill: “Unfortunately CTFK, ACS, AHA, ALA and Congressional Democrats have already duped the public to believe that the new FDA law will be responsible for this huge decline in cigarette consumption.”
Don’t they know that Bill is responsible for this huge decline in cigarette consumption. His little number ‘friends’ tell him so.
Bill, be not perplexed. Keep speaking, keep communing, with the numbers. Massage, caress, the little fellows as you flick smokeless tobacco over each shoulder in ceremonial acknowledgement of the lord of TC arithmetic. One day you’ll get the credit you deserve. Someone will notice how important your framework of thought is to the Health® of the world, maybe even the universe.
_
Health® - property of the State.
The leader in Health®, the medical establishment is the leading cause of preventable death & injury, and psychological & social dysfunction.
Setting the Standards in Derangement and Self-Approbation for a New World, for the Benefit of All [of the Medical Establishment].
"God forbid that a smoker succeed in quitting without providing profits to Big Pharma, is essentially what this study is concluding."
God forbid a smoker's confidence could be left intact in the belief they can quit if they really want to.
In place of the well overblown downtrodden philosophies describing them as "helpless addicts" telling us that Nicotine is such a powerfull adictive substance that no mere mortal can face it alone?
Who are doing the preaching most often and who pays for the ads? If smokers are being "encouraged to quit" they seem to be using some strange language to suit that end.
The poor hobbled "drug addicts" with no power beyond the saving grace of drug treatments if they ever hope to rise above their shameful sins?
Almost makes you want to cry doesn't it?
A deliberate strategy, and sales opportunity, prescribing medical superstition, which takes advantage of any individual who trusts the gospel, which is fashioned by psychological opportunity, beyond the scope of most of their victims, to reduce the chances they will ever find the courage to try, much less succeed on their own.
Regardless of your opinion which minimizes the ignorance at play here, these are irresponsible and criminal acts being perpetrated by wholesale deceptive advertising practices, with deliberate intent and every expectation that substantial profits will be gained in process.
Hey Bill,
How many high school youths die from smoking caused diseases??
Where is the 'clear and PRESENT health danger' to high school youths caused by smoking?
Bill Godshall has the numbers right and if anything they are conservative.
http://www.altria.com/investors/...p?
reqid=1279148
Altrias 1st quarter sales year to year
Table 6
Total Cigarettes Sold
2009 - 34.4 billion
2008 - 40.1 billion
down (14.2)%
Market share
2009 50.9%
2008 51.2%
Sales were off 14% but market share was off by only .3% - for the first quarter of 2009 compared to the first quarter of 2008. That means that the market, itself, has shrunk by about 14%.
There can only be two possible explanations.
1) about 14% of cigarette consumers quit smoking cigarettes in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th quarters of 2008
or
2) about 14% of cigarette consumers quit smoking taxed cigarettes and they are now smoking untaxed cigarettes.
It might be possible that smokers are quitting in record numbers but I think that it is more likely that the black market has filled the market niche lost by taxed cigarettes.
If you like $20 per carton untaxed cigarettes because taxed cigarettes now cost $50 to $80 per carton, you're going to love them even more when taxed cigarettes top $70 to $100 per carton. I know that the smugglers will.
For every untaxed carton of cigarettes sold some poor child goes without health insurance.©
Okay, let's say I believe you Bill. Now, can you give me the total number of cigarettes that are stolen in smash and grabs everyday? I won't ask for a yearly figure as I don't think your calculator can go that high.
"No wonder everyone laughs at FORCES. Kjono didn't even cite any youth smoking data, but rather data for 18 year olds (who can legally be sold cigarettes in 47 states)."
..............
18 year olds are high school seniors and data on teen smoking has only rather recently been gathered.
What the TC, drug company supporting, folks did do is shown later in the report.
http://www.forces.org/userfiles/...ne-
20090001.pdf
Table three-Youth Smoking Myths vs.Tobacco Control Political Reality
Please note the 21 points at the bottom of the table.
Basically,they say that Big Tobacco and the drug companies,thru their TC prostitutes, have worked successfully to provide themselves with a stable customer base for decades to come!! 
Doctor, can you by any chance post a picture of that rock you crawled out from under? I imagine it is quite the boulder and would like to see it. God, we have been telling you this for sometime now, but you won't believe it until you read it in some kind of tobacco control files.
For your information, we people can also second guess or predict the next steps that tobacco control does or says. The lies are so transparent.
" "The 60%-70% reduction in youth smoking since 1997 is the result of state/local smokefree workplace laws, state/local cigarette tax hikes, state AG lawsuits and settlements, and state/local tobacco marketing restrictions."
......................
But;if you go back to when all this TC for the kids started,you find a different story.
SMOKING BANS HAVE NOT DECREASED THE NUMBER OF HIGH SCHOOL YOUTH SMOKERS!
Since about 1990 we have seen thousands of federal,state, and local smoking bans passed. Due to increased excise taxes and MSA costs,the price of cigarettes has gone up tremendously. Billions of dollars have been spent trying to force smokers to quit.
In 1991(27.45% of 6% of the population of 250 million) about 4.11 million high school kids smoked.
In 2005(23% of 6% of the populationof 300 million) about 4.14 million high school kids smoked.
http://www.forces.org/Forces_Art...ewer.php?
id=663
President Obama Signs Johnson & Johnson/Philip Morris Subsidy Bill into Law
Norman Kjono
Article Published: 2009/06/24
Two decades of special-interest, mercantile advocacy reached fruition this week as President Barack Obama signed legislation assigning the Food and Drug Administration the task of "regulating" tobacco. That the President of the United States is himself a cigarette smoker added a degree of ersatz poignancy that is not entirely irrelevant. As Norman Kjono succinctly explains in the following commentary, the law heralded as a "public health" triumph is no such thing. Triumph, yes, but only for those corporations, Big Tobacco and Big Pharma, along with their paid cheerleaders, that will reap massive wads of cash at the expense of not only the "target group" but of all taxpayers in the United States.
There are, however, a few predictable consequences of President Obama’s FDA legislation:
5. An additional generation of youth smokers will become entrenched in the nicotine cost cycle: As previously mentioned, under Project ASSIST youth smoking prevalence increased 47 percent from 1992 to 1997. But there is more to that story: the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has often reported that after a brief period of declines from 1998 to 2001 further decreases in youth smoking have stalled. As a result, when calculating youth smoker populations based on teen census data and reported prevalence rates, today we have a larger population of youth smokers than in 1992, the year before ASSIST public policy interventions began in 1993. In light of that history is it particularly unseemly for the FDA regulation of tobacco bill to be so widely touted as saving the children. Tobacco control’s two decade track record with kids, beginning with its ASSIST proposals to states in 1988, and its well-established pattern of conduct to aggressively advance mercantile public policy make it abundantly clear to responsible parents that anti-tobacco has not saved the kids to date and that its vested interests are such that is cannot “Save the Children” if its economic sponsors are to achieve the product sales results desired.
Responsible parents, consumers, taxpayers and voters can also thank the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for those consequences. The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids was funded in the mid 1990s with an initial $15 million grant from a major institutional shareholder of Johnson & Johnson, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. To date, the foundations nearly-exclusive funding for the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids exceeds more than $84 million. In November 2005 the foundation reported that its total funding to anti-tobacco activism was $465 million from 1992 to 2005. With reported funding for 2006 to 2009 the amount that the foundation has committed to tobacco control is about $600 million. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation directly profits from such advocacy, as well as its $500 million investment in anti-obesity announced in 2006, by and through its multi-billion-dollar holdings of Johnson & Johnson.
There has,indeed, been a decrease in high school smokers since 1997;but,as shown before, the net decrease is ZERO.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/...ml/ mm5526a2.htm
In 1991(27.45% of 6% of the population of 250 million) about 4.11 million high school kids smoked.
In 1997(36.4% of 6% of the population of 267.6 million) about 5.845 million high school kids smoked.
That is a 42% increase.
In 2005(23% of 6% of the population of 300 million) about 4.14 million high school kids smoked.
That is a 30% decrease from 1997;but,no change from the number of high school smokers in 1991.
TC has done a good job of insuring that there will be an adequate base of customers for NRT for decades to come.
Just a thought.
I wonder how much money Bill has received,over the years, from the RWJ Foundation??
"I wonder how much money Bill has received,over the years, from the RWJ Foundation??"
Bill was identified in a news report a while back, as an official representative of smokeless tobacco products.
If he gets anything for that representation, which he has never admitted, it would be from those evil despots who run "big tobacco" I would presume.
The term "shill to big T" might be appropriate here, although to be fair and being categorized as damaged goods and scofflaws ourselves according to Bill, we should wait for his slant on the category nomination, in his next "Good News" cometary.
Bill does walk among the enlighten ones, and what he tells us has to be important, so don't jump to any conclusions just yet.
Stigmatization isn't as much fun when your on the receiving end, is it Bill?
Tobacco Control, Stigma, and Public Health: Rethinking the Relations
| Ronald Bayer, PhD, and Jennifer Stuber, PhD
American Journal of Public Health | January 2006, Vol 96, No. 1
"The efforts propelling this
transformation resonate with a
long history of stigmatization in
public health, especially involving
the behavior of the poor, the
foreign-born, and racial and
ethnic minorities. But they run
counter to a revisionist orthodoxy
that had emerged during
the last years of the 20th century
that asserts that stigmatization
of those who are already
vulnerable provides the context
within which disease spreads,
exacerbating morbidity and
mortality by erecting barriers
between caregivers and those
who are sick, and by constraining
those who would intervene
to contain the spread of illness.
In this view, it is the responsibility
of public health officials to
counteract stigmatization if they
are to fulfill the mission to protect
the communal health.
Furthermore, because stigma
imposes unfair burdens on those
who are already at a social disadvantage,
the process of stigmatization,
it is argued, implicates the
human right to dignity. Hence, to
the instrumental reason for seeking
to extirpate any stigma, a
moral concern was added."
http://whyquit.com/Youth/
Denorma...malization.html
"
WHEREAS, chemical dependency upon smoking nicotine is today our [city's, county's, or state's] leading cause of preventable death;
WHEREAS, the U.S. Surgeon General has determined that nicotine is as addictive as heroin or cocaine;
WHEREAS, each day nearly 4,400 young people between the ages of 12 and 17 years initiate nicotine smoking in the United States, and almost half become daily smokers;
WHEREAS, the National Cancer Institute asserts that smokeless tobacco is addictive, that the amount of nicotine absorbed is three times higher than from cigarettes, and that chewing tobacco and snuff contain up to 28 carcinogens; "
From John Polito's website.
D. Any person under the age of eighteen years who enters a tobacco product sales location may be fined up to $500. The Court may suspend any fine subject to attendance and proof of successful completion of a nicotine dependency prevention or cessation program.
I have a question for you Mr. Polito. If you're going to advocate for such fines to youths who enter a tobacco shop, you must believe that either the minors or the parents have the means to pay for such fines. If this is so, why don't I see anywhere on that page (and please indicate to me anywhere else in your site where I might have missed it) your advocacy to fine youth for the act of smoking itself and possession of tobacco? What is it that makes all tobacco control activists think that if the youth cannot buy the products they won't smoke?
This is a genuine question to which I would really appreciate a reply.
4400 day x 365 = 1.6 million
1.6 million/2 = 800,000 new smokers annually.
Average lifespan with consistent inflow and outflow = 72 years x 800,000 = 57.6 million smokers at any given time.
So Bill what exactly do your reduced numbers actually tell you that your own research didn't?
If 20% of the population smoke and the population increases 1.1% annually with a rate of smokers quitting [or dying]at .7%, we should expect and increase of the true number of smokers rising by .4% annually.
.004 x [.74 x 320,000,000] = [.95 million x .2] + 800,000 = 990,000 annually inflow offset by 400,000 [preventable deaths?] outflow. Eventually at the current rate we will have 71.28 million smokers in the USA.
Compared to total population mortality rate @ 2.3 million/320 million = .736%
.00736 x 57.6 million = 423,000 smokers portion of total mortality if they never smoked?
Smoking saves 23,000 smokers annually?
Smoking saves 23,000 smokers annually?
Kevin
..................
Nooooooooo,
Smoking 'prevents' 45,386 CVD deaths per year.
Smoking,according to CDC data,prevents Coronary Heart Disease(CHD) deaths!
Using data from here,
http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/brfss/a.../a...qkey=4394&
grp=0
and here,
http://www.census.gov/population...lation...ables/
tab01.pdf
We find that there are about 142,092,916 adults in the above 35 population and there are about 29,007,093 smokers.
Smokers are 20.4% of the over 35 population where the CDC finds smoking related(caused) deaths.
Here,
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/...ml/ mm5745a3.htm
in the provided Table,we find that there are 852,370 CVD deaths in this age grouping and that there are 128,497 smoking attributed deaths.
That is,15% of those deaths.
In other words; about 29 million never smokers would have about 20.4% of the 852,370 CVD deaths and that would be 173,883 CVD deaths.
Now EVERYONE knows that if a smoker dies from CVD,that death was caused by smoking and nothing else.
However;since the CDC says that smokers have only 15% of the CVD deaths and they are 20.4% of the effected population,smoking MUST HAVE PREVENTED 5% of the expected smokers' CVD deaths.
Smoking 'prevented' 45,386 CVD deaths.
From John Polito's website.
D. Any person under the age of eighteen years who enters a tobacco product sales location may be fined up to $500.
I have a question for you Mr. Polito. If you're going to advocate for such fines to youths who enter a tobacco shop,
Iro, I don't take "tobacco product sales location" as being limited strictly to tobacco shops. Technically any store that sells tobacco products falls under this category. So the bigger question is WHY does entering a store that happens to also sell tobacco products warrant a fine for anyone, let alone a minor who is probably there buying is daily dose of "red bull"?
We could also follow the rhetoric and what they seem to be saying is; If normal mortality of smokers should see 423,000 and half of smokers die of [400,000]SRD.
That would have a total of 612,500 smokers leaving us every year of 2.3 million total mortalities leaving close to 1.7 million non smokers who would then live on average not 72 but now [.8x320]/1.7 = 150.6 years of age?
Ahhhh NOW I see. They want to actually BAN the SALE of Tobacco in as many stores as possible making it more inconvenient for the majority adult smokers to purchase their LEGAL PRODUCT just because law enforcement can't be bothered actually enforcing already existing laws about sales to minors.
Brilliant! I hate, truly hate, do-gooders. John Polito and his like can all beg to kiss my a$$. You people make me sick.
John Polito,
I have some questions in addition to Iro’s, if I may.
Firstly, there is a photo included in your link (below) of two boys standing at a point of sale. The photo implies that as children are reaching for gum(?) – or are they stealing it? – they are mesmerized by the tobacco adverts. What is your reasoning for such a photo? What happens next? Do the boys, in a trance, reach for their money to buy tobacco, another ‘victim’ of the evil tobacco empire? What about the anti-smoking indoctrination they already receive in school?
Secondly, you perpetuate the ‘nicotine addiction’ myth – smoking is only about nicotine; smoking is only very negative, having no positive aspects. Once a person smokes, there is nothing else useful about them. They are simply ‘smokers’ whose only major (and required) goal in life is to quit.
Thirdly, do you realize (maybe you do) that you are tapping into and reinforcing a destructive psychological and social trend with constant references to denormalization.
E.g., “NOW THEREFORE, it is necessary to denormalize chemical dependency upon tobacco derived nicotine by placing distance between youth and businesses whose product displays and point of sale marketing encourage them to use tobacco, and to use the engines of government to warn youth of the extremely addictive nature of tobacco products. It is the objective of this [statute/ordinance] to substantially diminish tobacco use pressures which daily bombard young, immature and developing minds.”
What about the destructive nature of denormalization messages incessantly pounded onto youth? Every time it is indicated that children, right up to 18 years on the dot, should be heavily guarded from this most ‘terrible’ habit, it is being stated that the world does not want to see any more of these poor excuses for humans (i.e., current adult smokers). Adult smokers, too, are under constant denormalization pressure.
The sign, too, is a bit rich: 'Youth Warning. Tobacco Sales Location. Do Not Enter'.
Why stop at just a sign? - why not have barbed wire around the store-front and the sales counter?
Fourthly, do you stand to gain from this denormalization?
“Any person under the age of eighteen years who enters a tobacco product sales location may be fined up to $500. The Court may suspend any fine subject to attendance and proof of successful completion of a nicotine dependency prevention or cessation program.”
Is your service one of the “nicotine dependency prevention or cessation programs” that can Save® The Children™ from a most ‘terrible’ path of smoking (even though they may not have even continued) and put them back on the ‘right’ track?
http://whyquit.com/Youth/ Denorma...malization.html
Save®, The Children™ - property of the State.
_
The leader in Health®, the medical establishment is the leading cause of preventable death & injury, and psychological & social dysfunction.
Setting the Standards in Derangement and Self-Approbation for a New World, for the Benefit of All [of the Medical Establishment].
I would love to hear the latest explanation of;
"“Any person under the age of eighteen years who enters a tobacco product sales location may be fined up to $500."
Why is one possible retail source being built up as causative or even related to the situation, when the problem is; children possessing cigarettes?
Why would you not avoid the obvious complications and restrict child possession exactly as you do with alcohol?
Save a lot of excessive enforcement costs and illogical responsibilities assigned to retailers, who are neither paid or trained as police, forcing them to regulate who should and shouldn't be smoking?
It seems backward, is the most popular direction of the day.
Why the answer is:
"The manufacturers know that as they focus the public’s attention on the prohibition of sales to minors, they plant firmly in the minds of kids the idea that smoking is an adult activity. In this way, the manufacturers establish smoking as a badge or symbol of entry into adulthood. The ‘We Expect ID’ initiative, although promoted by the Ontario Convenience Stores Association,50 is an initiative that Imperial Tobacco Canada may be contributing financially to.51 When initiatives are bankrolled by vested interests, it raises questions about the entire project, even before considering the deflection strategy of these types of youth prevention initiatives. These types of initiatives make cigarettes appealing to youth who want to be viewed by their peers as adult-like, independent and rebellious. Tobacco companies would be committing corporate suicide if they were truly interested in implementing effective strategies to stop young people from getting their products and becoming addicted to them. The fact these types of programs are not effective in preventing youth uptake of smoking is why the tobacco companies support them." - Non-Smokers’ Rights Association Smoking and Health Action Foundation
http://www.nsra-adnf.ca/cms/
file...ps_Oct_2008.pdf
"Most recently, to counter publicity around a series of lawsuits in the late 1990s, the industry launched a series of public relations initiatives that included education programs aimed at youth. The up-front message is that smoking is an adult activity and illegal for youth, thereby “instantly turning it into a rite of passage,” according to independent studies. “They have deceptively used programs designed for one thing to achieve a market objective.” - Cynthia Callard
Executive Director, Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada
http://www.cpha.ca/uploads/
confs...urrent_b3_e.pdf
"Reinforcement of the message that smoking is an adult activity—which is precisely why so many teenagers smoke.
They perceive smoking as adult, and wish to be adult.
Telling people not to smoke before they turn 18 gives children and youth an easy way to show that they are grown-up." - Debra Efroymson, Regional Director, PATH Canada Asia
http://www.healthbridge.ca/asset...ns/
batyouth.pdf
"BAT, for operating worldwide programs supposedly designed to prevent youth smoking but which actually make the practice more attractive to kids (by suggesting smoking is an adult activity), continuing to deny the harmful health effects of second-hand smoke, and working to oppose efforts at the World Health Organization to adopt a strong Framework Convention on Tobacco Control." - Robert Weissman
https://lists.resist.ca/pipermail...ary/
000510.html
I guess we should count ourselves lucky that kids don't feel the same way about alcohol and sex being an adult activity............
"WHEREAS, the National Cancer Institute asserts that smokeless tobacco is addictive, that the amount of nicotine absorbed is three times higher than from cigarettes ..."
Three times more nicotine? Goodness, that does sound like value added.
A great selling point for Bill Godshall's harm reduction program. Perhaps I should switch to chaw.
Smokeless tobacco delivers more, costs less. Outperforms even Nicotinel ...
... tobacco use pressures which daily bombard young, immature and developing minds.”
Umm, on what planet? The only daily bombardment I'm aware of (ad nauseum) comes from anti-tobacco (or is that what you mean?) the constant haranguing of "don't smoke"-- all over television, radio. The News--might possibly put pressure on "immature" "youth:" to extend their middle fingers?
But I'm still left agape at the angry brutish statism of the zealots. Bust em! Fine em! Force em into re-education camps! Drug em! Better a little Chantix in their thoroughly washed brains than a trip to the corner convenience store to buy a pack of gum. Where, I wonder, does this fury come from? This unhealthy obsession with other people's "health" which has nothing to do with health and all to do with obsession.
I believe Mr. Polito, just like Mr. Bill, once confessed to a many-pack-a-day habit. Instead of just resorting to self-flagellation, he apparently turns his puritan self disgust outward and wants to use the state to flagellate others. For Their Own Good. And so we get the Cotton Mather School of Public Health,
Sheesh. And, hey Doc, what (as Si implied) would satisfy your urge to "really jar" smokers? If pornographic pictures of carnage hasn't done it, what's the next step? A Clockwork Orange?
:
Strap them into straitjackets and lobotomize them with Chantix.
Now isn't this interesting,
SAVANNAH, Ga. — Two inmates at the Chatham County jail in coastal Georgia got burned by their own smoking habit when they started a fire trying to light a handmade cigarette with a spark from an electrical socket.
Both inmates were treated for minor burns after their cellmates quickly doused the fire with water, Sheriff's Deputy Ron Robinson said Wednesday. He said the jail banned smoking more than a decade ago, but it hasn't stopped inmates from improvising.
"Some of these guys have serious habits and cravings," Robinson said. "They try to smoke a lot of things ... lettuce, collard greens, turnip greens, whatever was served to them at lunch that day."
http://www.foxnews.com/story/
0,2...,530840,00.html
"It’s become abundantly clear over the years that the problem is products of combustion, saying if you dried, shredded and rolled up cabbage or broccoli or even carrots,.."
http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot....oup-
blasts.html
"Even officers lost their dignity." Any plants they could get hold of were smoked: leaves of corn, woodruff, coltsfoot, fern, rib-grass and so forth. Very popular were tea leaves rolled in toilette paper. These surrogates had neither the effect of nicotine nor the smell or taste of tobacco. They were smoked anyway. At least there was some warm smoke and the action of smoking."
"To outlaw production and trade would not turn smokers into non-smokers. It would, on the contrary, create a situation much like the one after the last war, when - in spite of the shortages - the number of smokers increased. There would certainly develop a black market, and the use of all sorts of ersatz substances would only raise the risks to the health of the users. Prohibition, therefore, is no solution."
"I certainly know that the arguments against prohibition, put forward by the German government in 1974, are incomplete and, in part, also a little hypocritical. Our honorable rulers forgot to mention the power of the tobacco companies and the billion annually in taxes"
http://www.mega.nu:8080/ampp/dru...gtext/
hess1.htm
There's something I'm missing, I keep wondering about those gases.
I think its oldfashioned thinking to keep looking solely for a substance.
That IS (Walt's) the bottom line of all this. Smoking, if anything, is PRIVATE Health-related, not Public Health. People should just be left alone to smoke if they choose to with no one's coerced interference and let the chips fall where they may. The obsession with what Other People do is the sickness.
"Later on we'll conspire,
As we dream by the fire"
Watching the flames flicker and the smoke curl in the hearth, and inhaling small amounts of combustion gases.
There is nothing more calming or more provocative of deep thought, in my experience.
Carbon Monoxide and Nitric oxide, both recently discovered to be important neurotransmitters and both made by the immune system.
Smoke your lettuce at will.
Bill: The 60%-70% reduction in youth smoking since 1997 is the result of state/local smokefree workplace laws, state/local cigarette tax hikes, state AG lawsuits and settlements, and state/local tobacco marketing restrictions.
Bill, you left out a word in your statistics citation: "REPORTED"
All based on what the kids REPORT when asked... by the authorities. Right, they're all telling the truth. But then whisper this:
CIG-NIFICANT REWARDS FOR KID BUTT PUSHERS
NY Post - December 12, 2004
Some of the city's best and brightest students are using their brains to sell butts — and earn $200 a week.
A small group of students at Stuyvesant HS have made names for themselves hawking illegal foreign cigarettes to fellow students, most of whom are underage.
The baby-faced entrepreneurs, who didn't want to be named, said they purchase 10-pack cartons of cigarettes for less than $20 from Manhattan "suppliers" or from Web sites.
They then sell the packs for $4 a pop — a more than 100 percent markup.
One kid selling smokes from his backpack said his parents not only know about his black-market business — they condone it.
"This way, they don't have to give me an allowance," he said.
It is unlawful to sell cigarettes without a license, to sell unstamped cigarettes, or to sell to minors.
Another baby-faced cigarette-seller said he usually blows his $200 weekly profit gambling.
The dealers stock what the students like — Parliament Lights, Camel and Marlboro. They mix the packs up in one carton, which they conceal in their black messenger bags.
The packs don't look like the smokes sold in stores — the writing is usually not in English. One pack of Parliament Lights sported a Romanian label.
A 14-year-old Stuyvesant freshman, dressed like most of his classmates in designer jeans and a puffy coat, said he buys three packs a week from the teens.
"They're the best," said another student. "I buy from them all the time. Everyone in the school knows to go to them."
Perhaps as disturbing as the illegal activity itself is the admiration it seems to elicit among the business-savvy student body.
"These kids are geniuses," said a classmate. "They make a ton of money."
The dealers — who "float between cliques" according to students — operate less than a block away from Stuyvesant every day, slyly exchanging money for goods after school.
Tax hike on smokes is burning bodegas
NY Daily News - September 25, 2002
By Jose Fernandez, president of the Bodega Owners Association
Nearly three months have passed since the city and state collaborated to pass the largest single tax increase in New York City's history, raising the tax on cigarettes to $1.50 a pack from 8 cents.
Neighborhood grocery stores have suffered a decline of close to 50% in cigarette revenue. In low-income areas where our bodegas have historically flourished, there is blatant hawking of illegal smokes - often right in front of our stores. Sales to minors, which were declining as a result of vigorous law enforcement, have started to increase as the hawkers sell to anyone with ready cash, no questions asked.
*****
Seems the tax hike caused an INCREASE of sales to minors, Bill. Ya think they're telling THAT to those like you who survey them????
I wonder
"The discovery follows a finding that another simple gas, nitric oxide, can also signal nerve cells. Together the two gases break all the old rules on how neurotransmitters work."
But gases are volatile and nonspecific, and they diffuse into any nearby cells. Transmitters were also thought to be stored in small pouches in cells that made them and released when necessary. But gases are not stored and are made only when needed."
"It's a whole brand new signaling mechanism," said Dr. Charles Stevens, a neurobiologist who is a Howard Hughes Medical Institutes investigator at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, Calif"
"It makes you think that when people are evaluating whether a given chemical is a candidate neurotransmitter, they ought to be very careful about applying the rules of ancient days."
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/01/2...n=&
pagewanted=1
New Study Shows that De-Nicotinized Cigarettes Deliver Substantial Nicotine to the Brain; Claims that FDA Bill Will End Addiction are Unfounded
"The new study found that even de-nicotinized cigarettes, which contain only a trace amount of nicotine, deliver a substantial dose of nicotine to the brain and that this level of nicotine is sufficient to occupy a substantial proportion of nicotine receptors in the brain (see: Brody AL, et al. Brain nicotinic acetylcholine receptor occupancy: effect of smoking a denicotinized cigarette.
International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology. doi: 10.1017/S146114570800922X).
According to the article, the smoking of a de-nicotinized cigarette resulted in 26% of the nicotine receptors in the brain being occupied, compared to 79% with a low-nicotine cigarette and 88% with a regular cigarette."
http://
tobaccoanalysis.blogspot....icotinized.html
"But gases are volatile and nonspecific, and they diffuse into any nearby cells."
"Like a computer booting up its operating system before running more complicated programs, the nitric oxide triggers certain functions that set the stage for more complex brain operations, according to a new study."
http://www.livescience.com/
healt...brain_boot.html
"According to the article, the smoking of a de-nicotinized cigarette resulted in 26% of the nicotine receptors in the brain being occupied"
By nitric oxide? Because the brain expects?
I did look at the workings of nitric oxide on the nicotinic receptors, but then my brain melted.
One positive by product of the suggested fine for children if they were to enter a shop which sold tobacco,is that tobacco goods could be placed back on the shelves,so legitimate consumers could see what the hell they wanted to buy.Ban kids from shops period.Electrocute them if they step into a shop.Anyway if you place cigarettes and tobacco back on display like any democratic and free country should,the kids could see the brands.I can then buy the ones they want.Hey presto,i'm happy the kids are happy,stuff TC.'TIS STILL LEGAL TO PURCHASE CIGARETTES (I THINK) and it REMAINS LEGAL for children to smoke BUT not purchase tobacco products.When our illustrious Third Reich (aka HMGov'ment) changed the law upping the age from 16 to 18 to legally purchase tobacco,they didn't care less about anyone caught up in the 2 year trap.It was for the chilren right ? BOLLOCKS was it !
I enjoy Tobacco cigarettes, herbal cigarettes, but I was once given one of those cigarettes with holes round the filter and that wasn't right at all.
Its the gases, got to be, for me at least.
The problem that I keep running into is that when I need an answer, very often the question hasn't yet been asked.
In reading the comments above in particular, I come to a simple conclusion: Public Health and TC: What a mess!
The soultion would be simply:
- get rid of the SHS lie and
- stop meddling with people's private lives
"It also informed, by the way, the German constitution of 1949 insofar as one of the first articles of this constitution (Art. 2 Abs. I GG) explicitly guarantees the right of self-determination.
This right implicitly embraces the right to indulge in all sorts of behavior including risky actions that might, in the end, endanger, injure or kill the actor - as long as such behavior does not hurt the rights of other persons.
Consequently, the use of all, even the most dangerous drugs is not illegal in Germany.
There is just no legal access to some of these drugs, since everything except use - production, trade, sale, purchase, possession - is declared illegal by a special law on narcotics" http://www.mega.nu:8080/ampp/dru...gtext/
hess1.htm
Clever, is this true?
So eventually we will be able buy as many cigarettes as we like but there will be nowhere we can legally use them.
On the strength of this.
"While air nicotine metabolised as cotinine provides a marker for measuring exposure to tobacco smoke, the nicotine is not present in such quantities as to present health concerns."
You know, the darker half of my brain can't help admiring the brilliance of the scam.
A modern day Final Solution to teenage smoking.
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoe...8961&
highlight=
Government mandated inoculation with NicVAX at age 10. Eliminates teenage smoking within a decade. Bankrupts Big Tobacco within three decades.
More efficient still, do a two-for-one combo with Gardasil.
http://www.newsinferno.com/archives/4673
"but I was once given one of those cigarettes with holes round the filter and that wasn't right at all.
Its the gases, got to be, for me at least." Did the cigarette burn rather hot and was more harsh than normal Rose ?
What i fail to fathom Rose,is,in one of the previous surgeon general's reports,stats showed that pipe smokers outlived non smokers if they didn't inhale.If they did,their lifespan equated to that of a non smoker.Lower down the lifespan came cigarette smokers.If filter tipped are supposedly safer than plain cigarettes,should i be using pipe tobacco in my plain fags to achieve parity with non smokers ? Or is it more to do with ADDITIVES IN CIGARETTES PERIOD ?
PS hand rolled St Bruno ready rubbed is very nice.
Oh dear,Rose... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/...lbury-
Hill.html
Si
It was very long ago and I haven't repeated the experiment, but I remember thinking that it was a somewhat pointless activity as there wasn't enough smoke and it tasted of nothing.
After that, if they were the only things available, I would politely refuse and go without.
Now I do agree about the additives,I was very surprised to get three days vague withdrawal when I swapped from ordinary premades to pure tobacco, but when I swapped from pure tobacco to a nicely blended herbal, there was no such withdrawal.
Oddly, I didn't feel that my reactions and swiftness of thought were quite as quick after several days of smoking herbal, but that could have been imagination.
I gave up the herbals by popular request because they smelt like bonfires.
"It appears to be a warning about the world coming to an end when the calendar does"
Si
If memory serves its the end of the aeon, the Sun returns to its original place, 5,000 years ago.
New beginnings, so I'd really rather not have Public Health in charge of the planet in its present form, when it does.
But I could be entirely wrong.
Mind you, I had a feeling that something really nasty was coming around 99 but couldn't work out what it was.
It certainly wasn't 2000, it felt much further away.
And then I heard about the Codex and smoking ban all in one go.
Si;
Examining the superstitious numerology systems [epidemiology]"studies" seem to suffer from a tendency to produce flawed opinions much more than evidence.
This was demonstrated in what was reported in the 1993 EPA report which classed ETS as a carcinogen worthy of public health protection against exposures, protection required especially for children, due to the causal Asthma risk. The report claimed That ETS "caused" asthma.
The scientific community has since refuted that theory quite definitively and the prediction which supported it was quietly withdrawn without explanation or apologies. I'll bet the drug makers didn't even get a refund.
The oratory in support of a causative nature, claiming to actually know the cause of asthma to be ETS. Is now just another flawed sermon fueling many superstitions, still echoing around the Tobacco Control religious today.
The numerology prediction, producing the claims, also produced much stronger RRs than the meta for all ETS RR calculations done to date. Higher also than the increased findings in a majority of the individual studies including those producing increased risks deceptively, by doubling the allowance for errors.
So what have we learned by the billions invested in superstitious numerology calculations?
We need to find better methods, a bigger dart board, or at minimum, a way to eliminate the biased tampering by over zealous and greedy politicians in white lab coats.
Anyone in favor of putting wide vertical pinstripes on those lab coats? just to spice them up and change the attitude...
Here you go Si
Last months crop circle
Phoenix crop circle may predict end of the world
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/...-the-
world.html
Phoenix rising from the Ashes
"The phoenix is a mythical creature which symbolises rebirth and a new era in many cultures across the world."
Interesting comments.
I have said it 100 times, the smoking ban and excessive taxes will only encourage smoking among the young. This can be seen in Ireland.
http://
www.belfasttelegraph.co.u...268#postcomment
The draconian taxes only encourages the black market who have little incentive not to sell to the young. The senator from my state has pushed for a protectionist law that would increase the criminal activity because it would eliminate the honest sellers like the indian reservations and put entirely in the hands of criminals and terrorists.
http://banthebanwisconsin.wordpr...ectionist-bill/
I would also like to point out the dismal failure of the war on drugs. It is far easier for our youth to get their hands on illegal drugs then it is for them to get their hands on tobacco or alcohol. The draconian taxes created the black market and in the long run will increase the availability to the young!
Oh dear
"Tobacco is virtually the only natural source of nicotine and the nicotine related nitrosamines, which are known to be carcinogenic."
( Nicotine now known to found in nightshade vegetables that affect cotinine levels,
Nitrosamines like bacon , processed meat anything that uses nitrate as a preservative etc )
Glue ear
"Repeated ear infections, lead to a condition known as glue ear - the commonest reason for young children to be admitted to to hospital for an operation.
If glue ear is left untreated, total or partial deafness may result, causing severe damage to a child's educational development.
A recent study of 7-year old children in Edinburgh found a direct link between middle-ear effusion ( glue ear ) and passive smoking as easured by salivary cotinine concentrations. This association could not be explained by factors such as poor housing or social class.
http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/a...ka14d00&
page=12
What causes glue ear?
"The cause is probably due to the Eustachian tube not working properly. The balance of fluid and air in the middle ear may become altered if the Eustachian tube is narrow, blocked, or does not open properly. Air in the middle ear may gradually pass into the nearby cells if it is not replaced by air coming up the Eustachian tube. A vacuum may then develop in the middle ear. This may cause fluid to seep into the middle ear from the nearby cells.
Some children develop glue ear after a cough, cold, or ear infection when extra mucus is made. The mucus may build up in the middle ear and not drain well down the Eustachian tube. However, in many cases glue ear does not begin with an ear infection.
How common is glue ear?
It is common. More than 7 in 10 children have at least one episode of glue ear before they are four years old. In most cases it only lasts a short while. Boys are more commonly affected than girls. It is more common in children who:
live in homes where people smoke
were bottle fed rather than breast fed
have frequent coughs, colds, or ear infections
have a brother or sister who had glue ear."
http://www.patient.co.uk/showdoc...owdoc/23068746/
Meanwhile in 2002
Glue ear caused by gastric juices
"Stomach acid which ends up in the middle ear as a result of 'gastric reflux' - when fluid flows back out of the stomach and up towards the throat - could be a major cause of glue ear, suggest researchers in The Lancet.
Glue ear is a common problem among young children, particularly those aged between two and five years. The condition occurs when sticky fluid collects in the ear and causes a blockage in the Eustachian tube - the one that connects the ear to the throat.
It is believed that glue ear can result from a number of problems, such as a cold or flu, inflammation or infection in the middle ear, an allergic reaction (ie, to pollen, dust or cigarette smoke) or the presence of an enzyme called pepsin, which is present in fluid from the stomach.
But Andrea Tasker and a team of researchers from the University of Newcastle have discovered that stomach acid could be more to blame than any other factor.
The team measured pepsin levels in middle ear 'glue' from 54 children in Newcastle and Nottingham. They found that 45 (83 per cent) of the samples contained 1000 times more pepsin than those found in ordinary blood samples.
Andrea Tasker told Bupa, "Gastric reflux is a very common among both children and adults in the UK. When it happens we usually feel what is commonly known as heartburn. Children who experience gastric reflux are at particular risk of fluids entering their Eustachian tube because, until it matures, it tilts at an angle and is more receptive."
http://www.bupa.co.uk/
health_inf...202glueear.html
But nobody appears to have told the TC
I should have said that I only looked that up, after reading this.
"The ban may be two years old, but its origins stretch back 21 years.
"In 1988 the Froggatt Report showed conclusively that smoking-related diseases could be caused by passive smoking – the inhaling of other people’s smoke."
http://www.nwemail.co.uk/
now_tha...features_2_1705
Which contradicts this from 2005 -
"While air nicotine metabolised as cotinine provides a marker for measuring exposure to tobacco smoke, the nicotine is not present in such quantities as to present health concerns."
"an allergic reaction ( ie, to pollen, dust or cigarette smoke )
Smoking linked to reduced allergic sensitization"
"They conclude: "The harmful effects of cigarette smoke are well known, and there are many reasons to avoid it.
"Our findings suggest that preventing allergic sensitization is not one of them."
Oops
http://www.medwire-news.md/48/
72...itization_.html
First, this is a link to a release I've put together on GSK's new planning study that quotes heavily from Dr. Siegel's piece:
http://whyquit.com/pr/070909.html
As for questions regarding the proposed ordinance, I know the word "denormalization" isn't very popular around here and from the smoker's standpoint I understand and for the most part agree that things have gone a bit too far, especially job discrimination. But from a youth prevention standpoint I see the focus of denormalization as being entirely different; to prevent them from ever facing smoker denornalization concerns. Today the industry spends at least 14 billion on shotgun marketing in local stores that doesn't discriminate based on age.
This Philip Morris document detailing its Archetype objectives has probably had the most impact on my thinking and will hopefully allow you to see where I'm coming from.
http://tobaccodocuments.org/land...46833-
6846.html
It's about the number of both conscious and subconscious invitations to smoke eventually growing so great inside a student's mind that they culminate in a "what the heck" moment that turns into a lifetime of dependency. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.
As for the question about us having a youth cessation program, no, nothing aside from what you see on the site. This is our primary youth page:
http://www.whyquit.com/Youth/
I deeply believe that the industry must continue to have the right to advertise product changes to adults but not in the presence of children.
The problem with putting walls between industry marketing and youth is obviously the loss of store income from youth sales of other products, which wouldn't be insignificant. I'd like to see merchants make a choice, either openly market nicotine to adults or market candy, chips and sodas to youth.
As for the $500, except in Conn. it may be a tad more than the average student's disposable income ; )) It was just a suggestion.
And yes, I was a long-term heavy smoker who got hooked at 15 and spent most of his life trying to break free. I've done some rather serious damage to this body and if I can help just one teen to not go through what I've endured that's be sufficient.
Regards,
John
EinsteinSmoked wrote:
"Bill Godshall has the numbers right and if anything they are conservative.
http://www.altria.com/investors/...p? reqid=1279148
Altrias 1st quarter sales year to year
Table 6
Total Cigarettes Sold
2009 - 34.4 billion
2008 - 40.1 billion
down (14.2)%
Market share
2009 50.9%
2008 51.2%"
The $.82/pack cigarette price hike (two weeks prior to the FET tax hike) has had a greater impact (i.e. reduced sales volumes) on premium priced cigarettes (than on discount brands) and on Altria (than Reynolds, Lorillard or other cigarette companies).
John, on your comment "But from a youth prevention standpoint I see the focus of denormalization as being entirely different" While on the surface it may seem like a good Idea, you forget what it is like to be young. The young tend to rebel against the establishment, youth rates have gone up in Ireland,Canada,France and Scotland.
http://banthebanwisconsin.wordpr...dismal-failure/
Tobacco use amongst military personnel is as high as 64%
http://banthebanwisconsin.wordpr...-they-get-home/
I saw one report that account for Canada that the black market accounted for 45% of the cigarettes sold.
With cigarettes selling illegally for as little as $10 a carton, it’s mostly kids who are buying.
“They’re recruiting youth to transport the cigarettes from the Akwesasne Mohawk territory to smoke shacks in other aboriginal communities,” Harvey said.
In one case, a 17 year-old girl was making $6,000 a week doing that and used the money to finance her drug addiction.
http://www.cigarettesreviews.com...soar-in-
ontario
In other words the entire effort has been a dismal failure. But I have said that 100s of times!
Thanks for the links, Marshall. That first one, I was confident that Canadian youth smoking rates were down substantially since they added the world's most potent cigarette pack addiction warning. If anyone has a link to Canadian youth data I'd be appreciative.
I could be wrong but I don't think any nation has legislation that totally insulates youth from industry store marketing. I think New Zealand may be the closest.
"I could be wrong but I don't think any nation has legislation that totally insulates youth from industry store marketing. I think New Zealand may be the closest."
I simply have to repeat;
Restricting possession avoids all need to be manipulative, or disrupt existing businesses. The added feature would be a reduced need to pester kids which diminishes their interest.
The model for alcohol works.
The problem most in TC refuse the option, seems to stem from their need to harangue and belittle other adults, using the "defenseless kids" as an excuse.
John
I don't know where they got their data but here
http://www2.canada.com/theprovin...bdcc62f&
k=53287
"And yes, I was a long-term heavy smoker who got hooked at 15 and spent most of his life trying to break free. I've done some rather serious damage to this body and if I can help just one teen to not go through what I've endured that's be sufficient" How long ago did this occur ? Are we talking about half a lifetime ago when cigarette smoking was more prevalent ? It's accepted that YOU made the wrong choice,but not everyone is you.Legislating against anyone under 18 makes the whole idea of smoking "interesting" to say the least.I'm pretty sick of TC seeking to change history and hide tobacco from view in the pathetic hope that teen smoking rates drop to an acceptable level.In a free society what right have you to dictate what IS an acceptable level ? What a shop should or should not sell ? Perhaps kids don't give a shit about your smoking experiences.Advise them as much as you like,and as much as they will accept,but then the decision is theirs,just like it is in every other aspect of their lives.
Thanks Marshall. Talk about conflicted youth smoking data. Take a look at these links:
2007 - Youth Smoking Rates At Lowest Rates Ever, Canada
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/...icles/
76560.php also http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ahc-asc/m...2007_85-
eng.php
John
I saw those I think that the increase can be attributed to the draconian taxes. It created the black market. They had a crackdown on the stores that sold to minors, but they have no control over the black market and of course to a kid that adds to the thrill. Of course there are no warnings on illegal cigarettes. This isn't on youth smoking but will show more recent numbers on the black market.
http://www.cnw.ca/en/releases/ar...9/01/
c9660.html
Per Bill Godshall, "The $.82/pack cigarette price hike (two weeks prior to the FET tax hike) has had a greater impact (i.e. reduced sales volumes) on premium priced cigarettes (than on discount brands) and on Altria (than Reynolds, Lorillard or other cigarette companies)."
I don't doubt it.
Altria has the largest market share because it makes the most popular brands. Smugglers of tax free cigarettes would know this and would import more of these brands than the others. It wouldn't make a lot of sense to smuggle generics until after the market has been saturated with bootlegged Marlboros and Camels and Newports etc.
The "larger" picture is that Altria's sales are down 14% but their market share is almost unchanged. The market for "legal and fully taxed" cigarettes is 14% smaller than it was a year ago. All of this occured before the recent price hike or FET Tax increase so black market sales can only be expected to increase from here.
Another way of looking at it is that the FDA and Tobacco Control have 14% fewer cigarettes available for regulation and control this year than they had last year. Accurate measurements of consumption will become much more difficult in the future. Canada claims to have reduced consumption while others claim that 45% of all cigarettes consumed in Canada are untaxed or unregulated.
The money lost to the black market will not be available to fund health insurance for children and will not be available for MSA payments. Overall consumption may be unaffected or actually increase but there will be no way to be sure.
Is this the intended outcome?
For every untaxed carton of cigarettes sold some poor child goes without health insurance.©
Here are the official tables for smoking prevalence from 1999 - 2008 in Canada as per John Polito's request.
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hc-ps/tob...valence-
eng.php
About youth smoking prevalence (15 - 24)please note that smoking rates were steadily decreasing right up to 2005, then started more or less stagnating right up to 2008, where now it looks like they're increasing again.
There are two reasons I can see for this: One is defiance against repressive laws (no more smoking on school grounds and constant indoctrination and harassment by adult authorities) and the other is the black market increase that prohibitive cigarette taxes have caused.
When interpreting these figures, please don't forget that smoking bans started in 2005 for some provinces and 2006 for the two biggest provinces. With smoking bans came the stigma that accompanies smokers and the mass hysteria. Bets are that before this agressive denormalization, youth would have been more truthful when answering surveys. How truthful are they now that they,re looked upon as deviants and delinquants if they admit to smoking? Chances are many of them have lied on these surveys to save themselves a sermon or two and youth smoking prevalence is actually a lot higher than these figures show.
This is fantastic data, Iro. But looking only at youth rates (the 15-19 group) they started at 28% and were at 15% last year, 2008. That's an amazing decline and although it appears to have stalled, I don't see a recent increase. Although I don't see any comments telling us how smoking has here been defined I'm assuming these are not daily smokers but students who have smoked at least once in the past 30 days. If so, I think someone in Canada has done a solid job of reducing youth smoking by nearly half in just 9 years.
I tend to think that youth are far smarter than some give them credit for and that this cigarette pack addiction warning has played a significant role in teaching youth both how addictive smoking is (highly) and allowing them to compare and contrast addiction risks to other drugs that they've heard about for your years.
http://whyquit.com/whyquit/1addi.../
1addictlow.jpg
Again, thanks for this link. I'm setting off to share it!
John
Well John, I am glad you find these figures encouraging but please be careful not to read more into them than there really is. As a matter of fact the Cdian Cancer Society issued a press release recently following the latest figures that youth rates have increased by 2% (and yes we can read this in the charts 15 - 24) for the first wave of 2008. Of course they could be sounding alarming to justify their thirst for more anti-tobacco funding. We can't trust anyone anymore.
So these figures are only that: Theoretical figures. In the meantime, illegal cigarettes are running rampant by the youth (and I will only talk about Quebec and Ontario now), cigarillo consumption has sky rocketed and has replaced cigarette smoking and pot smoking keeps increasing not to mention hard drugs. If you want these figures, I can always dig them out tomorrow for you.
Should we really be that confident and happy about these figures? Real life does not reflect what we are reading here and we can't focus on just tobacco and pretend we are winning the war on dependancies by the youth. Heck no. We have to look at the whole picture, and in Quebec at least, the whole picture is very gloomy. No, John, we are not winning any wars here. Not only are we creating easily accessible contraband cigarettes to our youth (no ID's or questions asked) but we are pushing them towards more fashionable drugs such as smoke-free ecstacy and speed. That is what our youth are taking in their all night parties in Quebec. Do you really think that's better? Please do not be blinded by these figures. You owe it to the youth you want to protect.
John R. Polito
If you notice they have not gone down since the ban. AS Iro pointed out, I like Iro am willing to bet it is much higher. After the denormalization campaign how many kids are willing to admit it. Just lie and save yourself the lecture.
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I tend to think that youth are far smarter than some give them credit for and that this cigarette pack addiction warning has played a significant role in teaching youth both how addictive smoking is (highly) and allowing them to compare and contrast addiction risks to other drugs that they've heard about for your years.
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While I normally would agree with you. The problem is that this is like like the late 60's early 70's where the risks an the risks of SHS are massively overblown. Kids are not stupid, if they find any part of it a lie makes it so you don't trust the source on any part of it. As a late baby boomer we all got the scare tactics on the use of drugs, we got shown scary movies, etc etc etc. You know how that worked out, and you think graphic pictures on a cigarette pack is going to do anything? Educate them with the facts and leave it alone. The more you deamonize it the more you glorify it. I am probably older then you but I can't believe you can't remember what it is like to be young. I remember kids in school that were part of anti drug groups as a front, yet they were the biggest stoners in school.
I am telling you to help you. I remember those days and denormalization does not work. Prohibition didn't work, consumption went up, the war on drugs was a dismal failure, same thing consumption went up. What makes you think rehashing the same old tactics are going to result in a different outcome?
Sorry I meant
60's early 70's where the risks an the risks of drugs were
Per John R. Polito, "I tend to think that youth are far smarter than some give them credit for..."
Based on the data for Wave 1 2008 (in fact for all of the waves) smoking prevalence doubles in Canada between the age groups of 15-19 and 20-24 years of age.
I think that Iro is right. Do participants in grades 12 and lower get extra homework or something if they answer yes? The 20 year olds seem more willing to admit to tobacco consumption that didn't just start when they turned 20 ... it started when they were younger.
... or do smart Canadian kids just loose their smarts when they turn 20?
Very astute observation Einstein !
You each raise good points. I noticed the big jump at 20 too (massive) but attributed the big jump to industry marketing, work smoke breaks and money in their pockets. I'm sure there's a host of factors with, as mentioned, the possibility of stigma driving 15-19 y/o responses.
I take care of about five miles of roadway each week here in SC and I'm seeing what seems to be an increase in empty plastic grape cigar tubes and these flavored wrappers that I'm told are for pot. In that SC still has the cheapest cigarettes in the U.S. I haven't noticed the absence of tax stamps on any packs but now you guys are going to have me looking closer. Thanks for the lessons.
John
John,
I had to ask my stepson about that one.
It is called a blunt. It is less conspicuous and the strong cigar smell covers up the pot smell.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/d....php?
term=blunt
Geesh, I feel so stupid. Thanks for the link. That explains all the razor blades too. There was one spot a few days back where I must of picked up a dozen brand new razor blades but just didn't put it all together.
Blunt. Reminds me of the old days, when I travelled from Europe to New York to visit old friends (I must have been in the early 30s).
I spent several days with them and watched with amusement as they emptied the tobacco out of cigarettes to reload them with marijuana. Then we went off to Greenwich Village smoked our plants in the streets.
During my stay I smoked quite a lot of this stuff and I remember the one morning when, after a coffee and two joints, they suggested we visit the Planetarium. Sitting in the huge auditorium, stars above our heads and spatial music coming from everywhere and nowhere was quite a high experience.
Despite the fact that this was my first , yet intense, contact with this drug, I did not become addicted to marijuana. I never tried to repeat the experience, the idea just didn't cross my mind.
But it was a memorably experience with particularly relaxed and peaceful moments.
correction: "Greenwich Village where we smoked our blunts openly in the streets"
''I noticed the big jump at 20 too (massive) but attributed the big jump to industry marketing, work smoke breaks and money in their pockets.''
There is no industry marketing in Canada John. The tobacco companies have not been allowed to advertize in the last 10 years here. They appealed and lost by a unanimous vote at Supreme Court, whereby the judges ruled that health trumps constitutional freedom of expression rights! Tobacco displaying has been hidden behind closed doors in all provinces since last year and even longer for some provinces such as Saskatchewan and Manitoba I believe.
''and money in their pockets''
They don't need very much money to smoke in Ontario and Quebec John. If you want to know where to get contraband cigarettes just ask a teen. They have them delivered right to the school yard and pay between $1.50 and $2.00 a pack or they can go buy them at the closest reserve and save some money by paying 10 $ a carton! Some make good money by reselling them to their peers which allows them to purchase harder drugs and live it up!
I have presented the problem to you to the best of my knowledge. Now let's see if there is a solution.
There is, if puritans, do-gooders and financially motivated interest groups stop imagining that more laws and repression will fix the problem when in fact it makes it worse. It will never eliminate all smoking by the youth, but it might go back to a descending tangent.
Stop this incessant anti-smoking propaganda. Keep it to reasonable levels like before the heavy artillery denormalization process and keep it honest. Kids are not fools. The more absurd the propaganda gets, the less likely they'll be to believe when they get past a certain age. I believe that age is around 14. My 13-year old anti-smoking granddaughter is beginning to catch on that much of what she was taugtt against tobacco isn't really happening in real life. She's now incessantly questioning what they taught her. She might get totally turned off and become pro-tobacco if she realizes that she has been lied to. I have to use a lot of psychology to get her to understand the difference between what is true and what is exaggerated and keep it at a level where it's reasonable for her to believe.
Eliminate the contraband and untaxed cigarette market by reducing cigarette prices to reasonable levels. $4.00 a pack instead of $9.50 I believe would be a magic level. Most adults would probably go back to brand name legal cigarettes instead of cheap contraband. Anything over $4.00 or at the very maximum $4.50 will not eliminate the black market. By eliminating the black market you're at least putting the sale of cigarettes back into more regulated hands. Will this deter the younger ones from smoking? I think it will to a certain extent. The price will be double of what they,re getting them for now which should make a difference in their pocket money. They might not totally give up smoking but they might smoke less and smoking might lose some of the ''forbidden'' glamour we have created with all the anti-smoking propaganda.
These two important measures will be a plus for going back to decreasing trends of teen smoking.
You will not get too many new adults smokers because of the prices, because most adults don't start smoking at a later age. If this were to happen, it would be happening already since you can readily get $1.00 - $2.00 contraband cigarettes anywhere in the bigger centers in Quebec and Ontario.
Amen Iro,
That is what I have said all along. I know that a lot will poo poo me but I say the same about the softer drugs. Legalize it and regulate it. The outlaws of the world have little incentive to adhere to age restrictions and at least here it is far easier for kids to get drugs then it is tobacco or alcohol. But I expect that in Wisconsin (Being on the Canadian border) with the recent tax increases we will soon see black market cigarettes here.
The Netherlands have more lax laws on drugs and have lower usage then we do. As I have repeatedly said, the more it is repressed the more attractive it is to kids.
http://veritasvincitprolibertate.../2008/06/16/10/
I won't be the one to poo poo on you Marshall. I think the war on drugs and drug prohibition is a dismal failure. Decriminilazion if not legalization is bound to get us a lot further. I am a fervent supporter of LEAP. http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php
But as Michelle can testify, it took me a while to get rid of my taboos and preconceived ideas and realize that drug prohibition is hurting citizens (minors and adults) and the economy.
Boy did I ever massacre the word decriminalization on the post above. I am sure you understood the meaning but I am just showing off that I do know how to spell it right
Iro,.
Don't feel bad. I have always been an independent but leaned conserve. It was kind of a wake up call for me. I don't think that anyone should use drugs even though I dabbled in a minor way in the 70s. It took the libertarians to get me to realize that those were my rebellious years. What if I would have got caught then and lost all my rights including the right to bear arms which means that I couldn't hunt or the right to vote? Kids don't think about that chit. But once you loose those rights it takes decades to get them back. For me the drug years were a minor blip that I got through. But what if I would have got caught and got put through the BS today? I don't know how it was in Canada but I think I lived through the best years in this country. I was just passed the McCarthy era. Yes I lived through the Kennedy assassination,MLK, and Robert and of course the landing on the moon. I always thought that the libertarians were nut jobs that believed in drug use,gun nuts etc etc etc. I use to be anti abortion. The libertarian party gave me a different perspective. As an avid conservative I thought that drugs should be eradicated. Ywa
John Polito--
I'm sorry if you had a bad experience with cigarettes. Some people have bad experiences with liquor, but they don't go around attempting to bust teenagers for walking into a restaurant where wine is served to adults and they don't try to rid the whole world of Johnny Walker. Or stigmatize social drinkers and force them from public squares.
Nonetheless, it's your right, and perhaps even your duty, to warn The Children that there's a risk that whatever happened to you could also happen to them. I'd defend your right to do that. Go on a lecture tour of high schools throughout the country; better still, do a PSA for television and radio. But you don't seem to know the difference between the missionary efforts to reasonably and gently lead the heathens unto Christ vs throwing them into the ovens.
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