Pregnant smokers were more likely to quit when using e-cigarettes than patches after four weeks, study shows
E-cigarettes are as safe to use as nicotine patches for pregnant smokers trying to quit, and may be a more effective tool, researchers have revealed.
Smoking in pregnancy can increase the risk of outcomes including premature birth, miscarriage and the baby having a low birth weight. But stubbing out the habit can be a struggle.
Continue reading...Effort to ‘help prevent children from becoming the next generation of smokers’ likely to face stiff opposition from big tobacco
The US Food and Drug Administration on Thursday issued a long-awaited proposal to ban menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars, a major victory for anti-smoking advocates but one that could dent sales at tobacco companies.
The proposal, which comes a year after the agency announced the plan, still needs to be finalized, and could take years to implement as it is likely to face stiff opposition from big tobacco.
Continue reading...Experts suggest all-time low smoking rates may be thanks to less socializing and more time with kids
In the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic, more Americans drank heavily and used illicit drugs – but apparently fewer smoked.
US cigarette smoking dropped to a new all-time low in 2020, with one in eight adults saying they were current smokers, according to survey data released on Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Adult e-cigarette use also dropped, the CDC reported.
Continue reading...Making substances illegal has never worked, simply because it fails to address the reasons why people use them
I once lived with a militant vegetarian who had grown up near an abattoir. With a thousand-yard stare, he’d talk about how its bloody runoff would seep into his local playground. He hadn’t touched meat since those days. You often hear this sort of thing from vegetarians and vegans: that if you looked at what went on inside (or even outside) a slaughterhouse, you’d switch to Quorn full-time. In a similar vein, if you want to quit smoking, I recommend watching someone go through lung cancer.
I could never look someone in the eye and tell them smoking isn’t both immensely pleasurable and cool-looking. What I would say is this: my mum was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2017. Over just a few months I watched her shrivel, become obscured by tangles of medical tubing, and begin to suffocate to death as her lungs filled with fluid. She died that same year, and it was a relief to know that her unimaginable suffering was over. I apologise if this description has either put a damper on your next fag break, or stressed you into taking a fag break when you didn’t even have one planned. As a former smoker, I can understand either scenario.
Eleanor Margolis is a columnist for the i newspaper and Diva
Continue reading...New Zealand has announced it will outlaw smoking for the next generation, so that those who are aged 14 and under today will never be legally able to buy tobacco.
New legislation means the legal smoking age will increase every year, to create a smoke-free generation of New Zealanders, associate health minister Dr Ayesha Verrall said
Continue reading...Legislation will mean people currently aged 14 and under will never be able to legally purchase tobacco
New Zealand has announced it will outlaw smoking for the next generation, so that those who are aged 14 and under today will never be legally able to buy tobacco.
New legislation means the legal smoking age will increase every year, to create a smoke-free generation of New Zealanders, associate health minister Dr Ayesha Verrall said on Thursday.
Continue reading...MPs propose raft of tough new measures aimed at getting more people to stop smoking
Individual cigarettes could have “smoking kills” printed on them under a raft of tough measures proposed by MPs to encourage more people to quit the deadly habit.
MPs have submitted an amendment to the health and care bill going through parliament which would allow the health secretary to make graphic health warnings mandatory.
Raise the legal age for buying cigarettes from 18 to 21.
Stop e-cigarette makers using tactics that might entice children to try them, such as sweet flavourings and cartoon characters.
Make it illegal to give e-cigarettes away free as sampler products, as some manufacturers have done.
Continue reading...Stress of pandemic could be behind increase in people aged 18-34, but number who quit habit also rose
The number of young adults who smoke in England rose by about a quarter in the first lockdown, research has suggested.
Nevertheless, the number of people who stopped smoking altogether increased, with the number across all age groups almost doubling during the first national lockdown when compared with the period immediately prior, researchers from University College London (UCL) and the University of Sheffield said.
Continue reading...CEO Jacek Olczak says product should be treated like petrol cars, which will be outlawed from 2030
The chief executive of tobacco business Philip Morris International has called on the UK government to ban cigarettes within a decade, in a move that would outlaw its own Marlboro brand.
Jacek Olczak said the company could “see the world without cigarettes … and actually, the sooner it happens, the better it is for everyone.” Cigarettes should be treated like petrol cars, the sale of which is due to be banned from 2030, he said.
Continue reading...If patches, hypnosis and self-help books don’t work, maybe it’s time to think laterally. Readers reveal the unlikely methods that encouraged them to kick the habit
I smoked 10 to 20 a day, but finally quit 11 years ago. I found getting a glass of water when the cravings hit worked really well. By the time I went to the kitchen, poured it and drank it, the peak of the craving had usually passed. It also helped me to realise that you can ride out a craving. The first three weeks were the hardest. Michael, artist and educator, Scotland
Continue reading...As she recovers from a brutal summer of cancer treatment, Tracey Emin takes us round her new show – and imagines spending the next 30 years painting in her pyjamas to the sound of birdsong
‘I am so lucky,” says Tracey Emin as we stand in the grand galleries of the Royal Academy. I can tell, from her brown eyes, that she’s smiling beneath her face mask. As we roam rooms painted moody blue for her new exhibition, in which her paintings, bronzes and neons are juxtaposed with the oils and watercolours of Edvard Munch, Emin adjusts her stoma bag occasionally and laughs a lot. “I’m in love with Munch,” she says. “Not with the art, but with the man. I have been since I was 18.”
This is not what I expected. Minutes earlier, walking through this London gallery’s courtyard, I felt darkness descending everywhere. England was re-entering lockdown, Biden hadn’t yet won Michigan and the last visitors to the Royal Academy for a month were heading out into the night. I expected the 57-year-old artist to be at death’s door, defeated by disease and circumstance. She is, after all, putting on an exhibition hardly anyone will see: “They sold 16,000 advance tickets but when Boris announced the second lockdown, we knew we couldn’t open.” All she can hope is that the gallery will open in December, but that is uncertain.
Continue reading...Measure comes despite more than 43% of the country’s male population being smokers, including leader Kim Jong-un
North Korea’s supreme people’s assembly has introduced smoking bans in some public places to provide citizens with “hygienic living environments”, state media KCNA reported.
The tobacco-prohibition law aims to protect the lives and health of North Koreans by tightening the legal and social controls on the production and sale of cigarettes, KCNA on Thursday quoted the legislature as saying.
Continue reading...Addressing 12 factors such as excessive drinking and air pollution exposure may have significant effect, experts say
Excessive drinking, exposure to air pollution and head injuries all increase dementia risk, experts say in a report revealing that up to 40% of dementia cases worldwide could be delayed or prevented by addressing 12 such lifestyle factors.
Around 50 million people around the world live with dementia, including about 850,000 people in the UK. By 2040, it has been estimated there will be more than 1.2 million people living with dementia in England and Wales. There is currently no cure.
Continue reading...New reports cast doubt on early claims smoking offered protection from disease
At the beginning of the pandemic, smokers may have thought they had little to worry about, as there was a sliver of good news for them: a study circulating on social media suggested smoking could be associated with a lower risk of contracting Covid-19. That’s not the full story.
Related: Biden predicts Trump will try to 'steal the election' by fighting mail-in voting – live
Continue reading...Decision follows recent revelation country has highest rates of tobacco use in the world
The Jordanian government has banned smoking and vaping in all indoor public spaces a week after a Guardian investigation revealed tobacco use in the country had become the highest in the world.
The country’s health ministry said on Wednesday all enclosed public areas would now be “100% smoke-free environments”, building on an existing but widely flouted ban on smoking inside government buildings, and ending an exemption for hotels, cafes and restaurants provided they separated smokers from non-smokers.
Continue reading...With tobacco sales banned in effort to curb coronavirus, illegal trade has surged on border with Zimbabwe
South Africa and Zimbabwe have stepped up border patrols in a bid to stop cigarette smuggling, which has boomed since Pretoria banned the sale of tobacco in March.
The country claimed smokers were more prone to Covid-19 – something that has been challenged by tobacco companies – but the illegal trade has increased, despite South Africa erecting a R37m (£1.7m) 25-mile fence across the border in April as part of its measures to curb the spread of coronavirus. Smugglers have been crawling through broken sections of the fence and taking advance of the particularly porous Beitbridge/Musina crossing point.
Continue reading...Despite one of the world’s highest smoking rates, many politicians believe a ban will effect the economy
When patients quit cigarettes at the King Hussein Cancer Center’s smoking clinic they are asked to be patient with their children. Often their offspring have been exposed to so much secondhand smoke that they have become addicted, too.
“For every four cigarettes their parent has smoked, the child has smoked one,” says Firas al-Hawari, a physician who directs the clinic. “We can control the parents with medication, but the kids are going through withdrawals because we don’t have them on medication.”
Continue reading...Frenchman found ‘exhausted and shivering’ after getting lost in Pyrénées
A Frenchman caused a major alert this weekend after setting off across the Pyrénées to buy cheap cigarettes in Spain.
Related: 'Coronavirus is not on holiday': France warns citizens against Easter travel
Continue reading...BAT seems to be running accounts to promote e-cigarettes after crackdown on hiring influencers
British American Tobacco (BAT) is marketing e-cigarettes and heated cigarettes with pictures of attractive models and using hashtags such as “I dare you to try it”, despite a crackdown last year after it paid social media influencers to promote its products.
BAT had come under fire after hiring young models to sell its products despite having an explicit policy banning under-25s from appearing in adverts.
Continue reading...Charity decries government’s ‘foolhardy’ decision to reduce anti-smoking budget by 24%
The government has been accused of undermining its ambition to make England smoke free after an anti-smoking campaign was cancelled following a 24% cut to the public health marketing budget.
Health Harms, a Public Health England (PHE) scheme, has previously sought to harness new year resolutions in January to encourage the 6 million tobacco smokers in the country to quit through vaping and visualising how cancer-causing chemicals and tar are inhaled.
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