Candy or Tobacco!

Video from Tobacco Free Florida. Reposted at http://www.tobaccodeathray.blogspot.com,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrsWp-8JZU8

Vidoe on candy-flavored and appearing tobacco products taregeting kids

Updates from ActionToQuit

Updates from ActionToQuit, reposted at http://tobaccodeathray.blogspot.com,

Legacy’s World Affairs
   
Cigarette Smoking at New Low Among Youths, Survey Finds
July 12, 2013   Cigarette smoking hit the lowest point ever recorded among American eighth-graders and high school sophomores and seniors last year, a newly released report shows. Read More.

Spurn Burns Deep for Young Smokers
July 12, 2013   They laugh at the thought of getting throat cancer, but tell them they won’t pull chicks if they taste like an ashtray and young smokers will take notice. Read More.

Law Spoils Tobacco’s Taste, Australians Say
June 11, 2013   More than seven months have passed since Australia imposed one of the world’s toughest laws for tobacco warning labels, swapping iconic packaging for graphic images of mouth ulcers, cancerous lungs and gangrenous limbs. Read more.

Cigarette Smoke Impacts Genes Linked to Health of Heart and Lungs
July 11, 2013   Diana J. Bigelow and colleagues point out that active smoking doubles the risk of heart disease, while second-hand smoke exposure increases this risk by about one-third. Read more.
 
Statewide Bans Boost Smoke-Free Campus Momentum
July 10, 2013   College smokers are finding themselves increasingly out of luck, as more schools across the USA ban smoking and use of other tobacco products from campus grounds. Read more.

Tobacco Control Measures in India Could Prevent Heart Disease and Stroke Deaths
July 10, 2013   Smokefree laws and higher tobacco taxes in India could prevent nine million heart disease and stroke deaths over the next decade, a new study says. Read more.

Denormalizing Smoking: Making the Case for Banning Cigarettes in Parks and On Beaches
July 9, 2013   Many state and local governments have banned smoking in parks and on beaches on the basis that passive smoke is a risk for non-smokers, cigarette butts pollute the environment, and seeing people smoke poses a long-term risk to children. Read More.

Adverse Fetal Growth, Exposure to Maternal Smoking Correlated with Lower Measures of Sperm Quality
July 8, 2013   Studies over the past 20 years have suggested (though not unequivocally confirmed) that semen quality is in decline, reflected most evidently in falling sperm counts and reduced sperm motility. Read more.

Sweden’s Snus Tobacco Invades, but Americans Prefer Snuff
July 8, 2013   Josh Pedigo likes to spit, the 27-year-old handyman from Wentworth, N.C., started using Skoal snuff when he was 10 years old, and now he spits even when he doesn’t have a wad of tobacco in his lower lip. Read more.
 

Federal Tobacco Tax Hike Would Reduce Smoking, Raise Revenue

Reposted at http://www.tobaccodeathray.blogspot.com,

 

Statement of Matthew L. Myers, President, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids

WASHINGTON, DC – A report issued today by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities provides important new support for increasing the federal tobacco tax, finding it would be both highly effective in reducing smoking and a reliable and predictable source of revenue to fund early childhood education initiatives proposed by President Obama.  The report also finds that the tobacco tax increase would deliver the greatest benefits to lower-income people, including health benefits from reductions in smoking and educational benefits from expanding early childhood education.  These conclusions refute tobacco industry claims that a tobacco tax increase is not a reliable source of revenue and would hurt lower-income people.

The combined policy of a tobacco tax increase and expansion of early childhood education “is designed to benefit people both at the ‘front end,’ by expanding opportunity, and at the ‘back end,’ by improving health and extending lives,” the report concludes.

This report demonstrates that the President’s proposal to increase the federal cigarette tax by 94 cents per pack to fund early childhood education would be a “win-win” for our nation’s children, improving their health and education.  The proposal also calls for increasing taxes on other tobacco products.  The tobacco tax increases would raise $78.1 billion over 10 years, according to the Office of Management and Budget.

The new report found the tobacco tax increase would:

·         Be an effective way to reduce smoking:  “Tobacco taxes are a proven strategy to reducing smoking, particularly among teenagers and low-income people.  Given the high health costs of tobacco use, reducing smoking rates would lead to substantial health gains.”

 ·         Be a reliable and predictable source of revenue:  The report finds that the higher tobacco tax would raise the revenue needed to fund early childhood education, even while reducing smoking.  “The President’s proposal takes into account this positive behavioral response and assumes that revenue falls at the end of the ten-year budget window.  Even so, the estimated revenue is sufficient to pay for the proposal over ten years.”

·         Deliver significant health benefits to lower-income people.  “The health benefits of a higher tobacco tax are progressive.  Because low-income people are more sensitive to changes in tobacco prices, they will be more likely than high-income people to smoke less, quit, or never start in response to a tax increase.”  The report also concludes, “Expanding early childhood education – in particular for low- and moderate-income children – as the President has proposed is a very progressive use of the revenue from raising the tobacco tax.”

Study after study has shown that increasing the tobacco tax is one of the most effective ways to reduce smoking and other tobacco use, especially among kids.  Even tobacco companies admit in their own documents that tobacco tax increases reduce youth smoking, which is why they vehemently oppose them.  Economic research has found that every 10 percent increase in the price of cigarettes reduces youth smoking by six or seven percent and overall cigarette consumption by three to five percent.

The health and economic benefits of a federal tobacco tax increase were confirmed in a 2012 report by the Congressional Budget Office.  The CBO found that a 50-cent increase in the federal tobacco tax would raise substantial new revenue while prompting nearly 1.4 million adult smokers to quit by 2021, saving tens of thousands of lives and reducing health care costs, including for the Medicaid program. Based on the CBO’s statement that a $1 tax increase would roughly double those benefits, we estimate that a 94-cent cigarette tax increase would prompt 2.6 million adult smokers to quit and save 18,000 lives by 2021.

In addition to these gains from helping current smokers quit, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids has estimated that a 94-cent increase in the federal cigarette tax would:

·         Prevent 1.7 million kids from becoming addicted adult smokers

·         Prevent 626,000 premature deaths from these reductions in youth smoking alone

·         Save $42 billion in future health care costs from these reductions in youth smoking.

In addition to the many health and revenue benefits, national and state polls have consistently found strong public support for substantial increases in tobacco taxes, with Democrats, Republicans and Independents alike expressing support.

Tobacco use is the number on cause of preventable death in the United States, killing more than 400,000 people and costing $96 billion in health care bills each year.  The evidence is clear: The proposed increase in federal tobacco taxes would be both a health win and an economic win for our nation.

Preventing Youth Hookah Smoking

Reposted at http://www.tobaccodeathray.blogspot.com

Preventing youth smoking initiation is a priority for tobacco control programs, because most adult tobacco smokers become addicted during adolescence. Interventions that restrict the affordability, accessibility, and marketing of cigarettes have been effective in reducing youth cigarette smoking. However, increasing numbers of youth are smoking tobacco using hookahs. Predictors of smoking tobacco with hookahs are the same as those for smoking cigarettes. Established interventions that curb youth cigarette smoking should therefore be effective in reducing hookah use. Potential policy interventions include equalizing tobacco tax rates for all tobacco types, requiring warning labels on hookah tobacco and accurate labeling of product contents, extending the cigarette flavoring ban to hookah tobacco, enacting smoke-free air laws and removing exemptions for hookah lounges, and expanding shipping restrictions on tobacco products.

Find full entry at http://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2012/12_0082.htm