Stop Smoking Way

Naltrexone, approved for the treatment of alcohol dependence, also helps heavy social drinkers who aren’t alcoholics to quit smoking, as well as to reduce the amount of alcohol they drink, a new study shows.

After taking naltrexone, smokers who were heavy drinkers had significant reductions in heavy drinking rates over the course of the 8-week treatment, and also were more likely to quit than heavy drinkers taking placebo, lead investigator Dr. Andrea C. King told Reuters Health. “The effects were not as prominent among the lighter drinking smokers,” she noted.

Drivers in parts of Monroe County will no longer be able to smoke in their vehicles if a child is present.

County commissioners on Friday approved a smoking ban by a 2-1 vote that prohibits smoking if a child age 13 or younger is also in the vehicle, 6News’ Ben Morriston reported. The ordinance affects only the unincorporated areas of Monroe County, so cities Bloomington, Ellettsville and Stinesville are exempt.

Commissioner Pat Stoffers called that absurd. “A 35-mile car trip can take you through six changes in the smoking law,” he said.

For the estimated 20% of Americans who smoke cigarettes, the impact of a federal excise tax increase that takes effect Wednesday is already being felt.

Earlier this month the manufacturer of Marlboro, Parliament and Virginia Slims, Philip Morris USA, increased prices by 71 cents a pack, 9 cents more than the federal tax increase. The maker of Camel, Kool and Salem cigarettes, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, bumped wholesale prices up by 44 cents a pack and reduced discounting.

The revenue from the tax increase, which will be used to expand coverage under the State Children’s Health Insurance Program to an additional 4 million low-income children, was signed into law in February.

Pregnant women who stop smoking before the 15th week have rates of preterm birth and small-for-dates babies comparable to those of non-smoking women, new research indicates.

The findings show that “these severe adverse effects of smoking may be reversible if smoking is stopped early in pregnancy,” Dr. Lesley M. E. McCowan, from the University of Adelaide, Australia, and colleagues comment in the British Medical Journal.

The results come from an analysis of data for 2500 women who were having their first baby. At 15 weeks’ gestation, the women were classified as non-smokers, stopped smokers, or current smokers.

Re “Smoking Ban Hits Home. Truly” (Belmont Journal, front page, Jan. 27):

In a not surprising but troubling move, some cities, like Belmont, Calif., have prohibited individuals from smoking in their own apartments. The justification, as always, is that sidestream smoke is a threat to the health of innocent nonsmokers.

There are good scientific and public health reasons for restricting smoking in closed public spaces. But when such restrictions are extended to beaches, parks, sidewalks and now to the homes of smokers, the argument that third-party harms must be prevented becomes increasingly untenable.

The Ministry of Health is ratcheting up pressure on organisations to ban smoking in public spaces and will be lobbying for the enactment of comprehensive legislation during the first quarter of the new fiscal year.

Eva Lewis-Fuller, director of health promotion and protection at the Ministry of Health, said limiting smoking privileges in both public and private business places would help protect non-smokers from second- and third-hand effects.

“Cabinet has considered it and agreed in principle for the law to be imposed. However, additional work needs to be done, such as getting responses from other agencies and analysis of the economic impact it would bring,” Lewis-Fuller told The Gleaner.

INDIANAPOLIS – Supporters of a bill that would ban smoking in all of Indiana’s public places are trumpeting a new study of the financial and human costs of secondhand smoke as clear, persuasive evidence that state lawmakers should pass statewide smoking restrictions.

The study released Monday found that an estimated 1,194 Hoosiers died in 2007 from lung cancer, heart disease and other ailments caused by breathing secondhand cigarette smoke.

Researchers at the Indiana University School of Medicine’s Bowen Research Center also concluded that secondhand smoke in homes and businesses burdened Indiana with at least $390 million in medical-related costs in 2007.

Long Beach is about to consider a rare step to ease anti-smoking rules.

At a time when cities nationwide are banning smoking in public places from bars to beaches, the Long Beach City Council today will consider a proposed amendment to its no-smoking ordinance that would exempt cigar lounges and hookah bars.

The city banned smoking in enclosed public places in 1994, but the law was rarely enforced until about a year ago, when anti-smoking advocates began demanding that city health officials take action. In an effort to keep their businesses open — and avoid fines of up to $500 for each offense — the owners of the city’s 13 cigar lounges banded together to seek an exemption.

Kids on both sides of the Atlantic are smoking less pot and going out less often with friends at night, a study of 15-year-olds in 30 countries found. The double declines occurred in the United States, Canada and mostly European countries from 2002 to 2006. The trends are likely related, since other research has found that kids who spend many evenings out are more likely to smoke dope than homebodies.

Since few parents approve of marijuana use, teens are most likely to use the drug secretly away from home, said lead author Emmanuel Kuntsche of the Swiss Institute for the Prevention of Alcohol and Drug Problems.

The cost to the NHS of helping smokers kick the habit has risen from ?148 to ?244 per person, official figures have shown. Photo: GEOFF PUGH

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

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

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