1. Farmers, who want to earn a living, grow tobacco for big tobacco companies.
2. Big tobacco companies buy the tobacco to turn into cigarettes and chewing tobacco.
3. Big tobacco companies spend millions and millions of dollars on salaries, production, advertising, and sales.
4. Government rakes in millions and millions of dollars on income tax from tobacco company employees, sales (and other) tax on equipment purchased, gas employees use to get to work, and so on.
5. Big tobacco companies rake in millions and millions of dollars in profit.
6. Smokers get sick from using big tobacco company’s products.
7. Smokers get very expensive medical treatment paid for by insurance companies or government programs (United States) or the government (Canada).
8. Government says “hey, that’s not fair! You big tobacco companies are costing us money because of your product so you should have to cover the cost of medical care.”
9. Government sues Big Tobacco Industry.

Do you see anything wrong with this picture at all? And, the best part of this is, who gets rich? Not the smoker, not the government, not really the tobacco company. The ones who get rich are the lawyers who are working on these lawsuits.

So, tell me again, what’s wrong with this picture?

This comes up every so often and has now come up again in the Canadian province of Quebec. Medical care in Canada is taken care of by the provinces, not the federal government.

According to an article over at CBC news earlier this month, the Quebec government is gearing up to file a $30 billion lawsuit against the tobacco interest to recoup some of the almost %1 billion dollars annually that the government must spend on smoking-related illnesses.

I don’t smoke and I don’t like smoking. The smell of the cigarette smoke makes me ill. But I also believe that since tobacco is a legal product, the government can’t be ticked off that it’s causing problems with people’s health. Does the government sue car manufacturers for making cars go faster than they should? Do they sue swimming pool manufacturers because some people drown? Are gun-makers sued because someone shoots someone?

How is smoking any different? If the government wants people to stop smoking, there’s only one way to start and that’s by making tobacco illegal. Sure, it wouldn’t stop smoking altogether – after all, people still do illicit drugs and alcohol was readily available during Prohibition. But it would be a start. With a ban on tobacco, teens couldn’t start lighting up at school. Office workers wouldn’t be huddled outside office buildings, blocking the doors, while they run outside for a puff.

But, suing the very people the government is making so much money from – the tobacco industry? That’s a little much, I think.

~~~

Image: MorgueFile.com

Post from: Healthbolt

The app, which offers smokers a proven quit smoking therapy, was developed by the School of Public Health and Health Services (SPHHS) at George Washington University and the National Cessation Collaborative (NTCC) with support from the National Cancer Institute (NCI)

Smokers can find this new app on their  iPhone or itunes site by simply by searching ‘My Quitline’ or ‘quit smoking’.

Sure, there are plenty of other iPhone apps aimed at encouraging, assisting, and supporting smokers who are trying to quit, but the ‘My Quitline’ app is the only one that links smokers with a proven evidence-based therapy on how to quit smoking.

Sounds like a winner for quitters to me.

(source and image)

Post from: Healthbolt

Image from flickr

Ads about smoking have changed dramatically over the years. Once upon a time, when none knew any better, cigarettes were advertised as something that would make you feel good, strong, happy, even healthy.

But as more and more evidence pointed to the dangers of smoking on your health, the ads changed. They were no longer put out by tobacco companies trying to entice people to buy their product. Instead, they were produced by government departments and non-profit health organizations trying to encourage people to quit (or not to start).

And along the way, they’ve become increasing gruesome and graphic. For example, cigarette cartons with pictures of blackened lungs and rotting gums.

But many of the television ads, such as this one recently released by the New York City Department of Health, aim straight for the heartstrings and elicit strong emotions.

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Some people say these public service ads are going too far.

Personally, I don’t think they are going far enough.

What do you think?

Post from: Healthbolt

Here’s why…

• Tobacco growing requires the use of more pesticides per acre than any other crop.
• Flue curing, the process of drying out tobacco leaves requires an external heat source and this contributes to deforestation. While the US mostly uses oil, coal, or liquid petroleum gas, developing countries account for 85% of all tobacco grown and use wood-burning fire for flue curing.
• Each cigarette emits around 14 milligrams of fine particulate matter which doesn’t seem like much. But if you multiple it by the estimated 5.5 trillion cigarettes smoked annual, it becomes more than 80,000 tons of fine particular matter emitted each year.
• Cigarettes might go up in smoke but the butts remain and account for 1.7 billion pounds of non-biodegradable trash.

You can read the full article here…

(image from SXU.hu)

Post from: Healthbolt

An ex-smoker myself, I know how very, very difficult it is to give it up. But I also know the up side of giving up the smokes and I’d encourage anyone who has been thinking about giving up cigarrettes to stop thinking and act.  You’ll thank yourself in the end.

Healthbolt already has a fairly active support system going on at the comment section of a post – What Happens to Your body if you stop smoking Right now? – that was written by the Wade Meredith, the original Healthbolter. 

Here’s the highlights of that post…

• In 20 minutes your blood pressure will drop back down to normal.
• In 8 hours the carbon monoxide (a toxic gas) levels in your blood stream will drop by half, and oxygen levels will return to normal.
• In 48 hours your chance of having a heart attack will have decreased. All nicotine will have left your body. Your sense of taste and smell will return to a normal level.
• In 72 hours your bronchial tubes will relax, and your energy levels will increase.
• In 2 weeks your circulation will increase, and it will continue to improve for the next 10 weeks.
• In three to nine months coughs, wheezing and breathing problems will dissipate as your lung capacity improves by 10%.
• In 1 year your risk of having a heart attack will have dropped by half.
• In 5 years your risk of having a stroke returns to that of a non-smoker.
• In 10 years your risk of lung cancer will have returned to that of a non-smoker.
• In 15 years your risk of heart attack will have returned to that of a non-smoker.

Click here for a high-quality Graphic representation of this chart.

Does it help you make the decision to stop any easier ?

I sure hope so.  

If it does, head over to the Great American Smokeout for support and advice and have a look at.  And check out these 5 Smoking Gadgets That Might Help You Quit Smoking.

Good Luck…

Post from: Healthbolt

These studies had used mostly monetary incentives to help encourage participants to quit smoking.

Incentives such as …

- being rewarded with one lottery ticket per day if they tossed their cigarettes down the toilet.
- being offered cash incentives of $10 per month and participation in a monthly worksite lottery.
- being offered cash prizes ranging from $100 to $250, along with certificates of recognition.

Did it work?

Not according review co-auhor Kate Cahill at the Univeristy of Oxford…

“In my view, none of them was effective. One of our main conclusions was that if incentives work at all, they only work while they’re in place; if you revisit those quitters 12 or 24 months down the line, they [smokers offered incentives] were generally no more successful than counterparts not offered incentives.”

I wonder if that’s what the Scottish Health Board is also finding? Last month, they announced a three month quit smoking incentive plan in Dundee. Smokers who signed up and passed a weekly carbon monoxide breath test proving they had not been smoking would be given around $24 a week in the form of a grocery credit.

It will be interesting to see what sort of success rate they have…

(source)

Post from: Healthbolt

That’s right, according to the study, smokers tend to quit more in groups, or clusters, rather than on their own.

From 1971 to 2003, Dr. Nicholas Christakis of Harvard Medical School and James Fowler from the University of California, San Diego, followed thousands of smokers and nonsmokers, concentrating on studying participants as part of a “network” of relatives, co-workers, neighbors, friends and friends of friends.

During this time, adult smokers in the US fell from 45 percent to 21 percent, and that drop was due largely to the ripple effect quitters had on their networks. As time went by, entire “clusters” of smokers had quit and prompted other clusters – some only loosely related to their own – to quit as well. And as these clusters disappeared, those that remained smokers grew more isolated, had fewer friends, and kept fewer social connections. Suddenly smokers were no longer the life of the party as they once were – now they were the minority, driving home the idea that not only is smoking bad for your physical health, it can be bad for your relationships as well.

Perhaps the biggest take-away point from this study, however, is how to address smoking cessation going forth. Right now, plans are mainly aimed at individuals. But perhaps the medical industry should be targeting groups? Pair the traditional support of both medicine and behavior-modification with social goals, and see what transpires? It’s a thought.

Here at Healthbolt, we already have a humming social network for quitters which has morphed into a welcoming and supportive group. For that, we’re thankful. But what about in your face-to-face social network, smokers? Would you benefit from quitting in a group-type setting? Would establishing group goals make you hold up your end of the deal better? If all your friends suddenly quit smoking while at work or out for drinks, would you as well?

Drop us a comment to let us know your thoughts on this matter. We’d love to hear from you.

Source and further reading: New York Times

Post from: Healthbolt