Freedom from Smoking

Why have so many New Jersey smokers quit?

2009-06-30T12:48:00.000-07:00

On June 13th I wrote about a comprehensive new report on tobacco use and tobacco control activities in each of the United States. As I live and work in New Jersey I was particularly interested in the fact that our cigarette smoking rate has fallen to 13.7%, the 3rd lowest in the country. In fact if you look at the 2 other states with lower cigarette smoking rates (Utah and California) you will...

Request for comment on FDA regulation

2009-06-30T11:40:00.000-07:00

As many of you will know, President Obama recently signed the historic legislation that will give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration the authority to regulate tobacco products. In the coming months and years we will find out whether that legislation is able to truly help improve public health in this country as was intended. Interestingly, just today the FDA issued a request for public...

Smokefree Movies for Kids

2009-06-28T19:57:00.000-07:00

As many of you may know, the famous tobacco control scientist and advocate, Professor Stan Glantz, has over the past few years been focusing on the issue of depictions of smoking in movies. Part of the concern stems from good evidence that young people are highly influenced by movies due to their cultural value and glamorous nature. The other part stems from a history of use of “product...

FDA Regulation of Tobacco: What Does it Mean?

2009-06-14T19:35:00.000-07:00

On Friday 12th June, the US Senate voted in favor of a bill that gives the Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate tobacco products. President Obama (who as a Senator was a sponsor of the bill, as was John McCain) has indicated he will sign the bill into law. Public health advocates have been fighting for FDA regulation of tobacco for over 15 years. However, not every public health...

2009 Virginia Youth Tobacco Program Conference Presentations

2009-06-14T14:17:00.000-07:00

I was recently invited to speak at the Virginia Youth Tobacco Program’s Annual Conference in Richmond, Virginia. My topic was whether snus (smokeless tobacco) might help some smokers to quit smoking. Drs Thomas Eissenberg (Victoria Commonwealth University) and Dr Lois Beiner (University of Massachusetts) also gave presentations in the same session on the topic of smokeless tobacco (and...

New Report on Cigarette Smoking in USA

2009-06-13T11:50:00.000-07:00

An important new report funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation was released this week by Dr Gary Giovino and colleagues. This report provides details on recent changes in cigarette smoking in every state. It used the best quality data from large national surveys (e.g. the Current Population Survey and the National Health Interview Survey) and so it is the best available guide to cigarette...

Differing patterns of smoking in African Americans and whites

2009-06-08T07:45:00.000-07:00

I’ve written on a number occasions about menthol cigarettes being more harmful and addictive in certain circumstances. This is a factor that may have an impact on smoking rates among African Americans.But there are a number of interesting differences between white and AA smokers in addition to the later group’s preference for menthols (80%). One of the most striking differences is in the pattern...

Effect of price increases on cigarette consumption

2009-06-06T20:03:00.000-07:00

A recent paper published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention described the dramatic increases in tobacco prices over recent years. From the end of 1995 to April 2009 all but 5 states increased their state cigarette taxes (Florida, Missouri, Mississippi, North Dakota and South Carolina didn’t). The average increase over that time period was from 33 cents to $1.20. The state...

Reader Comments on “Freedom From Smoking”

2009-05-31T13:31:00.000-07:00

I’m afraid I just found out there has been another glitch affecting readers’ comments on my blog. I just received a copy of a bunch (over 50) of readers’ comments, and when I checked most had not been posted to the site as they should have. The site is working to fix this, but there appears to be quite a backlog. So in order to makes sure readers’ comments get posted (sooner rather than later)...

World No Tobacco Day and Health Warnings

2009-05-30T10:02:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow (May 31) is World No Tobacco Day and this year’s theme focuses on the effectiveness of large pictorial health warnings on cigarette packs as compared with small text-based warnings. A new report on this issue has been produced by Roswell Park Cancer Institute and its pretty convincing. If the new “caring” tobacco industry really wanted the public to be better informed about the health...

Tobacco industry guilty of fraud and racketeering, again.

2009-05-22T11:26:00.000-07:00

Today the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia unanimously upheld the historic decision of U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler that the tobacco industry had and continues to engage in a massive, decades long campaign to defraud the American public. The three judge Appeals Court panel affirmed Judge Kessler’s 2006 ruling that the cigarette manufacturers engaged in a 50 year massive...

Do ex-smokers feel happier?

2009-05-18T16:22:00.000-07:00

Do ex-smokers feel happier? Although the first month after stopping smoking is characterized by a period of feeling grumpy, anxious and miserable, there is evidence that in the longer run, ex-smokers report feeling less stressed than they did while smoking. This month, two researchers in the UK (Drs Lion Shahab and Robert West) reported on a study that examined whether ex-smokers report...

Tips to help you quit smoking

2009-05-12T04:42:00.000-07:00

Patients I’ve seen who succeeded in quitting, sometimes tell me what it was that enabled them to quit this time when they had been unsuccessful many times before. Sometimes it was a change in personal circumstances, sometimes an aspect of the treatment we gave them, but sometimes they tell me there was a single thought, tip or piece of information that stuck in their mind and really helped. So...

200 posts on “Freedom from Smoking”

2009-05-10T12:47:00.000-07:00

I just noticed that I recently posted my 200 article on Healthline since starting in February 2007, and so thought it was time to review and ask readers for feedback. One thing that I personally find a little frustrating is the lack of a user-friendly way to find posts by topic. However, if you ever want to do this, the little “Search Health Experts” icon on the right hand side is pretty...

A model for delivering face to face treatment

2009-05-10T12:06:00.000-07:00

I’ve previously written about what face-to-face smoking cessation services typically do, largely based on my own experience. However, while at the SRNT annual conference I met two Smoking Cessation Advisors working in Lancashire, England who appeared to have a successful service, so thought it worth sharing some of their information. Jan Holding and Eileen Ward manage a UK National Health...

WHO adds NRT to “essential medicines’ list

2009-05-07T09:42:00.000-07:00

The World Health Organization (WHO) has just added Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT, specifically nicotine gum and nicotine patches) to the 16th revision of its Core List of Essential Medicines. The core list presents a list of minimum medicine needs for a basic healthcare system, listing the most efficacious, safe and cost-effective medicines for priority conditions. Priority conditions are...

English Smoking Cessation Services Seeing Record Patient Numbers

2009-05-01T05:28:00.000-07:00

The English Smoking Cessation Services are face-to-face tobacco cessation counseling services provided at no cost (other than co-pays for some medicines for those not on a low income) to all smokers in England. During the period April 2007 to March 2008, 680,289 people set a quit date through the NHS Stop Smoking Services and 350,800 people successfully quit, 52% of those setting a quit...

Does the e-cigarette deliver nicotine?

2009-04-29T03:28:00.000-07:00

I’m currently attending the annual conference of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco. This is the main organization for nicotine researchers and this conference is often the first place that exciting new research findings are presented, prior to being published in more detail in scientific journals. So this week my posts will be based on some of the most interesting things I have...

Do menthol smokers inhale more nicotine and toxins?

2009-04-27T18:01:00.000-07:00

I have previously discussed some studies conducted at UMDNJ suggesting that under certain conditions menthol smokers inhale more nicotine and carbon-monoxide from their cigarettes and have a lower quit rate when attending our tobacco dependence treatment clinic. The pattern of results we have observed suggest that it may not be a simple effect of menthol causing smokers to inhale more smoke....

Does nicotine cause cancer?

2009-04-25T13:26:00.000-07:00

Every now and again we see a new newspaper headline claiming that nicotine causes some serious health problem, whether it be heart attacks or cancer. Usually the headline is based on a very small study in humans, or a laboratory study of cells in a petri dish or test tube. In the past week we saw the latest example. A study by Gemenetzidis and colleagues in London examined the effect of...

Are smokers switching to smokeless tobacco in the U.S?

2009-04-25T08:48:00.000-07:00

Studies of trends in tobacco use in Sweden have found that a substantial proportion of male smokers have switched from cigarettes to use of a Swedish moist oral snuff product called snus. Sweden now has unusually low male smoking rates for a European country, and is about the only country in the world in which fewer men smoke than women. These promising results from Sweden recently prompted Zhu...

Concerned you might relapse to smoking?

2009-04-19T19:51:00.000-07:00

Most ex-smokers who have succeeded in quitting for many months or years, have occasional periods where they feel at risk of relapsing to smoking. There are many potential triggers, but the most common include (a) after having an isolated “lapse” cigarette, e.g. at a party (b) when in a different kind of environment and feel you “deserve” a break…e.g. on vacation (c) while under a lot of...

Triple combination therapy for medically ill smokers

2009-04-07T09:41:00.000-07:00

Today sees the publication of a new study by Dr Michael Steinberg and colleagues at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, examining the effect of more intensive smoking cessation treatment in smokers with pre-existing medical conditions. This randomized trial compared those treated with 9 brief face-to-face sessions (from assessment to 6 month follow-up) and either standard...

Its National Public Health Week

2009-04-07T08:58:00.000-07:00

April 6th-12th is National Public Health Week. Although we spend more on health care than any other country, the health system is failing and our nation is falling behind in many important measures of what it means to be healthy. We have reached a point where we must examine our health system and the foundation upon which it stands. We have the potential to greatly improve our population’s...