Fresh - Smoke free North East

Facts and Figures

The lie of low tar cigarettes

People who smoke low-tar cigarettes are just as likely to develop lung cancer as other smokers. It is now illegal for tobacco manufacturers to use the terms “light,” “low,” or “mild” in tobacco product labeling.

Many smokers chose so-called low-tar, mild, light, or ultralight cigarettes because they thought these cigarettes would expose them to less tar and would be less harmful to their health than regular or full-flavor cigarettes. However, light cigarettes were no safer than regular cigarettes. Tar exposure from a light cigarette can be just as high as that from a regular cigarette if the smoker takes long, deep, or frequent puffs. The bottom line is that light cigarettes do not reduce the health risks of smoking.

Researchers in the United States examined data on more than 900,000 people, many of whom smoked. They found that people who smoked very low or low tar cigarettes had similar rates of cancer as those who smoked stronger brands. Writing in the British Medical Journal, they stated the study is more evidence that all cigarettes harm health.

Cigarettes that are lower in tar also tend to be lower in nicotine. However, smokers who use filtered or low-tar cigarettes have ways of compensating unintentionally for this so that they can get the level of nicotine they need. These include:taking longer drags, smoking more frequently or blocking filters with their fingers. Smokers of low tar cigarettes also puff more intensely, delivering more carcinogens and toxins to the peripheral lung area where the lung cancer adenocarcinoma develops.

However, manufacturers still use colour-coded packaging (such as white or silver packaging) on products previously marketed as low tar or lights, and sell them to consumers who may continue to believe that these cigarettes are not as harmful as other cigarettes

The chemicals that are formed when tobacco is burned are naturally harmful. The only guaranteed way to reduce the risk to your health, as well as the risk to others, is to stop smoking completely.

http://info.cancerresearchuk.org/healthyliving/smokingandtobacco/filtersandlowtarcigarettes/

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Tobacco/light-cigarettes

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3379017.stm

 

 

Tobacco packs are a form of advertising

People often ask how we can turn off the tap of young smokers. Tobacco packaging has become one of the tobacco industry’s leading promotional tools to recruit new addicts.

In Australia, the Government proposes to require that tobacco products be sold in plain, standardised packaging. In the UK, the Government has committed to consulting on similar legislation.

The Action on Smoking and Health briefing on plain packaging reveals evidence that it would be an important measure to reduce youth uptake of smoking by:

• Increasing the impact of health warnings, which are lessened by attractive branding
• Reducing false and misleading messages that one type of cigarette is less harmful than another. The legacy of "low tar" packs means many smokers think cigarettes sold in white and silver packs are less harmful
• Reducing the attractiveness to young people.Research among young people and adult smokers has  found they viewed plain packaging far less attractive than branded
  packs.

According to Phillip Morris International the world’s major tobacco manufacturers have agreed to fight the introduction of plain packaging. The industry knows this would have a major impact on cutting smoking, which it does not want.

Smoking can cause memory loss

 

People who smoke could lose around one third of their everyday memory, researchers say. A study by a team at Northumbria University has shown that smokers lose more of their memory when compared to non-smokers.

The research also found that those who stopped smoking saw their ability to recollect information restored to almost the same level as non-smokers.

Smokers performed badly, remembering just 59 per cent of tasks. But those who had given up smoking remembered 74 per cent and those who had never smoked recalled 81 per cent of tasks

 

COPD and the North East

Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a term used to describe a range of progressive, irreversible lung conditions, including emphysema and bronchitis, which affect up to 1.5 million adults in England. Symptoms can range from mild to severe respiratory disability and may result in repeated hospital admissions.

In 2009 COPD was responsible for over 21,000 deaths in England. The North East has the worst rates of COPD in the country. Around 8,700 people were diagnosed with the condition in 2008-09, but it is estimated that around 32,000 more people in the North East have the disease but have never been diagnosed.

One of the problems with COPD is lack of awareness. A survey of smokers in the North East found that 67% weren’t even aware of COPD or the debilitating effect on people’s lives.

Besides the impact of COPD on patients and their families, care for COPD has a substantial impact on NHS resources. COPD is the second most common cause of emergency admission to hospital and the fifth largest cause of readmission, costing the NHS an estimated £491 million per year.

Smoking is the main cause of COPD. Tobacco control policies and smoking cessation services can help to prevent the occurrence and reduce the burden of COPD.

See a full briefing from the North East Public Health Observatory.

Tobacco is an industrially produced epidemic

Tobacco killed 100 million people worldwide in the 20th century. The World Health Organisation predicts it will cause 1 billion deaths in the 21st century if current trends continue.

Unlike other epidemics such as AIDS or Swine Flu, this epidemic is courtesy of an industry which has promoted cigarettes as a desirable part of everyday, normal life, and now spends large sums of money on expensive branding aimed at attracting young women to smoking.

The tobacco industry's message is clear. There is no need to tackle smoking because the millions of deaths are brought to you by a legal, normal industry selling a legal normal product. The industry devotes millions of pounds to trying to influence government policy around the world and prevent health from overruling the interests of profit. The ASH publication The Smoke Filled Room highlights how big tobacco tries to influence policy in the UK.

Tobacco also claims to be the only industry whose marketing tactics do not attract new customers.

Most smokers start in childhood and are addicted before they reach 16, sowing the seeds of fatal conditions and diseases before capable of making an adult choice.

Cick here for The Lancet's position on the tobacco industry http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(11)60181-5/fulltext

Click to read ASH briefings on tackling industy promotion http://www.ash.org.uk/information/facts-and-stats/ash-briefings

 

Secondhand smoke harms those you love.

Secondhand, or "passive" smoking is a killer and a cause of serious and fatal illness. Tobacco smoke contains over 4000 chemicals in the form of particles and gases. (Respiratory health effects of passive smoking. EPA/600/6-90/006F United States Environmental Protection Agency, 1992)

The unfiltered smoke from the tip of the cigarette is also known as "sidestream smoke" which contains many potentially toxic gases in higher concentrations. Nearly 85% of the smoke in a room results from this type of smoke (Fielding, JE and Phenow, KL, New England Journal of Medicine 1988, 1452-60)

Children are especially vulnerable to becoming ill from secondhand smoke because their lungs and respiratory organs are still developing.

The Royal College of Physicians 2010 report Passive Smoking and Children revealed that secondhand smokeg results in children needing 300,000 GP appointments and 10,000 hospital visits a year.

Localised figures for the North East show 84,000 North East children are exposed to second hand smoke in the home, which every year results in:

• 800 new chest infections for under twos
• 4,900 new middle ear infections for 0-16yr-olds
• 900 new cases of wheeze & asthma for 0-16yr-olds
• 24 new cases of bacterial meningitis
• 12,600 children needing to visit the GP
• 400 children needing to go to hospital

Secondhand smoke is also harmful to adults, raising the risks of lung cancer, coronary heart disease and strokes. For detailed information on the harm of secondhand smoke, click on the ASH essential information on second hand smoke.

Smoking during pregnancy

Despite large reductions in the number of people smoking in the North East, the region still has 22% of pregnant women smoking at the time of delivery compared to the national average of 14%.

If the North East got down to the national average, it would save 133 tiny lives a year from a reduction in miscarriages and stillbirths.

 There is no safe level of smoking in pregnancy. It restricts the vital oxygen that a baby needs for healthy growth and development. Many women wrongly believe that giving birth to a lighter baby will mean an easier birth, but in fact a low birth weight baby makes it more likely they will suffer complications in labour and may even have a stillborn baby

Because cigarettes restrict a baby's oxygen supply, their heart has to beat harder every time a smoker has a cigarette. The risk of cot death is trebled in infants whose mothers smoke both during and after pregnancy

On average, smokers have more complications of pregnancy and labour. A report by the Royal College of Physicians found maternal smoking and exposure to the unborn child causes up to 5000 miscarriages, 300 perinatal deaths and 2,200 premature births a year.

Broken down for the North East that is 360 miscarriages, 22 perinatal deaths and 160 premature births.

Studies also suggest that smoking during pregancy also significantly increases the risk of having a child with behavioural problems,such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorders and aggression.

Read our Mothers Day press release urging mums to quit or for more details click on The impact of smoking on sexual, reproductive and child health, a report by the Board of Science and Education and Tobacco Control Resource Centre.

Smoking and mental health

There is a strong association between smoking and mental health problems - not just in the stress and anxiety smokers experience when they can't have a cigarette.

The highest levels of smoking occur among inpatients in mental health units where up to 70%  of people smoke, often heavily. People with mental health problems are therefore at even greater risk of smoking-related harm than the general population.

Although nicotine stimulates the brain to release dopamine, which is associated with pleasurable feelings, smokers quickly develop regular smoking patterns. Eventually, smokers need increasing levels of nicotine to feel `normal'.  As the nicotine content in their blood drops below a certain level, they begin to crave a cigarette

Smoking also increases the risk of developing a mental health problem and is associated with an increased prevalence of all mental health illnesses and higher suicide rates. Some researchers believe that smoking could act as a trigger for mental ill-health.

Click here to read more about the links between smoking and mental health

Tobacco harms the environment

Smoking takes a heavy toll on the environment - from the farming of tobacco plants to the disposal of cigarette ends and packet.

Tobacco plants are prone to many diseases and so farmers use large amounts of fertiliser, herbicide and pesticides. These pollutants find their ways into streams and rivers, drinking water and animal food chains.

Machines used to make cigarettes use up to four miles of paper an hour to roll and package cigarettes. That's before thrown away cigarette butts are washed into rivers, lakes and the ocean where they are eaten by birds, animals and fish.

In the developing world, trees are often cut down to make room for tobacco crops. Around 600 million trees are cut down every year to produce tobacco products.

It affects farmers too - including many children in developing countries.  Tobacco farmers are prone to "green tobacco sickness" which causes nausea, weakness, dizziness and abdominal cramps, as well as poisoning from the pesticides. 

For more information, click on the ASH factsheet on tobacco and the environment or the Tobacco Atlas which highlights the impact of growing tobacco nation by nation.
 

Smoking is a childhood addiction

Smoking is a childhood addiction. A survey in the North East shows that the average age for starting is just 15. It is estimated that every year, around 340,000 children under 16 in England try their first cigarette.

However, fewer children are smoking than ever before. In  2009, 71% of pupils aged 11-15 across the UK said they had never tried smoking. NHS Information Centre, Smoking, drinking and drug use among young people in England, 2009)

While it's worrying that 35% of boys and 49% of girls in the North East have tried smoking, the fact that only 6% of boys and 14% of girls are regular smokers shows smoking is less desirable for children than ever before. (NHS Information Centre, Smoking, drinking and drug use among young people in England, findings by region 2006-2008)

87% of smokers in the North East say the region needs to make more effort to stop children from starting in the first place. Young people are most at risk of becoming smokers if their family and friends smoke and they have access to cigarettes.

Children become aware of cigarettes at an early age. Three out of four children are aware of cigarettes before they reach the age of five whether or not the parents smoke (Teenage Smoking attitudes in 1996. Office for National Statistics, 1997)