Center for Tobacco Products News

The Independent

Around two-thirds of the UK’s smokers – about six million people – made new year’s resolutions to get healthier by giving up in 2012, according to a recent study. Despite their best intentions, the majority will fail. Smoking is recognised as a chemical addiction to nicotine and a physical addiction to the act of lighting up, both of which are difficult to conquer. The NHS and most anti-smoking health groups focus their efforts on helping people to quit the habit completely, but most smokers only manage to stop after several failed attempts and that last cigarette is not always as final as it is intended to be.

Editors Note: Please note the folowing  statement in the article which follows:

At the same time that they offer a helping hand to quit, more companies are also penalizing employees who don’t kick the habit by hitting them with higher health insurance premiums.

Public health advocates generally agree that this punitive approach isn’t ideal. “The issue isn’t smokers; it’s smoking,” says McGoldrick. Charging people higher premiums may just make smokers drop their coverage, he says.

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Michelle Andrews, Special to the Los Angeles Times

Increased spending on anti-tobacco efforts has resulted in less smoking, although the slow decline in the number of adult smokers is “not very impressive,” the director of North Dakota’s tobacco control agency said Tuesday.

Jeanne Prom credited a North Dakota ballot initiative, which voters approved in November 2008, and a subsequent increase in state money spent on tobacco control efforts with an increase in the number of North Dakota college and public school campuses where tobacco use is banned.

Damien Campbell wanted to get back indoors quickly Sunday. The afternoon was chilly, a front had brought wind and rain to Winston-Salem and so he didn’t want to dawdle.

He was huddled under an awning outside Carlisle’s Pub with a couple of others. They’d come to watch the last day of the NFL regular season and ducked out during a commercial break to grab a cigarette.

Campbell, 32, seemed to be a bright, engaging guy. He’s also a smoker, so he was a logical choice to ask for an opinion about the graphic warning labels the Food and Drug Administration wants to plaster on cigarette packs.