FREE THE EARTH FROM DEVIL SMOKE

Failed intellectuals, arm-chair revolutionaries, frustrated utopians, tyrannical tycoons, spoilt spitritualists, profiteers, corrupt capitalists, lecherous leftists- all have ganged up against humanity in an unholy alliance.

whatever your views, whatever your religion, language, caste, color, creed, credo, nationality, profession, ideology, culture or any idiocyncracy --remember one thing that you will have to live, breathe, drink and eat on this planet EARTH. Therefore you have an obligation and equal right like anyone else to keep this planet livable and breathable. Cigarette smoking is one of the major causes that are making this planet unlivable. Rid yourself of this satanic evil if you are gripped by it and stand up against it. Join my blog and let our voices become one. Let there be synergy in our efforts.

Your non-smoking, non-drinking friend
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Monday, November 19, 2012

MAKE CIGARETTE PACK 60 CENT COSTLIER: ANTI-SMOKING CAMPAIGNERS

 Irish anti-smoking campaigners call for another 60c Tax on packet of cigarettes

DUBLIN :
ANTI-smoking campaigners in Ireland have called on Finance Minister Michael Noonan to put an extra 60c on the price of a pack of 20 cigarettes in the next Budget.
ASH Ireland also said it wants to bring the taxation on “roll-your-own-tobacco” into line with other tobacco products when Mr Noonan delivers his Budget package for 2013.
ASH Chairman Dr Ross Morgan said: “Significant price increase is established and accepted as the most potent weapon against smoking.
“It encourages smokers to quit and discourages young people from commencing the habit. Regrettably we have over 900,000 smokers in this country who consume roughly six billion cigarettes annually.
“This of course leads to addiction, significant tobacco related illness and the death of 5,700 of our citizens every year. One in two people who smoke will die because of this and it is incumbent on the government to take a leadership role and increase price and in doing so reduce prevalence.”

RELATED ARTICLES:


1. http://devilsmoke.blogspot.in/search/label/taxation
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Noonan
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ireland 
4. http://www.independent.ie 
5. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10268368
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Monday, November 5, 2012

EUROPE'S ANTI-TOBACCO LEGISLATION HIT BY SCANDAL


EUROPE'S ANTI-TOBACCO LEGISLATION HIT BY SCANDAL


Health Commissioner Resigns In Disgrace

    LONDON, UK — Corruption allegations, unexplained break-ins, dark conspiracy theories and Swedish snuff: Those aren’t the elements of a Hollywood film, but developments in a plot surrounding Europe’s efforts to get tough on nicotine.
    At stake are billions of dollars of potential tobacco trade and the career of one of the European Union’s senior figures. Also on the line is a long-awaited piece of legislation health campaigners hope will score a major victory in a long battle to cut cigarette consumption.
    Given the cloud of disapproval that has enveloped big tobacco at least since the days US manufacturers denied their products were addictive, the scandal has predictably generated allegations the industry is resorting to underhanded tactics to protect its steadily shrinking market.
    The controversy erupted earlier this year when Swedish Match, which produces a snuff-based chewing tobacco popular in parts of Scandinavia, claimed it had been propositioned by a lobbyist with connections to John Dalli, a veteran Maltese politician serving as the EU’s health commissioner.
    The manufacturer said businessman Silvio Zammit, also from Malta, had suggested he could persuade Dalli to alter forthcoming legislation on tobacco products by lifting an EU export and marketing ban on its snus chewing tobacco — for a consideration of $78 million.
    Swedish Match said it refused the offer and called in OLAF, the EU’s fraud investigators. OLAF found “unambiguous circumstantial pieces of evidence” indicating Dalli was aware of — but not involved in — Zammit’s activities and referred the matter to the Maltese authorities.
    Dalli denies the accusation. “There is no evidence that I was in any way involved in this issue,” he told the Times of Malta. “I have consistently stated that I was unaware of communication passing between Silvio Zammit and the snus people.”
    Nevertheless, Dalli left office last week insisting OLAF and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso forced him out against EU protocols.
    “This is a very serious decision that Mr. Barroso took, very serious,” he told a news conference on Wednesday. “It will damage my whole future and it will damage the future of my family.”
    Barroso denies the charge and says Dalli resigned voluntarily. Earlier in the day, he wrote to him saying that "you have yourself unambiguously declared your immediate resignation, before the director general of the legal service and the head of my private office,” the BBC reported. He called Dalli’s accusation “incomprehensible.”
    The scandal has put the tobacco legislation’s future in doubt. Under Dalli, it had been beefed up with proposals to strip cigarette packages of almost all branding and tighten regulations on smokeless products such as electronic cigarettes and snuff.
    Those measures — similar to a groundbreaking new Australian law that from December will require cigarettes to be sold in plain packs — have drawn condemnation from the tobacco industry. Retail lobbyists say they could cause a $26 billion loss in European tax revenues.
    Dalli has hinted at dark forces at play.
    Since his departure, he’s expressed concerns his legislation will be “diluted” or swept away, saying he’d been subjected to “an attempt to dissuade me from going ahead with certain measures” even before allegations had been lodged against him.
    Others share his worries. "This was going to be the mainstay of tobacco policy for the European Union over the coming years and the danger now is that it is dead in the water," said Anna Gilmore, professor of public health at the UK’s University of Bath.
    Dalli has written to EU lawmakers claiming that Swedish Match had tried to set up meetings with him through middlemen in July, according to the EUObserver.com website. He said “it had passed my mind” that the tobacco industry had conspired in his demise.
    Swedish Match has denied all claims of impropriety and highlighted its own prompt involvement with OLAF. The tobacco firm, which stands to gain a $2.3 billion market if snus restrictions are lifted, says it wants the new laws introduced via a “transparent and legally fair process.”
    But Dalli, a reformed smoker, isn’t alone in his pessimistic outlook or his view that sinister hands may be at work, particularly given an unusual series of events that took place in the days following the scandal’s development.
    First there were the burglaries. Last week, two days after Dalli left his job, the premises of three anti-smoking groups — the European Public Health Alliance, the European Respiratory Society and the Smoke Free Partnership — in a building in Brussels were broken into.
    Laptops and information relating to their campaign work are understood to have been taken. But although the organizations viewed the raids as the work of determined professionals, none of them blamed tobacco companies.
    “We do not subscribe to conspiracy theories,” said a spokesman for the European Public Health Alliance. “However, in light of the evidence we feel we have legitimate reason to suspect the intrusion was well-planned, researched and targeted.”
    As the plot continues to thicken, there have been claims tobacco lobbyists are trying to steer journalists covering the story. Meanwhile, the electronic cigarette industry has wasted no time posting a scurrilous blog about alleged skeletons in Dalli’s closet.
    It coincided with an equally timely publication of an essay by Steve Stotesbury, a scientist working for Imperial Tobacco, outlining positive health effects of snus use. He claims countries exempt from the current EU ban show lower rates of smoking-related disease.
    Other conspiracy theories point elsewhere, including to OLAF chief Giovanni Kessler, who some believe lacks the impartiality required for investigating Dalli because he’s previously testified plain cigarette packaging could aid counterfeiting.
    Whether or not the smoke surrounding what happened before and after Dalli’s exit clears, it’s certain the EU tobacco legislation, if it ever emerges, could reshape the continent’s nicotine habits.
    Smoking across EU countries is already in retreat: Adult consumers fell from 28.15 percent of the population to 25.57 percent between 2002 and 2009, according to the World Health Organization. But experts say new impetus is needed because the rate of decline is slowing.
    "Evidence suggests that the anticipated legislation would have an impact,” said Gilmore, the public health professor. Without it, she said, the tobacco industry will adapt to existing restrictions such as taxes, marketing and workplace smoking bans, and recruit new customers.
    “Right now it is increasingly relying on the cigarette pack to promote its products and, in particular, to recruit young new smokers,” she added. “Policies that reduce the marketing potential of the pack through plain packaging or large warning labels are therefore very important."

    LINKS:
    1. http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/121025/eu-dalli-barroso-tobacco-europe-smoking
    2  http://www.thecommentator.com/article/1851/eu_health_commissioner_john_dalli_resigns_in_disgrace

    WORKERS THINK 'SMOKING BREAKS ARE UNFAIR

    58 percent workers think 'smoking breaks' are unfair

    London,28 October

    More than half of workers dislike colleagues who go out for a cigarette and think that the time should come out of their salaries, a survey has revealed.
    A total of 58 percent are angry over “unfair” breaks while just one in four think that smokers should be paid the same.
    However, 16 percent of people surveyed said that their colleagues should only be paid less if taking more breaks lowered their productivity.
    The survey carried out by consumer website Watch My Wallet, was done during Stoptober, the initiative to quit cigarettes over 28 days this month.
    “We were stunned. It’s amazing to think that a majority of the country is silently seething about the amount of time smokers spend away from their desks,” the Daily Express quoted Watch My Wallet spokesman Sean O’Meara as saying.
    Amanda Sandford, of anti-smoking charity Ash, said that smokers should have shorter lunchtimes or stay late.
    But Simon Clark, of the smokers’ lobby group Forest, said taking time out for a cigarette was no different to taking coffee breaks or making personal calls.

    LINK: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/58-percent-workers-think-smoking-breaks-are-unfair/1020973

    Sunday, November 4, 2012

    268,000 PLEDGED TO QUIT SMOKING DURING ''STOPOBER''


    A LAUDABLE INITIATIVE OF BRITISH GOVERNMENT

    *  More than a quarter of a million people pledged to stub out their last cigarette during the "Stoptober" anti-smoking campaign in Britain.

    *  The month-long NHS (National Health Services) quit drive, which ran until the end of October, aimed to encourage thousands of Britain's eight million smokers to kick the habit.
    Research suggests that those who successfully gave up for weeks, are 5 times more likely to stay smoke-free.
    *   Health minister Anna Soubry said the £5.7 million campaign had "exceeded expectations". The figures were announced as a new study suggested women smokers can earn themselves 10 years of extra life by quitting the habit before middle age.
    *  The study of 1.3 million women found that smoking tripled the chances of dying over 9 years compared with non-smokers. Most of the increased death rate resulted from smoking-related diseases such as lung cancer, chronic lung disease, heart disease or stroke.
    *   Smokers who kicked the habit around age 30 avoided 97% of their excess risk of premature death, according to the Million Women Study.
    *   Ms Soubry said: "Stoptober has been a great success - it has exceeded our expectations. But half of all smokers will die because of their habit. We know that most smokers want to give up, which is why we must keep encouraging them to make that step. "I congratulate everyone who gave up for Stoptober - it's a fantastic achievement. They are 5 times more likely to give up for good after 28 days and I hope they will. For those who didn't manage to stop for Stoptober, I would urge them to keep at it. People can start their own 28 day quit challenge at any time."
    *   More than 268,000 people registered to take part in Stoptober - the UK's first ever mass stop smoking event, the Department of Health (DoH) said.
    *   Almost 200,000 support packs were ordered which included a Stoptober guide, an addiction test, patches and gum. There were 205,885 registrations for the Stoptober online app and 72,347 text service registrations.
    *   More than 1.2 million visits to the Smokefree website were recorded, along with 150,000 Stoptober tweets and more than 50,000 fans joined the Facebook page in the campaign period.
    *   Smoking remains the biggest killer in England with half of long-term smokers dying from smoking related diseases.
    More than 8 million people still smoke in England each year and 300,000 children under 16 try their first cigarette, the DoH said.
    *   Exposure to second-hand smoke results in 300,000 GP visits and 9,500 hospital admissions for children each year.

    LINKS:
     1. http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/268000-pledge-to-quit-smoking-for-stoptober-8229016.html
    2.  http://getpocket.com/a/read/244853715