Anti-Smoking | Smoke Free Methods

How the Price of Cigarettes Correlates with Smoking Rates

ContentOne of the most important campaigns for anti-smoking activists is raising the effective price of cigarettes by encouraging a “sin tax” from individual states. But does raising the actual cost of a pack of cigarettes deter smoking?

The cost of a pack of cigarettes obviously will vary widely from brand to brand and from store to store. Additionally, individual states in the United States are all over the map when it comes to cigarette tax, which can vary from less than 50 cents to more than four dollars, which adds to the price of a pack of cigarettes.

For instance Missouri has the lowest cigarette state tax in the nation at 17 cents per pack of cigarettes and round out the top five of states that have the highest percentage of adult smokers. This would seem to indicate that a lower tax on cigarettes lead to a higher percentage of smokers. But New York, which has the highest per pack cigarette tax in the nation at $4.35 but sit almost exactly in the middle when it comes to percentage of adult smokers there. If half the nation smokes more than the highest-taxed people in the United States, how effective can raising the price of cigarettes really be?

Turns out, New York is an outlier. While the numbers don’t correlate perfectly, most states that charge a higher tax for cigarettes have a lower percentage of adult smokers in their population. Take the second highest taxer, as an example. The state of Rhode Island charges smokers an extra $3.46 for every pack and less than a handful of states can boast to have less smokers than them. The third highest taxer is Washington at $3.02 a pack and has the same claim to fame (they are the 47th state when it comes to population of adult smokers).

It’s pretty clear that emphasizing (and trying to raise) the money that is coming directly out of the pocket of the consumer may be the best way to reduce smoking rates.

Filed Under: Anti-Smoking, Health Tagged With: Cigarette, Cigarette pack, Health, Missouri, New York, Tax, Tobacco smoking, United States

Anti-Smoking Sentiment Spreading to Other Countries

ContentWhile the United States has been increasing the number of its anti-smoking laws since the 1990s (and seen a decrease in the number of people who smoke), other countries have only lately started adopting legislation banning smoking. Most of Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa have no national or even local legislation banning the use of the tobacco products. However, countries in Western Europe, the American continents and Australia largely have some level of nationwide or province-wide smoking bans that have been largely enacted in the last five years.

Australia has been especially vigilant in enforcing anti-smoking laws. However, the majority of laws banning smoking in indoor enclosed places were all established in 2006. South Australia and New South Wales followed in 2007 but it took the Northern Territory until 2010 to establish a ban on smoking inside restaurants and pubs.

India worked to establish itself as a smoke-free country in a continent that has continued to increase the percentage of the population that smokes. A ban on smoking in workplaces and in restaurants, hotels, transportation hubs and other indoor public places in 2008. Advertising for all tobacco products was banned earlier by the Indian government.

Beunos Aeries banned smoking in public places including most bars and restaurants in 2006 and most Argentinian cities adopted similar laws. Brazil has banned smoking in all enclosed public places except in some specific smoking areas whose purpose is marked.

Some countries, including China, do occasionally have laws in place but they are largely unenforced. Greece, which has the highest per-capita consumption of tobacco in Europe, also had most of its laws go unenforced until 2010 when stricter legislation was established.

The evidence is mixed on whether anti-smoking legislation leads to less tobacco consumption. Cuba and Chile have banned smoking in most workplaces but both are among the highest rate of smokers per capita in the world. Russia also have one of the highest rates of consumption but there are no smoking bans in effect.

Filed Under: Anti-Smoking, Health Tagged With: Australia, New South Wales, Northern Territory, Public space, Smoking ban, Tobacco, United States, Western Europe

Anti-Smoking Legislation Continues to Burn

ContentThe movement to ban smoking in public places has reached an all-time high in the United States, and despite the relative decline in public awareness of them, lawmakers continue to instill anti-smoking laws throughout the 1990s and into the 21st century.

Smoking laws vary widely from state to state and can even be different for different cities within the same county or state. About two-thirds of the most populated cities in the country have banned smoking in bars and restaurants and more than half the states have bans on smoking in enclosed public places. All in all, more than 70 percent of the U.S. population lives in a place where smoking is banned either in the workplace or in bars or restaurants. However, many of the states that have these types of statewide bans on smoking do allow some exceptions. These exceptions can include private clubs, cigar bars, casinos and workplaces with very few employees. Additionally, Michigan and Vermont are the only two states that ban smoking in all hotel and motel rooms – every other state allows these businesses to designate which rooms are smoking and non-smoking.

Eleven states have no types of statewide ban on smoking: Alabama, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, West Virginia, and Wyoming. However, in most of these states, certain businesses (such as bars, restaurants and workplaces) must post signs designating areas or the entire businesses as smoke-free or identify areas where visitors can smoke.

Since the 1960s, tobacco use in the United States declined from 40 percent of the population smoking to about 25 percent of the population. However, anti-smoking advocates have recently noted a stagnation in the rate of decline. Whether that is a result of too many bans or not enough is yet to be researched, but that has no slowed down the rate of which cities, counties and states are introducing and adopting anti-smoking legislation.

Filed Under: Anti-Smoking, Health Tagged With: Michigan, Public space, Smoking ban, South Carolina, Tobacco, Tobacco control movement, United States, Vermont

Support for Smoke-Free Laws Grow

ContentThe majority of states in the United States have anti-smoking laws of some sort. Most restrict cigarettes in bars, restaurants and workplaces although some go significantly farther – there are local laws in California, for instance, that don’t allow smoking to take place on public sidewalks or outside near doors and windows.

Over the last three years, the amount of Americans living under smoke-free laws has doubled in size. During this time, many arguments have been made against the spread of smoke-free laws, including the idea that restaurants, pubs and bars can suffer if subjected to anti-smoking legislation.

Research has shown that anti-smoking legislation has very little impact on local economies when focusing on the effect that the laws have on local restaurants and bars. The hospitality industries in various parts of the country that have insisted no smoking laws have not seen a general loss of profit, employment, sales or patronage. In some situations, bars and restaurants have actually seen a marked increase in sales and profits after anti-smoking legislation went into effect. In particular, the state of Washington saw bars and taverns post 20 percent more income after the first full year that an indoor smoking ban went into affect. Studies of the effect of anti-smoking laws in Minnesota, New York, Massachusetts and Florida – amongst other states – show no local adverse effects to the hospitality economy after the respective smoking bans went into effect.

Additionally, anti-smoking organizations continue to advocate the extension of these laws by pointing out the significant public health benefits and victories that have been discovered over the last decade. A recent study shows that the majority of smokers who want to quit smoking actually favor anti-smoking legislation because it gives them a pressure-free environment that can help them reach their quitting goals. Additionally, most diners, according to a Zagat survey, said they were more willing to eat out if they knew there wouldn’t be smoking allowed.

Filed Under: Anti-Smoking, Health Tagged With: California, Law, Massachusetts, New York, Restaurant, Smoking ban, Tobacco control movement, United States

Start Your Day Off Right With Stretching

Stretching in the morning can relieve back pain, increase blood flow and put you in a better mood! After six to eight hours curled up in your bed, your spine needs to stretched to prepare you for your day. Try these simple stretches each morning to start your day out right.

First, stand with your feet hip-distance apart and stretch your hands straight up towards the ceiling. Think of lengthening your spine from the base all the way to the crown of your head. Be sure to keep your neck long, maintaining the space between your shoulders and your ears. Keep your head in a neutral position or tilt it slightly upward without straining your neck. Now try to touch the ceiling! Hold this position for a count of ten.

Next, slowly stretch your arms in a wide arch in front of your body reaching for the wall in front of you and then slowly towards the floor. As you complete this motion, constantly think of lengthening your spine. Once you have lowered your arms all the way to the floor, let them simply hang. Bend your knees only the slightest bit and release all of the tension from your back. Let your head hang loosely and gently shake it “yes” and “no”. Try to hold this position for a count of twenty before slowly rising back up.

Finally, stretch your sides by standing straight with your feet hips-distance apart. Hold your right arm straight up in the air and slowly lower your left arm down your left leg so that you lean slightly to the left, keeping your legs straight. Allow your right arm to move with the stretch creating a long line from your right foot straight through to your right hand. You should feel the stretch along your right side. Hold this for a count of ten and then switch sides.

These stretches are sure to start your day off right!

Filed Under: Anti-Smoking, Health Tagged With: Health, Muscle, Physical exercise, Pitching position, Right-arm, Right-handedness, stretch, Vertebral column

The Effectiveness of Anti-smoking Ads

ContentA variety of techniques have been used over the past 10 years in an effort to de-glamorize the act of smoking. These ads â€“ most notably, those of the â€œTruthâ€ campaign â€“ are aimed toward teenagers. Since the likelihood of becoming a smoker is greatly reduced if a person hasnâ€™t started smoking by the age of 21, this demographic is particularly important to anti-smoking activists when it comes to reducing the numbers of smokers in the United States and worldwide.

The techniques often employed during these â€œTruthâ€ ads include short-term and long-term health benefits of smoking as well as emphasizing the detrimental effect that cigarettes can have on social relationships â€“ for instance, the smell of cigarettes on oneâ€™s clothes or breath can be seen as unattractive. While many ads tend to go for more shocking depictions of cigarettes, some use humorous appeals to get their point across.

Are the ads effective? A study published in the American Journal of Public Health indicates that it probably is. The percentage of youth smokers has gone down in every grade level that the researchers tracked from 1997 to 2002. The average decline was 36 percent. But how much of that decline is the natural progression of United States that smokes less and the effect of the anti-smoking advertising? The declines clearly accelerated after 2000 (after the first â€œTruthâ€ ad aired on television) and continued to accelerate over the next two years. Before the first â€œTruthâ€ ads ran on television, the rate of decline was an average of 3.2 percent per year, but double to 6.8 percent per year after launch.

Overall declines, both before and after the â€œTruthâ€ ads started airing, were more noticeable in younger students than in older students, but that result seems to reinforce the idea that stopping teenagers from picking up the habit early on is the largest deterrent to the growth of the smoking population.

Filed Under: Anti-Smoking, Health Tagged With: American Journal of Public Health, Cigarette, Health, Percentage, Tobacco, Tobacco control movement, Tobacco smoking, United States

From Smoking to Rehab

: Image via Wikipedia

In the face of all the other dangerous substances one could be abusing, it seems absurd to consider that cigarette smoking can be as dangerous as drug use itself. This is due to the fact that cigarettes and nicotine are considered the gateway drug, or starter drug. It is now known that some people can be genetically predisposed to addiction, and the seemingly innocuous cigarette may lead to the abuse of far more deadly substances.

Consider the social setting. Many young people begin smoking cigarettes in their teens, when they first fall prey to peer pressure or the need to fit in and belong. This need to belong is carried over into other social settings where drugs and alcohol are introduced. The teen who has already displayed an inability to resist, falls prey easily to the use of these other substances and it may not be long before they’re addicts.

In addition, the physical addiction to nicotine awakens within some the feelings of euphoria and withdrawal that perpetuate the addiction. The euphoria of the first puff on the cigarette is easily replaced by the first high of stronger drugs. Once alerted to the ease of addiction, one’s willpower and ability to resist future temptation become compromised.

Once the art of smoking a cigarette has been mastered, it’s not a far leap to marijuana. Your lungs are already accustomed to the burn of the smoke, and the marijuana high is quickly sought after on a regular basis.

The usual progression of addictions begins with nicotine followed by alcohol, and marijuana by the average age of 14. From there it is not difficult to progress to more sophisticated drugs or even pharmaceuticals. The message here is just to not start smoking. While that won’t guarantee you’ll never become a drug addict, your chances of staying out of rehab facilities like those listed at Rehab-International.org are that much greater.

Filed Under: Anti-Smoking, Treatment Tagged With: Addiction, Cannabis (drug), Cigarette, Nicotine, Physical dependence, Smoking cessation, Substance dependence, Tobacco smoking

Smoke Free E-Cigarettes; are They any Better?

: Image via Wikipedia

Are the new smokeless electronic cigarettes a healthier alternative to smoking?

First, let’s understand how they work. As their name suggests, E-Cigarettes are electronic vapor-based cigarettes that use cartridges of nicotine to simulate a normal cigarette nicotine content. Many painstaking details have been built in to make the E-cigarettes as close to a real cigarette as possible, including a LED light at the tip to glow when the user inhales. Some E-cigarettes even have popular brand names printed on them to make them look like regular cigarettes.

Using E-cigarettes also reduces your costs by around 65%. Each cartridge will replace eight cigarettes and only costs a third of the price.

As the user breaths in, the nicotine solution inside is drawn through the “atomizer” or heater and is vaporized. As for second hand smoke, there isn’t any. E-cigarettes just produce a harmless vapor that quickly dissipates. Normal tobacco has more than 4,000 chemicals in it, but the liquid solution that E-cigarettes use can have as few as six, most of which are normal food additives.

Despite the decrease in chemicals and the harmless vapor, doctors are concerned. Since the E-cigarettes use pure nicotine, doctors think that this will increase nicotine addiction in the average person. They also aren’t sure what the long term effects of breathing pure nicotine can have.

Nicotine use causes your arteries to constrict and makes pumping blood harder for your heart. Doctors have linked nicotine to strokes and it is known to slow healing. Nicotine is also a known cause of reproductive toxicity and hypertension.

The benefits of using E-cigarettes versus regular cigarettes is yet to be seen beyond the reduction of cost and chemical content — as well as the lack of second hand smoke. Some doctors have theorized that E-cigarettes can help smokers quit by reducing the amount of nicotine in the cartridges over time.

Filed Under: Addiction, Anti-Smoking, Health, Medication Tagged With: Electronic cigarette, Specific Substances, Tobacco smoking

Smoking in Cars Can Harm Children

ContentSecondhand smoke has a host of maladies associated with it – for instance, increased ricks of asthma, ear infections, heart disease and cancer. While secondhand smoke has demonstrated negative effects on almost all non-smoking segments of the population, these dangers are especially problematic in young people whose immune systems are still developing.

The risks to children exposed to secondhand smoke is amplified when the exposure happens in closed conditions, namely homes and cars. These problems can range from breathing problems (including acute respiratory infections, more severe asthma and slower lung growth) to problems with hearing associated with damage to the ears. Illness and partial disability isn’t the only risk that comes from being exposed to secondhand smoke in a closed environment as a child – there are higher death rates in populations that are around secondhand smoke. Children who experience extended exposure to a parent’s secondhand smoke die to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) more commonly than children that aren’t exposed.

Children who are in the same car as a smoking parent inhale more secondhand smoke than a non-smoker does at most bars or restaurants that allow smoking, and the closed conditions mean that carbon monoxide becomes more concentrated throughout the drive faster than it would in another, more open space. Children are especially susceptible to the effects of carbon monoxide, which can cause lethargy and loss of alertness in even relatively small amounts.

Currently, there are only a handful of states that regulate the ability to smoke in cars, even though a majority of states have passed laws that ban smoking in other enclosed spaces (including bars, restaurants and workplaces). The only states where it is illegal to smoke in a car that has a child in it are Arkansas, Louisiana, Maine and, most recently, California. New York lawmakers were discussing the bill earlier this year and two North Carolina representatives have filed a bill that follow suit.

Filed Under: Anti-Smoking, Health Tagged With: California, Louisiana, Maine, New York, North Carolina, Passive smoking, Smoking ban, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome

Smoking Bans: A Momovement for Public Health

There has recently been a movement against smoking, citing it as a major health issue. While the health risks to smokers have been known for some time, the health consequences of second-hand smoke (smoke that people around the smoker breathe in) are now coming to light. These discoveries are behind the recent push for smoking bans and other anti-smoking legislation.

The health risks for second-hand smoke are very similar to those of the smoker himself – asthma, emphysema, bronchitis, lung cancer, cardiovascular disease, and more. However, the risks to the smoker are those he assumes for himself. Since those breathing in the second-hand smoke have no choice in the matter, legislation has been enacted to restrict or prohibit smoking in public places in many areas of the United States.

Restaurants and bars are often the target of anti-smoking bans. These laws are said to improve the air quality for both the patrons and the for staff in these establishments. These laws were strongly resisted by these establishments, reasoning that the ban in one area will cause patrons to simply frequent a bar or restaurant in an area not affected by a local ban. (Studies done by both bar and restaurant associations have shown a decline in revenue after anti-smoking legislation has been passed. Studies done by the government and other agencies have shown no negative economic impact, and some even show a positive one.)

Benefits to public health after the enacting of anti-smoking laws have sometimes been quite impressive. Some areas have reported as much as a 40% reduction in heart attacks after the introduction of anti-smoking laws (as was the case in Pueblo, Colorado, and Helena, Montana). Other research has shown an improvement in the overall health of bar workers after smoking bans have been put in place, especially for those workers that are plagued by asthma.

Filed Under: Addiction, Anti-Smoking, Health Tagged With: Passive smoking, Smoking ban, United States