Tobacco shops can't sell soft drink, snacks

Sale of soft drinks, chips, toffees and other eatables at tobacco and cigarette shops will be banned in Lucknow city.

The Lucknow Municipal Corporation has prepared a team in each zone to crack down on tobacco shops selling eatables and soft drinks. The decision came following the guidelines of the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act, 2003 (COTPA), which restricts selling of eatables at tobacco shops.

The municipal commissioner has issued orders to all eight zonal officials to survey all markets and residential areas in their zones and crack down on tobacco shops selling toffees and other eatables. The commissioner has written to the district administration to provide support to the drive.

A joint team of five departments-LMC, police, CMO, Food Safety and Drug Administration, state government and district administration-will raid these shops. While police have authority to impose a penalty of Rs 500-5,000 on tobacco shop owners selling eatables, FSDA department can even cancel licences of permanent shops.

LMC has the responsibility to remove shops running illegally on roadsides.

LMC's environment engineer Pankaj Bhushan said, "The drive is to prevent children from accessing tobacco shops. It is observed that while reaching out to these shops to buy chips, toffees and cold drinks, children also get access to tobacco products. To stop this and create awareness, LMC has launched the drive to remove eatables from these shops."

Courtesy:Times of India

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Holy smoke! Sale of tobacco products to kids continue unchecked

  

The sale of tobacco products to those under the age of 18 continues to burgeon in blatant disregard of the law making this illegal. Every vendor has the board put up claiming that sale to underage children is prohibited. However, the biggest customers for tobacco products remains school and college students!

The once in a blue moon raids carried out by excise sleuths or police results in big loads of pan and other products being confiscated. However, there is seldom any action other than detaining the peddlers and slapping them with a fine. Often there aren't any probe into the source and the channels of smuggling these products.

The punishment for transporting or selling tobacco products is only a fine, a mere slap on the wrist which enables those caught to continue doing the same things. Most of the people caught in such instances under police record are repeat offenders. These days, on top of tobacco products, even intoxicating sweets are being sold in shops near schools.

Earlier, routine health department checks used to take place under schemes like Healthy Kerala. This kept a check on the sale of such products. However, new steps taken by the health department, decreasing the regularity of checks has contributed to the upsurge in sales of these products.

In spite of the fact that parent bodies, teachers associations and school managements are all increasing their roles, in many cases, nobody comes forward to give an official complaint. The need of the hour is to stop letting off those involved with mere fines and instead trace out the source of the problem and bring them to public light.

Courtesy: Manoramaonline

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E-cigarette vapours laden with toxic metals, say experts

It has come to light that e-cigarette vapours contain a significant amount of toxic metals, which can be dangerous.

According to a study conducted by at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, significant amounts of toxic metals, including lead, leak from some e-cigarette heating coils and are present in the aerosols inhaled by users.

 In the study, the scientists examined e-cigarette devices owned by a sample of 56 users. They found that significant numbers of the devices generated aerosols with potentially unsafe levels of lead, chromium, manganese and/or nickel.

Chronic inhalation of these metals has been linked to lung, liver, immune, cardiovascular and brain damage, and even cancers.

"It's important for the FDA, the e-cigarette companies, and vapers themselves to know that these heating coils, as currently made, seem to be leaking toxic metals--which then get into the aerosols that vapers inhale," said senior author, Ana María Rule.

Vaping, the practice of inhaling this aerosol as if it were cigarette smoke, is now popular especially among teens, young adults and former smokers.

Vaping is popular in part because it provides the nicotine "hit" and the look and feel of tobacco-smoking but without smoking's extreme health risks. Evidence that vaping isn't entirely safe continues to accumulate, however.

For the new study, Rule and her colleagues, including lead author Pablo Olmedo, recruited 56 daily e-cigarette users from vaping conventions and e-cigarette shops around Baltimore during the fall of 2015.

Working with participants' devices, which they brought to the researchers' lab at the Bloomberg School, the scientists tested for the presence of 15 metals in the e-liquids in the vapers' refilling dispensers, the e-liquids in their coil-containing e-cigarette tanks and in the generated aerosols.

Consistent with prior studies, they found minimal amounts of metals in the e-liquids within refilling dispensers, but much larger amounts of some metals in the e-liquids that had been exposed to the heating coils within e-cigarette tanks.

The difference indicated that the metals almost certainly had come from the coils. Most importantly, the scientists showed that the metal contamination carried over to the aerosols produced by heating the e-liquids.

Of the metals significantly present in the aerosols, lead, chromium, nickel and manganese were the ones of most concern, as all are toxic when inhaled.

Almost 50 per cent of aerosol samples had lead concentrations higher than health-based limits defined by the Environmental Protection Agency. Similarly, median aerosol concentrations of nickel, chromium and manganese approached or exceeded safe limits.

"These were median levels only," Rule said. "The actual levels of these metals varied greatly from sample to sample, and often were much higher than safe limits".

E-cigarette heating coils typically are made of nickel, chromium and a few other elements, making them the most obvious sources of metal contamination, although the source of the lead remains a mystery.

Precisely how metals get from the coil into the surrounding e-liquid is another mystery. "We don't know yet whether metals are chemically leaching from the coil or vaporizing when it's heated," Rule said.

The researchers did observe, however, that aerosol metal concentrations tended to be higher for e-cigarettes with more frequently changed coils--suggesting that fresher coils give off metals more readily.

The researchers also detected significant levels of arsenic, a metal-like element that can be highly toxic, in refill e-liquid and in the corresponding tank e-liquid and aerosol samples from 10 of the 56 vapers. How the arsenic got into these e-liquids is yet another mystery--and another potential focus for regulators.

The findings from the study are published online in Environmental Health Perspectives.

Courtesy Deccan Chronicle

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Tobacco Increases The Risk Of Cancer No Matter How It Is Used: Study

A recent study conducted by JAMA Internal Medicine revealed that cigarettes were not the only type of tobacco products that can lead to premature death or fatalities from smoking-related cancers. There is only one difference – the people who exclusively smoke cigarettes have twice the risk of premature death. But people who use cigars or pipes are not safe either, according to the study. The research team was headed by Carol Christensen, member of U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Tobacco Products.

“Combustible tobacco used in any form is a cancer risk, and pipe and cigar smokers cannot be given a pass,” said Dr Len Horovitz, a pulmonary specialist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City to Medical Express.

The research tracked the health and habits of more than 3,57,000 US citizens from 1985 to 2011. Among the people who were selected for the research, 57% (2,03,071) never used tobacco. 5,7,251 participants were daily cigarette smokers. 531 participants were cigar smokers and 1099 participants had a daily habit of using pipes.

“Cigar smokers had a 20 percent elevated odds of death from any cause and a 61 percent higher risk of death from tobacco-linked cancer,” the research stated. Compared to the never smokers, pipe smokers had a 58% higher risk of dying from tobacco-linked cancer during the research period.

“A full-size cigar can contain chemicals the equivalent of one pack of cigarettes, and individuals who switch from cigarettes to cigars frequently unintentionally inhale cigars the way they inhaled cigarettes—exposing them to large amounts of the hazardous substances in cigar smoke,” said Patricia Folan who directs the Centre for Tobacco Control at Northwell Health in Great, New York.

Tobacco consumption in India

The findings in the study have relevance in the Indian context as the country stands as the second largest consumer and producer of tobacco globally. China tops the list. India also accounts for one-sixth of the world’s tobacco-related deaths. Tobacco is available in the country in wide varieties of smoke and smokeless forms. Tobacco consumption is highest in the states like Mizoram, Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland, Tripura, and Assam, according to the data published by the National Family Health Survey.

Source: The Logical Indian

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How Smoking and Tobacco Changes Your Body and Mind

It is far too common these days to see someone lighting up a cigarette and puffing it in public. While many are very much addicted to this vice, others take it at certain times for a little feel good feeling. Whichever the reason, smoking is dangerous to both smokers and none smokers. The probability of death by tobacco for a long term smoker is strikingly high. Smoking without a doubt is dangerous to health and life.

While the media portrays smoking in a glamorous light, in reality it is far from that. According to the World Health Organization(WHO), 25 major life threatening diseases are linked to smoking. Smoking plays a big role in the cause of lung cancer, heart attack, stroke and so forth. It causes stinking breath, skin problems, impotence in men and even makes the teeth brownish.

Asides harming the smoker, smoking also harm those around the smoker. Children who are constantly near smokers are at a risk of having pneumonia and other chest problems. Smoking is also dangerous to pregnant women.Dangerous substance in the cigarette smoke can enter into the pregnant woman’s body and then enter the child. This could harm the baby, in some cases lead to stillbirth, abortion and even death.

Tobacco vs Cigarette
In a bid to convince people to keep up the habit of smoking, the tobacco industry brought out low tar and nicotine cigarettes. This however seems to be worse as those who made the switch craves as much dose of nicotine as they had when something taking cigarettes.Yet those that simply switch are still at risk of health problems.

There is the powdered tobacco called snuff and the chewing tobacco which is chewed.

Cigars and pipes are also not any different. They still have as much negative effects. There is even an increased risk of developing cancer of the mouth or lip.

Whichever the case, snuff and chewing tobacco both are causes of cancer, cause bad breath, stained teeth. So sucking or chewing tobacco is by no means a wise alternative to smoking it.

Benefits of Quitting
    Low risk of lung cancer
    Better breath and smell
    Freedom from nicotine
    Decrease in coughing and other chest complications.
    Feelings of accomplishment

Many smoke addicts who do want to quit smoking has found it difficult to do, due to the large amount of nicotine which is a highly addictive substances. Nicotine, is a substance which is more active than heroin and cocaine. This is one reason why quitting is hard. Another reason is that smoking has been interwoven into our daily routine. The media and many in the society views it as normal, without really paying attention to the effect it will have on the long run.

By all means, the Pros outweigh the Cons. Smoking is a terrible habit, one that easily ruin a person as well a be harmful to loved around him. It is more than a pleasurable past time. It is dangerous.

Article by Paul Becker in Times Lifestyle

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​​Tobacco related cancer cases increase sharply in Kollam district

There has been a sharp 72 per cent increase in tobacco related cases cancer among males in Kerala’s Kollam district over the six-year period from 2009 to 2014, reveals an analysis of the data ahead of the World Cancer Day, which falls on February 4.

It is also a cause for worry that the number of tobacco related cancer cases among women marked a steep increase of 78 per cent in the district during the period.

The data from the latest publicly available Population Based Cancer Registries of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) show that the number of cancer cases among men shot up from 1,389 in 2009-11 to 2,393 cases in 2012-14.

Similarly, an analysis of the data from the registry shows that tobacco related cancer cases among women in the district steeply rose from 397 in 2009-11 to 707 in 2012-14

The ‘Three-Year Report of the PBCRs: 2009-11’ shows that Kollam accounted for 41.2 per cent of tobacco related cancers among males and 12.7 per cent among females. The relative proportion of tobacco related cancers as per the latest ‘Three-Year Report of the PBCRs: 2012-2014’ was 43.2 per cent (2,393 cases) and 12.9 per cent (707 cases) among males and females respectively.

The PBCR Kollam was established in 2006 to record all cancer cases reported from the residents of district.

Projections of the ‘PBCRs: 2012-2014’ on the number of cases and relative burden of cancer in the country show that tobacco related cancers would top the list of all cancers by 2020 with an estimated 523,471 cases accounting for 30 per cent of all cancers.

These reports are available at http://ncrpindia.org/Annual_Reports.aspx.

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Steep rise in tobacco related cancer cases in Kerala’s capital: ICMR reports

Highlighting the need to step up tobacco control efforts, incidence of tobacco related cancer in Thiruvananthapuram district has shown an alarming increase of 220 per cent among males and 219 per cent among females over the six-year period from 2009-11 to 2012-14.

The number of cancer cases among men shot up sharply from 885 in 2009-11 to 2,835 in 2012-14, as per the latest publicly available Population Based Cancer Registries (PBCR) of the Indian Council of Medical Research.

An analysis of the registry reports reveals that the number of tobacco related cancers among females sharply went up from 272 cases in 2009-11 to 869 in 2012-14 in the district.

Significantly, tobacco related cancers among men are the third highest in a ranking of 27 population-based registries in the country covered by the 2012-14 report with 2835 cases. This is the highest after Delhi (4185 cases) and Ahmedabad Urban (3085 cases).

The PBCR Thiruvanathapuram was established in 2006 with the objectives of assessing the magnitude and pattern of cancer incidence and mortality rates as well as estimating relative survival of various cancers.

Lung cancers top the tobacco related cancers among males, according to the consolidated report of Hospital Based Cancer Registries maintained at Regional Cancer Centre (RCC) here.

Demonstrating an increasing trend over the years, the proportion of tobacco related lung cancers among males have risen from 28 per cent in 1999-2000 to 35.7 per cent in 2012-14. It was 29.5 per cent in 2001-03, 29.9 per cent in 2004-06; and 33.1 per cent in 2007-11.

Consistent with the knowledge that women in Kerala are more prone to using smokeless tobacco products, mouth cancer has the first place among tobacco related cancers in this gender.

Projections of the ‘PBCRs: 2012-2014’ on the number of cases and relative burden of cancer in the country show that tobacco related cancers would top the list of all cancers by 2020 with an estimated 523,471 cases accounting for 30 per cent of all cancers.

These reports are available at http://ncrpindia.org/Annual_Reports.aspx.

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