A controversial bill that would essentially snuff out North Dakota’s tobacco control and prevention efforts to fund the expansion of UND’s School of Medicine and Health Sciences goes before its first committee hearing today. Not only would HB 1353 take tobacco settlement funds set aside by voters in 2008 for an anti-tobacco program, it would also eliminate the entire section of state law that allows for an agency to manage those funds. Anti- ... Jump to full article >>

The governing Liberals need to put more money into programs that will help smokers butt out if they want to win the war on tobacco, Ontario’s chief medical officer of health says. Government funding for tobacco control has dropped over the last three years from nearly $57 million to $43 million, even though smoking is costing Ontario about $8 billion a year in health care and lost productivity, Dr. Arlene King noted in her first annual re ... Jump to full article >>

Putting tobacco out of sight in shops can change the attitude of young people to smoking, while not hitting retailers in the pocket, researchers at The University of Nottingham have discovered. Academics from the University’s UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies looked at the effect of the removal of tobacco displays in the Republic of Ireland, ahead of similar legislation which is due to come into force in the UK. The findings are publis ... Jump to full article >>

Tobacco firms are braced for a tougher operating regime in Kenya after the country joined delegates from other regions in endorsing stringent anti-smoking rules at a UN meeting in Uruguay. The new measures reached last week by the 171 signatories to the World Health Organisation’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) after a week-long meeting that ended on Saturday. The steps are aimed at cutting the use of tobacco worldwide. [captio ... Jump to full article >>

People who are exposed to the second-hand smoke from others’ cigarettes are at increased risk of hearing loss, experts believe. Doctors already know that people who smoke can damage their hearing. The latest study in the journal Tobacco Control, involving more than 3,000 US adults, suggests the same is true of passive smoking. Experts believe tobacco smoke may disrupt blood flow in the small vessels of the ear. This could starve the organ ... Jump to full article >>

Tobacco control officers in Grey-Bruce are being instructed not to enforce the province’s Smoke-Free Ontario Act in local First Nations communities, including the Saugeen and Chippewas of Nawash reserves, says the head of enforcement at the area’s public health unit. Linda Davies, tobacco control program manager, says provincial Ministry of Health Promotion staff has told the Grey Bruce Health Unit that aboriginal governments have th ... Jump to full article >>

The video of a chain-smoking 2-year-old boy in Indonesia went viral last spring, making the country an abject poster child for unbridled cigarette use among its young citizens. The pudgy little boy, Ardi Rizal, smoked up to two packs a day, and his parents, who had started him at 18 months, said he threw tantrums if denied. Recently he went through rehabilitation, NBC reported in a segment this month. While the toddler kicked the habit, Indones ... Jump to full article >>

Marie Evans recalled she was 9 years old when she first started getting free cigarettes in the Boston housing project where she lived. At first, she traded them for candy, but she said she started smoking them herself at age 13. Four decades later, Evans died of lung cancer. Now, an unusual lawsuit is set to go to trial in Suffolk Superior Court, accusing the maker of those cigarettes — Lorillard Tobacco Co. — of deliberately trying to entic ... Jump to full article >>

Research due out tomorrow shows double the number of hardcore smokers have tried to quit since tax increases in April. A day after radical plans were revealed to encourage more New Zealanders to give up cigarettes, ONE News has learned people have already been put off the habit since the first round of tax hikes hit. And the study shows the results are particularly significant for Maori and Pacific Island smokers. Tobacco control researcher Mar ... Jump to full article >>

An RTI plea has revealed a worrisome practice. Over 700 BEST buses – about a fourth of the fleet – carry advertisements of tobacco products such as pan masalas. The advertisements don’t break any rules as such, but a doctor who sought the RTI information feels that BEST advertising could have a bad effect on youngsters. Said Dr Ravikant Singh, who filed the RTI application with the BEST Undertaking in June 2010, “I used t ... Jump to full article >>