If you are a smoker in the Los Angeles area you may as well decide to quit smoking now - before the government will make that decision for you. Ignore this and find yourself paying up to $500 in fines:

After Thousand Oaks, Baldwin Park, and South Pasadena, the city of Pasadena is set to be the next place in Southern California that may enforce a smoking ban that will make it extremely hard to find a place in public to light up. The ordinance could take effect in 30 days.

- Franc Tausch, PhD, CCHT

The City Council voted Monday to enact a smoking ban that would put extensive restrictions on smoking outdoors in non-residential areas of the city.

The new rules will prohibit smoking in outdoor shopping and dining areas, in ATM and movie ticket lines, within 20 feet of building entrances and at outdoor events like the Rose Parade. That would make it nearly impossible to smoke in Old Pasadena, and other commercial districts of the city.

Violators would be fined $100 for a first offense, $200 for a second and $500 for third or subsequent violations, according to staff reports. Smoking in parks is already prohibited in the city.

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A person who recently quit smoking will not be triggered into a relapse because they smell cigarette smoke! A study further revealed that this is even the case if the ex-smoker considers that smell to be pleasant.

Franc Tausch, PhD, CCHT

A regression analysis showed that a return to smoking was a function of general urges, not smoke-related cravings, Hayden McRobbie, M.B.Ch.B., of Auckland University of Technology, and colleagues reported in the November issue of Addiction.

And reporting that the smell of smoke was pleasant had no relationship to the risk of relapse.

"Recent quitters can be reassured that finding the smell of cigarette smoke pleasant is not likely to lead them back to smoking," Dr. McRobbie said.

Patients in smoking cessation programs have a variety of reactions to the smell of other people’s smoke, ranging from disgust to temptation, according to the researchers.

To investigate whether these reactions affect the risk of relapse shortly after quitting, they analyzed data from 1,110 patients (mean age 47; 55% female) attending a smoking cessation treatment center in London.

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This quote from New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg on quitting smoking is just too good to pass it up… Bloomberg is a former smoker himself, by the way.

- Franc Tausch, PhD, CCHT

“It’s relatively easy to stop, and once you stop, you’re going to feel so much superior to those who do smoke that there’s instant gratification.”

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Have you been delaying the decision to stop smoking cigarettes because you are smoking so-called "light" or "mild" cigarettes - believing you do less harm to yourself (and to those around you) than folks who smoke regular ones?

Well, as I have indicated in other parts of my blog, you may be in for a rude awakening…

- Franc Tausch, PhD, CCHT

Cigarette smokers should not be misled into thinking that ‘light’ and ‘mild’ cigarettes are less harmful to their health, when compared to full strength tobacco products.

The New Zealand Commerce Commission, acting on complaints, has been investigating whether the use of the descriptors ‘light’ and ‘mild’ on cigarettes could be potentially misleading under the Fair Trading Act.

As a result of the investigation the Commission has issued warnings to three major tobacco companies supplying the New Zealand market - British American Tobacco (New Zealand) Limited, Imperial Tobacco Co. of New Zealand Limited and Philip Morris (New Zealand) Limited.

"Our concern with descriptors such as ‘light’ and ‘mild’ is that consumers may believe they are exposing themselves to less harm if they smoke these cigarettes, as compared to regular strength cigarettes," says Commerce Commission Director of Fair Trading Adrian Sparrow. "Whilst technical machine testing of these products might show them to have a lower level of toxicants, our investigations suggest that the impact of human behaviour results in there being little difference between the intake of toxicants from these products and their regular strength counterparts."

"Our investigations reveal a body of evidence to suggest that smokers who use ‘light’ and ‘mild’ tobacco products may compensate in their smoking behaviour, by inhaling more deeply when smoking these products, by using the filters differently or by smoking more cigarettes to receive the same or nearly the same amounts of toxicants as they would obtain through smoking regular strength cigarettes," says Mr Sparrow.

"The bottom line is smoking causes many diseases, including cancer. There is no such thing as a safe, or safer, cigarette. If you smoke ‘light’ or ‘mild’ cigarettes believing these to be less harmful to your health you are probably fooling yourself," says Mr Sparrow.

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Be honest: Have you ever wondered about the long term effect a cigarette butt or growing tobacco have on the environment? You haven’t, right? - Well, if it makes you feel any better, I am a Smoking Cessation Specialist, and I have not been fully aware of ALL the consequences myself.

Please check out this amazing report I discovered today.

- Franc Tausch, Ph.D., CCHT

‘People don’t always think of cigarette butts as litter,’ says Ginette Unsworth, spokeswoman for Keep Britain Tidy. ‘Smokers who might not drop any other kind of litter drop cigarette ends because they don’t want to set a bin alight and because they think the ends will biodegrade. But they don’t and they can cause huge problems.’

Most smokers are under the impression that cigarette filters are made of cotton. Instead, they are made from packed fibres of cellulose acetate and take up to a decade to break down. Filters also trap formaldehyde, hydrogen cyanide and ‘tar’ - which is the residue of some of the 160 other chemicals in a cigarette.

All of this finds its way into the environment. Cigarette butts on the streets wash away into drains and rivers, and reach our oceans. Worldwide, they’re the most common item of beach litter. Last July, the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) teamed up with Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) and naturist campaigners in Brighton for the No Butts On The Beach! campaign, giving away pocket ashtrays on a naturist beach to highlight the issue. ‘We have documented cases where they’ve been found in the guts of whales, dolphins, seabirds, fish and turtles,’ says Emma Snowden, MCS litter projects co-ordinator.

‘Filters also absorb tar and chemicals that can leach into the water. Some experiments have shown that just one cigarette filter is toxic enough to kill water fleas in eight litres of water. That gives an idea of the potential impact it can have.’

Growing tobacco is also damaging. It’s a chemical-heavy process, using vast quantities of fertiliser, herbicides and pesticides, much of which washes away into the environment. The soil is commonly fumigated with methyl bromide, an ozone-depleting chemical, before seedlings are planted.

‘A lot of tobacco companies say they give farmers the best protection but that’s often not the case,’ says Amanda Sandford, research manager at Action on Smoking and Health (ASH).

Tobacco growing and curing processes are a major cause of deforestation, which, in turn, causes erosion. More tobacco crops also mean fewer food crops are being grown, says Sandford. ‘It’s a profitable crop for tobacco companies but not that profitable for farmers, because they tend to be caught in a system that tobacco companies impose on them. They don’t often make a decent living out of it.’

These issues might surprise smokers, Sandford suggests. ‘Many just see the effect of smoking as litter on the street,’ she says. ‘People might be less likely to smoke if they’re fully aware of the environmental, as well as the health, factors.’

For more information, go to http://cigarettelitter.org, Keep Britain Tidy, the MCS or ASH

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Tony Schwartz, one of the most influential people in the advertising industry, passed away in June. A few days ago, the Los Angeles Times ran an article on the man who created some of the earliest stop smoking or tobacco control ads.

 This particular paragraph really stuck with me.  (For the entire article click here)

- Franc Tausch

"I was the first one to do commercials for the American Cancer Society dealing with emotions rather than medical facts," Schwartz told the Washington Post in 1983. "They would want people not to smoke, and then do spots showing how your lungs were affected or this and that. I took a different approach. I showed kids playing in their parents’ clothing. You know, the boy and girl dressing up in their parents’ wedding clothes up in the attic, and then we have the announcer say, ‘Children learn by imitating their parents. Pause. Do you smoke cigarettes?’ "

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More good news from yet another important study out of the UK:

400.000 British smokers quit smoking, and over 2 billion cigarettes less were smoked since the introduction of last year’s smoking ban in the UK. Researchers estimate that 40.000 lives will be saved there over the next 10 years.

- Franc Tausch, PhD, CCHT

The smoking ban in England, introduced a year ago, has dramatically increased the number of people giving up the habit, it is claimed.

A survey suggests more than 400,000 people quit smoking as a result of the smoking ban.
Researchers say this could potentially help save as many as 40,000 lives in the next 10 years.

Separate research suggests the ban may have helped people with lung disease stay out of hospital.

The ban on smoking in public places was designed principally to protect people from secondhand smoke.

However, as in Scotland, which introduced the ban a year earlier, there are signs that it is providing the motivation for people to try to give up.

A survey of 32,000 people, found that smoking fell by 5.5% in the nine months after the ban, compared with 1.6% in the previous nine months.

On the basis of this, it was estimated that in excess of 400,000 gave up as a direct result of the ban.

Professor Robert West, who carried out the research at the Health Behaviour Research Unit, said he had not expected such a dramatic impact.

"These figures show the largest fall in the number of smokers on record. The effect has been as large in all social groups - poor as well as rich."

Cancer Research UK, which funded the research, said that the momentum now needed to be maintained.

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Today I am thrilled to deliver some very exciting news:

The number of heart attacks in the UK has fallen dramatically -as much as 41%!!! - after the country’s smoking ban in public places started in July of 2007. Is that an awesome number, or what?! Read on.

- Franc Tausch, PhD, CCHT

The number of heart attacks has fallen dramatically since the ban on smoking in public places was introduced last year, latest figures reveal.

More than half of hospital trusts in England are treating fewer heart attacks since the ban came on July 1 last year.

Nearly six in ten [NHS trusts] are reporting a fall in the number of heart attack patients being admitted to emergency wards.

There were 1,384 fewer heart attacks across the county in the nine months after the legislation was introduced compared with the same period a year earlier. That translates to a three per cent fall across the country since the ban.

Some hospitals have seen the number of cases fall by 41 per cent since July 2007.

The figures, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, are the first available proof that the smoking ban has had a significant impact on health across England.

Experts believe the ban has triggered a drop in heart attacks due to both the number of people quitting and the reduction in passive smoking as fewer people are exposed to airborne toxins.

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The results of 3 powerful, major studies about the effect of smoking on your health and your survival were released this week. They were not related to each other, and conducted by different groups in different countries.

One dealt with statistics about heart failure and an early death (no surprise - it was not a pretty picture!), another one found that smoking can cause severe damage to your hearing, and then there was one that found serious links between smoking and memory loss.

Instead of scaring you with the frightening details of all 3 studies, let’s focus on the latter.

- Franc Tausch, PhD, CCHT

Smoking apparently presents an increased risk for memory loss in people at mid-life, a new study released Monday found.

The study by Severine Sabia and colleagues of France’s Institut National de la Sante et de la Recherche Medicale reviewed data from 10,308 London-based civil servants age 35 to 55 who took part in a study between 1985 and 1988.

The researchers said that they found strong links between smoking and cognitive and memory problems later in life.

"First, smoking in middle age is associated with memory deficit and decline in reasoning abilities," they wrote in a report in the June 9 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine

"Second, long-term ex-smokers are less likely to have cognitive deficits in memory, vocabulary and verbal fluency.

"Third, giving up smoking in midlife is accompanied by improvement in other health behaviors.

"Fourth, our results … suggest that the association between smoking and cognition, even in late midlife, could be underestimated because of higher risk of death and non-participation in cognitive tests among smokers."

The authors stressed that "the results are important because individuals with cognitive impairment in midlife may progress to dementia at a faster rate."

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Most smokers realize that smoking may be killing them. However, many of these folks also believe that smoking a filtered cigarette will cause them less harm than smoking a nonfiltered cigarette.

They are -quite literally- gravely mistaken!

A filtered cigarette may potentially cause you even more harm than a nonfiltered one. And it certainly does NOT protect your health, and it does NOT keep you from inhaling the chemicals and poisons of a cigarette.

- Franc Tausch, PhD, CCHT

Why don’t filters work?

- Filters do not block all the bad chemicals in smoke.
- Filtered smoke feels milder on the throat, making it easier to take bigger and deeper puffs.
- Filters help block only the biggest tar particles while letting through the smaller bits of tar that can travel deeper into your lungs.

Filters are defective — and the companies know it. You may be inhaling filter fibers into your lungs.

- Most cigarette filters are made of the same material as camera film (cellulose acetate).
- Each individual filter is made of thousands of tiny fibers.
- The inside of the filter is painted white to make it appear clean.
- During smoking, these fibers can come off into your mouth and be inhaled into your lungs.

Charcoal filters are no better. If you smoke a cigarette with a charcoal filter, not only can you get fibers in your body, you can also get tiny bits of charcoal.

What cigarette manufacturers will not tell you:

Tobacco industry documents show that they have known about filter fiber fallout since at least the 1950s."Carbon particles were released from all cigarettes tested. In some studies, the particles released from cigarette filters were described as: "..too numerous to count." [Memo to Judy Nash from Nancy R. Ryan. Febuary 18, 1982. "Filter particle fallout." Bates No. 1000805035]

"He said when [a filter] plug is cut …there always remains a few loose, hard particles of filament. These loose, hard pieces of material are then sucked down into the lungs of the smoker." [Memo to Mr. O.P. McComas from Anne C. Stubing. May 1, 1957. (no title). Bates No. 2040015018-2040015020]

Don’t be fooled.
The filter on your cigarette may be causing you more harm than good.

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