LINKS
COVID-19 - REGULARLY UPDATED DATA FOR AUSTRALIA.
Catastrophic pregnancy and smoking results.
Appalling new (November 2019) smoking stats for pregnant women in Tasmania increased to 14.5%. The worst figure is 40% smoking for teenage mothers under the age of 20 years.
“DAMNING figures have been released by the Tasmanian Department of Health which show that smoking rates among pregnant women, after years of decline, have risen again and are back to 2013 levels.
The most shocking statistic from the Obstetric and Paediatric Mortality and Morbidity Report is the 40 per cent smoking rate in teenage mothers under 20 years, followed by a 27 per cent smoking rate in women 20 to 24 years.
Overall 14.5 per cent of pregnant women in Tasmania are smokers. We do not blame these young women for smoking.
These girls and women were targeted by the tobacco industry and are now targeted by its partners – the peak retail organisations.
Cigarettes have been designed and engineered to be more addictive. More additives, filter ventilation, menthol, flavours and attractive “slim” design. The industry wants smokers to start as young as possible.
Teenagers can become addicted before their brain is fully developed at age 25 years, and before they can properly assess the risks.
Retailer peak associations oppose action on raising the smoking age to 21 years.
Government is apparently indifferent to the plight of mothers who deliver dead or sick babies, their grief and that of their partners and families.
Are the retailer peak organisations popping the champagne corks in delight that they have achieved an increase in smoking rates in 18 to 21-year-old pregnant teenagers? More money in their wallets?
These young pregnant smokers suffer stigma, fear for their babies, guilt and shame. We should support them. It is very hard for them to quit once they are pregnant, and the quit rates of most programs for pregnant women are abysmal, as low as 7 per cent.
One recent successful program using carbon monoxide monitoring trialled at the Royal Hobart Hospital achieved a quit rate of about 36 per cent.
The report says: “Smoking during pregnancy is regarded as one of the key preventable causes of low birth weight and preterm birth. Low birth weight babies (less than 2500 grams) are more likely to die in the first year of life and are more susceptible to chronic illness later in life, such as heart and kidney disease and diabetes.”
The implication for our society is long term – more preterm babies, sick or dead babies, SIDS, cerebral palsy, children turning up at schools with significant deficits and behavioural disorders including ADHD.
Offspring of pregnant smokers are more likely to commit violent crimes into adulthood – a lesser known consequence of smoking during pregnancy.
Presumably the Government’s answer to this crisis is to build another bigger prison, rather than act to prevent smoking uptake in young men and women.
Nothing is being done on prevention.
Some good work is being done on support and cessation, but this is too late for many women and babies. And let us not forget the young fathers, many of whom also smoke, and who are also grieving for their lost or maimed babies and children.
The Government and many MPs give credence and priority to the opinion of peak retailers and the tobacco industry.
Those same politicians do not want to hear compelling evidence and address the reality as just reported by medical specialists. We should put babies before tobacco industry profits.
This is catastrophic.
The Tasmanian Government can do two things.
Firstly, roll out the successful “Carbon monoxide testing to motivate women to Quit” program across all Tasmanian hospital antenatal clinics as well as ramp up midwife and doctor training on cessation support for pregnant women.
Secondly, the Government, and the parliament, should act now to pass the T21 Bill and protect our teenagers from the predatory tobacco industry and their mates.
This would have a dramatic effect on reducing the uptake of smoking across the state.
It would not only save the lives of adults.
It will save Tasmanian babies.
Election promise - to deal with filters.
Read the Mercury article here if you have digital access. PDF copy can be viewed here .Article on filters Mercury 18 January
Supported by health groups, the Tasmanian Labor Party has committed to
- Develop a comprehensive community awareness campaign that cigarettes with filters are unsafe.
- Expose the actions of the tobacco industry, who have engineered new addictive palatable filters to target children.
- Strongly advocate nationally through Health Minister’s meetings to regulate filters, cigarette content and cigarette engineering.
A bedtime story for tobacco retailers
Local Tasmanian author Mark Webb has written a lovely bedtime story (dialogue) for retailers about why they should stop selling tobacco. You can read it here: Cigarettes Kiss Goodnight 13 October 2014
Why retailers stop selling tobacco in Tasmania
A comprehensive study on why retailers in Tasmania have stopped selling tobacco has been released by the Department of Health and Human Services. Final draft_ why retailers stop selling tobacco full report_DHHSstyle 29052017 (1)
The study reported that the vast majority of historical retailers found that ceasing tobacco sales had no impact on profitability.
This finding is unsurprising, given that lack of profitability of tobacco was an important contributing reason that retailers decided to no longer sell tobacco.
A number of retailers said their decision had improved business cash flow and provided a chance to invest in other goods.
Retailer peak organisations purportedly representing small business, oppose measures to reduce smoking uptake in young people
Several retailer peak organisations have attacked the T21 proposals including the Tasmanian Small Business Council, the Australian Retailers Association and the Tasmanian Hospitality Association. Most of the peak so-called small retail organisations has links to, or is partnered with Philip Morris, British American Tobacco or Imperial Tobacco. You can see it on their websites - and the crossover linkages between Directors on some organisations with major national peak retailers partnered with big tobacco.
This is a commonly used tactic of big tobacco, using front groups, called “astro-turfing”.
The WHO international Framework Convention on tobacco Control (FCTC) to which Australia is a signatory specific prohibitions against policy makers dealing with front groups, and politicians and bureaucrats should only have transparent contact with these organisations. Article 5.3 of the Convention sets out these actions.
“The guidelines are applicable to government officials, representatives and employees of any national, state, provincial, municipal, local or other public or semi/quasi-public institution or body within the jurisdiction of a Party, and to any person acting on their behalf. Any government branch (executive, legislative and judiciary) responsible for setting and implementing tobacco control policies and for protecting those policies against tobacco industry interests should be accountable.“
“Recommendations
1.1 Parties should, in consideration of Article 12 of the Convention, inform and educate all branches of government and the public about the addictive and harmful nature of tobacco products, the need to protect public health policies for tobacco control from commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry and the strategies and tactics used by the tobacco industry to interfere with the setting and implementation of public health policies with respect to tobacco control.
1.2 Parties should, in addition, raise awareness about the tobacco industry’s practice of using individuals, front groups and affiliated organizations to act, openly or covertly, on their behalf or to take action to further the interests of the tobacco industry.
(2) Establish measures to limit interactions with the tobacco industry and ensure the transparency of those interactions that occur.
20. In setting and implementing public health policies with respect to tobacco control, any necessary interaction with the tobacco industry should be carried out by Parties in such a way as to avoid the creation of any perception of a real or potential partnership or cooperation resulting from or on account of such interaction. In the event the tobacco industry engages in any conduct that may create such a perception, Parties should act to prevent or correct this perception.
Recommendations 2.1
Parties should interact with the tobacco industry only when and to the extent strictly necessary to enable them to effectively regulate the tobacco industry and tobacco products.
2.2 Where interactions with the tobacco industry are necessary, Parties should ensure that such interactions are conducted transparently. Whenever possible, interactions should be conducted in public, for example through public hearings, public notice of interactions, disclosure of records of such interactions to the public. “
________________
April 2016 - new Tasmanian smoking figures from the ABS Tobacco use in Tasmania 2014-15.
February 22 2016 - SFT has made a Final SmokeFree Tasmania Submission 2016 Public Health Consultation 2025 to the government on its proposal to raise the smoking age to 21 or 25.
The Medical Journal of Australia (MJA) has published an editorial in support of the TFG, and the Conversation and Mercury have followed up the story.
The Lancet Respiratory Editorial praises Tasmania.
Vale John Clarke , died at age 68, a brilliant NZ satirist. RIP - he will be missed.
Human Rights
A new human rights framework for tobacco control is set out in a Fact Sheet from Johns Hopkins. And ethicists Yvette van der Eijk and Gerard Porter have examined the TFG in relation to human rights.
And the potential for legal challenges as a crime against humanity was examined at WCTOH, and first raised as an idea by Neil Francey, the lawyer who took on big tobacco on passive smoking in Australia, back in the 1990s.
NEW Research
August 2016: PhD thesis published.
“Dr Barnsley found barriers to implementing evidence based tobacco control to address Tasmania’s high smoking rates. Documentary analysis from the 1960s to 2000s found corruption, cronyism, bureaucratic complexity, inadequate resourcing, few advocates and conservative male leaders as key barriers.”
Plain packaging research March 2015. The latest issue of Tobacco Control has podcasts and interviews about plain packaging.
Hong Kong research shows huge support for banning cigarette sales. 64.8% support total ban within ten years - Feb 2015
E-cigs statement by the NHMRC March 2015 - all about e-cigarettes in Australia and the research to date.
Smoking thins the brain cortex, vital for memory, language and perception.
More on Plain Packaging -and some fact sheets about its implementation, effects on retailers, tobacco industry misinformation, smoking rates. Tobacco control research.
An Australian study in the BMC Medicine by Banks et al released in February 2015 shows that In Australia, up to two-thirds of deaths in current smokers can be attributed to smoking. Cessation reduces mortality, compared with continuing to smoke, with cessation earlier in life resulting in greater reductions. Simon Chapman writes a summary in “The Conversation”, and the Mercury reported on it - 25 February 2015.
Smokers are more prone to depression and anxiety, and quitting smoking helps. Leading British researcher Prof. Robert West. Feb 24 2015.
Links to research and organisations
Everything you could ever want to know about about Tobacco in Australia !!
Cancer Council Victoria – Behavioural Research – Tobacco control research and evaluation
Horror stories about tobacco industry behaviour - you can learn all about how the tobacco industry has been involved in smuggling around the world - and their links to organised crime.
Read about the inside story of the tobacco industry. Internal documents. Tobacco industry documents Library:
Do you want to know what is in your cigarettes ? Australian cigarette ingredients:
Smoking around the world – the Tobacco Atlas
Advocacy in Australia & Singapore
ACOSH Action on Smoking and Health West Australia
Governments
Tasmania: DHHS Tobacco control
Australian Government Department of Health
USA CDC Surgeon General’s Reports on smoking and tobacco use
International support for the Tobacco Free Generation
The British Medical Association. Dr. Tim Croquer-Buque leading the charge!
The Pope
And the International Conference on Public Health Priorities in the 21st Century, India September 2013, key speaker Dr. Margaret Chan, with a message from His Holiness Pope Francis.
Inspirational Message by His Holiness Pope Francis
“ The holy father encourages you and your collaborators in your efforts to raise awareness about threats to human health incurred by the use of tobacco, and he assures you of a remembrance in his prayers”
Included in the final conference declaration. “Adoption of policies to prohibit the sale of tobacco to all persons born after 2000, to ensure tobacco free millennium generations (as proposed by Tasmania and Singapore).”