Subsidize Safer Cigarettes?
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 10:14 PM

A friend of Vice Squad brought our attention to "A Two-Cigarette Society," an op-ed by David G. Adams in last Monday's New York Times. The idea is to prohibit the sale of "regular" cigarettes to youths, perhaps those under 21. But cigarettes that have very low levels of nicotine would be available at an earlier age. The motivation is harm reduction: don't try to keep older teens from smoking, but try to guide their smoking in a direction that is not very harmful. Presumably the negligible amounts of nicotine in the "youth" cigarettes would not stoke addiction, so that when the youthful smokers want to quit -- and the vast majority of habitual smokers say they want to quit -- they will be able to do so easily. (The author even sees the low-nicotine cigarette as a stepping stone to eventual prohibition of the fully nicotinized version.) One related idea that we could implement without the rest of the two-cigarette solution would be to base cigarette excise taxes on nicotine content, to encourage the production and consumption of lower-nicotine varieties. And then there is snus, of course, as a complementary form of tobacco harm reduction.

The two-cigarette proposal motivated two letters, published in today's Times, in response. The first letter recapitulates the usual zero tolerance v. harm reduction debate: the two-cigarette proposal represents "one of the worst ideas I have heard in a long time;" the letter writer's alternative: "Let’s continue focusing our resources on gradually, but finally, creating a no-cigarette society."

Labels: harm reduction, smoking, teens, tobacco

 
Gambling and Other Vices
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 9:09 PM

The British Gambling Prevalence Survey that we mentioned yesterday looked into smoking and drinking as well as gambling behavior. The unsurprising bottom line: smokers and heavy drinkers gamble more than others, and they also are more likely to be problem gamblers. For instance, 67 percent of current smokers play the National Lottery (that is, played at some point during the previous year), while only 54 percent of non-smokers play; 23 percent of smokers play slots, versus 12 percent of non-smokers. The alcohol question concerned how many drinks that the respondent consumed during their heaviest drinking day in the past week. Broadly speaking, the more they drank, the more they gambled. Of people who claimed that their largest day of consumption during the past week involved twenty or more units (! -- a unit is the amount of alcohol in a 12-ounce beer, a five ounce glass of wine, or a shot of liquor), 68 percent played the National Lottery during the previous year, while the overall percentage was 57 percent; 18 percent of these big bingers placed bets with bookmakers, versus 6 percent of the overall population.

Smokers were 3.5 times as likely to be problem gamblers than non-smokers, and heavy drinkers faced even steeper increases in problem gambling prevalence relative to their light-drinking peers.

Our old friend Bingo has some anomalous characteristics. First, unlike most forms of gambling, it is dominated by women. Second, and not anomalously, smokers are about twice as likely to play Bingo than are non-smokers -- this is about the same as with slot machine players, and helps to explain why casinos and Bingo parlours are particularly vulnerable to smoking bans. Third, Bingo participation does not appear to vary with drinking status -- about seven or eight percent of people play Bingo, whether we are talking about light drinkers or big bingers or the population at large.

Labels: addiction, alcohol, bingo, Britain, gambling, smoking

 
Limited Food Compensated By Lack of Amenities
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 7:12 PM

The E-Inn in Bangalore isn't for every traveler. The food (which might be terrific, for all I know) is subject to the constraint of being of the vegetarian persuasion, and to being both locally and organically grown. Perhaps if you are there and want to diminish your appetite for a burger or a pizza, you will have a cigarette. Stop -- no smoking on the premises. If you want to self-medicate the resulting depression, don't even think about having an alcoholic beverage -- those are off-limits, too.

The hotel is designed to be consistent with sharia law. According to this article in the Times of London (thanks to Alcohol and Drugs History Society for the pointer), the demand for sharia-compliant hotels is rising. As always, Vice Squad is happy to see 100 flowers bloom on this score, as long as those who are not interested in operating their hotel along sharia principles are free to do so.

Labels: alcohol, India, smoking

 
Anti-Anti-Tobacco
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:56 PM

Slate's William Saletan argues that in some dimensions the war against smoking and tobacco has gotten out of hand. (OK, maybe that isn't quite strong enough. The article is entitled "Kicking Butt: The International Jihad Against Tobacco.") One of Saletan's leading examples is Vice Squad obsession snus:

The latest target is snus, a tobacco product that delivers nicotine without smoke. Despite studies showing it's far safer than cigarettes, most European countries allow smoking but prohibit snus. In the U.S., sponsors of legislation to regulate tobacco under the FDA are resisting amendments that would let companies tell consumers how much safer snus is. The president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids complains that snus will "increase the number of people who use tobacco," letting "the big companies win no matter what tobacco products people use." But the goal shouldn't be to stamp out tobacco or make companies lose. The goal should be to save lives.

Though Saletan and Vice Squad feel similarly about snus, I am not sure that adopting as a general goal that of saving lives is necessarily a good idea (though to argue against it, admittedly, makes one sound uncharitable or worse). There are lots of things that people enjoy that are a bit risky, and perhaps more lives could be saved (or prolonged, rather) by using coercion to curtail these activities. But the decision to pursue these risky activities might be perfectly reasonable; maybe some sort of compromise might be appropriate?

If you click over to the Slate article, check out the links on the left side to some previous Saletan articles that deal with non-tobacco vices, including coffee, sex, and fatty foods.

Labels: robustness, smoking, snus, tobacco

 
Dirndl Drama
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 7:27 PM

Workplace smoking bans that apply to restaurants and bars have been adopted in many locales (including Italy, Ireland, and NYC), ostensibly to protect the health of employees. One way that a bar or restaurant could continue to cater to its smoking customers is to set up an outdoor dining area, where smoking is permitted. But careful -- outdoor workers are exposed to a different hazard: sunlight. And so the European Union is thinking of requiring (via the Optical Radiation Directive) outdoor employees to cover up. Such a requirement, however, might necessitate that barmaids in Bavaria abandon their traditional costume, the dirndl. What will happen to the label of St. Pauli Girl? Come to think of it, judging from the 2005 St. Pauli Girl poster, they already abandoned the dirndl -- but they aren't out of the woods with respect to the Optical Radiation Directive.

I ran across the Optical Radiation Directive and its implications for Bavarian barmaids on a blog connected with just-drinks.com.

Labels: alcohol, EU, smoking

 
A Vaccine For Smokers
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 4:29 PM

Most adult smokers in the US report that they would like to quit, but the vast majority of attempts to quit fail. Some pharmaceutical agents, including non-smoking sources of nicotine like patches or gum, seem to be effective in helping some people give up smoking. But now progress is being made on a nicotine vaccine. Vaccinated people have compounds in their bloodstream that quickly bind to nicotine, hindering the transport of nicotine to the brain, and thereby removing the "reward" from smoking.

Last month, Vice Squad noted the progress of an alcohol vaccine. One of the concerns about the development of these vaccines is that parents or the government might force teenagers to undergo vaccination. See this earlier Vice Squad post for some other concerns.

Labels: alcohol, smoking, tobacco, treatment

 
Drinking Prompts Smoking...
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 5:50 PM

...and not only because when you are drinking you see other people smoking and such "cues" make you desire a cigarette. It looks as if the consumption of alcohol itself increases the craving for tobacco among smokers, and the craving increases with the amount of alcohol consumed. This effect applies to light smokers as well as to heavy smokers. Here's an excerpt from this article in Medical News Today:

"Smoking urge ratings were higher after consuming four versus two alcohol drinks, and increases were not observed after consuming a placebo beverage," said [University of Chicago professor Andrea C. ] King. "These findings were observed in a nonsmoking environment, which may indicate that alcohol directly produced these effects and they were not due to direct smoking cues triggering cigarette craving. In other words," she added, "the greater the alcohol consumption, the greater the urge to smoke."

Vice Squad twice noted alcohol and tobacco complementarities back on February 22.

Labels: alcohol, complementarities, smoking, tobacco

 
Fired For Smoking Off the Job?
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 6:11 PM

Over at Crescat, Waddling Thunder supports the right of a private company to insist that its employees not smoke, even off of the job. I tend to agree. It is worth noting, however, that such a policy could not legally be adopted by most employers here in the state of Illinois. The 1991 Right to Privacy in the Workplace Act (§ 820 ILCS 55/5) reads in part "...it shall be unlawful for an employer to refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise disadvantage any individual, with respect to compensation, terms, conditions or privileges of employment because the individual uses lawful products off the premises of the employer during nonworking hours." There are exceptions, but it doesn't look as if the Michigan company that sparked the recent flurry of news coverage would fall within them.

According to the New York Times article linked by Waddling Thunder, Michigan is one of 20 states that do not have laws prohibiting the conditioning of employment on off-the-job non-smoking.

Incidentally, I am sympathetic to the company's right to do this (even though, like Waddling Thunder, I do not think much of the policy), in part because I would like to see legal availability of all drugs for adults. As part of the overall regulatory scheme, however, I think it would be fine for employers and insurance companies to discriminate on the basis of opiate or cocaine use (or on the possession of a license to use opiates or cocaine, which is another potential element of a legal regime for those drugs.)

Vice Squad came across the Illinois Right to Privacy act once before, when it was partly or wholly responsible for the demise of the ban on dancing at Wheaton College.

Labels: dancing, drugs, smoking

 
Unneighborly Dispute about Smoking Sparks a Trial
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 6:43 PM

He is a 72-year old retired professor. She is a 29-year old wife and mother of two children. In June, 2002, she moved into a condominium adjacent to his; they shared a front porch for a little more than a year. She would smoke on the front porch. He didn't like it. He kept a log of her smoking behavior -- it grew to 24 pages -- along with photos and other "evidence." He was described in court (by someone from the condo management agency) as a frequent complainer, one who was warned that harassing his neighbors was against the rules. Now a jury will decide whether she was tramping on his rights by smoking or whether he is a cringing weasel (er, perhaps that is not the precise legal terminology employed in the charge to the jury.) It is all taking place in Akron, Ohio. Read about it here and here (registration required).

Labels: smoking

 
Vicewire, 8/31/2004
- posted by Ryan @ 8:22 PM

1) A new study shows that 52% of European smokers who suffer from a serious heart attack, surgery, or other major heart illnesses are still smoking a year later. The American Heart Association says the numbers are similar in the United States. This is in spite of large-scale anti-tobacco advertising and doctor's advice.

2) A ski resort in Rumford, Maine has completely banned tobacco products. "What we're trying to focus on is creating healthier communities in the state," said the president of the Maine Winter Sports Center. Smoking is already banned in Maine bars and restaurants.

3) Following the merger of Harrah's and Caesar's Entertainment Incs., four casinos are being sold by the new company, in order to avoid antitrust legislation. The Wall Street Journal cited the deal as worth about $1.26 billion.

4) Here's a story about police in England adopting the French scheme of offering designated drivers free entry to nightclubs.

Labels: alcohol, casino, driving, smoking, tobacco, Vicewire

 
Smoke in Front of Your Kids, Go to Jail
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 8:12 AM

And not just in theory, according to this AP article at Fredricksburg.com:

A Caroline County [Virginia] woman was sentenced to 10 days in jail yesterday for defying a court order not to smoke around her daughter and son.

Tamara Silvius, 44, was handcuffed and led out of the courtroom by deputies, The Associated Press reported. Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Judge John H. Thomas said Silvius could post a $500 bond while she appeals his ruling.

Thomas last August barred Silvius from smoking around the children, now ages 8 and 10, as part of her shared-custody arrangement with her ex-husband. She violated the order during a trip to South Carolina for Thanksgiving when she taped plastic inside her car to keep the smoke from reaching her children.

Now maybe these kids, ages 8 and 10, have some special condition such that environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) really poses a threat to them -- though no evidence on that score is provided in the article. And of course, the mom is being jailed for violating a court order, and that is what happens when you violate a court order. But should a smoking ban -- that in the end, will be enforced by these sorts of measures -- really be part of shared-custody agreements, absent some very special physical susceptibilities to ETS? Are the risks to the kids from ETS any greater than the risk they face if their dad, say, occasionally drives over the speed limit?

Labels: smoking, smoking ban

 
Kicking off Vicewire, 6/27/2004
- posted by Ryan @ 10:50 PM

Hi. If the regular bloggers are like a true police "vice squad", then I'm like someone who answers the phones when I can. Or if the analogy works better, like Janine from Ghostbusters. Anyway, here's some recent vice happenings:

1) In a gruesome story, China marked International Anti-Drug Day by proscribing 16 drug traffickers with death sentences and killing another man.

2) A giant 50-year study on the effects of smoking finished last week, and noted the number of years of life saved by stopping smoking at certain ages. The average is about 10 years lost by smoking.

3) Who'd a thunk it? Self-extinguishing cigarettes. Useful if you "fall asleep" while smoking.

4) And to go with it, the Czechs are kindly providing marijuana-flavored alcoholic drinks, with 16% alcohol no less.

5) Finally, a casino owner attempted to recreate the famous C.M. Coolidge painting of dogs playing poker to spark interest in a new gaming pit. So it's not really newsworthy, but it's an interesting publicity stunt to try and get people in the casino.

Labels: alcohol, China, drugs, gambling, marijuana, smoking, Vicewire

 
Relatively Neglected Costs of Smoking
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 2:20 PM

The health risks of smoking have received a good deal of attention for some time now. Oddly, one of the major sources of smoking "externalities" (the health costs are primarily "internal") receives surprisingly little attention: fire. "According to the National Fire Protection Association, smoking is the number one cause of fire-related death and fires started by smoking kill nearly 1,000 civilians each year and cost victims close to $560 million in damages. On June 28, 2004, New York will be the first state to adopt fire safety standards that will require all cigarettes sold in New York State to be low ignition strength, making them less likely to cause fires if left unattended." This quote is drawn from this article, which concerns new anti-smoking ads that will focus on fire.

Another external cost that is connected with smoking that often goes unremarked upon is cigarette butt litter. (OK, this isn't at the same level of seriousness as fire.) Recently two Vice Squad members walked two blocks in Chicago, counting the visible cigarette butts on the ground, but without taking extraordinary efforts in detection. More than 100 cigarette remains were identified.

See how Vice Squad members entertain themselves?

Labels: Chicago, New York, smoking

 
Tobacco and the Military
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 3:21 PM

Cigar and pipe smoking is way up among US soldiers, even as cigarette smoking has fallen, according to this fine article in the St. Petersburg Times: "The Defense Department survey noted a "sharp increase" or "strong resurgence" in cigar and pipe smoking, rising from 18.7 percent in 1995 to 32.6 percent in 1998."

The article has some nice historical background: "During World War I, the government began including cigarettes in soldiers' rations. It was a time before medical evidence linked illness with cigarettes, historians said. In fact, many at the time viewed smoking as glamorous.

Gen. John J. Pershing, who commanded the American Expeditionary Force during World War I said: 'You ask me what we need to win the war? I answer tobacco as much as bullets.'" Cigarettes were removed from military rations in 1975.

The connection between vice and military service is deep and ancient. Soldiers frequently have been rewarded with tobacco, caffeine, chocolate, and alcohol -- military service can be extremely tedious, and these substances have long been popular within the military. Soldiers based abroad pick up some vice habits -- heroin in Vietnam, for instance -- that they sometimes bring back home. Alternatively, soldiers can spread their existing habits to new territories -- Coca Cola has been a major beneficiary of US troops stationed abroad. The role of troops in globalizing drugs is discussed in David Courtwright's Forces of Habit: Drugs and the Making of the Modern World, which Vice Squad has previously discussed.

Labels: military, smoking, tobacco

 
Japan Next to Ratify WHO Tobacco Treaty?
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 5:35 PM

The global tobacco control agreement (pdf version here, 23 pages) worked out by the World Health Organization will come into effect when 40 of the 91 countries who have signed it also ratify it. So far, nine have done so, and Japan appears to be headed to be number 10. The treaty looks to reduce smoking and exposure to smoke through a variety of means, including taxes, packaging regulations, and advertising controls.

Labels: Japan, smoking, tobacco, WHO

 
Capsule Summary of European Smoking Regulation...
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 4:33 PM

....from Deutsche Welle. Here's the Greece entry: "Greece: With some 44 percent of the Greeks over the age of 15 confirmed smokers, Greece is the smokiest country in the EU. 2002 laws outlawed smoking in many public areas and introduced designated areas in restaurants across the country. Billboard tobacco advertising will be banned for five months this year to coincide with the Olympics."

Labels: EU, smoking, smoking ban

 
Safer Nicotine Delivery?
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 8:29 AM

Today's Chicago Tribune reports on snus (registration required), a form of snuff (smokeless tobacco held in the mouth) that is used by one in nine people in Sweden. Snus, either in its loose form or in a small pre-packaged bag, is held under the upper lip. As a smokeless tobacco, snus does not bring the same lung cancer and cardiovascular risks as cigarettes. (Nor is there the same risk of fire, of course.) Nevertheless, it is not problem free: snus is "addictive" and like other forms of snuff, could involve a higher risk of mouth cancer. (Apparently there is no conclusive scientific evidence tying snus to cancer.)

Excepting Sweden, snus is illegal within the European Union: Sweden's exception was provided for as part of its negotiation for entry into the EU. A leading manufacturer of snus is lobbying and using court challenges in an attempt to legalize snus throughout the EU.

Though the overall health effects of snus use (!) are yet to be determined, it looks as if snus is much safer for users than are cigarettes (which, of course, are legal throughout the EU.) So there is probably a lot to be said for converting current smokers into snus consumers. Sweden has the lowest smoking rate (less than 20%) in the world, according to the article, and the lowest rate within the EU of lung cancer among males. The main concern would seem to be that legalized snus might attract a lot of users who otherwise would not smoke: the standard harm reduction fear. The loyal reader will know the regulatory regime favored by Vice Squad: legal snus, but strict controls on youth access and on promotion, and possibly even a whole panoply of regulations (such as hours of sale or quantity restrictions or at an extreme, licensing of users) that would not pose much of a barrier to "rational" adult snus consumers, but would be beneficial to those battling self-control problems in their use of nicotine products. Actually, given what appears to be the relatively low health risk of snus, and the almost negligible external costs of snus use, not much beyond promotion controls and restricted youth access would probably be all that useful.

Labels: EU, harm reduction, smoking, snus, tobacco

 
Ring In the New European Smoking Rules
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 7:44 AM

2004 will see a host of new smoking regulations coming into effect, with some of the most notable changes occurring in Europe. In Italy, January 1 brings into effect a ban on the operation of cigarette vending machines between the hours of 7AM and 9PM. A requirement that smoking sections in Italian bars and restaurants be well-ventilated will take effect later in the year. Ireland will implement its ban on smoking in workplaces, including pubs and restaurants, later this year. Norway and the Netherlands also have smoking bans on tap. France is raising its taxes on cigarettes for the third time in a year. According to the linked article, the tax "will raise the cost of a pack of cigarettes to about $6.30 US – 50 per cent higher than the average cost of a pack a year earlier. Britain still has the highest cigarette prices in the European Union, with an average pack costing about $7.80 US."

Vice Squad has previously looked at French cigarette taxation, as well as the Irish workplace smoking ban and smoking bans more generally.

Update: Friend of Vice Squad Pak Shun Ng has e-mailed a link to this article on the new smoking regulations in the Netherlands. As of today, a ban on smoking in many public places has come into effect, though bars and restaurants will not be included for another year, it seems. Workplace smoking is only permitted in specially ventilated rooms. The Netherlands made good use of the January 1 implementation date: "In the run-up to the New Year regulations, more than 850,000 Dutch smokers pledged online to quit in 2004."

Labels: Europe, smoking, smoking ban, taxes, tobacco

 
One Compromise on Smoking
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 4:11 PM

The mayor of the Chicagoland village of Hoffman Estates has come
up with an interesting proposal for a partial smoking ban in workplaces,
according to this article in today's Trib. The ban would only apply to
office buildings containing a common ventilation system but multiple
businesses. The proposal is prompted by a complaint from a physician
concerning smoke that filters into her office from neighboring
businesses.

The mayor employed a sort of "assumption of risk" analysis in
formulating his proposal: "He said the proposal also would leave out
bars and restaurants, a more common battleground for anti-smoking
measures, because 'if you take a job in one of those establishments,
you can expect smoking. But if you take a job in a doctor's office, you
don't expect secondhand smoke in the ventilation.'"

Vice Squad is against broad smoking bans, and even this circumscribed
one might be a bit heavy-handed for my tastes. Why not allow smoking
if the ventilation system is sufficiently able to filter out smoke? Further,
the market for commercial real estate might be competitive enough and
the participants savvy enough for the market solution to be workable.
But in general some regulation of smoking in public places seems desirable
to me, given the long-term, low probability nature of the harm (admittedly
not all that well-established scientifically) from secondary smoke, and the
difficulties people have in making decisions that serve their own best
interests in such circumstances. At any rate, the mayor's suggestion is
novel and not devoid of logic.

The Trib's sister publication Red Eye had an update today on how the market
is dealing with smoking in Chicago bars and restaurants: "Of the approximately
6,500 restaurants in Chicago, about 500 are smoke-free, from casual eateries
to some of the city's best dining spots..."

Labels: Chicago, smoking, smoking ban

 
Bingo Fights Back?
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 3:24 PM

The huge growth in legal gambling in the US in the past two decades
has been concentrated in lotteries, casinos, card rooms, and
bookmaking. Some old standbys, notably bingo and horse racing,
have been left behind in relative terms, and in some instances,
in absolute terms as well. Today's Chicago Tribune, however,
includes this article on some of the ways that church bingo is
adapting to meet the competition. Seems that the technology of
bingo is changing -- players can participate by means of a hand-held
computer, into which they punch the chosen cell. By using a computer,
a bingo-er can simultaneously play up to 216 cards at once. Some
40% of the players at Thursday night bingo at St. Barbara Catholic
Church in the Bridgeport neighborhood of Chicago now use the
computers. Nevertheless, attendance has been halved from its
peak, which apparently was reached before casino boats were
available in the Chicagoland region.

The connection between smoking and bingo also is diminishing,
apparently. One of the two bingo halls at St. Barbara has gone
non-smoking.

Labels: bingo, Chicago, gambling, smoking, smoking ban