Pictorial warning on tobacco packets may get further delayed

The deadline for warnings was moved for the fifth time in two years from December 1, 2008 to May 31, 2009.
Manufacturers were to prominently display a skull-and-bones sign, a warning saying tobacco and smoking kills along with images meant to dissuade smokers.
Sources told TOI the decision was driven by the market recession, which would have got worse for cigarette manufacturers if graphic warnings were to become mandatory.

Smoking kills 2500 Indians everyday

The tobacco epidemic is one of the biggest public health threats the world has ever faced. Mass media campaigns, graphic warnings and alternative crop options for tobacco growers can help stop or reduce the estimated 800,000-900,000 tobacco-attributable deaths per year in India, experts say.

According to Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) - India 2010, tobacco use is a major preventable cause of death and disease and is responsible 1 in 10 death among adults worldwide. Approximately 5.5 million people die around the world every year - with India accounting for nearly a fifth of this.

Shekhar Salkar, general secretary of National Organisation for Tobacco Eradication

Watch out, e-cigarette smokers – you're inhaling the unknown

Electronic cigarettes sound fantastic. Rather than fill your lungs with tar, they deliver a vapour of nicotine to satisfy your craving, without the nasty side effects. They are popularly perceived as the safe alternative to cigarettes, a harmless way to get a nicotine hit. No wonder 700,000 people were using e-cigarettes in the UK last year, with that figure set to rise to over a million by the end of 2013.
Doctors are desperate to drive down the £5bn a year that smoking-related illness costs the NHS. Anything that could help smokers quit would be welcomed. But e-cigarettes aren't a medicine. There's a reason you buy them from a newsagent rather than get them on prescription. E-cigarettes may look legitimate, but they haven't been through the same stringent safety checks as medicated nicotine replacement therapies.

Reverse engineering the marijuana 'munchies:' What causes binge eating?

How could both marijuana and a compound that has the opposite effect of pot act on the same brain receptors and lead to weight loss?

Natural marijuana includes many different potentially active compounds, and one of them -- rather than THC -- could be responsible for this effect. One potential candidate is a substance called cannabidiol, which also affects cannabinoid receptors, but in a different way from the way THC or rimonabant does.

Another possibility involves tolerance: repeated use of a drug can make receptors less sensitive over time. "The most likely explanation is that prolonged cannabis use causes the (receptors) to lose sensitivity and become inactive," says Daniele Piomelli, a professor of pharmacology at the University of California, Irvine, who was not associated with the new research.
Best info about cigarettes click here.

Mainstream Vaccination Support: Another Chapter in an Old Story

Despite a mounting and impressive body of evidence of the dangers and harm associated with vaccinations coming from both within and outside the mainstream medical community, much of mainstream medicine and the agencies that serve it continue to maintain that vaccinations are not only safe, but that we face grave dangers if we don`t vaccinate ourselves, our children and our elderly.

The continued denials and the push for more vaccinations, including going as far as requiring mandatory vaccinations of young school girls based on disputable evidence, is nothing new. Sadly, it is just another in a series of less than praiseworthy chapters that have marked how mainstream medicine has allowed advertising and hype to mislead and failed to serve those entrusted to its care. Whether it be a physically or psychologically addictive drug, a drug we have been psychologically coerced into taking, or one we have even been legally compelled to take, mainstream medicine has followed the money at the expense of our health.

Around the

Why are men and women smoking cigarettes while serving in the military?

The following is a recent interview with retired Navy Commander Donald E. Minnich, who smoked during service for 20 years, and who served in three wars, including WWII, Korea and Vietnam. Reporter: "So you were in WWII and you smoked? When did you actually start smoking?" CDR Minnich: "I served in WWII, at the end, aboard the U.S.S. Pine Island (AV12) in Antarctica, in 1946. I started smoking before I joined the Navy at age 17. At enlistment, I was up to about half a pack a day - they were Camels. In Hawaii, around 1951 - 1952, I quit cold turkey, mainly because I was on the swim team and going to the gym. In 1955, though, I began again, and increased how many I smoked due to my stressful job in engineering - running the plant on the ship. Over time, I was on three different destroyers, and got up to smoking two packs a day." Reporter: "And how about when you were in Korea and Vietnam?" CDR Minnich: "I was in Korea around 1950, on a ship headed to the Philippines. I got stationed at the American Embassy. I was smoking a pack a day then - Camels, no filters. I was then stationedon USS Genesee, a gas tanker, which had a crew of about 80, of whom at least 60 percent smoked, and they were all pack-a-day smokers. Smoking was never allowed on deck, only inside. I was commissioned (as officer) in 1955. I quit smoking in 1963 in Washington, D.C., while on shore duty. At that time I was smoking two and a half packs a day, but I quit cold turkey. After that, I never smoked again." Reporter: "What about smoking on the ship and on land, isn't it a hazard that would give away position, from the heat, the smoke, the light from the lit end?" CDR Minnich: "The Navy has what is called a 'smoking lamp,' which signifies when the crew can smoke and when they cannot. Reporter: "How do the military get their cigarettes?" CDR Minnich: "Oh, well, cigarettes are pretty easy to come by, I mean, they're at the bases, at ports and in towns, where they were pretty cheap, and just about everywhere." Dangers and statistics

Those Who Smoke Cigarettes the Most are Often Mentally Ill

The rate of tobacco smoking is much higher among those with mental illness than among the general population, and those who are mentally ill also smoke more cigarettes and have more trouble quitting, according to a Washington Post editorial by Steven A. Schroeder, director of the Smoking Cessation Leadership Center.

In the United States, between 50 and 80 percent of all people with mental illness are smokers, whereas only 20 percent of the general population smokes. Those with mental illness also smoke more cigarettes per day than other smokers, and are more likely to smoke cigarettes all the way down to the filters. The combination of these two factors means that 44 percent of all cigarettes sold in the United States are sold to people