Cricket cigarette, the sport loved by tens of millions of Pakistanis is
now being used to market tobacco products in pure violation of the
country’s laws and regulations that govern tobacco marketing in the
country.
A new cigarette brand with the name ‘Cricket’
manufactured by Wattan Tobacco Company of Azad Jammu and Kashmir is
surely and slowly making its inroads in the markets of central Punjab.
During
a market survey it was also revealed the pack of the brand carried
price tag of Rs 22.60 plus Rs 3.40 sales tax whereas in the market the
brand was being retailed at Rs 12 per pack, leaving the question, how
the brand was selling even below the minimum excise duty which is Rs
17.6 per pack and should be payable to the national exchequer.
According
to the Tobacco Advertisement Guidelines notified under SRO 655,
association of tobacco advertising with sports, adventure, sex and
success in life will be prohibited.
The first principal ordinance is
the cigarettes (Printing of Warning) Ordinance 1979 (Ordinance LXXIII
of 1979) that effectively requires health warnings should be printed on
tobacco product packaging. SRO 86 (KE)/2009 establishes the current
rules on the printing of health warnings. Despite having a law,
concerned department seems in no mood to pay due attention to check the
proliferation of such local non-duty paid brands.
When contacted a
local shopkeeper who sells ‘Cricket’ at his retail outlet, he said,
“This is not my problem whether it is legal or not. I am selling it
because there is a demand for it”.
He was of the opinion it was
responsibility of government to look after such violations, if such
brands were available and there was a demand for it and he was having no
problem in selling it.
According to the other retailers ‘Cricket’ is
being appreciated by the smokers in different parts of Punjab, the
reasons mentioned include cheaper price and lighter taste.
They
mentioned ‘Cricket’ shows an increasing sales trend because of the
smokers’ liking for the low prices as compared to the prices of legal
duty paid brands available in the market.
A buyer said, “I cannot afford expensive brands. I find this brand cheaper so I opted for it.”
I
have nothing to do with legitimacy issue, as this is not my cup of tea.
I am happy with its price and it fulfills my smoking needs.
Friday, November 29, 2013
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Monday, November 25, 2013
City Where It's Now Illegal to Smoke in Your Own Home
The town of San Rafael, Calif., has passed a ban on smoking that city
officials have called the most stringent in the nation. The new
ordinance makes it illegal for residents to smoke in their own homes if
they share a wall with another dwelling. The ban applies to owners and
renters alike, and it covers condominiums, co-ops, apartments and any
multi-family residence containing three or more units.
Rebecca Woodbury, an analyst at the San Rafael City Manager's office, helped craft the ban, which took effect Nov.14. "We based it on a county ordinance," she told ABC News, "but we modified it, and ended up making it the strictest. I'm not aware of any ordinance that's stronger." Cities with similar but less severe smoking restrictions include Cambridge, Mass., and other California cities, including Walnut Creek and Tiburon.
In June, the Related Companies became the first developer and property owner to ban smoking in all 40,000 of its rental residences in 17 states. New York City bans tobacco sales to anyone under 21. Jessica Scaperotti, a spokeswoman for Related, said the ban had been popular. "There are more people who want to live in smoke-free environments than there are apartments available. Demand far exceeds supply."
The provisions that make San Rafael's rule unique, said Woodbury, include the prohibition on smoking in dwellings that share a wall, including owner-occupied condos, duplexes and multi-family units. "It doesn't matter if it's owner-occupied or renter-occupied. We didn't want to discriminate. The distinguishing feature is the shared wall." As justification for the rule, she cited studies showing that secondhand smoke seeped through ventilating ducts and walls, even through cracks. "It depends on a building's construction," she said, "but it does affect the unit next door, with the negative health impacts due to smoke."
The ordinance cites such studies, plus a 2011 study by UCLA that found that California property owners paid up to $18 million a year to clean apartments vacated by tenants who'd smoked. Asked if there was opposition to the ordinance, Woodbury said there was hardly any. "We have a very low percentage of smokers in the county," she said, referring to Marin.
George Koodray, New Jersey state coordinator for Citizens Freedom Alliance and the Smoker's Club, called San Rafael's rule and ones like it "mischievous." Years ago, he said, when restrictions on smoking were first introduced, "the spirit of the legislation was supposedly to protect people who did not want to be exposed to smoke." Today, he said, the motivating spirit had changed: People disapprove of the habit, and wish to restrict it whether or not it affects them directly. Bans like San Rafael's, he believes, are far removed from being a sincere effort to bring about a health benefit.
"I don't believe it's rooted in science," said Koodray, who is president of the Metropolitan Society, a group of New Jersey cigar smokers. "Someone smoking in a sealed apartment endangers the health of others in the building? The science for that is spurious at best."
Steve Stanek, a research fellow at the Chicago-based Heartland Institute, which he calls a free market-oriented public policy group, views the San Rafael ban as part of a wider trend: a proliferation of rules of all kinds.
"I don't like cigarettes, and I've never taken a puff," he said. "My sympathies aren't with smokers because I am one, it's because of the huge growth in laws and punishments and government restricting people more and more." Illinois' criminal code was 72 pages long in 1965, he said; today it's more than 1,300 pages long. "The encroachment of government is astonishing," he said.
A look around the U.S. finds towns and cities busily regulating anything and everything:
Plastic bags will be banned in Los Angeles after the first of the year. They're already banned in several other California cities, including Long Beach and San Jose. Karelia cigarettes and Kent cigarettes.
Austin, Texas, bans both plastic and paper bags from grocery stores.
San Francisco tried to ban fast-food meals that came with toys.
Forest Park, Ga., in 2011 made it illegal to breastfeed in public a child older than 2. After public protest, the ban was lifted.
Cocoa, Fla., makes it illegal to wear baggy pants on city streets.
Palo Alto, Calif., makes it illegal to live in your car.
Rebecca Woodbury, an analyst at the San Rafael City Manager's office, helped craft the ban, which took effect Nov.14. "We based it on a county ordinance," she told ABC News, "but we modified it, and ended up making it the strictest. I'm not aware of any ordinance that's stronger." Cities with similar but less severe smoking restrictions include Cambridge, Mass., and other California cities, including Walnut Creek and Tiburon.
In June, the Related Companies became the first developer and property owner to ban smoking in all 40,000 of its rental residences in 17 states. New York City bans tobacco sales to anyone under 21. Jessica Scaperotti, a spokeswoman for Related, said the ban had been popular. "There are more people who want to live in smoke-free environments than there are apartments available. Demand far exceeds supply."
The provisions that make San Rafael's rule unique, said Woodbury, include the prohibition on smoking in dwellings that share a wall, including owner-occupied condos, duplexes and multi-family units. "It doesn't matter if it's owner-occupied or renter-occupied. We didn't want to discriminate. The distinguishing feature is the shared wall." As justification for the rule, she cited studies showing that secondhand smoke seeped through ventilating ducts and walls, even through cracks. "It depends on a building's construction," she said, "but it does affect the unit next door, with the negative health impacts due to smoke."
The ordinance cites such studies, plus a 2011 study by UCLA that found that California property owners paid up to $18 million a year to clean apartments vacated by tenants who'd smoked. Asked if there was opposition to the ordinance, Woodbury said there was hardly any. "We have a very low percentage of smokers in the county," she said, referring to Marin.
George Koodray, New Jersey state coordinator for Citizens Freedom Alliance and the Smoker's Club, called San Rafael's rule and ones like it "mischievous." Years ago, he said, when restrictions on smoking were first introduced, "the spirit of the legislation was supposedly to protect people who did not want to be exposed to smoke." Today, he said, the motivating spirit had changed: People disapprove of the habit, and wish to restrict it whether or not it affects them directly. Bans like San Rafael's, he believes, are far removed from being a sincere effort to bring about a health benefit.
"I don't believe it's rooted in science," said Koodray, who is president of the Metropolitan Society, a group of New Jersey cigar smokers. "Someone smoking in a sealed apartment endangers the health of others in the building? The science for that is spurious at best."
Steve Stanek, a research fellow at the Chicago-based Heartland Institute, which he calls a free market-oriented public policy group, views the San Rafael ban as part of a wider trend: a proliferation of rules of all kinds.
"I don't like cigarettes, and I've never taken a puff," he said. "My sympathies aren't with smokers because I am one, it's because of the huge growth in laws and punishments and government restricting people more and more." Illinois' criminal code was 72 pages long in 1965, he said; today it's more than 1,300 pages long. "The encroachment of government is astonishing," he said.
A look around the U.S. finds towns and cities busily regulating anything and everything:
Plastic bags will be banned in Los Angeles after the first of the year. They're already banned in several other California cities, including Long Beach and San Jose. Karelia cigarettes and Kent cigarettes.
Austin, Texas, bans both plastic and paper bags from grocery stores.
San Francisco tried to ban fast-food meals that came with toys.
Forest Park, Ga., in 2011 made it illegal to breastfeed in public a child older than 2. After public protest, the ban was lifted.
Cocoa, Fla., makes it illegal to wear baggy pants on city streets.
Palo Alto, Calif., makes it illegal to live in your car.
Is smoking marijuana bad for your lungs?
Is smoking marijuana bad for your health? The question is often debated
when it comes to medical marijuana, but a new study suggests if smoking
pot is bad for your body, your lungs aren't bearing the brunt of the
damage.
The study found occasional marijuana smoking did not negatively impact a person's lung function.
For the study, researchers performed routine pulmonary function tests on 5,115 young adults who were part 20-year study on coronary artery disease risk. The researchers wanted to test lung function against a person's "joint years" of life-time marijuana exposure. For example, if a person smoked one joint or pipe's worth of marijuana per week for 49 years, or if a person smoked one joint or pipe's worth per day for seven years, both people would be identified as having "7-joint-years" of marijuana exposure. Kiss cigarettes online.
That might sound like a lot, but most of the marijuana smokers in this study were not heavy users, according to study co-author Dr. Stefan Kertesz, an associate professor of preventive medicine at the University of Alabama at Birgmingham.
"This is not a study focused on the kinds of individuals you would see in treatment programs for chemical dependence or in the latest 'Harold and Kumar' movie," Kertesz told CBS News in an email. Kertesz said the median marijuana smokers in the study used roughly two to three joints per month, which may include some people who would smoke frequently but then stop for a long period of time.
What the researchers find?
"With up to 7 joint-years of life-time exposure, we found no evidence that increasing exposure to marijuana adversely affects pulmonary function," the researchers wrote in study, published in the Jan. 10 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. In fact, the researchers found a slight increase in occasional marijuana smokers' lung function. That increase may be indicative of marijuana smokers taking deep breaths and holding the smoke in, the researchers said.
At more than 10 joint-years of marijuana exposure, the researchers saw a slight decline in lung function, but the researchers said that finding was not statistically significant, so could be due to chance. Cigarette smokers, who smoked a median of eight to nine cigarettes per day, saw a significant drop in lung function over the twenty year study.
"Marijuana may have beneficial effects on pain control, appetite, mood, and management of other chronic symptoms," the researchers wrote. "Our findings suggest that occasional use of marijuana for these or other purposes may not be associated with adverse consequences on pulmonary function."
The researchers said it's more difficult to determine if long-term, heavy marijuana use is worse for lungs - because that pattern of smoking was "relatively rare" among the study participants - but they said there was a need for caution and moderation when marijuana use is considered.
Is smoking marijuana easier on the lungs than smoking cigarettes?
Kertesz told CBS News that low doses of marijuana among users who aren't addicted, "seems to pose lower risk to lungs than the typical usage patterns of cigarette smoking."
But that doesn't mean it's good for your lungs. Kertesz said smoking marijuana irritates the airways, triggers cough and phlegm production, and could be especially dangerous for asthmatics. Also, since the participants were originally enrolled in a heart study, the researchers couldn't determine how many got lung cancer.
"So don't assume that there is 'no' risk no matter who you are," Kertesz said.
Dr. Robert Glatter, an emergency medicine physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, told CBS News in an email, "while casual marijuana use may not reflect an immediate decrease in lung function, marijuana smoke contains high levels of tar, which is bad for your health."
Glatter said smoking marijuana could lead to chronic coughing, wheezing and potentially chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
"Casual or recreational marijuana use is not a safe alternative to tobacco smoking."
The study found occasional marijuana smoking did not negatively impact a person's lung function.
For the study, researchers performed routine pulmonary function tests on 5,115 young adults who were part 20-year study on coronary artery disease risk. The researchers wanted to test lung function against a person's "joint years" of life-time marijuana exposure. For example, if a person smoked one joint or pipe's worth of marijuana per week for 49 years, or if a person smoked one joint or pipe's worth per day for seven years, both people would be identified as having "7-joint-years" of marijuana exposure. Kiss cigarettes online.
That might sound like a lot, but most of the marijuana smokers in this study were not heavy users, according to study co-author Dr. Stefan Kertesz, an associate professor of preventive medicine at the University of Alabama at Birgmingham.
"This is not a study focused on the kinds of individuals you would see in treatment programs for chemical dependence or in the latest 'Harold and Kumar' movie," Kertesz told CBS News in an email. Kertesz said the median marijuana smokers in the study used roughly two to three joints per month, which may include some people who would smoke frequently but then stop for a long period of time.
What the researchers find?
"With up to 7 joint-years of life-time exposure, we found no evidence that increasing exposure to marijuana adversely affects pulmonary function," the researchers wrote in study, published in the Jan. 10 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. In fact, the researchers found a slight increase in occasional marijuana smokers' lung function. That increase may be indicative of marijuana smokers taking deep breaths and holding the smoke in, the researchers said.
At more than 10 joint-years of marijuana exposure, the researchers saw a slight decline in lung function, but the researchers said that finding was not statistically significant, so could be due to chance. Cigarette smokers, who smoked a median of eight to nine cigarettes per day, saw a significant drop in lung function over the twenty year study.
"Marijuana may have beneficial effects on pain control, appetite, mood, and management of other chronic symptoms," the researchers wrote. "Our findings suggest that occasional use of marijuana for these or other purposes may not be associated with adverse consequences on pulmonary function."
The researchers said it's more difficult to determine if long-term, heavy marijuana use is worse for lungs - because that pattern of smoking was "relatively rare" among the study participants - but they said there was a need for caution and moderation when marijuana use is considered.
Is smoking marijuana easier on the lungs than smoking cigarettes?
Kertesz told CBS News that low doses of marijuana among users who aren't addicted, "seems to pose lower risk to lungs than the typical usage patterns of cigarette smoking."
But that doesn't mean it's good for your lungs. Kertesz said smoking marijuana irritates the airways, triggers cough and phlegm production, and could be especially dangerous for asthmatics. Also, since the participants were originally enrolled in a heart study, the researchers couldn't determine how many got lung cancer.
"So don't assume that there is 'no' risk no matter who you are," Kertesz said.
Dr. Robert Glatter, an emergency medicine physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, told CBS News in an email, "while casual marijuana use may not reflect an immediate decrease in lung function, marijuana smoke contains high levels of tar, which is bad for your health."
Glatter said smoking marijuana could lead to chronic coughing, wheezing and potentially chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
"Casual or recreational marijuana use is not a safe alternative to tobacco smoking."
Ga. health officials offering help to quit smoking
State health officials are offering help to Georgians who want to quit smoking and using tobacco products.
The Georgia Department of Public Health is using grant money from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to offer a four-week supply of free nicotine replacement therapy. The medication comes in the form of patches and gum and is available to Georgia tobacco users aged 18 and older while supplies last.
The department says smoking costs Georgians $1.8 billion in direct health care costs each year and $3.2 billion in lost productivity. Jean O'Connor, director of the health department's health promotion and disease prevention section, says tobacco use is the top preventable cause of death in Georgia.
Those interested in quitting can call the Georgia Tobacco Quit Line for the free treatment. Davidoff cigarettes online.
The Georgia Department of Public Health is using grant money from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to offer a four-week supply of free nicotine replacement therapy. The medication comes in the form of patches and gum and is available to Georgia tobacco users aged 18 and older while supplies last.
The department says smoking costs Georgians $1.8 billion in direct health care costs each year and $3.2 billion in lost productivity. Jean O'Connor, director of the health department's health promotion and disease prevention section, says tobacco use is the top preventable cause of death in Georgia.
Those interested in quitting can call the Georgia Tobacco Quit Line for the free treatment. Davidoff cigarettes online.
Friday, November 15, 2013
Provincial News: Taking the Next Steps for a Smoke-Free Ontario
Includes Statement from Canadian Cancer Society (Ontario Division), Ontario Convenience Stores Association
Ontario Helping to Further Protect Youth from the Harmful Effects of Tobacco
Ontario is taking the next steps to protect youth from the harmful effects of smoking so they can lead healthy, active lives.
The province will introduce legislation and propose regulatory changes that would, if passed, strengthen the Smoke-Free Ontario Act by increasing penalties for selling tobacco to kids and further limiting smoking in public areas.
The proposed measures include:
- Prohibiting smoking on playgrounds, sport fields, and restaurant and bar patios.
- Increasing fines for those who sell tobacco to youth, making Ontario's penalties the highest in Canada.
- Banning the sale of flavoured tobacco products to make smoking less appealing to young people.
- Strengthening enforcement to allow for testing of tobacco in waterpipes in indoor public places.
- Prohibiting tobacco sales on post-secondary education campuses and specified provincial government properties, such as Macdonald Block in Toronto and 1 Stone Road in Guelph.
Preventing youth from starting to use tobacco and protecting them from the harmful effects of second hand smoke will help to achieve the government's Action Plan for Health Care goal to have the lowest smoking rate in the country. This is part of the Ontario government's plan to build a successful, vital province where everyone has the opportunity to connect, contribute and achieve their goals.
Quick Facts
- 66 per cent of people in Ontario want smoking to be prohibited on restaurant and bar patios.
- 58 Ontario municipalities representing 61 per cent of the population already ban smoking on playgrounds.
- Each year, tobacco claims 13,000 lives in Ontario — equivalent to 36 lives every day.
- Tobacco-related disease costs Ontario’s health care system an estimated $1.9 billion in direct health care costs and an additional $5.8 billion in indirect costs such as lost productivity.
- Ontario’s smoking rate fell from 24.5 per cent in 2000 to 19 per cent in 2012, representing 255,000 fewer smokers.
Quote
We know that if we can prevent youth from smoking in the first place, fewer people will become addicted to tobacco. These measures will help to achieve our goal of having the lowest smoking rate in the country — because we want to reduce Ontarians’ exposure to the harmful effects of tobacco and lessen the burden of tobacco-related diseases our health care system.” Deb Matthews Minister of Health and Long-Term Care
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