#keeptheban: Welsh Government drops contested proposal to amend smokefree premises legislation

Rosanne Palmer Ash Wales/Ash Cymru Editors note: this is an update to a blog post published on 3 May about a proposed amendment to Wales’ smoke free legislation to allow cast members to smoke on film and television sets. The Welsh Government announced on 15 May that the proposals were being dropped. This move followed a […]

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New study: partial smoking bans in hotels fail to protect guests from tobacco smoke

Non-smokers should shun hotels operating partial smoking bans, advise authors Non-smoking rooms in hotels operating a partial smoking ban don’t protect their occupants from tobacco smoke, reveals new research published online in Tobacco Control. [Thirdhand smoke and exposure in California hotels: non-smoking rooms fail to protect non-smoking hotel guests from tobacco smoke exposure Online First […]

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UK: Government condemned for bowing to tobacco industry over plain packs

Author credit: Marita Hefler and Stan Shatenstein On 2 May, the Sun newspaper reported that the UK government had decided to abandon cigarette plain packaging legislation. An announcement about the legislation had been widely tipped to be included in the Queen’s speech at the start of the next parliamentary session on 8 May. No other […]

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Kosovo: new tobacco control law introduces world’s strongest protection against tobacco industry interference

Kosovo has surged ahead in tobacco control with the introduction of a comprehensive tobacco control law. Notable among the range of measures is the strongest protections against tobacco industry interference in the world, based on Article 5.3 of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). The measures, which will apply to the whole of […]

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The marketing of e-cigarettes: a UK snapshot

Marisa de Andrade & Gerard Hastings Institute for Social Marketing; University of Stirling marisa.deandrade1@stir.ac.uk Editor’s note: The United Kingdom’s health regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), is currently considering how to regulate ecigarettes. Given that marketing of these e-cigarettes is of particular concern, Marisa de Andrade and Gerard Hastings were commissioned by […]

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Smoking in Japan: Deadly social norms behind a ‘warm-hearted’ story

Akihiro Nishi, Tetsutaro Matayoshi, Takahiro Shimizu, Masako Kinkozan, Ichiro Kawachi At the end of January, a local newspaper company in Okinawa, Japan, Ryukyu Shimpo, published an opinion letter from a young reader, entitled “Cool Big Brother”. The author, a first-year elementary school girl (aged 6 or 7) related a warm-hearted story of an affectionate granddaughter […]

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SENEGAL: FIRST EVER NATIONAL TOBACCO CONTROL MASS MEDIA CAMPAIGN

Senegal has launched its first national mass media campaign about the harms of tobacco. Developed by the Ministry of Health and Social Action and World Lung Foundation, the campaign graphically depicts the tar that collects inside an average smoker’s lungs. It is hoped that the campaign will empower citizens with new knowledge, and also spur […]

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