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** 04 January 2021
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** UK
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** Smokers in Wales urged to quit this year as research shows higher vulnerability to Covid-19 (#1)
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** International
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** Singapore: Minimum legal age for smoking increases to 21 (#2)
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** India: National government drafts law to raise legal age of smoking to 21 years (#3)
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** US: Overall tobacco and e-cigarette use down among youth in past year, but nearly 4.5 million still using (#5)
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** UK
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Leading Welsh health experts have urged smokers in Wales to put quitting smoking on their New Year resolutions list, ahead of the introduction of new Welsh laws on March 1^st 2021.
Calls were made by prominent charity leaders such as ASH Wales CEO Suzanne Cass as well as government ministers like Welsh Minister for Mental Health, Wellbeing and Welsh Language Eluned Morgan. ASH Wales has launched its Any Age Any Stage campaign in time for the new year, which seeks to help people stop smoking.
Calls come months before a new law banning smoking in a variety of additional environments is introduced in Wales on March 1^st 2021. The law bans smoking in hospital grounds, children’s playgrounds and school grounds, outdoor day-care and child-minding settings, bedrooms in hotels and guest houses, and in self-contained holiday accommodation such as cottages, caravans and Airbnb’s. It will also require those working in others’ homes to be able to work in a smoke-free environment.
Welsh smokers have used COVID-19 as a reason to quit at unprecedented rates, with research carried out by ASH and University College London finding that an estimated 33,000 Welsh smokers have quit smoking since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic with 41% of smokers surveyed across the UK citing Covid-19 as their main reason for giving up.
Source: ITV, 02 January 2021
See also:
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** Milford Mercury - Tougher rules on smoking on way in Wales ([link removed])
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** ASH Wales Blog Post - Leading Welsh Health Experts Urge Smokers to Quit in 2021 ([link removed] )
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** International
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On January 1^st 2021, the minimum legal age for smoking in Singapore increased from 20 to 21.
The change follows a November 2017 law that raised the minimum smoking age from 18 to 21 over three years, moving to 19 years old in 2019 and 20 years old in 2020, as part of the Government’s plans to reduce smoking.
Retailers who sell any tobacco product to a person below 21 could be fined up to S$5,000 (£2781) on their first offence, and S$10,000 (£5560) for subsequent offences, the ministry warned.
The new law is important as most people in Singapore who start smoking do so by the time they are 21 years old, according to public health expert Yvette van der Eijk from the NUS Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health.
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Source: Channel News Asia, 31 December 2020
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The Indian government has drafted a new bill raising the age of sale of cigarettes and tobacco products to from 18 years old to 21 years old. The new Cigarettes and other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Amendment Act, 2020 is being piloted by the Union Health Ministry, amending a 2003 Act.
Contravention of the new bill will lead to a two-year prison sentence or a fine up to Rs 1 lakh (£1002) whilst a second conviction will lead to prison for 5 years or a fine going up to Rs 5 lakh (£5015).
The bill also cracks down on the manufacture and sale of illicit cigarettes and tobacco products. Sale of illicit products will lead to imprisonment of 1 year and a fine of Rs 50,000 (£501) and a second conviction to a prison sentence of 2 years and a fine of Rs 1 lakh (£1002). The punishment for the manufacture of illicit cigarettes is imprisonment of 2 years and a fine of Rs 1 lakh.
The penalty for smoking at restricted areas is also being increased from Rs 200 (£2.00) to Rs 2,000 (£20.00) whilst there is a new amendment banning the advertising of tobacco products.
Source: India TV News, 02 January 2021
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Use of tobacco and e-cigarette products declined overall among U.S. middle and high school students from 2019 to 2020, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in collaboration with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). However, the research showed that 1 in 6 (nearly 4.5 million) US students still used some type of tobacco or e-cigarette product in 2020.
The National Youth Tobacco Survey looked at the use of e-cigarettes, cigarettes, cigars, smokeless tobacco, hookah, pipe tobacco and heated tobacco products. A decrease was seen in the use of e-cigarettes, cigars and smokeless tobacco, whilst no change occurred in current use of cigarettes, heated tobacco products, hookah or pipe tobacco during 2019—2020.
The study found that nearly 1 in 4 high school students (3.65 million) were users of any tobacco or e-cigarette product in 2020, down about 25% from 4.7 million in 2019, whilst 1 in 15 middle school students (800,000) were users of any tobacco or e-cigarette product in 2020, down nearly 50% from about 1.5 million in 2019.
For the seventh year in a row, e-cigarettes were the most commonly used product among both middle and high school students. Additionally, many youths — 1.27 million high school students and 340,000 middle schoolers — used two or more products.
“The decline in tobacco product use over the past year is a win for public health. Yet, our work is far from done,” said CDC Director Dr. Robert R. Redfield.
Editorial note: The CDC classify e-cigarettes as tobacco products and e-cigarette use as tobacco product use in their repor
Source: The Advocate, 28 December 2020
See also: CDC - National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS) ([link removed])
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