View this email in your browser ([link removed])


** 16 March 2021
------------------------------------------------------------


** UK
------------------------------------------------------------


** Services at risk unless NHS England gets £8 billion extra funding within days (#1)
------------------------------------------------------------


** West Yorkshire joint operation sees £55,000 of illegal cigarettes and tobacco seized in shop (#2)
------------------------------------------------------------


** Wales: Newport primary school backs campaign to ban smoking at gates (#3)
------------------------------------------------------------


** International
------------------------------------------------------------


** Report exposes the tobacco industry’s EU lobbying tactics (#4)
------------------------------------------------------------


** Italy study: Electronic cigarettes could help smokers with schizophrenia quit (#5)
------------------------------------------------------------


** UK
------------------------------------------------------------


**
------------------------------------------------------------


** Hospitals will have to start cutting services unless the NHS gets £8 billion of extra funding within days, health service leaders are warning ministers. The NHS will not be able to tackle the huge backlog of surgery built up during the coronavirus pandemic unless it gets the money to cover additional costs resulting from COVID-19, hospital bosses say.

The Treasury and NHS England are involved in a standoff over the service’s demand for cash, which is still unresolved with just 16 days to go until the start of the 2021-22 financial year. The threat is contained in a letter to the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, from Danny Mortimer, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, representing most NHS organisations that provide care.

Danny Mortimer, in his letter, wrote: “With the continued impact of the pandemic, the scale of the treatment backlog and additional demands for long Covid and mental health, this would put too many services in a perilous position at the start of the ‘recovery phase’ as the NHS plots a way out of the pandemic.”

The number of patients waiting for care in the hospital in England last week hit a record 4.59 million, and the NHS is under growing pressure to start doing as many operations as it can. But Mortimer said: “It is simply not possible for acute, community, mental health, ambulance, primary care and other key frontline services to address the recovery of NHS services whilst still dealing with the pandemic unless there is an agreed NHS budget for next year.”

Sunak did not award the NHS any increase in its income for 2021-22 in his 3 March budget, though he did give it £3 billion extra – for the surgery backlog and mental health care – in his autumn statement last November.

Source: The Guardian, 16 March 2021
------------------------------------------------------------
Read Article ([link removed])


**
------------------------------------------------------------


** A joint operation has seen 90,000 illegal cigarettes and 26.5 kg of hand-rolling tobacco seized this week. The swoop was made on four premises by West Yorkshire Trading Standards, West Yorkshire Police from Heckmondwike, Dewsbury and Huddersfield neighbourhood policing teams, and Kirklees Council Licensing team. They were targeting dealers of cheap and illicit tobacco.

If genuine, the value of the cigarettes seized would be over £55,000, with a loss of duty to the taxpayer of almost £35,000. A large quantity of cash was also seized by the police, believed to be the proceeds of crime from illicit tobacco sales. The premises were identified from intelligence, and complaints passed to West Yorkshire Trading Standards by members of the public and partner agencies.

Illicit tobacco was hidden in rooms above the shop and delivered into the shop via a chute. When customers came into the shop to buy cheap tobacco, either a mobile phone or radio would be used to communicate with a staff member upstairs who would pass the requested product through the chute into the shop. Some of the tobacco products were counterfeit, did not bear the statutory health warnings, were not in the standardised packaging and were non-duty paid, depriving vital public services of much-needed resources.

The Tackling Illicit Tobacco for Better Health Programme, funded by the five Public Health departments, helps people stop tobacco use for good by educating the public and investigating traders who supply cheap and illicit tobacco. The initiative uses multi-agency enforcement and community marketing campaigns to tackle the problems of the illicit trade.

Councillor Pauleen Grahame, Chair of the West Yorkshire Joint Services Governance and Audit Sub-Committee, which oversees the work of Trading Standards, said, “The illegal sale of tobacco in communities enables and encourages young children to buy it cheaply. It is really great that partners are working to tackle traders that break the law. I would like to thank all the partners and members of the public for reporting illegal sales and encourage everyone to continue doing so to reduce the harm caused by tobacco in our communities.”

Source: Telegraph and Argus, 14 March 2021
------------------------------------------------------------
Read Article ([link removed] )


**
------------------------------------------------------------


** Tredegar Park Primary School in Duffryn, Newport, is one of more than 100 schools across Wales that have joined ASH Wales’ Smokefree school gates campaign in a bid to stop parents from lighting up by the gates.

The legislation banning smoking inside school grounds came into force on 1 March and is the latest in a raft of measure to combat stubbornly high youth smoking rates in Wales. An estimated 6,000 children start smoking every year.

Jenny Thomas, the headteacher of Tredegar Park Primary School, said: “It is important to stop this from happening so that my families feel safe as they come into school and leave school. A school shouldn’t be a place where people are worried about inhaling smoke.”

The Children’s Commissioner for Wales Sally Holland praised the Smokefree school gates campaign and said she is delighted that so many schools have signed up to take part. She added, “All children and young people have a right to good health under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The harm to health caused by smoking, for both smoker and those around them, is something we should all strive to protect children from.”

Source: South Wales Argus, 15 March 2021
------------------------------------------------------------
Read Article ([link removed] )


** International
------------------------------------------------------------


**
------------------------------------------------------------


** A new report from Corporate Europe Observatory and the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA), and the global tobacco watchdog, Stopping Tobacco Organizations and Products (STOP), reveals the continued and extensive contacts between the tobacco industry and the European Commission (EC); and better understand why the EC has struggled to implement a consistent policy around industry meetings.

The report outlines seven industry tactics used to influence EU legislation in the European Commission. The tactics include:
------------------------------------------------------------

*
** Promoting untruths
------------------------------------------------------------
*
** Postponing regulations
------------------------------------------------------------
*
** Playing the victim
------------------------------------------------------------
*
** Protesting against regulators
------------------------------------------------------------
*
** Preying on third countries
------------------------------------------------------------
*
** Pushing new technologies
------------------------------------------------------------
*
** Playing the EU off against member states
------------------------------------------------------------




** The report calls for a proactive transparency strategy, whereby details of all meetings and correspondence between EC officials and the tobacco industry and their representatives are published on a central and easily accessible public register.

The report and brief are available here: [link removed]

Source: EU Observer, 10 March 2021
------------------------------------------------------------
Read Article ([link removed] )


**
------------------------------------------------------------


** A new study finds that the use of high-strength nicotine e-cigarettes can help adults with schizophrenia spectrum disorders quit smoking.

Researchers from the University of Catania, in collaboration with colleagues from the City University of New York and Weill Medical College of Cornell University, assessed the feasibility of using a high-strength nicotine e-cigarette to modify smoking behaviour in people with schizophrenia spectrum disorders who smoke cigarettes.

In this study, 40 adults with schizophrenia spectrum disorders who smoked and did not intend to reduce or quit smoking participated in a 12-week study using Juul e-cigarettes loaded with 5% nicotine pods with a follow-up visit at 24 weeks. Researchers measured smoking frequency, smoking reduction, carbon monoxide expired air reduction, smoking cessation, and continuous abstinence 24 weeks after the study began.

Findings reveal that some 40% of participants had stopped smoking by the end of the 12 weeks. For the whole sample, researchers observed overall, sustained 50% reduction in smoking or smoking abstinence in 37/40 (92.5%) of participants and an overall 75% reduction in median cigarettes per day from 25 to 6 after the 12 weeks. Additionally, researchers found that participants’ mean blood pressure, heart rate, and weight measurably decreased between the start of the study and the 12-week follow up. At the end of the study, 61.9% of participants reported feeling more awake, less irritable, experiencing greater concentration, and reduced hunger.

Source: Medical Xpress, 16 March 2021

See also: Nicotine & Tobacco Research - A Single-Arm, Open-Label, Pilot, and Feasibility Study of a High Nicotine Strength E-Cigarette Intervention for Smoking Cessation or Reduction for People With Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders Who Smoke Cigarettes. ([link removed] )

Editorial note

Riccardo Polosa, who led this research, is the founder of the Center of Excellence for the acceleration of Harm Reduction at the University of Catania (CoEHAR), which has received significant funding from a tobacco-industry front group, the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World (FSFW). FSFW is an independent scientific organisation aimed at ‘accelerating the end of smoking’, solely funded by Philip Morris International (PMI).

Polosa has also previously received funding from Philip Morris USA and JUUL Labs Inc. JUUL Labs provided free e-cigarette kits and pods for the study. At the time the research was conducted JUUL Labs were not part owned by Altria, a tobacco company. For more information, see the Tobacco Tactics page on Riccardo Polosa. ([link removed]. )
------------------------------------------------------------
Read Article ([link removed] )
Have you been forwarded this email? Subscribe to ASH Daily News here. ([link removed])

For more information call 020 7404 0242, email [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) or visit www.ash.org.uk

ASH Daily News is a digest of published news on smoking-related topics. ASH is not responsible for the content of external websites. ASH does not necessarily endorse the material contained in this bulletin.

============================================================
Our mailing address is:
Action on Smoking and Health
6th Floor New House
Hatton Garden
London
EC1N 8JY

Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can ** update your preferences ([link removed])
or ** unsubscribe from this list ([link removed])