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** 04 April 2022
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** UK
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** Marlboro maker plots major push into cannabis with Vectura (#1)
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** Blog: Health Inequalities - Why do people smoke if they know it’s bad for them? (#2)
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** Michael Marmot: Business must play a positive role in the nation’s health (#3)
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** International
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** Study: Second-hand bong smoke worse than that from hookah tobacco (#4)
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** Study: Smokers less likely to survive a heart attack (#5)
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** UK
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** Marlboro maker plots major push into cannabis with Vectura
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** Philip Morris, the company behind Marlboro cigarettes, is plotting a major push into the cannabis sector with the inhaler maker it bought for £1bn in a heavily-criticised takeover last year.

The world’s biggest tobacco seller wants to develop “cannabinoid products that help people take wellbeing into their own hands” following its purchase of Vectura, a pharmaceutical business that develops drugs to combat diseases caused by smoking for the NHS.

The pair, along with Danish company Fertin Pharma, also want to roll out medical cannabis to treat heart attacks and chronic pain.

Philip Morris’s £1.2bn acquisition of Chippenham-based Vectura last year sparked opposition from anti-smoking campaigners.

In response to the criticism, and threats that Vectura would be ejected from medical research groups, Philip Morris pledged to run the pharmaceuticals firm separately from its tobacco business.

Deborah Arnott, chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), said: “Last August PMI [Philip Morris International] gave a public commitment ‘to operate Vectura as an autonomous business unit[DEL: ” :DEL] . [DEL: “ :DEL] Less than nine months later, Vectura and PMI are closely entwined in a joint venture.”

Source: The Telegraph, 2 April 2022
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** Blog: Health Inequalities - Why do people smoke if they know it’s bad for them?

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** In the second instalment of Cancer Research UK’s series on health inequalities , Rachel Orritt, Health Information Manager at Cancer Research UK, investigates what’s behind differences in smoking rates between different groups with Professor Jamie Harmann-Boyce, Associate Professor in evidence-based medicine at the University of Oxford.

Orritt highlights the evidence surrounding smoking’s association with cancer and subsequent cancer inequalities, due to some social groups being more at-risk of taking up smoking and less likely to quit. Professor Harmann-Boyce states: “We know that there are certain groups in the population who are more likely to smoke. Those include people in deprived areas, people with mental health conditions, and the LGBTQ+ community.”

“People from less advantaged groups tend to be more heavily addicted. They tend to start smoking earlier, and therefore there’s more for them to overcome when they’re trying to quit smoking,” adds Hartmann-Boyce. “We also know that there is some disparity in access to medications and behavioural support, which are and should be offered for free.”

Orritt and Harmann-Boyce also highlight how the tobacco industry have profited from encouraging people to take up smoking, whilst specifically targeting higher risk groups such as the LGBTQ+ community.

To effectively combat the tobacco industry’s influence, Orritt and Harmann-Boyce call for “collaborative action across government and society”, combination treatment for those who want to quit, and the implementation of a ‘polluter pays’ levy to force Big Tobacco to pay for the damage their products cause, without being given any influence in how the money is spent.

Source: Cancer Research UK News, 1 April 2022
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** Michael Marmot: Business must play a positive role in the nation’s health
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**
Michael Marmot, Director of UCL’s Institute of Health Equity and professor of epidemiology and public health, sets out how the private sector can play a positive role in public health, following a collaborative report published by the Institute of Health Equity and insurance firm, Legal & General.

Marmot makes reference to the traditionally “uneasy” relationship between the public health sector and industry, highlighting the food industry’s opposition to Government proposals to reduce the prevalence of heart disease by improving people’s diets. In contrast to this tension, Marmot argues that collaboration between the two can be mutually beneficial, stressing how lower levels of productivity are a direct result of poor health in the North of England and demonstrated by the Living Wage Foundation ([link removed] ) .

Marmot states that “a healthier workforce is likely to be a more productive one” and argues that the private sector should take responsibility for making people healthier and should compensate for the harmful effects its outputs through “procurement and financial clout”.

The new report on the business of health equity “sets out three areas where industry can make a difference and has an interest in doing so: employment and working conditions, the quality of goods and services, and the wider impacts on society and the environment.”

Source: Financial Times, 4 April 2022
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**
See also: Institute for Health Equity - The Business of Health Equity: The Marmot Review for Industry ([link removed])
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** International
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** Study: Second-hand bong smoke worse than that from hookah tobacco
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** A new study from the University of California, Berkeley, has found that second-hand cannabis smoke from bongs can be even more harmful than hookah tobacco due to an increased concentration of fine particulate matter.

The study was conducted with university students and measured levels of fine particulate matter before, during and after eight cannabis social-smoking sessions in the living room of an apartment near campus.

Researchers used an aerosol monitor to measure the air quality before, during and after each session, which they then compared with the data collected from tobacco smokers in a hookah setting. They found that fine particulate matter from cannabis bong smoking was at least four times greater than the smoke produced by hookah tobacco.

The study, conducted over two months in 2018, also found that fine particulate matter concentrations took a significantly long time to return to pre-smoking levels. In one of the sessions, the concentration stayed at more than 10 times the original concentration level, 12 hours after the group had stopped smoking.

Cannabis has long held a reputation as less harmful than cigarettes, but Professor S Katharine Hammond said she hopes the study will alert people to the reality that it comes with its own serious risks to the smoker and those around them.

“This cohort study suggests that, contrary to popular beliefs, bong smoking is not safe … Incorrect beliefs about SHCS [second hand cannabis smoke] safety promote indoor cannabis smoking,” the study said. “It can actually affect the health of children who are nearby or other people in pretty serious ways,” Hammond added in a statement to USA Today. “We need to wake up to that.”
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Source: The Guardian, 2 April 2022
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** See also: JAMA Network Open - Fine Particulate Matter Exposure From Secondhand Cannabis Bong Smoking ([link removed])
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** Study: Smokers less likely to survive a heart attack
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** A new study by researchers at Jordan University of Science and Technology in Irbid, has found that non-smokers have a higher chance of surviving a heart attack than smokers, due to significantly lower levels of Alpha-1 Anti Trypsin (A1AT) - a protein in the liver that protects the body’s tissues - in smokers.

The researchers believe A1AT could offer protection to cardiac tissue when it is released during a heart attack.

“The aim of this study was to compare the plasma levels of A1AT released in smokers and non-smokers, and between hypertensive and non-hypertensive individuals after an attack,” the study’s co-author, Said Khatib, PhD, said.

The researchers are set to present their findings to the American Physiological Society’s (APS) annual meeting at Experimental Biology 2022 in Philadelphia.

Source: The Independent, 3 April 2022
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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.

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