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** 26 May 2022
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** UK
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** Nottinghamshire adults with mental health condition over 50% more likely to smoke (#1)
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** Inflation leaves councils in ‘different universe’ (#2)
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** International
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** Opinion: Big Tobacco is killing the planet with plastics. No smokescreen should be allowed to hide that (#3)
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** Vapers deliver an open letter to Swedish Members of the Parliament and ask to stop the vaping flavour ban (#4)
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** Spanish in favour of banning smoking on bar terraces (#5)
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** UK
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Adults in Nottinghamshire with long-term mental health conditions are over 50% more likely to smoke than the wider population, new figures show.

The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities figures show 26.6% of adults with a long-term mental health condition in the NHS Nottinghamshire Clinical Commissioning Group area said they smoked in 2020-21, up from 22% the year before. Altogether, 15.3% of adults in Nottinghamshire said they smoke.

Nottingham figures echo national disparities in smoking levels, as 14.4% of the general adult population said they smoke regularly, rising to 26.3% among those with a mental health condition.

Hazel Cheeseman, deputy chief executive of ASH, called on the Government to do more to bring down smoking rates among those with mental health conditions: “With more investment into services and wider policies to reduce smoking, we can bring rates down for people with mental health conditions and everyone else. The Government pledged to make smoking obsolete back in 2019 – it is past time we heard how they will do this and address the terrible inequalities caused by smoking for people with mental health conditions.”

The Department for Health and Social Care said it is “addressing the damaging health implications of smoking right across the country, especially where rates remain high”, as it aims to make England smoke-free by 2030.

Source: Chad, 25 May 2022
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See also:
* Hartlepool Mail – Action call over smoking levels ([link removed])
* York Press - People with mental health issues in York area more likely to smoke ([link removed])


Read Article ([link removed])


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Councils are facing alarming and growing budget black holes as they wrestle with steepening costs driven by soaring inflation.

“The wider impact of the cost-of-living crisis means councils are facing increasing demand for their services while also being under financial pressure themselves” one council finance expert told Local Government Council.

Speaking on the high and volatile inflation, they continue “This is a different universe councils are now operating in […] If inflation stays high for a prolonged period, we’re probably looking at calls from sector bodies for the government to step in with grant funding as they did during the pandemic.”

One council is warning that the crisis could add up to £50m a year to its costs over the next three years. Many others are urgently seeking to cut costs to mitigate the impact of the inflation surge – potentially leading to service cuts.

Source: Local Government Council Briefing, 25 May 2022
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Read Article ([link removed])


** International
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Dr Vinayak Prasad, Programme Manager at WHO Tobacco Free Initiative, and Andy Rowell, Senior Research Fellow at University of Bath, write in the Guardian on the tobacco industries’ greenwashing tactics. They point out that the most common source of plastic pollution in our environment is not bottles, plastic bags or food wrappers, but cigarette butts. 800,000 metric tonnes of cigarettes are stubbed every year, enough butts to cover New York’s Central Park. Taking a decade to degrade, they release more than 7,000 toxic chemicals into the environment.

The authors note that cigarettes contain single-use plastics because they are engineered and manufactured that way and that “if cigarettes were treated appropriately as single-use plastics, they could theoretically be banned.” They also point out that a UN plastics treaty under discussion offers a global mechanism to tackle the lifecycle of plastics. These policies should include the plastic waste coming from tobacco and nicotine products.

Prasad and Rowell say that “an industry creating 800,000 metric tonnes of toxic waste a year from cigarette butts sits oddly with environmental sustainability. […] Clean-ups, anti-littering campaigns and other gestures distract the public. […] Governments, investors and the global community should refuse to accept the tobacco industry’s greenwashing sleight of hand."

Source: Guardian, 26 May 2022
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Read Article ([link removed])


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The global vaping advocacy group World Vapers Alliance delivered an open letter to the Swedish parliament urging policymakers to stop a proposed ban on flavoured e-cigarettes. The group marched in front of the Parliament with the slogan “Flavours help smokers quit”. If approved, the bill is set to enter into force on 1 January 2023.

Michael Landl, Director of the World Vapers’ Alliance, said he had benefited first hand from vaping and had managed to stop smoking and stay smokefree as a result. He credited the availability of flavours as being a significant part of his success and warned that banning them may prevent others from stopping smoking.

Source: Investegate, 25 May 2022

Editorial Note: The World Vapers’ Alliance (WVA) was originally setup by the Consumer Choice Center, a US lobby organisation which has received funding from the tobacco industry. The WVA actively lobbied against the regulation of e-cigarettes before and during the 9^th Conference of the Parties (COP) in November 2021, allegedly driven by British American Tobacco ([link removed]) .
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Read Article ([link removed])


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Policies banning smoking on outdoor bar terraces were introduced during the pandemic in some Spanish regions, but the Spanish Ministry of Health are exploring extending this nationally and permanently.

A study conducted by the Spanish Society of Family and Community Medicine found that of the 6,302 people surveyed, 85.5% are in favour of extending the legislation on tobacco-free public spaces. Of those surveyed, 48.7% were non-smokers, 35% were ex-smokers and 16.3% were active smokers.

Looking just at active smokers, over 1 in 4 (27.7%) would support the restriction of smoking on terraces, according to the survey.

Source: Spanish News Today, 25 May 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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