Smoking Passions

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The Anti-Smoking Tag Team (at Forbes.com)
Published July 24, 2008, 4:43 pm in Yahoo! Finance: Cigarettes Industry News Tags:
Mike Bloomberg and Bill Gates want to shut tobacco companies out of the developing world.


A July 4th to Remember
Published July 24, 2008, 11:31 am in Cigar Aficionado Blog Posts RSS Tags:
I was away from the office during the first part of July, and for much of the time, almost off the grid in the backcountry of the Canadian Rockies near Lake Louise. But I had a couple of "cigar moments" that I'll share with you over the next week.


Bloomberg, Gates Team Up to Fight Smoking (at BusinessWeek)
Published July 24, 2008, 5:52 am in Yahoo! Finance: Cigarettes Industry News Tags:



Gates And Bloomberg Unite In Global Fight Against Tobacco
Published July 24, 2008, 3:00 am in Smoking / Quit Smoking News From Medical News Today Tags:
Two of the world's richest philanthropists, Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg pledged on Wednesday to spend 500 million dollars to make people all over the world stop smoking. They announced the news together at a press conference at the TheTimesCenter in Midtown Manhattan. Michael Bloomberg is mayor of New York City and founder of Bloomberg LP, a giant financial software services, news and data company.


Young Smokers Have Quitting On Their Minds
Published July 24, 2008, 3:00 am in Smoking / Quit Smoking News From Medical News Today Tags:
Quitting is on the minds of young smokers well before full-blown addiction sets in, according to a new study from Canada. "Kids begin to think about quitting very soon after their first puffs," said lead author Jennifer O'Loughlin, a researcher with the department of social and preventive medicine at the University of Montreal.


Next-Gen Stop Smoking Via Text Message Service Launched
Published July 24, 2008, 1:00 am in Smoking / Quit Smoking News From Medical News Today Tags:
Mohave County Department of Public Health, AZ is the first health provider in the USA to roll-out a world-first second-generation smoking cessation text messaging service, STOMP (STop smoking Over Mobile Phone) from Healthphone Solutions. STOMP sends smokers trying to quit a series of personalized text messages over 26 weeks.


Help For Smokers With Schizophrenia
Published July 24, 2008, 12:00 am in Smoking / Quit Smoking News From Medical News Today Tags:
A 200,000 pound grant has been awarded to researchers at Queen's to help establish why people with schizophrenia are three times more likely to smoke than the general population. It is hoped the Medical Research Council award will help the scientists discover improved treatments for nicotine dependence - which can result in increased rates of illness and death from smoking-related diseases - as well as treatments for the symptoms of schizophrenia.


Philip Morris International Inc. Q2 2008 Earnings Call Transcript (at Seeking Alpha)
Published July 23, 2008, 8:07 pm in Yahoo! Finance: Cigarettes Industry News Tags:



Gates, Bloomberg Pledge $500 Million For Antismoking Programs (at The Wall Street Journal Online)
Published July 23, 2008, 6:04 pm in Yahoo! Finance: Cigarettes Industry News Tags:



Pricing, dollar help Philip Morris Intl profit (AP)
Published July 23, 2008, 4:23 pm in Yahoo! Finance: Cigarettes Industry News Tags:
Philip Morris International's earnings rose 23 percent in the second quarter, and the cigarette maker said Wednesday its growth has not been hurt by the inflationary pressures affecting many other consumer products companies.


Smokers Fire Up Philip Morris' Profits (at Forbes.com)
Published July 23, 2008, 4:23 pm in Yahoo! Finance: Cigarettes Industry News Tags:



Philip Morris' Profits Heat Up (at Forbes.com)
Published July 23, 2008, 2:45 pm in Yahoo! Finance: Cigarettes Industry News Tags:



Tobacco giants dismiss Russian official's claim (AP)
Published July 23, 2008, 1:13 pm in Yahoo! Finance: Cigarettes Industry News Tags:
Global tobacco companies have dismissed claims from Russia's chief public health officer that they have contributed to "nicotine genocide" in the country, insisting that they produce only "high quality" products.


Summary Box: Philip Morris International 2Q profit (AP)
Published July 23, 2008, 1:13 pm in Yahoo! Finance: Cigarettes Industry News Tags:
RESULTS: The cigarette maker that sells Marlboros outside the U.S. said second-quarter earnings rose 23 percent. Revenue rose 15 percent, topping Wall Street estimates.


Coffee and cigarettes
Published July 23, 2008, 12:54 pm in MedWorm Tags: smoking Tags:
Recovering alcoholics and their drugs.It's no secret that alcohol and cigarettes go together. And it is common knowledge--and an AA truism--that recovering alcoholics take to strong black coffee like ducks to water.Now comes a study of Alcoholics Anonymous participants in Nashville, to be published in the October issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, which verifies the obvious, with a twist. Of 289 AA members interviewed by Dr. Peter R. Martin and coworkers at the Vanderbilt Addiction Center, 56.9% of respondents were cigarette smokers (approximately 20% of all adult Americans smoke cigarettes).When it came to coffee, however, 88.5% of AA attendees were coffee drinkers, and a third of them drank more than 4 cups a day. "The most important finding," said Dr. Martin in a Vanderbilt University press release, "was that not all recovering alcoholics smoke cigarettes while almost all drink coffee."Does all that coffee guzzling and cigarette smoking help or hinder recovering alcoholics in their quest for sobriety? The answer is: nobody quite knows. Dr. Martin, professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at Vanderbilt and lead investigator of the study, entitled "Coffee and Cigarette Consumption and Perceived Effects in Recovering Alcoholics Participating in Alcoholics Anonymous in Nashville, TN," put it this way in Science Daily: "Is this behavior simply a way to bond or connect in AA meetings, analogous to the peace pipe among North American Indians, or do constituents of these natural compounds result in pharmacological actions that affect the brain?""It's possible that coffee is even a gateway drug, with coffee drinking beginning at about the time persons begin using alcohol," said Robert Swift of the Brown University Medical School. "In addition, a potential negative interaction is coffee's known negative effects on sleep."Selena Bartlett of the Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center of the University of California, San Francisco, offers the same concerns about cigarettes. A reliance on smoking by recovering alcoholics has a biological basis, she believes, and may increase the odds of relapse. In a HealthDay article by Steven Reinberg, Bartlett said: "My prediction would be that the relapse rates among smokers is higher." Since nicotine and alcohol addiction are so often found together, Bartlett thinks they should also be treated together, and is studying the anti-smoking drug Chantix for this purpose. "The drug inhibits the effect of nicotine, and by doing that, you may also reduce the euphoric effects of alcohol at the same time," she said. "We already have some evidence that it may work."Varenicline, currently marketed by Pfizer for smoking cessation under the trade name Chantix, caught the attention of alcohol researchers when it dramatically curbed drinking in alcohol-preferring rats. The synthetic drug was modeled after a cytosine compound from the European Labumum tree, combined with an alkaloid from the poppy plant. An estimated 85 per cent of alcoholics are also cigarette smokers. (Chantix has lately been implicated, along with a dozen other anti-seizure medications, in suicidal ideation in some patients)."I think it is important for alcohol researchers and clinicians to know that alcoholics, even those who do not use other illicit drugs, are not just addicted to alcohol, but use other psychotropic drugs like caffeine and nicotine," said Professor Swift of Brown University. "A second important aspect is the finding that rates of smoking are much higher in alcoholics in recovery than in the general population.... Yet, AA tolerates or otherwise does not address smoking in its members."Dr. Martin said that more detailed analyses of the results will help determine "whether these changes in coffee and cigarette use are predictive of recovery from alcoholism per se."Photo credit: AA-Carolina.org (Source: Addiction Inbox)