Each year, 2,200 Nebraska kids become daily smokers. Coincidentally, 2,200 is also the number of lives claimed by smoking-related diseases in Nebraska each year.

What’s the true toll of tobacco on Nebraska? What’s being done, and what can be done to reduce that toll?

That's the topic of a webinar series that will explore the answers to these questions, and to join the effort for a healthier Nebraska.  

Who should attend?
Nebraskans elected and appointed to serve as decision makers; professionals seeking to reduce tobacco use in our state; other interested public health professionals; advocates and volunteers seeking to promote healthier lives in our state; and members of the news media will find the presentations by our expert panel to provide insight into the problem of the state’s number one preventable cause of death for Nebraska’s adults.  

This week "60 Minutes" posted a story about what it describes as the "most famous and controversial whistleblower piece in the annals of '60 Minutes.'"

According to "60 Minutes," whenever it broadcasts a whistleblower story, conversation there always turns to this particular piece: An interview with former big tobacco research scientist Jeffrey Wigand.

Mr. Wigand, who since has made appearances in Nebraska telling his story, was, according to "60 Minutes," "the first major tobacco insider to reveal that cigarette companies were consciously trying to get us hooked on nicotine, despite tobacco executives' public statements to the contrary."

The historic importance of this story has prompted "60 Minutes" to post the full interview of the tobacco industry whisteblower, which was aired in two parts, so that it will be available for all interested in viewing it.

Mr. Wigand's choice to act as a whistleblower came at great personal cost. He suffered job loss, loss of health insurance, marriage problems and threats on the lives of his children.

The story inspired the Hollywood movie, "The Insider."

Whether you have never seen this interview or have seen it time and time again, it's worth another look.

The Smoking Cessation Leadership Center is pleased to co-host its next free webinar with the Association for the Treatment of Tobacco Use and Dependence (ATTUD).  Save the date for the webinar, “Behavioral Health & Tobacco:  The Final Frontier,” on September 29, 2011, at 1 pm central time (90 minutes).

Tobacco is a primary cause of death among people with addictions and/or mental health disorders and negatively impacts recovery from other substances. The Association for the Treatment of Tobacco Use and Dependence (ATTUD) developed a policy statement on integrating tobacco treatment into behavioral health services.  ATTUD is an organization of providers dedicated to promoting and increasing access to evidence-based tobacco treatment.

Webinar Objectives

• Describe the effects of tobacco among people with addictions and/or mental health disorders
  
• Understand key findings from the ATTUD position paper 
  
• Learn about relationships among tobacco dependence, withdrawal, outcome and response to treatment
  
• Learn specific action steps you can take to integrate tobacco treatment into behavioral health services  

Register now using and save the date.

Accreditation:
The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education to provide continuing medical education for physicians and allied health professionals.

UCSF designates this live activity for a maximum of 1.5 AMA PRA Category 1 CreditsTM.  Participants who join the session on September 29, 2011, are eligible to earn up to 1.5 CME/CEU credits for a fee of $25 per CME/CEU certificate.  Physicians and allied health professionals should only claim credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the webinar activity.  

Certificate of completion will be available at no cost.  Please feel free to forward this announcement to your colleagues.  This webinar will be recorded and can be viewed online on the Smoking Cessation Leadership Center’s website beginning September 30, 2011.  For answers to other questions, contact Reason Reyes, SCLC director of technical assistance, at reason.reyes@ucsf.edu, or call toll-free (877) 509-3786.

Strategies put in place to provide smoke-free recreation areas are the topic of a September research article being published by, "Preventing Chronic Disease: Public Health Research, Practice, and Policy."

Localities in California have, since 2000, put in place hundreds of policies and ordinances to protect citizens from secondhand smoke. This research, conducted by Travis D. Satterlund, Ph.D., J.D.; Diana Cassady, Dr. Ph.; Jeanette Trieber, Ph. D.; and Cathy Lemp, looks at strategies used by state-funded local tobacco control programs to enact smoke-free policies involving outdoor recreational spaces.

The smoke-free recreation areas article is also available as download as a pdf file.

The questions come up often: What are electronic cigarettes? What actually happens when someone uses electronic cigarettes? Are they permitted under smoke-free air laws? Are they covered by FDA regulation of tobacco products?

The Public  Health Law & Policy Technical Assistance Legal Center has produced a fact sheet that addresses these questions about electronic cigarettes, and provides options for how electronic cigarettes may be regulated.

The fact sheet "Electronic Cigarettes: How They Are – and Could Be  – Regulated" is available for download as a pdf. The fact sheet also includes a graphic showing the construction of e-cigarettes.

Nebraska's smoke-free worksites law, which has been in place for two years, can be credited for Nebraska receiving its only "A" grade in the American Lung Association's latest report card on state activities to reduce tobacco use.

The American Lung Association has released the 2010 edition of State Legislated Actions on Tobacco Issues (SLATI). SLATI is the American Lung Association's annual summary and compendium of state tobacco control laws.  

The report grades four policy measures addressing tobacco use. Along with its "A" grade for smoke-free air, Nebraska received failing grades in tobacco prevention and control spending, which is listed at a total of $3.3 million; on the cigarette tax rate, which is 64 cents per pack and ranks 38th in the nation; and on smoking and tobacco quit programs. The 2010 SLATI report covers state tobacco control laws as they stood on January 1, 2011. 

You can download a PDF copy of SLATI 2010 from the American Lung Association. 

Below is a summary of Nebraska laws compiled by the ALA as part of its report.

The average state tax on a pack of cigarettes is now $1.46 per pack, according to new fact sheets released today by the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids.

The state and local tobacco tax factsheets to reflect the few tax changes that went into effect July 1, 2011. As of this month, Nebraska's cigarette tax rate is 64 cents per pack, ranking 38th in the country.
 
Here are the new facts:

• Overall all states’ average: $1.46 per pack
  
• Major tobacco states’ average: 48.5 cents per pack
  
• Non-tobacco states’ average: $1.59 per pack
  

As of July 1, 29 states, DC, Puerto Rico, the Northern Marianas, and Guam have cigarette tax rates of $1 per pack or higher; 14 states, DC, and Guam have cigarette tax rates of $2 per pack or higher; five states and Guam have cigarette tax rates of $3 per pack or higher; and one state (NY) has a cigarette tax rate more than $4 per pack.

The new fact sheets are available as a cigarette tax map and a state cigarette tax table.
 

A U.S. healthcare accreditor has announced plans to require hospitals to screen and treat for patients for tobacco use.

The tobacco screening and treatment plans were announced today by the Partnership for Prevention, and released by the Joint Commission, an independent, not-for-profit organization that accredits and certifies more than 19,000 health care organizations and programs in the United States. 

The new certification measures will require participating hospitals to screen all inpatients for tobacco, provide counseling and pharmacologic treatment to tobacco users, and provide limited follow-up after discharge.

Partnership for Prevention provided the original funding for development and pilot testing of the measure set. Partnership’s ActionToQuit initiative advocates that all hospitals and health systems in the nation contribute to the public’s health by making tobacco cessation a priority. 

Tobacco screening and treatment for all patients is currently the practice in some hospitals. It is not a routine procedure, however, in spite of wide agreement that treatment to help patients quit is both effective and cost-effective. Hospitalization provides an ideal opportunity to help tobacco users quit. 

The Partnership for Prevention reports that although this is a significant step forward for promoting efforts to help people quit tobacco use in the United States, there is much more work to be done before all hospitals, health centers, and addiction treatment facilities establish this as a standard practice.  

To view the measure set, visit the Joint Commission website and look for Specifications Manual version 4.0:

The four tobacco measures have been extracted and can be found here:

TOB-1
TOB-2
TOB-3
TOB-4 

Joint Commission accreditation and certification is recognized nationwide as a symbol of quality that reflects an organization’s commitment to meeting certain performance standards. 

The release of new cigarette warning labels by the Food and Drug Administration has renewed interest in learning about the Family Smoking and Tobacco Control Act of 2009 and its provisions for addressing smoking in the United States.

Two excellent resources available for advocates who are interested in learning more about the act are a webinar co-hosted by the National Association of County and City Health Officials and the Public Health Law Center, and a fact sheet created by the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, the American Heart Association, the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids and the American Lung Association.

Nebraska advocates may also be interested in a fact sheet that discusses the impact of the FDA legislation on efforts to reduce tobacco use at the state level.

The FDA maintains a timeline of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which includes actions to prevent smoking and control tobacco, as well as actions that are authorized by the legislation that are set to occur in the future.

A $1.00 increase in Nebraska’s cigarette tax would prevent approximately 11,000 youth from smoking and, over five years, save an estimated $3.62 million in lung cancer, heart attack, and stroke costs. 

And keeping all workplaces, restaurants, and bars in Nebraska 100 percent smoke-free is the best way to continue protecting all 1,826,300 residents from the dangers of secondhand smoke.

That's according to two new tobacco reports from the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN) released Wednesday. The reports measure the dramatic health and economic benefits of implementing strong tobacco control policies in the states. The results provide new evidence that comprehensive smoke-free laws and increased tobacco taxes have the potential to save hundreds of thousands of lives and billions of dollars in health care costs.

According to the reports, jointly titled Saving Lives, Saving Money, if all states enacted comprehensive smoke-free laws and tobacco tax increases, over time they could reduce the number of smokers by 2.5 million, avert nearly 2 million deaths, and save nearly $2 billion in health care costs. 

The smoke-free report is the first of its kind to show the possible number of fewer people smoking, fewer deaths and savings in health care costs if states with weak or no smoke free laws were to enact comprehensive laws. 

The tobacco tax report compares data from every state to determine the potential lives saved, revenue raised and Medicaid dollars saved with a $1.00 cigarette tax increase over current levels.

“Tobacco is the only legal product that kills when used as directed, and it costs billions of dollars in health care spending,” said John R. Seffrin, PhD, chief executive officer of ACS CAN. “We now have concrete evidence that enacting comprehensive smoke-free laws and increasing state tobacco taxes can save millions of lives, prevent smokers from picking up the habit and save states significant dollars in health spending. Strong state tobacco control policies aren’t just a good idea in stemming the tide of the tobacco pandemic – they’re a necessity.”

Comprehensive smoke-free laws, which include all restaurants, bars and workplaces, reduce exposure to secondhand smoke, encourage people to quit or cut down on smoking, and prevent youth from starting to smoke. Data show they also reduce disease and health care spending, and improve employee productivity. Currently, 23 states and the District of Columbia have enacted comprehensive smoke-free laws. If the 27 states that do not have comprehensive smoke-free laws implemented them:

• More than 1 million adults would quit smoking.
• Nearly 400,000 youth would never start smoking.
• We could save more than 600,000 lives.
• State economies would also save nearly more than 1.3 billion in the costs to treat lung cancer, heart attacks, strokes, and pregnancy complications over five years.

Increasing cigarette excise taxes has been shown to reduce the number of current and potential smokers. Research shows that every 10 percent increase in the price of tobacco reduces youth smoking rates by 6.5 percent and overall cigarette consumption by 4 percent. 

Cigarette taxes are also a powerful economic tool, directly producing sustained increases in state revenues and resulting in large savings in health care costs. If every state nationwide increased its tobacco tax by $1.00:

• Nearly 1.4 million adults would quit smoking.
• Nearly 1.7 million youth would never start smoking.
• 1.3 million people could be saved from smoking-related deaths.
• State economies would raise $25.7 billion in tax revenue (a 54 percent increase over current revenue) and, over five years, save more than $645 million in health treatment costs.