Do you wish to know some golden tips for quitting smoking? But let these tips remain golden for ever. Then only you can derive advantage out of them. If you cause the plating to be removed, the mass of iron will show up. All your sincere efforts to quit smoking will come to a naught!

You have made the final decision to quit smoking. You have your valid reasons for that! List out those reasons, and go on adding reasons from your new-found research, so that it becomes a compact research. Let it be a systematic list, containing advantages and disadvantages of quitting.

You have better chances of staying in perfect health all round the year, by quitting smoking. You may not need the doctor. He may remain just one of those friends.

You have given up smoking, and you are a good role-model for your children. If you are a smoker, the chances of your children picking up the smoking habit early in their lives are real.

In these days of rising prices, smoking costs quite a sum. If you smoke 20 cigarettes per day, you are spending $ 2000 a year on an average.

Naturally, with nicotine less breathing, with no smoke coils, you live in a better atmosphere, both for you and the people around you. You will have good hunger and enjoy the food better.

Smoking is the cause of many skin irritants and now they start to disappear one by one. You begin to wonder where the wrinkles have disappeared, and how quietly the original glow of your skin is restored.

You will travel on buses, trains and by air in confidence. That "No smoking" board will no more haunt you. Your concern about the environment of Nicotine is such a powerful agent that it is not willing its deep friendship with you. You have to find the alternatives. Think of, and follow a nicotine replacement therapy. If you are able to resist the temptation of nicotine, you have won major part of the battle. The substitutes for nicotine are lozengas, ihhalers, gums and patches.

Make a habit to attend counseling sessions about giving up tobacco, be present in such meetings and discussions, and try to participate in any type of activity that negates smoking.

Persistence is the watchword. If you possess it, you can

Local lawmakers and smokers commented on the bill approved last week that will raise the state's tax on cigarettes by 56 cents a pack as well as increasing other tobacco taxes to pay for a statewide trauma system and other health programs.

Speaker of the House Robbie Wills said, "I'm certainly glad it passed the Senate. We worked hard on the House end. Now we have the funding we need to get a statewide trauma system, to help us keep our community health centers open and the in-home care program for seniors. I think it's a great day for Arkansas and the health care for our people."

Kareem Kattom, manager of the Horton's Sinclair gas station on Harkrider Street, reaches for a pack of cigars for a customer on Saturday. LIBERTY PARKS PHOTO

Wills noted Arkansas is the only state in the country without a level one trauma center and one of three without a trauma system. The new funding will go toward technology upgrades, training for first responders and funding for staffing of the trauma team, he said.

State Sen. Gilbert Baker said "I voted against the tax. I strongly support funding a level one trauma system. I just don't think in these hard economic times that we should be raising taxes on anybody."

According to the AP, Gov. Mike Beebe's office is planning a signing ceremony this week, and the tax increase will become effective March 1. The increase will place the tax on cigarettes at $1.15 per pack. The legislation will also raise the tax on other tobacco products, such as cigars and pipe and chewing tobacco, from 32 percent of the wholesale price to 68 percent.

Some local smokers say they are not happy about the new state tax.

LaToya Robinson of Conway said, "I think it's unfair. I think it's hypocritical. The argument was because cigarette smoking is bad for you and it affects the quality of life, to tax the smokers. Why not do something to help people stop smoking?" She favored funding children's education and adult smoking cessation programs.

"I think that's a better method than raising taxes," she said. "Now not only are we hurting our lungs and our heart, now we're hurting our pocket."

Upon hearing information about the statewide trauma system, she said, "If it's going to something like this, that's cool." She insisted some of the revenue should go toward youth smoking prevention."

"Unless you want to create more smokers to make money off us," she added.

Michelle McDaniel of Conway said of the tax, "I don't like it. I feel like all smokers are being picked on. I'll probably buy less cigarettes."

Kareem Kattom of Horton's Sinclair convenience store said he has not seen a change in people's smoking habits when prices have increased in the past.

"The bad thing about it for me, I have to keep the same inventory, but it's worth more," Kattom said. "People complain, but they're still buying them."

The increase precedes a federal tax increase on cigarettes from 39 cents a pack to almost $1.01 on April 1, the AP reported. Two major U.S. cigarette companies, Altria Group Inc., which owns Philip Morris USA, and Lorillard Inc., which makes Newport brand cigarettes, increased their carton and pack prices recently, the AP said.

Their work suggests the health impact is stronger for women and that even "light" smokers face similar diseases to heavier smokers, including cancer.

The team tracked the health and death rates of almost 43,000 men and women from the mid 1970s up to 2002.

Their findings appear in the journal Tobacco Control.

Lung cancer

Compared with those who had never smoked, the men and women who smoked between one and four cigarettes a day were almost three times as likely to die of coronary artery disease.

Among women, smoking  cigarettes daily increased the chance of dying from lung cancer almost five times.

Men who smoked this amount were almost three times as likely to be killed by lung cancer.

However, due to the relatively small number of men that this applied to in the study sample, this finding could have been due to chance.

 

So-called "light" smokers were also found to have a significantly higher risk of dying from any cause - 1.5 times higher generally - than those who had never smoked, when researchers looked at deaths among those studied over the duration of the research.

Death rates from all causes rose as the number of cigarettes smoked every day increased.

Sporadic smoking

The researchers believe their conclusions are accurate, even though they had to estimate the projected impact of smoking one to four cigarettes for five years in those light smokers who had smoked for less time.

This indicated that the risk of death from coronary artery disease for both sexes would have been 7% higher, and the risk of lung cancer would have been 47% higher in women.

A significant proportion of the light smokers had also increased their daily consumption over the period of the study. However, this had not exceeded nine cigarettes a day.

   
The only way to protect smokers from heart disease, cancer and other killer diseases is to quit completely
A spokesman from the British Medical Association

Author Dr Kjell Bjartveit also pointed out that it was not possible to tell from the findings what impact sporadic smoking - such as a few cigarettes on a Saturday night out - might have on health.

Dr Ken Denson of the Thame Thrombosis and Haemostasis Research Foundation questioned the validity of the figures.

He said other large studies had not found that smoking fewer than 10 cigarettes daily increased the risk of heart disease.

'No safe level'

Amanda Sandford from Action on Smoking and Health said the conclusions were clear.

"This study should dispel the myth once and for all that smoking just a few cigarettes a day won't do you any harm.

"Quite simply, there is no safe level of smoking."

A spokesman from the British Medical Association said: "All smokers are putting their health on the line when they smoke - even if they only define themselves as social smokers.

"The only way to protect smokers from heart disease, cancer and other killer diseases is to quit completely."

The Department of Health estimates 106,000 people die every year in the UK as a direct result of smoking. It said quitting was the only way to avoid the serious health risks.

Jean King of Cancer Research UK said: "Although more research is needed, this study suggests that the health implications for 'light smokers' are much more serious than previously thought.

"This is particularly worrying as a third of smokers in the UK - an estimated 3.7 million people - smoke less than 10 cigarettes a day."

The medical journal Pediatrics rang in 2009 with sobering news about cigarettes: Even those who smoke outside to spare loved ones from secondhand smoke do them another disservice. So-called third-hand smoke, the residue of toxic cigarette ingredients, clings to smokers’ hair and clothing long after they snuff out the cigarette. For parents, that means picking up or hugging their children could contaminate them with the likes of hydrogen cyanide, butane, arsenic, and polonium-210, according to the study, led by Harvard Medical School professor Dr. Jonathan P. Winickoff. A New York Times story about the study pointed out that polonium-210 is the same substance “used to murder former Russian spy Alexander V. Litvinenko in 2006.”

“Smokers have a right to breathe in those 4,000 chemicals contained in cigarettes, and nonsmokers have a right not to,” says Danny McGoldrick, vice-president for research at the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids in Washington, D.C.
No one’s rights are more relevant than those of children, who have little means to protect themselves from their parents’ hazardous habits. It should be illegal for parents to smoke, period.

And it’s not as though there isn’t already plenty of evidence about the way secondhand smoke endangers the children of smokers. According to the Surgeon General’s findings, secondhand smoke harms children by, among other things: causing bronchitis and pneumonia, aggravating the effects of asthma, and increasing the likelihood of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). The American Academy of Pediatrics has reported that childhood exposure to tobacco smoke may lead to the development of cancers during adulthood.
Finally, with the recession upon us and apparently here to stay, spending money on a non-necessity is hardly prudent. In New York City, federal, state, and city taxes inflate the cost of cigarettes to $8 a pack. That means two-pack-a-day smokers are sucking $480 a month out of the family exchequer.

Instead, parents should avail themselves of help from any of the numerous free anti-smoking programs or over-the-counter products to help them wean themselves off cigarettes. Have you ever heard of anyone who regretted quitting smoking or setting a good example for a child?

You can ask. Why is everyone so quick to believe this slight evidence about “third-hand smoke,” and what makes smoking any worse than parents’ other bad behavior?
“A lot of smokers are happy about this third-hand smoke report, because it shows what ridiculous lengths antismoking people will go to,” says Dave Hitt, a smoker who created the opinion site the Hittman Chronicle (www.davehitt.com). “The study was nothing more than a phone survey on what people believe is harmful. The stuff used to kill the Russian spy, the polonium, was a huge dose—you’d have to have a baby licking the floor clean every day for 267 billion years to equal it.”
George Koodray sees the third-hand smoke report as just another excuse for selective finger-pointing. “I find it somewhat hard to believe that your body could discern ‘third-hand smoke’ from all the bad substances you find in carpet and clothing and the air,” says Koodray, who serves as New Jersey state coordinator of the Smokers Club. “Back when secondhand smoke was all the rage, I’d see people jogging for their health right next to eight lanes of highway traffic. I think the effect of secondhand smoke pales in comparison to a lot of the things we’re exposed to.”

Furthermore, smoking cigarettes in general doesn’t qualify as an immediate fatal threat. It takes years or even an entire lifetime to acquire cancer or emphysema from smoking, while one bad fall on an all-terrain vehicle or motorcycle can mean serious injury or death. Why not make it illegal for parents to introduce these sports to their kids? And how about outlawing parental consumption of alcohol while we’re at it? Unlike alcohol, cigarettes have never been linked to domestic violence.
It’s about time to stop persecuting smokers, period. In October 2008 a state trooper arrested a Long Island woman for the misdemeanor charge of tax evasion after she bought five cartons of cigarettes at the Cayuga Indian Reservation. The cigarettes were for herself; she purchased them at the reservation to save money and bought them in volume to save on gas.
Smokers make an easy target for finger pointing, and parents are always quick to cast stones at other parents, hoping their own foibles will be overlooked amid the rock-throwing.

The $33 billion bill would raise federal taxes on selling cigarettes, cigars, rolling paper and other tobacco products to help fund the expansion. Cigarette taxes would rise from 39 cents per pack to $1.

Congressional Democrats previously pushed to extend the program to uninsured middle-class children, but efforts were vetoed by President Bush, who wanted the federal program geared toward the poor. President-elect Barack Obama is expected to sign the SCHIP expansion if it gains Senate approval.

House Democrats backed the expansion saying it will bring health insurance to more uninsured children.

The federal tobacco tax increase, however, faces criticism from economic conservatives.

“Tobacco tax increases over the years have resulted in less smoking and therefore a decline in tobacco tax revenue. Tying the expansion of a government program to a declining revenue source is the sort of backward thinking that makes taxpayers scratch their heads,” said Steve Voeller, president of the Arizona Free Enterprise Club.

A group of conservative economic groups wrote members of Congress earlier this month saying continued tobacco tax increases scapegoat smokers and hurt retailers and other small businesses by sending buyers online where they often can avoid such taxes.

Tennessee has scored a C, a D and two F’s in the American Lung Association’s State of Tobacco Control 2008 report, released late Tuesday.

The lung association grades in four categories: tobacco prevention and control, smoke-free air, cigarette tax and cessation coverage.

Despite the 2007 passage of Tennessee’s Nonsmokers’ Protection Act, the state earned a C in the category of smoke-free air because the law exempts bars and restaurants open only to those over 21 years old. The two failing grades were for cessation coverage and tobacco prevention and control spending.

Tennessee fared better than many other states in the region on this year’s report. Kentucky was among seven states that scored all F’s this year. The other six are Alabama, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia.

“The historical tobacco states like Tennessee are having a hard time keeping up with what some of the other states are doing to address smoking,” says Menisa Marshall, a spokeswoman for the American Lung Association’s Southeast region. “These states tend to take a very short-term view. Change will take time.”

Spending on Tennessee’s year-old cigarette smoking cessation program will be cut in half in 2009, much to the chagrin of some local medical experts and health organizations.

The reduction — from $10 million in 2008 to $5 million next year — will not affect the state’s 24-hour, toll-free hotline that provides personalized support, Tennessee’s Commissioner of Health Susan Cooper said in a November interview with the Business Journal.

“It will take time to see a big drop in the numbers of Tennesseans who smoke,” Cooper said. “Our efforts are still in our infancy.”

At 62 cents a pack, Tennessee’s cigarette tax earned a D. The national average tobacco tax is $1.19 a pack.

Tennessee’s F for tobacco control spending stems from spending less than 10 percent of what the minimum recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Tennessee spends about $6 million, while the CDC suggests about $72 million.

“In the face of budget crises and the slow economy, many states have had to cut their tobacco control spending,” says Margaret Smith, the lung association’s director of advocacy in Tennessee.

Grades in the State of Tobacco report are calculated by comparing policies against standards based on current, recognized scientific criteria for effective tobacco control measures.

“Despite this year’s drop in some grades, we are encouraged by Tennessee’s progress and believe the day will soon come when all our citizens will be protected from the health risks of second-hand smoke,” Smith says.

Currently, 25.5 percent of high school students and 24.3 percent of adults in Tennessee smoke.

Tennessee’s economic cost due to smoking tops $5.1 billion a year, according to the lung association. Tobacco-related illness costs are about $193 billion annually.

Iowa and Nebraska were the only two states to meet the lung association’s Smoke-free Air Challenge in 2008 by passing strong air laws.

Alaska and Delaware received A’s for funding tobacco prevention.

Massachusetts, New York and the District of Columbia raised cigarette excise taxes in 2008, despite evidence linking increased cigarette prices with decreased smoking rates, especially among youth.

Smoking rates nationwide have declined over the past 30 years as a result of various factors including strong smoke-free laws and higher cigarette taxes.

Tobacco use remains the leading cause of preventable disease and premature death in the United States. It kills nearly 393,000 Americans a year, including more than 9,700 in Tennessee.

The full State of Tobacco Control 2008 report with a map and grades for each state can be found at stateoftobaccocontrol.org.