Golden holocaust Proctor, Robert N
2012., 20120129, 2012, c2011., 2012-02-28, 20110101
eBook
The cigarette is the deadliest artifact in the history of human civilization. It is also one of the most beguiling, thanks to more than a century of manipulation at the hands of tobacco industry ...chemists. In Golden Holocaust, Robert N. Proctor draws on reams of formerly-secret industry documents to explore how the cigarette came to be the most widely-used drug on the planet, with six trillion sticks sold per year. He paints a harrowing picture of tobacco manufacturers conspiring to block the recognition of tobacco-cancer hazards, even as they ensnare legions of scientists and politicians in a web of denial. Proctor tells heretofore untold stories of fraud and subterfuge, and he makes the strongest case to date for a simple yet ambitious remedy: a ban on the manufacture and sale of cigarettes.
In her sweeping history of the American tobacco industry, Barbara Hahn traces the emergence of the tobacco plant’s many varietal types, arguing that they are products not of nature but of economic ...relations and continued and intense market regulation.
Hahn focuses her study on the most popular of these varieties, Bright Flue-Cured Tobacco. First grown in the inland Piedmont along the Virginia–North Carolina border, Bright Tobacco now grows all over the world, primarily because of its unique—and easily replicated—cultivation and curing methods. Hahn traces the evolution of technologies in a variety of regulatory and cultural environments to reconstruct how Bright Tobacco became, and remains to this day, a leading commodity in the global tobacco industry.
This study asks not what effect tobacco had on the world market, but how that market shaped tobacco into types that served specific purposes and became distinguishable from one another more by technologies of production than genetics. In so doing, it explores the intersection of crossbreeding, tobacco-raising technology, changing popular demand, attempts at regulation, and sheer marketing ingenuity during the heyday of the American tobacco industry.
Combining economic theory with the history of technology, Making Tobacco Bright revises several narratives in American history, from colonial staple-crop agriculture to the origins of the tobacco industry to the rise of identity politics in the twentieth century.
Smoking bans have been implemented in a variety of settings, as well as being part of policy in many jurisdictions to protect the public and employees from the harmful effects of secondhand smoke ...(SHS). They also offer the potential to influence social norms and the smoking behaviour of those populations they affect. Since the first version of this review in 2010, more countries have introduced national smoking legislation banning indoor smoking.
To assess the effects of legislative smoking bans on (1) morbidity and mortality from exposure to secondhand smoke, and (2) smoking prevalence and tobacco consumption.
We searched the Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group Specialised Register, MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, CINAHL and reference lists of included studies. We also checked websites of various organisations. Date of most recent search; February 2015.
We considered studies that reported legislative smoking bans affecting populations. The minimum standard was having an indoor smoking ban explicitly in the study and a minimum of six months follow-up for measures of smoking behaviour. Our search included a broad range of research designs including: randomized controlled trials, quasi-experimental studies (i.e. non-randomized controlled studies), controlled before-and-after studies, interrupted time series as defined by the Cochrane Effective Practice and Organisation of Care Group, and uncontrolled pre- and post-ban data.
One author extracted characteristics and content of the interventions, participants, outcomes and methods of the included studies and a second author checked the details. We extracted health and smoking behaviour outcomes. We did not attempt a meta-analysis due to the heterogeneity in design and content of the studies included. We evaluated the studies using qualitative narrative synthesis.
There are 77 studies included in this updated review. We retained 12 studies from the original review and identified 65 new studies. Evidence from 21 countries is provided in this update, an increase of eight countries from the original review. The nature of the intervention precludes randomized controlled trials. Thirty-six studies used an interrupted time series study design, 23 studies use a controlled before-and-after design and 18 studies are before-and-after studies with no control group; six of these studies use a cohort design. Seventy-two studies reported health outcomes, including cardiovascular (44), respiratory (21), and perinatal outcomes (7). Eleven studies reported national mortality rates for smoking-related diseases. A number of the studies report multiple health outcomes. There is consistent evidence of a positive impact of national smoking bans on improving cardiovascular health outcomes, and reducing mortality for associated smoking-related illnesses. Effects on respiratory and perinatal health were less consistent. We found 24 studies evaluating the impact of national smoke-free legislation on smoking behaviour. Evidence of an impact of legislative bans on smoking prevalence and tobacco consumption is inconsistent, with some studies not detecting additional long-term change in existing trends in prevalence.
Since the first version of this review was published, the current evidence provides more robust support for the previous conclusions that the introduction of a legislative smoking ban does lead to improved health outcomes through reduction in SHS for countries and their populations. The clearest evidence is observed in reduced admissions for acute coronary syndrome. There is evidence of reduced mortality from smoking-related illnesses at a national level. There is inconsistent evidence of an impact on respiratory and perinatal health outcomes, and on smoking prevalence and tobacco consumption.
Context: The 5 major tobacco-growing states (Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia) are disproportionately affected by the tobacco epidemic, with higher rates of smoking ...and smoking-induced disease. These states also have fewer smoke-free laws and lower tobacco taxes, 2 evidence-based policies that reduce tobacco use. Historically, the tobacco farmers and hospitality associations allied with the tobacco companies to oppose these policies. Methods: This research is based on 5 detailed case studies of these states, which included key informant interviews, previously secret tobacco industry documents (available at http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu), and media articles. This was supplemented with additional tobacco document and media searches specifically for this article. Findings: The tobacco companies were particularly concerned about blocking tobacco-control policies in the tobacco-growing states by promoting a pro-tobacco culture, beginning in the late 1960s. Nevertheless, since 2003, there has been rapid progress in the tobacco-growing states' passage of smoke-free laws. This progress came after the alliance between the tobacco companies and the tobacco farmers fractured and hospitality organizations stopped opposing smoke-free laws. In addition, infrastructure built by National Cancer Institute research projects (COMMIT and ASSIST) led to long-standing tobacco-control coalitions that capitalized on these changes. Although tobacco production has dramatically fallen in these states, pro-tobacco sentiment still hinders tobacco-control policies in the major tobacco-growing states. Conclusions: The environment has changed in the tobacco-growing states, following a fracture of the alliance between the tobacco companies and their former allies (tobacco growers and hospitality organizations). To continue this progress, health advocates should educate the public and policymakers on the changing reality in the tobacco-growing states, notably the great reduction in the number of tobacco farmers as well as in the volume of tobacco produced.
Enriched by color reproductions of tobacco
advertisements, packs, and anti-smoking propaganda,
Cigarettes and Soviets provides a
comprehensive study of the Soviet tobacco habit. Tricia
Starks ...examines how the Soviets maintained the first mass smoking
society in the world while simultaneously fighting it. The book is
at once a study of Soviet tobacco deeply enmeshed in its social,
political, and cultural context and an exploration of the global
experience of the tobacco epidemic.
Starks examines the Soviet antipathy to tobacco yet capitulation
to market; the development of innovative cessation techniques and
clinics and the late entry into global anti-tobacco work; the
seeming lack of cultural stimuli alongside massive use; and the
expansion of smoking without the conventional prompts of capitalist
markets. She tells the story of Philip Morris's "Mission to Moscow"
campaign for the Soviet market, the triumph of the quintessential
capitalist product-the cigarette-in a communist system, and the
successes and failures of the world's first national antismoking
campaign. The interplay of male habits and health against largely
female tobacco producers and medical professionals adds a gendered
dimension.
Smoking developed, continued, and grew in the Soviet Union
without mass production, intensive advertising, seductive
industrial design, or product ubiquity. The Soviets were early to
condemn tobacco, and yet, by the end of the twentieth century
Russians smoked more heavily than most most other nations in the
world. Cigarettes and Soviets challenges interpretations
of how tobacco use rose in the past and what leads to mass use
today.
We investigated the frequency of alternative tobacco product use (loose leaf, moist snuff, snus, dissolvables, electronic cigarettes e-cigarettes) among smokers and the association with quit attempts ...and intentions.
A nationally representative probability-based cross-sectional survey of 1836 current or recently former adult smokers was completed in November 2011. Multivariate logistic regressions evaluated associations between alternative tobacco product use and smoking cessation behaviors.
Of the smokers, 38% had tried an alternative tobacco product, most frequently e-cigarettes. Alternative tobacco product use was associated with having made a quit attempt, and those intending to quit were significantly more likely to have tried and to currently use the products than were smokers with no intentions to quit. Use was not associated with successful quit attempts. Interest in future use of alternative tobacco products was low, except for e-cigarettes.
Alternative tobacco products are attractive to smokers who want to quit smoking, but these data did not indicate that alternative tobacco products promote cessation. Unsubstantiated overt and implied claims that alternative tobacco products aid smoking cessation should be prohibited.
From the long-stemmed pipe to snuff, the water pipe, hand-rolled cigarettes, and finally, manufactured cigarettes, the history of tobacco in China is the fascinating story of a commodity that became ...a hallmark of modern mass consumerism. Carol Benedict follows the spread of Chinese tobacco use from the sixteenth century, when it was introduced to China from the New World, through the development of commercialized tobacco cultivation, and to the present day. Along the way, she analyzes the factors that have shaped China’s highly gendered tobacco cultures, and shows how they have evolved within a broad, comparative world-historical framework. Drawing from a wealth of historical sources—gazetteers, literati jottings (biji), Chinese materia medica, Qing poetry, modern short stories, late Qing and early Republican newspapers, travel memoirs, social surveys, advertisements, and more—Golden-Silk Smoke not only uncovers the long and dynamic history of tobacco in China but also sheds new light on global histories of fashion and consumption.
Purpose of Review
Every day in the USA, approximately 4000 adolescents begin smoking and the adolescent brain is particularly susceptible to nicotine addiction. We present current pediatric trends on ...tobacco use and exposures, various new products used by adolescents, the adverse biological and behavioral effects of tobacco use and exposures, and tobacco control strategies to eliminate tobacco-related illnesses and deaths in the pediatric population.
Recent Findings
Twelve—20% of women continue to smoke during pregnancy. New research reveals cognitive differences and behavior-control disorders are seen in elementary school children from prenatal and postnatal exposures. Traditional cigarette smoking has decreased in adolescents; novel and appealing tobacco products have captured their attention, particularly electronic cigarettes, and rates double and often triple from middle to high school. Children with asthma and those living in multi-housing units have higher rates of secondhand smoke exposure than non-asthmatics and children living in single-home dwellings.
Summary
There is no “safe or risk-free” level of tobacco use or exposure. Tobacco use and exposure in childhood and adolescence must be decreased using evidenced-based strategies to improve child health.
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