Tobacco

New research finds that quitting smoking is doubly hard if you are poor and uneducated. Pyschcentral.com featured an article on its website this week that highlighted the work of researchers from The City College of New York who followed smokers from different socioeconomic backgrounds after they had completed a statewide smoking cessation program in Arkansas.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will this week evaluate the health safety and risks of candy-like tobacco products such as lozenges and strips, HealthDay’s Denise Mann reports.

A new effort to help teens quit smoking will use one of today's teen's most constant companions, the mobile phone. Developed by smoking cessation experts, SmokefreeTXT is a free text message cessation service that provides 24/7 encouragement, advice, and tips to teens trying to quit smoking. The initiative is led by the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health.

This week, Major League Baseball announced it would no longer allow the use of chewing tobacco when fans are present, ending a longstanding tradition, but pleasing health advocates who say it’s a long overdue social norm change.

Communities with a large concentration of bars and liquor stores pose a risk to both young people and adults, increasing the likelihood for violence or alcohol-impaired driving. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Community Guide to Preventive Services has endorsed reducing alcohol outlet density as an effective strategy for reducing alcohol-related harms. CADCA member, the Talbot Partnership for Alcohol & Other Drug Abuse Prevention, in Maryland, has formed strategic community partnerships that have effectively reduced alcohol outlet density at the local level, proving that people have the power to make their neighborhoods healthier and safer.

Sponsored by the American Cancer Society, the Great American Smokeout encourages smokers to use the date to make a plan to quit, or to plan in advance and quit smoking that day.
 

Most American adults who smoke wish they could quit, and more than half have tried within the past year, according to a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A landmark study in mice identifies a biological mechanism that could help explain how tobacco products could act as gateway drugs, increasing a person’s future likelihood of abusing cocaine and perhaps other drugs as well, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health. The study is the first to show that nicotine might prime the brain to enhance the behavioral effects of cocaine.

The Star-Telegram reported this week that Senate leaders and health officials are calling on Major League Baseball to get tough on tobacco.

About 70 percent of U.S. high school students don't get enough sleep on school nights and this is linked to health-risk behaviors, according to a study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Compared to teens who have frequent family dinners (five to seven per week), those who have infrequent family dinners (fewer than three per week) are almost four times likelier to use tobacco; more than twice as likely to use alcohol; two-and-a-half times likelier to use marijuana; and almost four times likelier to say they expect to try drugs in the future, according to The Importance of Family Dinners VII, a new report from The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (CASA Columbia).

Fewer American adults are smoking cigarettes, according to a new Vital Signs report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Also, daily smokers are smoking fewer cigarettes each day, it says.

TIME magazine reported recently that big-name tobacco brands are ramping up their presence in the dissolvable tobacco game, and consumers in test markets, as well as regulators, are trying to figure out what make of the new products.