News and Notes

Abstract

A ban on smoking in all public places came into effect in India on 2 October 2008, the anniversary of Gandhi's birth. The ban includes bars, offices, bus stands and other public places, and anyone caught smoking is subject to a 200 rupee fine, in accordance with the Indian Government's National Tobacco Control Act. The government has also issued notifications to make pictorial warnings compulsory on all tobacco products. A recent World Health Organisation survey reported that forty percent of India's health problems are linked to smoking, supplying a major influence for the government to introduce the stringent measures. PA News reports that a London council has passed a controversial new policy to ban smokers from fostering children. The ban, passed unanimously by Redbridge Council (an east London borough), means that children will not be placed with foster carers who smoke after January 2010. Councillors say the move is crucial in protecting children from the harmful effects of passive smoking, but concerns have been raised that the ban could reduce the number of loving foster homes available to vulnerable children. The council said the new policy is a result of scientific evidence which showed that second-hand smoke is a cause of lung cancer and childhood respiratory disease. It said young children are particularly susceptible to the effects of second-hand smoke because their lungs and airways are small and their immune systems immature. An Indiana University study involving smoke-free air laws in four Texas communities has reported that changing the perceived social norms may be more effective than changing smokers’ own attitudes about smoking. The study's authors believe that their findings suggest that the success of strong smoke-free air policies may be more about changing the social acceptability of smoking. The study used a telephone survey of 407 adults to compare perceived norms about smoking between adults living in two cities with strong smoke-free air laws and adults living in two cities with weak smoke-free air laws. Those who lived in cities with a strong smoke-free air law perceived a lower prevalence of smoking in their city, were less likely to report that other people in their city believed smoking was acceptable, and were more likely to report that people in their city believed that smokers should take measures to not smoke. Link: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/126974.php Bolivian President Evo Morales has suspended the work of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in Bolivia, accusing it of having encouraged political unrest that killed 19 people in September 2008. ‘From today all the activities of the US DEA are suspended indefinitely,’ the Bolivian leader said in the coca-growing region of Chimore, in the central province of Chapare, where he was evaluating efforts to combat drug trafficking. Morales said DEA agents had been ‘conducting political espionage to fund criminal groups’ who aimed at ‘attacks on the lives of (government) officials, and the president himself’. He also directly accused DEA officials of disrupting government activities during the unrest in September by ‘funding civic leaders with the aim of sabotaging airports in eastern Bolivia . . . to prevent visits from (government) officials’. The US embassy in Bolivia has denied that DEA and the US Agency for International Development were conducting political work in the country. Source: http://www.theage.com.au/world/bolivia-halts-us-antidrug-efforts-20081102-5g7w.html?page=-1 Healthcare professionals in Spain have set up a group to promote ethical relations in their dealings with the drug industry. Professionals from a wide range of medical fields have created the No Gracias group (http://www.nogracias.eu), part of the international No Free Lunch movement, a network of non-profit organisations that aim to ‘encourage health care providers to practise medicine on the basis of scientific evidence rather than on the basis of pharmaceutical promotion’ (http://www.nofreelunch.org). The No Gracias platform is an effort to promote relations between the industry and doctors that are based on transparency, independence, and proportion. No Gracias was an initiative of the Federation of Associations for the Defence of Public Health (Federación de Asociaciones para la Defensa de la Sanidad Pública). The federation, influential in Spain, also has a subsidiary in Colombia that, through the Gamma Idear Foundation, coordinates similar activities in other countries in South America, including Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. Source: BMJ 2008; 337: a1579 The Board of Directors of the Jellinek Memorial Fund is pleased to announce that the Jellinek Memorial Award for 2008 has been awarded to Dr. Paula L. Hoffman (Department of Pharmacology, University of Colorado at Denver Health Sciences Center, Aurora, Colorado) for her pre-eminent research defining molecular and genetic mechanisms of alcohol tolerance and dependence. The Board also wishes to announce that the Selection Committe for the 2010 award is chaired by Prof. Anja Koski-Jännes. The specific category is ‘Behavioural (Clinical & Experimental Studies)’. Nominations for this award can be forwarded to: Prof. Anja Koski- Jännes, Department of Sociology and Social Psychology, University of Tampere, 33014 Tampere, Finland, or by email to Anja.Koski-Jannes@uta.fi by 1 October 2009. Nominations may also be submitted online at http://www.jellinekaward.org. Our iguana slid loudly up the stairs again the other day. She tells me that she now has her own regular chat show slot on RNN (Reptile News Network). We are proud that Addiction enjoys a continued working relationship with this highly syndicated journalist. Below is a piece which Iggy on her recent visit, pulled out of her violin case and left on the editorial desk. Your iguana is immune to the ordinary run of flattery. But I must admit that a recent letter from the UK Drinkaware Trust quite went to my head. They described my professional contribution to this field in enormously positive terms. The follow through was then an offer of £5000 if I would provide them with a couple of pages of notes on lettuce as a cure for inebriety. My thoughts did however then turn somewhat reflectively to an obvious question—whose money would I be taking? There was no hint in the letter heading of any industry affiliation, and the text assured me that the trust's mission was to disseminate factual and unbiased information to underpin public information campaigns against excessive drinking. All seemed above board, but my suspicion was that this group might have Temperance connections. Prepare to split your sides with laughter! Roll on the floor! Shriek! A web search revealed that this organisation with its blandly uninformative letter head is ‘supported by voluntary donations from across the alcohol drinks industry, including producers, pub companies and retainers’. And just to have you further sprawling, the membership of the Trust's Board offers a link with the Portman Group!!! Find a chair, mop your eyes and ask yourself these questions. Why does Drinkaware's letter head conceal its liquorfront status? Why did the letter to me make no mention in its text that this was an invitation from a drinks industry front? Why was I being offered a cash reward more commensurate with an inducement than a fee? Drinks industry support for this kind of public education campaign is of course a self-serving substitute for effective public health action 1 of a kind which the drinks industry chronically attempts to frustrate. One more question therefore: will those academics who have signed up to membership of this organisation, give conflict of interest declarations as to whether they are in receipt of personal or institutional financial support from the drinks industry? As an iguana what I find so endlessly entertaining is the way in which liquor people go on behaving just like the liquor people. Transparency: they do not know the meaning of the word. We believe that our iguana is a journalist who keenly respects the ethical traditions of her profession. When we asked her to show us her sources for this story she said ‘I made up the bit about the lettuce’. Annual Drug & Alcohol Professionals Conference, 13th January 2009, Royal Institute of British Architects, London UK. Organised by the Federation of Drug and Alcohol Professionals. Website: http://www.fdap.org.uk/fdapevents/fdapevents.html Alcohol our Favourite Drug: from Chemistry to Culture, 26–27 February 2009. Organised by The Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's National Academy. Contact: Duncan Welsh, Royal Society of Edinburgh, tel. +44 (0) 131 240 5027, fax +44 (0)131 240 5024; email dwelsh@royalsoced.org.uk. Website: http://www.royalsoced.org.uk/events/conf2009/alcohol_our_favourite_drug.pdf Third Annual Conference of the International Society for the Study of Drug Policy, 2–3 March 2009, Vienna, Austria. Website: http://www.issdp.org/vienna2009/index.htm 14th World Conference on Tobacco or Health, 8–12 March 2009, Mumbai, India. Website: http://www.14wctoh.org National Drug Treatment Conference 2009, 19–20 March 2009, Novotel London West Hotel and Convention Centre. Website: http://www.exchangesupplies.org/conferences/NDTC/NDTC_intro.html Harm Reduction 2009: IHRA's 20th International Conference, 19–23 April 2009, Queen Sirikit National Convention Centre, Bangkok, Thailand. Website: http://www.ihra.net/Thailand/Home Society of Behavioural Medicine 30th Annual Meeting & Scientific Sessions, 22–25 April 2009, Palais des congrès de Montréal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Website: http://www.sbm.org/meeting/2009/ Collegium Internationale Neuro-Psychopharmacologicum (CINP) Thematic Meeting on Major Psychoses and Substance Abuse, 25–27 April 2009, Edinburgh International Conference Centre. Contact: email cinp2009@glasconf.demon.co.uk. Website: http://northernnetworking.co.uk/CINP_thematic_meeting.htm The American Association for the Treatment of Opioid Dependence National Conference, 25–29 April 2009. Hilton New York, New York City, USA. Website: http://www.aatod.org/aatodnational.html SRNT 15th Annual Meeting—Joint Conference of SRNT and SRNT-Europe, 27–30 April 2009, Citywest Hotel Conference Leisure and Golf Resort, Saggart, Co. Dublin, Ireland. Website: http://www.srnt.org/meeting/2009/index.html American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) 40th Annual Medical-Scientific Conference, 30 April–3 May 2009, New Orleans, LA. Website: http://www.asam.org/AnnualMeeting.html National Association of Addiction Treatment Providers Annual Conference, 17–20 May 2009, PGA Resort, West Palm Beach, Florida, USA. Website: http://www.naatp.org/conferences/annualconference.php 12th European Federation of Therapeutic Communities Conference, 2–5 June 2009, World Forum Convention Centre, The Hague, The Netherlands. Website: http://www.eftc-bepartofthesolution.eu National Conference on Tobacco or Health, 10–12 June 2009, Phoenix Convention Centre, Phoenix, Arizona. Website: http://www.tobaccocontrolconference.org/2009/ The College on Problems of Drug Dependence (CPDD) 71st Annual Meeting, 20–25 June 2009, John Ascuaga's Nugget Casino Resort, Reno/Sparks, Nevada. Website: http://www.cpdd.vcu.edu/index.html 2009 UK National Smoking Cessation Conference, 22–23 June 2009, Novotel London West Hotel and Convention Centre. Website: http://www.uknscc.org News and Notes welcomes contributions from its readers. Send your material to Peter Miller, News and Notes Editor, Addiction, National Addiction Centre PO48, 4 Windsor Walk, London SE5 8AF. Fax +44 (0)20 7848 5966; e-mail louisa@addictionjournal.org Conference entries should be sent to Molly Jarvis at molly@addictionjournal.org. Subject to editorial review, we will be glad to print, free of charge, details of your conference or event, up to 75 words and one entry only. Please send your notification three months before you wish the entry to appear.