Tobacco Culture Research Articles

Feasibility of the novel ‘Tobacco-Free Hospital’ model and its compliance assessment at a tertiary care hospital of New Delhi, India

Tobacco is one of the biggest threats to the public health. Tobacco harms not only human health but also the environment. The Cigarette and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA) was implemented in India in 2003. Compliance of these laws in public places is mandatory. This study presents an innovative model to make hospitals tobacco-free. The aim is to assess the effectiveness of implementation of tobacco-free hospitals among security guards, tobacco users, and key observers visiting a tertiary care dental hospital through a comprehensive strategy. An exploratory study was conducted in three phases. Structured training was organized for all security guards (n = 25) along with pre- and post-assessment using a validated questionnaire. All the patients and attendants entering the hospital were screened for tobacco products by security guards. Those patients who were carrying tobacco products to the hospital (n = 107) were interviewed using a validated questionnaire. Opinions of key observers (n = 223) who witnessed the event were also recorded. Descriptive statistics (means, frequency distribution) and inferential statistics (Chi-square test) were calculated. At the baseline, only 20% security guards were aware about tobacco legislations, whereas after 1 month, more than 80% security guards were aware about the laws. Around two-third of study participants of both the groups were aware of COTPA Section 4. Approximately 33.6% of tobacco users and 58.4% of key observers were aware of COTPA Section 6b. Forty tobacco users in the study availed tobacco cessation services of the hospital. Every staff should be a torch bearer of tobacco control. The study highlights a comprehensive approach of integrating hospital staff and linking vital cessation services by implementing Sections of COTPA.

Cognizance towards implementation and adherence of Cigarette and other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA) directives - A descriptive cross-sectional study among security guards in Goa.

ABSTRACTObjective:The use of tobacco has proven to be one of the leading cause of preventable premature deaths and diseases across the globe. The World Health Organization (WHO) claims that tobacco consumption alone kills more people annually as compared to Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS), alcohol, and other addictions (drugs, etc.) put together. Although the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA) is a powerful Indian national law to curb the tobacco epidemic, the effectiveness of its implementation remains disputed. The current study aims to examine the role of the security guards in the implementation of the COTPA by assessing their awarenessMethod:A cross-sectional questionnaire-based study was conducted among 258 security guards in Goa to ascertain the knowledge regarding the tobacco legislation in the country. A self-administered 20-item close-ended questionnaire was used to collect information regarding the demographic variables, tobacco use, and knowledge regarding COTPA. Data analysis was done using SPSS version 22.0Results:The mean age of the study participants was 29.93 ± 6.93 years. Overall, 68.6% of the study participants were aware of any tobacco control law in India. It was observed that 71% of the subjects had adequate knowledge of the COTPA. The participants with higher secondary educational levels had significantly higher knowledge scoresConclusion:The overall awareness of the security guard was good but there is a need to provide in-depth knowledge on certain key aspects of the COTPA. Efforts should be made to train the security personnel to increase their awareness of the act.

Utilização de Biomassa Florestal Como Componente de uma Economia de Baixo Carbono na Cultura do Tabaco

Utilização de Biomassa Florestal Como Componente de uma Economia de Baixo Carbono na Cultura do Tabaco

Predictors of tobacco use in a high school in Guinea

Youth smoking is a public health issue. However, the extent of smoking among young people, particularly among high school students, remains little known in Guinea. The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence and predictive factors of tobacco consumption in a high school in the Middle Guinea region in 2019. This was a cross-sectional study with analytical aims, focusing on 353 high school students selected from the high school of Mali-center. A questionnaire adapted from the standardized questionnaire validated by the WHO and the CDC as part of the global student health surveys was used for data collection in November 2019. Logistic regression was used to identify predictive factors. The prevalence of smoking was 9.92%[95% CI: 6.80-13.00]. Note that 76.20% of respondents did not know of any harmful effects of tobacco on health. Male sex[OR=5.60 (95% CI: 3.25-7.15)], alcohol consumption by the student[OR=12.94 (95%CI: 10.32-15.78)] and smoking by close friends[OR=5.40 (95% CI: 3.77-7.49)] were the predictors of tobacco use. The prevalence of smoking and the ignorance of the effects of tobacco on health among high school students in central Mali should draw the attention of actors. Interventions based on education for personal development, youth entrepreneurship and tobacco legislation should be undertaken.

Auxin Metabolite Profiling in Isolated and Intact Plant Nuclei.

The plant nucleus plays an irreplaceable role in cellular control and regulation by auxin (indole-3-acetic acid, IAA) mainly because canonical auxin signaling takes place here. Auxin can enter the nucleus from either the endoplasmic reticulum or cytosol. Therefore, new information about the auxin metabolome (auxinome) in the nucleus can illuminate our understanding of subcellular auxin homeostasis. Different methods of nuclear isolation from various plant tissues have been described previously, but information about auxin metabolite levels in nuclei is still fragmented and insufficient. Herein, we tested several published nucleus isolation protocols based on differential centrifugation or flow cytometry. The optimized sorting protocol leading to promising yield, intactness, and purity was then combined with an ultra-sensitive mass spectrometry analysis. Using this approach, we can present the first complex report on the auxinome of isolated nuclei from cell cultures of Arabidopsis and tobacco. Moreover, our results show dynamic changes in auxin homeostasis at the intranuclear level after treatment of protoplasts with free IAA, or indole as a precursor of auxin biosynthesis. Finally, we can conclude that the methodological procedure combining flow cytometry and mass spectrometry offers new horizons for the study of auxin homeostasis at the subcellular level.

“Nobody views it as a negative thing to smoke”: A qualitative study of the relationship between United States Air Force culture and tobacco use

ABSTRACT Tobacco use has long been a part of military culture, and rates of tobacco use remain higher among military personnel compared to civilians. The current study examines aspects of Air Force tobacco culture that encourage tobacco use. We conducted seven focus groups among Air Force Military Training Leaders (n = 48) and five focus groups among Technical Training Instructors (n = 33) from July 2018 to February 2019. Tobacco use was seen as a core part of Air Force culture and a low-risk behavior, in contrast to other potential activities. Three themes of Air Force culture that facilitate tobacco use emerged: 1) opportunity for work breaks; 2) finding common ground; and 3) stress management or stress relief during deployment. Smoke pits were seen as serving several functions that were not perceived to occur anywhere else: an opportunity for informal communication with leadership, a source of valuable information, and a space for problem-solving. Airmen viewed tobacco as serving a functional role, which outweighed its harm. Future programs might try to address the functions fulfilled by tobacco in order to enhance their impact.

Randomization Tests in Observational Studies With Staggered Adoption of Treatment

ABSTRACT This article considers the problem of inference in observational studies with time-varying adoption of treatment. In addition to an unconfoundedness assumption that the potential outcomes are independent of the times at which units adopt treatment conditional on the units’ observed characteristics, our analysis assumes that the time at which each unit adopts treatment follows a Cox proportional hazards model. This assumption permits the time at which each unit adopts treatment to depend on the observed characteristics of the unit, but imposes the restriction that the probability of multiple units adopting treatment at the same time is zero. In this context, we study randomization tests of a null hypothesis that specifies that there is no treatment effect for all units and all time periods in a distributional sense. We first show that an infeasible test that treats the parameters of the Cox model as known has rejection probability under the null hypothesis no greater than the nominal level in finite samples. Since these parameters are unknown in practice, this result motivates a feasible test that replaces these parameters with consistent estimators. While the resulting test does not need to have the same finite-sample validity as the infeasible test, we show that it has limiting rejection probability under the null hypothesis no greater than the nominal level. In a simulation study, we examine the practical relevance of our theoretical results, including robustness to misspecification of the model for the time at which each unit adopts treatment. Finally, we provide an empirical application of our methodology using the synthetic control-based test statistic and tobacco legislation data found in Abadie, Diamond and Hainmueller. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.

The Experience of a Middle Eastern Smoking Cessation Program

Introduction: Almost one-third of the Lebanese population are active smokers, with limited knowledge about their attitudes toward existing smoking cessation interventions. This study aims at exploring the facilitators and barriers facing a smoking cessation program (SCP) in a Lebanese tertiary referral center from the providers’ perspective. Materials and Methods: This is a qualitative study comprising a focus group discussion (FGD) among five practitioners from the SCP. The data collected were then transcribed and summarized by coding, simplifying, and transforming the raw data into major themes and subthemes as per the Miles and Huberman method of organization. Results: Facilitators and barriers fell under three subthemes: (1) participant factors, (2) provider factors, and (3) system factors. Facilitators included motivation and concerns about health among patients, in addition to increased behavioral support from providers. Meanwhile, barriers were much predominant and included stress factors and nicotine addiction among patients, time constraints among providers, lack of an effective referral system, inaccessibility, and unavailability of pharmacotherapy as well as a pro-smoking environment with weakly enforced tobacco legislation. Conclusion: Our findings implicate the need for multilevel strategies to help improve smoking cessation interventions. Addressing identified barriers is of paramount importance to help develop effective, accessible, and culturally specific tobacco treatment.

Tobacco legislation perception and barriers: A qualitative insight towards tobacco free schools in Delhi, India

Tobacco legislation perception and barriers: A qualitative insight towards tobacco free schools in Delhi, India

A Legal and Epidemiological Consideration of the Causal Relationship between Tobacco and Lung Cancer.

This study reviewed issues including causality among tobacco companies’ illegal acts, smoking, and lung cancer occurrence. In tobacco lawsuits so far, the burden of proof regarding negligence and a causal relationship has fallen on plaintiffs, who are the injured party. However, since the legislation of the Product Liability Act, the possibility of mitigating plaintiffs’ burden of proof has opened up. Nevertheless, this alone cannot prevent the immense socioeconomic cost incurred due to smoking. It is legislatively necessary to enact a tobacco management law so that the no-fault liability of tobacco companies, which are the defendants, for compensation can be acknowledged. However, it is necessary to take supplementary measures through the social security system such as establishing the upper limits for liquidated damages in lawsuits and creating a relief fund for the victims of smoking. In addition, it is fundamentally necessary for courts to accept the methods for inferring causality that are based on the natural sciences and epidemiology in situations such as tobacco lawsuits, where a causal relationship cannot be proven easily. In particular, jurists, too, must consider the application of population-based evidence presented by epidemiologists to lawsuits in a forward-looking manner for redressing damages to individuals with diseases; thus, bridging the gap between normative adjudication and scientific judgment to draw a conclusion about a causal relationship.

Luces y sombras para la salud pública: análisis crítico de la legislación sobre el tabaco en España

Tobacco smoking is a chronic disease that is the leading preventable cause of death in developed countries. In Spain, the prevalence of tobacco use has decreased driven by the implementation of tobacco control policies; however, current legislation does not establish a harmonized regulation for all tobacco products. The aim of this article is to review the current legislation and critically analyze its limitations in relation to the principles of good administration now defined in the Law 39/2015. Spanish in force tobacco control policies main limitations can be divided into four areas: the lack of specific regulation for new tobacco products; the differences in their regulation; the lack of information to the general population on their harmful effects and the new developments in the regulation of smoke-free spaces; and the lack of adaptation of the regulation to the most recent scientific evidence. All in all, the quality of tobacco control regulations in Spain, despite the successes achieved with the Law 28/2005, has been compromised by the State's laxity in the legislative, regulatory, and administrative spheres, which has led to a regulatory stagnation that runs counter to the principles of good regulation. This review should encourage scientific organizations and civil society associations to call for an actualization of the tobacco legislation, with determined and coordinated prevention and control policies to promote a tobacco-free Spain.

The Influencing Factors of Tobacco Trade Flow Between China and RCEP Countries

Against the background of the establishment of RCEP, and based on the trade data from 2002 to 2018, this paper studies the current situation of tobacco trade in China, builds a trade gravity model, and analyzes the correlation between China’s tobacco trade flows with its RCEP partners. Different factors include economic, demographic, geographical and tariff factors. According to the results of the research, RCEP member states can take advantage of population and geographical distance to strengthen mutual influence and penetration of tobacco culture, upgrade logistics infrastructure, and make targeted concessions on tobacco tariff rates to promote the development of tobacco trade within the region.

EXCISE TAX: CHANGES IN THE TAXATION OF TOBACCO PRODUCTS

Modern excise policy in the conditions of active transformation of the tobacco market should provide a sufficient level of tax revenues to the budget, regulate the consumption of tobacco products and its alternatives, prevent illicit trafficking in counterfeit and smuggled tobacco products, take into account the development of national tobacco legislation. experience of Community countries in the field of excise tax. Domestic excise policy faces difficult tasks - to ensure the optimal balance between achieving the goals of filling the budget and regulating the consumption of various categories of tobacco products, to support national tobacco producers and ensure public health, to pursue a course of European integration. Excise tax on tobacco products produced on the territory of Ukraine traditionally forms the largest share in the structure of excise taxes, while their very taxation is carried out at specific and ad valorem rates. The purpose of the article is to study the impact of raising the specific excise rate on the receipt of excise tax in the budget. The main changes in the taxation of tobacco products in Ukraine and the consequences for national producers of tobacco and tobacco products are analyzed. In order to study the impact of raising the specific excise tax rate on excise tax revenues to the budget, a forecast model of the dependence of tax revenues from excise tax to the budget on sales of tobacco products and the average excise tax on a pack of cigarettes. The article proposes a plan for a gradual increase in the specific excise tax on tobacco products for 2021-2025. To test the hypothesis, a forecast model for the sale of cigarettes is built, taking into account the increase in the tax burden until 2025. reducing the shadow sector and supporting domestic producers. A further vector of research should be directed towards improving the excise policy to strengthen control over the production and circulation of tobacco products and their electronic labeling.

Assessing the impact of the adoption of agroforestry technology on food production and poverty reduction among farming households in Oyo State, Nigeria

Assessing the impact of the adoption of agroforestry technology on food production and poverty reduction among farming households in Oyo State, Nigeria

The Opioid Crisis or Climate Change

Societal problems can occasionally have legal solutions, and several tools exist to implement change, including litigation and regulation. However, what elements make a societal problem more suitable for litigation or regulation? This Article examines four different societal issues (tobacco use, obesity, opioid addiction, and climate change) to determine whether litigation or regulation is the more appropriate route for success. The tobacco litigation serves as a successful example, while the fast food litigation serves as an unsuccessful example. Six signs of success are derived from the tobacco litigation: a large settlement agreement, evidence of corporate wrongdoing, change in public opinion, the litigation inspiring regulations, new courtroom avenues, and the ability to aggregate claims. The Article concludes that opioid litigation will be more successful under the tobacco litigation model than climate change litigation, because opioid litigation adapts the tobacco model to end the opioid epidemic. Novel solutions include utilizing Multi-District Litigation and the first-ever “negotiation class” that allows all 30,000 American cities to participate in a global settlement agreement with Big Pharma.

Evaluating the effectiveness of a 'Tobacco Monitor' App in reporting violations of tobacco policy in the community.

It is of interest to evaluate the effectiveness of the "Tobacco Monitor" app in reporting violations of tobacco policy in the community. Hence, a study was conducted amongst the first and second-year undergraduate students of health science colleges of a University. Students were asked to register complaints related to tobacco violations on the tobacco monitor app. Registered complaints were verified by the National Forum for Tobacco Eradication (NFTE) and descriptive statistics were used in reporting the results. A total of 208 complaints on tobacco violation were registered through the Tobacco Monitor app, 163 valid complaints were identified and 45 reports were found invalid. 163 verified valid complaints by NFTE were transferred to the Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD) Cell, Maharashtra, India. It should be noted that anti-tobacco laws and national policies help to curb the menace of the tobacco epidemic to an extent. However, robust reporting and sustainable enforcement measures are required in implementing tobacco legislation effectively. We also report that youth are comfortable in using the Tobacco Monitor app for reporting violations on tobacco.

Evaluating the effectiveness of a ‘Tobacco Monitor’ App in reporting violations of tobacco policy in the community

It is of interest to evaluate the effectiveness of the “Tobacco Monitor” app in reporting violations of tobacco policy in the community. Hence, a study was conducted amongst the first and second-year undergraduate students of health science colleges of a University. Students were asked to register complaints related to tobacco violations on the tobacco monitor app. Registered complaints were verified by the National Forum for Tobacco Eradication (NFTE) and descriptive statistics were used in reporting the results. A total of 208 complaints on tobacco violation were registered through the Tobacco Monitor app, 163 valid complaints were identified and 45 reports were found invalid. 163 verified valid complaints by NFTE were transferred to the Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD) Cell, Maharashtra, India. It should be noted that anti-tobacco laws and national policies help to curb the menace of the tobacco epidemic to an extent. However, robust reporting and sustainable enforcement measures are required in implementing tobacco legislation effectively. We also report that youth are comfortable in using the Tobacco Monitor app for reporting violations on tobacco.

Atlantic Environments and the American South ed. by Thomas Blake Earle and D. Andrew Johnson

Reviewed by: Atlantic Environments and the American South ed. by Thomas Blake Earle and D. Andrew Johnson Tycho de Boer Atlantic Environments and the American South. Edited by Thomas Blake Earle and D. Andrew Johnson. Environmental History and the American South. (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2020. Pp. xiv, 226. Paper $29.95, ISBN 978-0-8203-5669-3; cloth, $99.95, ISBN 978-0-8203-5648-8.) Atlantic Environments and the American South brings together contributions stemming from a 2016 symposium at Rice University that explored "the intersection of Atlantic, environmental, and southern historiographies" (p. 2). These fields, Thomas Blake Earle and D. Andrew Johnson explain in their introduction, "developed in response to specific contexts and certain questions that have largely forestalled cross-field pollination" (p. 2). Broadly speaking, the editors contend that historians of the Atlantic world have not sufficiently centered the environment in their "multivalent, sociocultural histories" of slavery and empire; the history of American South, understood as part of a circum-Caribbean or a British Greater Caribbean, provides a useful geographic lens through which to view that central role (p. 3). The collection does not propose a paradigmatic approach to such an intersectional history. Instead, its sections—"Slavery and Climate," "Slavery and Landscape," "Empire and Infrastructure," "Empire and Expertise"—suggest more nuanced understandings of the ways different peoples, rival empires, and competing epistemologies interacted with one another and with different, shifting environments to shape [End Page 326] the American South as both a distinct region and a node in the networks of exchange that constituted the Atlantic world. Bradford J. Wood, for example, argues in "Ocean Graveyards and Ulterior Atlantic Worlds: The Experience of Colonial North Carolina" that our axiomatic understanding of "the Atlantic Ocean as a means of connection" does not apply to North Carolina, whose treacherous coastline prevented the colony from establishing those connections that drove large-scale environmental change elsewhere and gave rise to the concept of a larger, interconnected Atlantic world (p. 113). Frances Kolb shows in "Profitable Transgressions: International Borders and British Atlantic Trade Networks in the Lower Mississippi Valley, 1763–1783" that the Mississippi River, designated a boundary between empires, instead fostered multidirectional exchange and movement in the borderlands of the Lower Mississippi Valley, with small Indigenous polities known as petites nations rejecting exclusive loyalty to either Great Britain or Spain when it came to trade. Sean Morey Smith shows how authors promoting settlement in the British colonies relied on various theories regarding hot climates and health, not just the "old ideas of latitudinal climate zones," to hail the "salubrious" qualities of England's overseas possessions (p. 21). Elaine Lafay notes in her chapter how planters in the antebellum South concerned themselves with proper ventilation of their own dwellings and those of their slaves, yet resisted slaves' attempts to improve their drafty quarters or enjoy the "fresh air" they equated with freedom and autonomy (p. 38). Environmental aspects of planters' control over slave labor also inform Hayley Negrin's chapter on Native women, whose traditional roles in crop cultivation the English disparaged as uncivilized but whose labor they nonetheless sought forcibly to employ in their fields, and Keith Pluymers's chapter on Bermuda, where the sought-after expertise of Afro-Bermudians was crucial to the development of both tobacco cultivation and slavery. Melissa N. Morris highlights the importance of Spanish and Indigenous crops and expertise to the rise of Virginia's tobacco culture, further stressing the exchange of environmental resources and knowledge among diverse peoples and places within the circum-Caribbean. Matthew Mulcahy's chapter on drought challenges notions of this world as singularly hot, wet, and plagued by hurricanes and shows how droughts severely impacted island populations and often spurred slave resistance and rebellion. Peter C. Messer's closing chapter on "The Nature of William Bartram's Travels," while somewhat incongruous, nevertheless underscores this collection's useful contribution to the scholarship: just as the nature of the American Southeast resisted classification according to the rigid taxonomies of old and prompted William Bartram to evoke the sublime and make it known on its own terms, so do the essays in this collection suggest fresh new ways that environmental history can...

Love Anchored in Unique Ways --Translation and Interpretation of Tujia Minority Ballads “Fourth Sister Huang” and “A Seven-inch-long White Copper Pipe”

Tujia Minority, a significant ethnic group in Enshi, Hubei province, P. R. China, has created numerous ballads with artistic and cultural connotations. This paper will concentrate on the outstanding representatives of Tujia minority ballads: <i>Fourth Sister Huang</i> --a love story between a noble girl and a mountain vendor, and <i>A Seven-inch-long White Copper Pipe</i>, which describes an ordinary life scene of a couple. After reviewing the research on the translation of China’s minority ballads, this paper translates the two ballads and interprets them from the perspectives of cultural study, exploring their temporal-geographical features, characters’ identities, cultural philosophical connotation, Enshi’s pipe and tobacco culture and affections between couples. “<i>Fourth Sister Huang</i>” reflects the material and spiritual situation in the embryonic stage of the commodity economy. With the provision of relatively abundant commodities, the young people at that time could pursue their true love tactfully as well as boldly. The couple in the “<i>A Seven-inch-long White Copper Pipe</i>” expressed their deep love by sharing the pipe, which shows the importance of tobacco and pipe in Tujia people’s daily life. Both ballads extol the beauty of love between man and woman and apply the technique of “transmitting emotions by objects”. The stories and characters portrayed in the ballads, as well as their acquaintanceship and expressions, typically represent local customs, historical evolution and traditional Confucian creeds.

The Application of Philip Morris' Litigation Prevention Program in South Korea.

This article is aimed to identify the strategies of Philip Morris (PM, before its spin-off in 2003) and its affiliates in the intervention and prevention of tobacco litigation in South Korea. We analyzed 193 documents obtained from the Truth Tobacco Industry Documents. We found that PM organized and operated the "Litigation Prevention Program (LPP)" to create legal environments making tobacco litigation difficult to initiate and legal networks with local lawyers, media, and even competitors to effectively respond to such litigations. PM developed the LPP based on its legal strategies in the United States against tobacco litigation and disseminated them all around the world including South Korea. In 1999, the first joint action against Korea Tobacco and Ginseng Corporate (KTGC, today known as KT&G), a state-owned tobacco company, began. KTGC asked PM to support their litigation, and PM provided its legal strategies, such as sources to counter the plaintiffs' arguments, through the LPP to KTGC. In front of legal threats, tobacco companies, competitors in markets, jointly fought back the litigation in Korea. Any litigation against a single local tobacco company may confront legal networks of tobacco companies. As a result, no litigation against tobacco companies in South Korea has been able to win over tobacco companies. International legal support including the development of guidelines of Article 19 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control is vital for an effective legal fight against tobacco companies around the world.