April 2010
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Go Green this Earth Day: Quit Smoking
By carrying reusable grocery bags, taking public transit and recycling, to name just a few examples, we are all becoming increasingly aware of the need to be environmentally responsible. If you're a smoker, there's another very important step that would be a "twofer" win for your health and for the natural world: Quit for good! While tobacco is the No. 1 cause of preventable death in the U.S., responsible for more than 400,000 deaths each year, it is less known that cigarettes also play a major role as toxic, hazardous waste in our already-overburdened environment. According to recent research from the Ocean Conservancy in 2009, more than 3 million cigarettes or cigarette filters/butts were removed internationally from beaches and inland waterways as part of the annual International Coastal Cleanup, including more than 1 million from the United States alone, making it by far the most littered item. We know that tobacco kills people, but do we ever wonder about the fragile ecosystems that may also be affected by the toxins in these tobacco products?
Read more on this unique call to action on the President's Blog or on TheGrist.org.
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More Smokers Calling Telephone QuitlinesA new report released on April 7, 2010 by the North American Quitline Consortium shows that a record number of American smokers are turning to telephone quitlines for help in breaking their addiction. The number of tobacco users calling quitlines, a telephone helpline where smokers can turn for trusted, reliable help when they want to quit, increased 116 percent between 2005 and 2009, according to the report. Despite this increase in demand, access to this critical service is being put at risk by state budget cuts and total funding for all U.S. quitlines decreased for the first time ever in Fiscal Year (FY) 2010. Read the full report: U.S. Quitlines at a Crossroads: Utilization, Budget, and Service Trends 2005-2010.
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President Signs Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking (PACT) Act
On March 31, President Barack Obama signed the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking (PACT) Act into law. By requiring age and identity information for online cigarette sales, this law helps keep tobacco products away from young people. Nearly 80 percent of all smokers start before their eighteenth birthday, so these efforts to keep cigarettes out of young hands have a positive public health benefit. In addition to creating barriers to help prevent children from purchasing tobacco products over the Internet, the law also makes tax-free sales of tobacco products illegal. This legislation represents another important step taken by the U.S. government to help reduce smoking rates and prevent youth from starting to smoke.
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Does Menthol Make Cigarettes More Harmful?  Historically, menthol cigarettes have been a key part of the tobacco industry's fraudulent health reassurance campaign, serving as a starter product for America's youth in addition to beting targeted to communities of color, which often bear a disproportionate burden of tobacco-related disease.
On March 31, Legacy President and CEO Cheryl G. Healton, DrPH, testified to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee that menthol cigarettes should be banned, along with other flavored cigarettes. The FDA's newly announced Advisory Committee examined, among other things, the issue of menthol cigarettes. Legacy has long supported prohibition of menthol cigarettes and believes that now is the time to act to remove these dangerous products from the marketplace. Read Legacy's full testimony.
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NOW AVAILABLE: Webcast on Youth Marketing in a Web 2.0 World
Teens continue to be major multi-taskers, get most of their news online, and affiliate themselves with like-minded causes through Facebook and other social networks. Those were just some of the findings around today's teenagers that were shared through Legacy's latest Warner Series event, called The truth about Teens: Youth Marketing in a Web 2.0 World.
On March 25 at the foundation, the foundation hosted a panel presentation on this topic, to both celebrate the ten-year anniversary of truth and inform and educate about future trends around the issue of youth marketing. A stellar panel of experts from the corporate, nonprofit and media worlds shared knowledge and answered questions, as more than 200 respondents from the field listened in via Webcast. Moderated by Dr. Cheryl Healton, the panel included:
- Peter Zollo, CEO and Co-Founder, TRU (Teenage Research Unlimited)
- Paul Farhi, Staff Writer, The Washington Post
- Nick Shore, Senior VP, MTV/MTV2 Strategic Insights & Research
- Katya Andresen, Chief Operating Officer, Network for Good
To view the Webcast from the Warner Series presentation, click here.
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Can Quitting Smoking Save Your Pet?Save Toto's life and yours too by quitting smoking. A growing body of research, including the 2006 Surgeon General's Report, shows that exposure to secondhand smoke is harmful for humans and for animals at any level. In honor of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Month this April, Legacy and The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals® (ASPCA) are challenging pet owners to quit smoking for their pets' health. Smokers with pets should "take it outside" or even better, kick the habit all together.
Join a community of smokers who are quitting for their pets today and take advance of the free quit plan at BecomeAnEX.org to help succeed with this quit attempt. Read more about the collaboration between Legacy and the ASPCA.
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Sailing on Smoke-Free Seas
On April 8, the Commander of the Navy's Submarine Forces announced that smoking is now prohibited inside its submarines, citing "unacceptable" amounts of secondhand smoke when submarines submerged. Legacy commends this bold move to protect the health of the nation's armed forces, given that secondhand smoke is a major public health concern for smokers and nonsmokers alike. The Navy plans to provide nicotine patches and gum to those sailors who want to quit.
Research shows that smoking is significantly more prevalent in the military where 32 percent of military personnel smoke - substantially higher than the national average of 20 percent.
Read Legacy's Military and Smoking fact sheet.
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