Ciggyfree Blog & Gov Alert

ISLAMABAD: International Anti-Smoking Day will be observed across the world today (Thursday) to highlight smoking related health hazards and to create awareness about this nuisance.

In Pakistan every year the government and civil society organizations hold seminars, conferences and walks against smoking, but the violation of anti-smoking laws enforced by the government continues. The government has not implemented these laws strictly despite the fact that a number of people die of heart disease every year. Smoking is termed a major cause of heart related diseases.

To discourage smoking and the sale of cigarettes to teenagers, the government promulgated the Prohibition of Smoking and Protection of Non-Smokers Health Ordinance on October 15, 2002, which bans smoking at public places and on public transport. Later, the ordinance was enacted as a law.

The ban on the sale of cigarettes to teenagers, in or near educational institutions, smoking in public transport, at public places, restaurants and even in government offices is being flouted with impunity.

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29 MAY 2007 | GENEVA — The World Health Organization (WHO) signaled the urgent need for countries to make all indoor public places and workplaces 100% smoke-free with the release of its new policy recommendations on protection from exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke in advance of World No Tobacco Day (31 May), which focuses this year on this theme.

“The evidence is clear, there is no safe level of exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke,” said the WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan. “Many countries have already taken action. I urge all countries that have not yet done so to take this immediate and important step to protect the health of all by passing laws requiring all indoor workplaces and public places to be 100% smoke-free.”

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I just discovered this video by AARON SHAWN GRAY (known as sonicbondage) on You Tube this evening. This is the story of a mother who went in for medical tests and was diagnosed with Stage IV Lung Cancer. Her son Shawn created this video to honor his Mom’s last wishes to tell people not to smoke and to assist him through the grieving process.
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MARTINSBURG, W.Va. - The first time Brian Kelly quit smoking, in the 1990s, he had nicotine cravings like crazy even though he was using a nicotine patch and nicotine gum.

This year when Kelly decided again to try to kick the habit he returned to the patch and gum, until he read on the Internet about Chantix, a prescription anti-smoking pill approved a year ago by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

“It’s like a wonder drug as far as I’m concerned,” said Kelly, 63, of Martinsburg.

Kelly said he quit smoking in three weeks - a date he set through a quit-smoking class at Waynesboro Hospital in Pennsylvania - and didn’t face the withdrawal symptoms that occurred the first time he quit.

Chantix, made by Pfizer, blocks the nicotine receptors in the brain so people don’t get a buzz from smoking, nor do they suffer withdrawal symptoms when they stop smoking, said Dr. Paul Quesenberry, a family doctor with Cumberland Valley Family Physicians in Chambersburg, Pa.

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Garden City, N.Y.- Lauren Terrazzano, a Newsday reporter who chronicled her three-year bout with lung cancer, has died. She was 39.

Terrazzano died Tuesday night at Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan. Newsday staffers learned of her death Wednesday in a letter from editor John Mancini.

“She was well-loved by her many friends and colleagues in the newsroom and a formidable presence in the lives of the people in the communities she covered,” Mancini said.

Described by colleagues as a tenacious, hard-nosed street reporter, Terrazzano covered a variety of beats, most recently as a child welfare/social services reporter. She began writing the column, “Life, With Cancer,” in October 2006.

She wrote about the inappropriate things people say to cancer patients because they don’t know what else to say, and about breaking the myth that people with cancer are heroes “when really we’re just like everyone else.”

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May 24, 2007 between the hours of noon and 11 pm EST.

Cheers! ~Ciggyfree Administration

http://health.howstuffworks.com/lung.htm
Your lungs are complex organs, but what they do is take a gas that your body
needs to get rid of (carbon dioxide) and exchange it for a gas that your
body can use (oxygen). In this edition of How Stuff Works, we will take a
close look at how your lungs work and how they keep your body’s cells
supplied with oxygen and get rid of the carbon dioxide waste. We will
explain some of the conditions and diseases that make breathing harder and
cause the lungs to fail. We will also explain why you can’t hold your breath
for a long time and why you cough or hiccup.

Smoker’s Lung Pathology
http://www.medicinenet.com/smokers_lung_pathology_photo_essay/article.htm
Cigarette smoking is associated with a wide variety of abnormalities
throughout the body that cause not only illness, but also, all too often,
death. Indeed, if all deaths from diseases related to smoking (lung disease,
heart disease, and cancers of many different organs) were considered, a case
could be made for cigarette smoking as the leading cause of death in
industrialized countries. Ironically, it is also the most preventable cause
of death in our society!

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Meaning: Preoccupied or obsessed with an idea.

“Resolving The Bee In the Bonnet Problem”
by Bear Jack Gebhardt

This article was originally hosted at Seventraditions. I have been unable to locate Bear Jack Gebhardt, but have decided to save this wonderful file here at Ciggyfree until some time in the future when Jack reclaims it. Thank you Jack!

You ever get a bee in your bonnet? Or in your hat? In your car? All
of sudden, you’re not thinking of anything, else, right? Everything in
your life, except that bee, is immediately back burner. You need to do
something about that buzzing bee and you need to do it now. When you
have a bee in your bonnet, life is suddenly very intense, and
uncomfortable, or potentially uncomfortable, and that potential makes
it uncomfortable right now.

For a lot of smokers, quitting smoking is very similar to having a bee
in their bonnet, or a bee buzzing around in the car with them. Life
is suddenly very intense, and uncomfortable, or potentially
uncomfortable. They feel they need to do something about it, “right
now.” Nothing else really matters.

Contrary to popular belief, it is not the lack of nicotine that makes
a quitting smoker so jumpy. The use of nicotine patches, and the new
drug Zyban can be helpful, but, so far, in fewer than 30% of the
cases. Even with nicotine levels at “ordinary,” and with stress levels
reduced, the “bee in the bonnet” feeling persists, and smokers go back
to smoking in order to let the bee out. The “relief ” which a smoker
feels with his or her first cigarette, after an unsuccessful quitting
attempt, is exactly the same relief as when the bee flies out the
window. “Whew, thank goodness that’s over.”

So, what is it, exactly, that makes a smoker feel as if he or she has
a bee in the bonnet, a bee in the car just as soon as the Quit Date
arrives? If we could figure out where the bee comes from, we could go
a long way to making it easier to quit, yes?

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Bloomington, Minn. - Millions of dollars are spent each year on smoking cessation treatments, including the nicotine patch and hypnosis. But on smoking cessation treatment being used more often may be the ticket to a smoke-free future. Studies suggest that acupuncture may aid in the fight against smoking addiction by relaxing the body and reducing cravings.

‘By using an acupuncture needle to stimulate certain points on the body, pain-modulation endorphins ar released,” says Sher Demeter, LAc, associate dean for the Minnesota College of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine in Bloomington, Minn. “This is often compared to experiencing a runner’s high which can also cause a mood-lifting effect. Not only can acupuncture be used to treat problems associated with chronic pain, headaches, digestion, insomnia, irritability and nervousness, but it also has been used as a smoking cessation tool.”

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The American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation (ANRF) houses over thirty thousand articles, news stories, and other materials regarding the tobacco industry; clean indoor air campaigns; and other tobacco policy issues in the United States.

The database is updated weekly.