ASH resources:
Tobacco facts & issues index

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities
Indigenous smoking rates are double the national average, with devastating results. Tobacco is the biggest cause of health inequity between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians.  See our  Indigenous  info page

Addiction
Factsheet on nicotine as a drug of addiction and reasons behind the delay to the health warning "Smoking is addictive". See also  latest research  on addiction/addictiveness   The tobacco industry denied for decades that tobacco was addictive, while their own research showed it was. 

Advertising, Marketing and Promotion of tobacco - see Tobacco's latest advertising / promotion / marketing ploys

Animals - see below under Secondhand smoke - Pets

Breast Cancer - see  latest research  and Secondhand smoke health evidence 
Research on impact of smoking/smoke exposure on breast cancer remains contentious.  Most recent findings suggest some limited impact.  

Campuses  - see  Info for tertiary students/staff   Tobacco-free campuses 

Cancer -  see under Women, Children, (type e.g.) Breast; also Disease 

Cars (smoking and driving)
See below under Children and under Passive Smoking re secondhand smoke harm to kids in cars.  Smoking while driving is also a safety hazard: see smokefree cars

Cessation
By far the most successful method of stopping smoking is unassisted "cold turkey." See Prof Simon Chapman article, BMJ August 2011  and  help with quitting 

Children  - see Protecting children from tobacco 

• Tobacco sales to minors
  Access to cigarettes by children is still a problem despite laws that fine retailers for the illegal supply of cigarettes to minors under 18.
  
  

• See also under "Film smoking" and "Secondhand Smoke" below

Components / contents
Amazing what you find in a cigarette. 4000+ compounds, 250+ toxic, 40+ known human carcinogens. See What's in a cigarette - and  why voluntary agreements don't work 

Costs  - see below, Economics

Deaths

• Worldwide: Tobacco use is the world's leading cause of preventable death, causing over 5 million deaths a year. See   Lancet article 5/4/11 
  

• Deaths from smoking  
  Great website from UICC (International Union for Cancer Control) and others - slideshows and more on health hazards, benefits of quitting, different countries and subgroups, and smoking deaths by country and region.
  

• Australia: Tobacco causes more than 15,500 deaths a year - not including secondhand smoke exposure. AIHW report 2003, sec. 4  - see Table 4.4, p. 76    
  2009 figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics linked tobacco with all 7 of our deadliest diseases.  See  ASH media release 19/3/09  with link to report
  

• Call for smoking details on Australian death certificates
  2009: Australian experts want details of smoking status noted on death certificates as in some other countries. See MJA  paper 

Disadvantage and tobacco - see below, Social Equity

Disease - see below, Health effects...

Drugs 
Tobacco is Australia's No. 1 drug problem, far ahead of alcohol and all other drugs as a cause of death, disease and costs.  See National Drug Strategy report 2008  showing tobacco's $31b pa cost, with death, disease and cost figures for tobacco and other drugs.

Duty free tobacco sales
Sale of tobacco free of excise at airports and duty-free shops cuts price and encourages purchase. This glaring anomaly undercuts preventive health strategies and treaties, costs governments and taxpayers, and encourages smuggling.  See 2009  Preventative Health Taskforce   recommendation (p. 178) to end tax and duty-free concessions. The  Henry Tax Review 2010  also recommended ending duty-free tobacco concessions.

E-cigs (electronic cigarettes)
Various "e-cig" products have appeared on the market, sometimes involving inhalation of nicotine vapour but no tobacco. Some unsupported claims have been made about the safety of these and their potential role in smoking cessation. ASH believes all such products should be subject to the same testing and approval standards as all other pharmaceutical or consumer products. E-cig products are not legal in Australia - whose Therapeutic Goods Administration says "the quality and safety of electronic cigarettes is not known".  See TGA  

Economics: tobacco costs, control benefits   see also Social equity, below  and Taxation and funding the fight against tobacco 

• Tobacco's staggering $31b drain on the national economy - see National Drug Strategy report 2008  on social costs in Australia 2004-05. Tobacco's cost to health, insurance and other social costs outweighs its tax revenue by about 5:1. 
  

• Health costs would plummet from modest smoking rate reduction (2005) 
  Study published July 2005 in the Medical Journal of Australia. 

Environment
Cigarette butts and packets litter and pollute. Local councils can help reduce this by smokefree places initiatives.  See Local government and smokefree places    But Councils beware!  BAT's Butt Free Australia  (formerly "Butt Littering Trust") pushes tobacco-friendly strategies with no independent evidence of litter reduction, but opposes smokefree measures likely to have more impact.

Environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) - see below under Secondhand smoke

Fashion promotion
Go to  Latest marketing ploys  and see the tobacco industry's latest tricks for luring young people into smoking.

Film/TV smoking
ASH supports evidence-based campaigns to counter tobacco promotion by glamourised depictions of smoking in films. ASH Communications Officer Stafford Sanders discusses the issue in this  YouTube interview, May 2010    And see also:

• Studies call for tougher classification of film smoking
  September 2011: Journal Thorax  devotes much of an issue to film smoking impact and suggested responses.  Includes:  Editorial arguing need for tougher ratings;  research meta-analysis  finding viewers of film smoking twice as likely to smoke; 6-country European study  and  study of Scottish adolescents   But see methodological and other concerns in Prof Simon Chapman's article

• Should films with smoking scenes be automatically adult-rated?
  Yes, says article in PLOS Medicine journal 23/8/11 also advocating other measures;  no, says another  article  in same publication  

• Smoking in movies  
  Cancer Council NSW webpages dealing with film smoking, including call for policy mandating anti-tobacco counter-ads to be shown before teen-rated films.

• Smoking in Hollywood films halved in 5 years

  July 2011: Smoking scenes in top-grossing US films fell by 56% between 2005 and 2010, says a US study. In G or PG rated films, it dropped even more steeply, by 93.6%.   Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report 15/7/11  

• WHO calls for enforceable policies to restrict smoking in movies
  2009: The World Health Organization, in line with the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (Art. 13) (see below) and backed by evidence that smoking in movies encourages youth uptake, urges countries to act. See  report

• Smoking scenes increase youth uptake
  2009 study shows high exposure to smoking scenes in movies can double smoking uptake from early teens to adulthood. Another 2009 study shows teens highly exposed to film puffing are three times as likely to try it or take it up. See  abstract
  

• What to do about smoking in movies
  2008 Tobacco Control article on options for action - by Prof Simon Chapman.
  

• More than a puff of hot air  
  2002: Australian screenwriter alerts colleagues. 
   

• Smokefree Movies
  Prof. Stan Glantz's site (US), with international research.

Fires and cigarettes
ASH has helped  bring about new Australian regulations for making cigarettes more self-extinguishing - and less likely to start fires.  Australian and world developments, and how  Big Tobacco hid its capacity to make cigarettes fire-safer, at  fighting cigarette fires 

Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) 
WHO treaty which Australia has ratified.  See the treaty  

Graphic warnings - see Packet health warnings, below

Health effects / harm / impacts of smoking and secondhand smoke 
See our  latest research  page; and SmokeFree Australia's  secondhand smoke health research.  Smoking is the most researched subject in medical history, and the evidence of harm is growing all the time!  See list of health harm in  Tobacco in Australia: Facts and Issues and Tobacco Atlas comprehensive graphic on  How tobacco harms you  

Health warnings (on packets) - see Packet health warnings, below

Human Rights and tobacco
Tobacco Control  journal has published (2007) a supplement of 8 papers

examining human rights & tobacco control.  Supplement to vol. 14     See also  Smokers' rights

Illicit trade - including Smuggling
The tobacco industry makes frequent claims that anti-smoking measures "will increase illicit trade".  The latest:

• Tobacco industry exaggerates illicit trade

  Feb-March 2011: Deloitte report  commissioned by the Big 3 tobacco companies claims “taxpayers losing $1billion” in illicit tobacco which is “up 25%” since 2010 tax rise and is now almost 16% of total tobacco sales. The report has been rejected as "self-serving bulls...t" by researchers including  Prof Simon Chapman. 

• See international report on tobacco smuggling at  tobaccofreecenter
  

• Authoritative worldwide report (2010) shows the best way to reduce tobacco smuggling, meet health and revenue objectives is to increase tobacco tax and improve enforcement. The report refutes tobacco industry anti-tax scare campaign. ASH Australia media release 17/4/10      

Indigenous
Indigenous smoking rates are double the national average, with devastating results. Tobacco is the biggest cause of health inequity between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians.  See our  Indigenous  info page

Inequality  - see Social equity, below

Laws, legislation  - see  tobacco legislation 

Legal cases, litigation  - see  tobacco litigation 

Litter - see Environment, above

Local government  - see  Local government and smokefree places

Lung cancer, lung disease - see under Disease above, and Respiratory below 

Marketing - see above, Advertising/Marketing/Promotion

Media - 2008 worldwide report on tobacco-media issues

Mental Health - see  Smokefree prisons, custodial and mental health settings

Mortality  - see above, Deaths

Movies  - see Film/TV smoking, above

Outdoor areas  - see Local government;  Smokefree places  and Smokefree workplaces - unhealthy loopholes 

Packaging including Packet health warnings:   
See The packet as advertising   and  current Australian legislation (spool to p. 58- for sample pics)

• Plain packaging - see our Action Page on Plain packaging

Passive smoking - see below under Secondhand smoke

Pets -  see below under Secondhand smoke

Plain packaging - see our Action Page on Plain packaging

Political Donations
Donations to politicians and parties from tobacco companies - or tobacco-friendly interests - can undermine public health aims and frustrate the will of the community by delaying or weakening legislation and regulation. ASH has made several submissions  to Federal and State bodies supporting reform of political donations and electoral funding.  Take action 

Prevalence - see Smoking rates (Australia) below

Prevent(at)ive Health 
Should be a much higher priority to reduce deaths, disease and costs. See Preventative Health Taskforce report: tobacco chapter  recommending key steps, and ASH Australia media release 1/9/09 

Prisons and custodial settings 
- see  Smokefree prisons, custodial and mental health settings

Promotion - see above, Advertising/Marketing/Promotion above

Respiratory diseases  - see also under Diseases, above, and Secondhand smoke below
See  Feb 2005 Quit ads on lung disease 

Secondhand smoke (or or "SHS" or "passive smoking" or "ETS") 
See SmokeFree Australia coalition site with latest research and developments; smokefree places

• Children - are especially vulnerable.  See Protecting children from tobacco 
  - More on passive harm to children on our  Parents  page 
  

• Dining and drinking - all crowded public places and all workplaces  - including pubs, clubs, gaming and alfresco dining areas - should be 100% smokefree by law.  See SmokeFree Australia  
   

• Homes, multi-unit housing, cars, schools, campuses, hospitals, outdoor areas  - see our  smokefree places  page 
  

• Litigation - List of successful passive smoking legal actions in Australia, 2001; also latest  housing cases  and  tobacco litigation
  

• Pets - They can suffer serious harm from secondhand smoke.  See  research 
  

• Treaty commitments -  See what the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, ratified by Australia in 2004, says we should be doing.  FCTC text   and  WHO's  Guidelines on Protection from Exposure to Tobacco Smoke 
  

• Workplaces - should be 100% smokefree. SmokeFree Australia has latest news, research

Smokefree laws/places - see smokefree places   and under Secondhand smoke and Local government, above

Smoking rates (Australia)
See latest figures on smoking rates and what influences them at our  Latest research page 

Social equity
Tobacco is a major cause of social inequality. Tobacco-free initiatives tend to help people on low incomes most because their budgets are disproportionately hit by tobacco costs and arising health costs. Low-income, low-security workers are most exposed to secondhand smoke in workplaces, and poorest children most exposed to smoke in homes and cars. The tobacco industry targets low income people with aspirational promotion.  See Cancer Council NSW  factsheet  and more at their  Tackling Tobacco  webpage including excellent  resources

• Different social attitudes in lower socio-economic groups in Australia affect their quit rates. See  2010 study 
  

• Raising cigarette prices by tax, and clean air laws, benefit US disadvantaged groups as much as others, says 2009 research.  See  study 

Tax  -  see Economics, above

Tertiary education  - see Campuses, above

Tobacco industry - see  The tobacco industry  with links to latest news, misdeeds, slick moves and background

Treaty - see Framework Convention... above

Universities  - see Campuses, above

Women - see also Latest research page under health, smoking rates, social impacts

• Let's bust a myth: smoking rates of Australian women are not higher than those of men - never have been. Their smoking rates peaked later than men's but are still lower - and inching downwards. See latest figures at our Latest research page
  
  

• Women, Tobacco and Cancer: An Agenda for the 21st Century
  2004 report for the National Cancer Institute. In pdf.
  
  

• Smoking is a ladykiller
  WA Cancer Foundation media campaign 2003 used media ads and posters to target young women 18-29 using the message “Don’t buy the lie” (of connecting smoking with glamour and independence).  See campaign update   and  “Ladykiller” poster
  
  

Youth - see Protecting children from tobacco   Info for tertiary students/staff   Tobacco-free campuses  Information for school students and staff

OTHER RESOURCES    

Australia

ASH webpages:  See our  online resources, Tobacco Facts (factsheets)  and  latest research 

For more facts and issues, the latest edition of  Tobacco in Australia: Facts and Issues  
is a complete online encyclopaedia of everything you ever wanted to know about tobacco and smoking in Australia. Fully referenced, compiled by the Cancer Council Victoria. 

World 

Tobacco Atlas  compiled by American Cancer Society and World Lung Foundation. includes worldwide research and background on tobacco health, economics, youth, women, sports, history, religion, advocacy, WHO/FCTC info, much more. 

TobaccoFactFile  online database launched by the Tobacco Control Resource Centre (TCRC). The “one-stop” resource about tobacco is designed for health professionals, media, educators and the public. Endorsed by a wide range of health organisations and leaders.

Page last updated 16/11/11