Smoke-Free Olympics-NOT

BEIJING - Beijing's first smoke-free restaurant chain faces going out of business after its customers deserted it in droves after the ban was enforced, state media reported on Friday.The Chinese people smoke. I find it interesting that a country communist country. A restaurant chain has lost about 80 percent of their business to other restaurants across the street" after it banned smoking in October. In spite of waitresses telling people not to smoke, customers would lock the staff out of rooms so they could smoke.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is promising a "smoke-free Olympics. The people are not cooperating. Beijing authorities have written to 30,000 restaurants asking them to put smoking bans in place, but not a single one had taken up the suggestion. read more
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Hi-Tech Smoking Jacket Has Lungs

Another example of hi tech design gone crazy. designed for the polite smoker who doesn't want to fumigate non-smokers in the area. When exhaling, the wearer of the Smoker Jacket can blow down the side of the collar into a tube. The smoke is then sent through a channel of filters, making the clear fake lungs on the outside of the white jacket haze over. The more smoke goes through the lungs, the darker they get. Over time, they'll eventually turn an icky black, reflective of the smoker's lungs. It was designed by Fiona Carswell and is meant to act as a health awareness. via Trendhunter

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Main biochemical pathways in drug addiction discovered

From The Economist A group of Chinese scientists from Peking University, led by Wei Liping has discovered the main biochemical pathways in drug addiction.
Dr Wei's group looked at the four most addictive drug types : alcohol, cocaine, nicotine and opiates. Of 1,500 genes implicated with addiction . Five genes, were common to all four types, and these five pathways therefore look as though they are at the core of the process of addiction.
The existence of these five central pathways helps explain a lot about addiction.
First, it gives weight to the belief that some people are more susceptible to all sorts of addiction than others are. That contrasts with the thought that addictions are substance-by-substance phenomena, though the two ideas are not mutually exclusive since changes in the 13 substance-specific pathways clearly also result in addiction. In other words some people are prone to addictive substances
Second, the particular pathways involved help to explain why addiction is so hard to reverse.
Addictions are hard to break. Several of them take part in strengthening the connections between nerve cells, which is the underlying basis of learning. Unlearning something by breaking these connections is hard.
Third, Dr Wei was able to link the five central pathways together into a network, and show that this network has four positive-feedback loops in it.
None of this, of course, directly helps the addict, though it reinforces the message that it is better not to start taking these drugs in the first place.
The answer is don't start doing drugs But working out how the addiction machine operates may point those looking for therapies in the right direction. And this study also shows that the old cry “more research is necessary” is not always true. Sometimes all you need to do is look at what you already have in a different way. The red text is my notes
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Live Longer ! Quit Smoking

We’ve heard for years that these actions will help us live longer, but this study actually quantifies their collective impact.
Between 1993 and 1997 the researchers questioned 20,000 healthy British men and women about their lifestyles. They also tested every participant’s blood to measure vitamin C intake, an indicator of how much fruit and vegetables people ate.
Then they assigned the participants — aged 45-79 — a score of between 0 and 4, giving one point for each of the healthy behaviors.
After allowing for age and other factors that could affect the likelihood of dying, the researchers determined that people with a score of 0 were 4-times as likely to have died, particularly from cardiovascular disease.
The researchers, who tracked deaths among the participants until 2006, also said a person with a health score of 0 had the same risk of dying as someone with a health score of 4 who was 14 years older.
The lifestyle change with the biggest benefit was giving up smoking, which led to an 80 percent improvement in health, the study found. This was followed by eating fruits and vegetables. via changing-aging

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Employees Fired for Not Smoking

Now here is a twist on the general direction of workplace rules. I'm sure it will be just a matter of time.
BERLIN (Reuters) - The owner of a small German computer company has fired three non-smoking workers because they were threatening to disturb the peace after they requested a smoke-free environment. The manager of the 10-person IT company in Buesum, named Thomas J., told the Hamburger Morgenpost newspaper he had fired the trio because their non-smoking was causing disruptions. Germany introduced non-smoking rules in pubs and restaurants on January 1, but Germans working in small offices are still allowed to smoke.
"I can't be bothered with trouble-makers," Thomas was quoted saying. "We're on the phone all the time and it's just easier to work while smoking. Everyone picks on smokers these days. It's time for revenge. I'm only going to hire smokers from now on."
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Pushing Tobacco on the web: is YouTube telling or selling you something?

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$3.4 Million Brand Icon Photo - Marlboro Man Sets New Record

I find this in a way to be incredible, but remembering the country that I live in. Very believable.




Marketing alone made this the most valuable photograph in the world. It sold for over $3.4 million dollars because of its iconic status. You recognize it as the foundation for the long-running Marlboro Man.

Richard Prince took the photo and ensconced him in the halls of American photographer fame.
The record-breaking Prince image is from his untitled cowboy series – in which Prince photographed sections of Marlboro cigarette ads and enlarged the photos to an enormous size. The photo sold at Sotheby's measures 100 by 66 inches and was one of an edition of two plus one artist's proof. It is dated 2001-02. (pdnonline)

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No buying cigarettes at #1 rated supermarket chain

It's going to be harder to even find a place to buy cigarettes in New York State as a report in the Buffalo News reports that Wegmans Markets, the #1 rated supermarket chain in the US, will stop selling tobacco productsis stamping out sales of cigarettes and other tobacco products at its supermarkets, becoming the first grocery chain in New York State to do so.
The Rochester-based company, which has 10 stores in Erie and Niagara counties, announced it will halt tobacco sales effective Feb. 10. Wegmans will continue to sell tobacco products until then, but will not replenish its inventory.
“It will now be a matter of how other businesses respond to what [Wegmans] decided to do,” said Rebecca Marion, a council spokeswoman. Target Corp., based in Minnesota, halted cigarette sales back in 1996.
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He Didn't Quit Smoking-To prove A Point

Bryan Curtis started smoking at 13, never thinking that 20 years later it would kill him and leave a wife and children alone. In his last weeks, he set out with a message for young people. He never quit smoking and neither did his family that watched him die.

one mans storya better ending quiting story
group of stories A group of stories from about.com of peoples quiting stories.
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Quit Smoking to Get NHS Benefits ?

According to a article in The Guardian-Smokers could be required to quit in exchange for NHS rights British Prime Minister Brown is to make a speech on preventive care later this month. a bill of rights for patients which will establish the "rights and responsibilities associated with an entitlement to NHS(national health service) care" with a debate on whether patients should be expected to play their own part in reducing their burden on the health service. In other words not smokng or being obese.
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