No-smoking.us

The British Forces Clinic, Allied Joint Forces Command Headquarters Naples, in Italy has won a national award for organising an event for No Smoking Day 2007. Lt Cdr Lorraine England QARNNS representing the British Forces team won three prestigious awards for newcomer of the year, best community activity and best Armed Forces activity by designing a children’s and young persons workbook for classroom use and co-ordinating the delivery of a number of stop smoking activities within the local British Forces community. Read the rest of this entry »

Fire statistics reveal that over 800 people were killed or injured in accidental house fires started by cigarettes or smoking materials in 2007.[1] The shocking figures reveal that 1 in 3 fire deaths are caused by smoking materials and men aged between 30 and 59 were among the highest risk groups for smoking related fires in the home.

In response to the serious fire risks caused by smoking, the Fire Kills campaign is supporting No Smoking Day 2009 and giving smokers yet more reasons to quit on March 11 and beyond.

Former BDO World Darts Champion and England International, John ‘Boy’ Walton is supporting the Fire Kills no smoking campaign. He intends to use No Smoking Day to finally quit smoking and is urging others to do the same. He says:

“I started smoking at a young age and know how hard it is to try and give up. Unfortunately, fire safety is rarely taken into consideration when smoking but I realised just how important it is after one of my fellow darts players lost everything in a house fire. Thankfully no-one was at home at the time, but it highlights the need for people to be aware of the fire risks of from smoking, and for everyone to recognise how important it is to fit and maintain smoke alarms. Being fire safe is yet another reason for me to quit the habit for good this No Smoking Day”.

The best way to reduce your risk is to give up. However, for smokers finding it tough to kick the habit the advice from the Fire Kills campaign is to be cautious when smoking at home and to ‘put it out, right out’ after finishing a cigarette.

Sadiq Khan, Fire Minister says:

“People shouldn’t underestimate the dangers associated with smoking in the home if cigarettes aren’t properly extinguished. The economic price of a house fire is immense and you can’t put a cost on the lives of loved ones. I would encourage smokers to give up this No Smoking Day or at the very least pay careful attention to smoking materials.” Read the rest of this entry »

The Wakayama prefectural board of education recently distributed a brochure to all third- and fourth-year primary school students explaining the ill effects of smoking.

The move is unusual in that the education ministry’s curriculum guidelines stipulate that students do not learn about smoking until their fifth- and sixth-year primary school health classes.

Since research shows that children become interested in smoking in their fourth-year of primary school, the prefectural board aims to give children information about smoking earlier.

Among the attention-grabbing questions on the front page of the four-page brochure are: How many substances in a cigarette are bad for your health? How many people die annually from smoking-related diseases?

The brochure explains that smoking is an “enemy” when it comes to playing sports and studying, and students are advised not to smoke even if others encourage them to do so.
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While everyone knows that smoking is bad for you and that smoking while pregnant is bad for baby, too, pregnant smokers don’t receive much help from their physicians to quit smoking, and few quit once they enter prenatal care, according to a new study. The study found that almost half of pregnant New Jersey smokers quit smoking before entry into prenatal care, but that only about 5 percent quit after entering prenatal care. What’s worse is that although prenatal care providers asked almost every woman entering prenatal care if they smoke, “only 56.7 percent reported that a provider counseled them to quit smoking,” said lead author Van Tong, of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Read the rest of this entry »