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Varenicline decreases alcohol consumption in heavy-drinking smokers.  

• Anti-Smoking Drug Decreases Alcohol Consumption in Heavy-Drinking Smokers 

The smoking cessation drug varenicline significantly reduced alcohol consumption in a group of heavy-drinking smokers, in a study carried out by researchers at the Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center at the University of California, San Francisco.

“Alcohol abuse is a huge problem, and this is a big step forward in identifying a potential new treatment,” said senior author Howard L. Fields, MD, PhD, professor of neurology and director of the Wheeler Center for the Neurobiology of Addiction at UCSF.

The study was published on May 1 in the journal Psychopharmacology.

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• Rapid City hookah lounge gears up for court battle over South Dakota smoking ban, lawyer says 

A hookah lounge in western South Dakota is firing up for a court fight over the state's smoking ban by asking a judge Monday to block police from targeting the business until the case hits a courtroom.

Attorney Stephen Wesolick, who represents Ifrit's Hookah Lounge in Rapid City, filed a motion for a temporary injunction and asked that a judge forbid police from ticketing the lounge for selling tobacco products alongside wine and beer -- actions that a prosecutor has said violates the smoking ban.

In the meantime, the lounge has voluntarily quit serving alcohol even though owners believe that hookah isn't covered by the law, Wesolick said.

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SD Hookah Lounge No Longer Selling Alcohol 

VIDEO: Rapid City hookah lounge faces an ultimatum  

Stop selling the hookah or stop selling the alcohol.

Those are the only choices Ifrit's Hookah Lounge has to be in compliance with the statewide smoking ban, Pennington County State's Attorney Glenn Brenner says. And, Brenner says, they have less than two weeks to make the decision.

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Levy tax on tobacco, junk food, says IIM Ahmedabad thinktank  

A fund for public health should be created by levying specific taxes on tobacco, alcohol, petrol and junk foods, believes Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) faculty Dileep Mavalankar.

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• Fetal Cocaine Exposure May Not Affect Kids' Academics: Study 

Exposure to cocaine, tobacco or marijuana before birth does not cause children to score lower on academic tests, according to a new study.

Prenatal alcohol exposure, however, even in children with no signs of fetal alcohol syndrome, was associated with lower scores at age 11 in math reasoning and spelling, Boston University researchers found.

The negative associations between intrauterine alcohol exposure and lower test scores are significant, the researchers said, because the study controlled for other substances, and the children did not have fetal alcohol syndrome and had not been born preterm, all of which could potentially decrease test scores.

In conducting the study, which was published online in the journal Vulnerable Children and Youth Studies, researchers collected academic achievement test scores from 119 low-income 11-year-olds enrolled in a study on cocaine exposure before birth. The researchers found that neither intrauterine exposure to cocaine nor exposure to tobacco or marijuana was associated with lower test scores.

The study authors said their findings could have serious implications for education.

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SULLUM: George Will: Drug Prohibition Is an Awful Flop. We Like It.  

Since Will begins the column by implicitly conceding that alcohol is morally indistinguishable from illegal drugs, it is disappointing that he leans on Wilson's comment about nicotine vs. cocaine, which is frequently cited by prohibitionists even though it is essentially meaningless. Sometimes cocaine debases life; more often (judgng from, among other things, the government's own survey data), cocaine enhances life, in the sense that it provides pleasure without causing serious problems. It is telling that Wilson picked nicotine for his comparison, since he never could have gotten away with a similarly glib claim about alcohol. Does alcohol debase life? Again, sometimes yes, but typically no. This observation tells us nothing about the proper legal status of either drug.

Contrary to Will's assertion, there are several reasons to believe that the sum total of drug addiction problems would not be much bigger, and might be smaller, if prohibition were repealed . . .

It is important to separate addiction—a hard-to-break attachment—from its consequences. Will and Wilson both assert that nicotine kills smokers, for example, when in fact it is smoke that kills smokers. Nicotine itself is safe enough that the FDA has approved it, in various forms, as a substitute for cigarettes. Nonpharmaceutical alternatives such as snus and electronic cigarettes also are much less hazardous, for the same reason: People can consume them without inhaling combustion products. A pack-a-day cigarette smoker who switches to nicotine gum or e-cigarettes may still be addicted to nicotine, but this addiction is now a much smaller problem. Likewise, people can use pharmaceutical-quality opiates for many years without suffering serious health problems, provided they follow sanitary injection practices and do not mix depressants. In addition to eliminating the drug hazards created by prohibition, legalization would enable manufacturers to compete based on safety, offering products that minimize risk while delivering the effects customers want.

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Health and Societal Costs of Marijuana vs. Alcohol and Tobacco: Prohibitionists' Concerns Answered and Refuted 

It is no surprise that lifelong prohibitionist William Bennett recently took to the mainstream blogosphere to criticize Pat Robertson's about face on the issue of marijuana legalization.

"Evangelical patriarch Rev. Pat Robertson has long been a leader in the conservative movement advocating for a better civil and moral society," Bennett opined on CNN.com. "But his recent support of marijuana legalization couldn't be more wrongheaded." . . .

Cannabis is far safer than tobacco.

According to a 2009 white paper by the Canadian Center on Substance Abuse, health-related costs per user are eight times higher for drinkers than they are for those who use cannabis, and are more than 40 times higher for tobacco smokers. It states: "In terms of (health-related) costs per user: tobacco-related health costs are over $800 per user, alcohol-related health costs are much lower at $165 per user, and cannabis-related health costs are the lowest at $20 per user." . . .

In sum, concerns expressed by Bill Bennett and his likeminded prohibitionists regarding the potential health implications and social costs associated with cannabis do not validate the drug’s continued criminalization. Just the opposite is true. As acknowledged by no less than Bennett himself, there are numerous adverse health consequences associated with alcohol, tobacco and prescription pharmaceuticals – all of which are far more dangerous and costlier to society than cannabis – and it’s precisely because of these consequences that these products are legally regulated and their use is restricted to particular consumers and specific settings. Similarly, a pragmatic regulatory framework allowing for the limited legal use cannabis by adults would best mitigate the potential health risks and societal costs associated with its use.

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The effect of tobacco and alcohol and their reduction/cessation on mortality in oral cancer patients: Short communication 

• Ontario health agencies call for strong measures to tackle chronic illness  

Two provincial health agencies are calling for hiking tobacco taxes, banning smoking on bar and restaurant patios, setting minimum prices for alcoholic beverages and making phys-ed mandatory right through high school.

The sweeping recommendations, contained in a report from Cancer Care Ontario and Public Health Ontario for release Tuesday, are aimed at addressing the high percentage of deaths in Ontario (79 percent) related to chronic but largely preventable illnesses. These include some cancers, cardiovascular disease, chronic respiratory disease and diabetes.

These conditions not only diminish quality of life but threaten the future of the health system, warns an advance copy of the report obtained by the Star.

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EDITORIAL: Alabama's beer and cigarette taxes are out of sync (editorial)  

New generation free trade agreements threaten progressive tobacco and alcohol policies  

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Researchers participate in Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco's annual meeting 

Researchers from Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla., are participating in the 18th Annual Meeting of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco (SRNT) from March 13-16 at the Hilton Americas Houston Hotel in Texas.

According to Thomas H. Brandon, Ph.D., chair of the Moffitt Department of Health Outcomes and Behavior and director of Moffitt's Tobacco Research and Intervention Program (TRIP), the large contingent of Moffitt tobacco and nicotine researchers will be presenting research results that focus on smoking cessation and relapse, behavioral aspects of nicotine addiction, and the "cues" that can cause smoking relapse in those trying to quit.

"Our researchers conduct high-quality research of psychosocial and behavioral factors that contribute to tobacco use," said Brandon. "We also focus on the development and evaluation of improved and novel methods for tobacco use prevention and smoking cessation."

Their work covers research on nicotine addiction, relapse, intervention and conducting clinical trials. For example, Brandon and colleagues have developed a "self-help" relapse-prevention intervention program now in use by the National Cancer Institute.

During the SRNT 18th Annual Meeting, Brandon will give a plenary talk on "Back to the Future: Reinvigorating Behavioral Smoking Cessation Research" and be a discussant.

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• Tweens just say 'maybe' to cigarettes and alcohol  

When it comes to prevention of substance use in our tween population, turning our kids on to thought control may just be the answer to getting them to say no.

New research published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, co-led by professors Roisin O'Connor of Concordia University and Craig Colder of State University of New York at Buffalo, has found that around the tween-age years kids are decidedly ambivalent toward cigarettes and alcohol. It seems that the youngsters have both positive and negative associations with these harmful substances and have yet to decide one way or the other. Because they are especially susceptible to social influences, media portrayals of drug use and peer pressure become strong alies of substance use around these formative years.

"Initiation and escalation of alcohol and cigarette use occurring during late childhood and adolescence makes this an important developmental period to examine precursors of substance use," says O'Connor, who is an Assistant Professor in Concordia's Department of Psychology. "We conducted this study to have a better understanding of what puts this group at risk for initiating substance use so we can be more proactive with prevention."

The study showed that at the impulsive, automatic level, these kids thought these substances were bad but they were easily able to overcome these biases and think of them as good when asked to place them with positive words. O'Connor explains that "this suggests that this age group may be somewhat ambivalent about drinking and smoking. We need to be concerned when kids are ambivalent because this is when they may be more easily swayed by social influences."

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