Smoke Free Apartments

Support grows for smoke-free apartments

Poll shoes 57 per cent of residents would support ban

First came smoke-free restaurants and bars. Then came workplace bans. Now, support for kicking smokers out of apartment buildings is hitting home, quite literally.

An Ontario anti-smoking group says polling it commissioned has found majority support for banning smoking within individual residences in apartment buildings or any other multiunit household in the province.

The Ontario Tobacco-Free Network, which had the poll conducted and will release it today, says 57 per cent of those living in multiunit dwellings would support such a ban.

Smoking is currently prohibited in elevators, hallways and other common areas in Ontario, but not in apartment residences. The poll detected widespread annoyance over second-hand smoke seeping into the residences of non-smokers, with half of those surveyed saying they've had tobacco smoke odour enter their units from elsewhere in their buildings, and 70 per cent of those saying they're bothered by it.

The finding is believed to be the first public opinion survey in Canada showing attitudes are hardening against smokers in home settings. Until now, smokers have thought of their homes as sanctuaries where they could light up in peace, but the poll suggests smoking is starting to be viewed in the same light as other off-putting behaviour in communal settings, such as noise, poor hygiene and late-night parties.

The pollster who conducted the survey predicted the next big move against smoking will be in multiunit dwellings, with increasing pressure for buildings to be designated as smoke free.

"What the research clearly shows is that you've got six out of 10 people out there that, if you hang out a shingle that says smoke-free apartment or condominium complex, you're going to have people decide to move into that," said John Wright, a senior vice-president of Ipsos Reid, which conducted the survey.

The poll surveyed 1,800 people across the province who live in multiunit residences, and is considered to be accurate within 2.9 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. It was conducted in November and March of 2006, with the second round of questioning done to confirm the findings.

If the finding that nearly half of those living in multiunit dwellings have had tobacco smoke enter their units was applied across Ontario, it suggests about two million of the four million total residents are being exposed to unwanted second-hand smoke, a known carcinogen, from neighbours.

The poll also found that 64 per cent of those living in multiunit dwellings would choose, when looking for a place to live, a smoke-free building over one where smoking was permitted.

The Ontario Tobacco-Free Network is a coalition of three prominent public health organizations: the Canadian Cancer Society, Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario, and the Lung Association.

Network spokeswoman Irene Gallagher said the health organizations found they were starting to deal with a large number of unsolicited complaints from members of the public about second-hand smoke drifting among residences in multiunit dwellings. The health groups wanted to check how widespread these concerns were.

According to Ms. Gallagher, the large number of respondents preferring not to come into contact with smokers in home settings suggests an unfilled need in the housing market. "There is a big demand in the market for smoke-free buildings," she said.

Currently, there is nothing to stop landlords from offering smoke-free buildings or having non-smoking clauses in leases, and some building owners in both Canada and the U.S. have begun seeking this status for their residences, as have some new condominium developments.

The poll found that about one-third of respondents were bothered by smoke from their neighbours and 6 per cent found the problem so annoying they either moved or considered moving to get away from smokers.

A number of complaints have also been made to Ontario's Landlord and Tenant Board, where some residents have sought to have landlords evict smokers using legal provisions normally applied against those who create nuisances.

The finding of widespread health concern over smoking in multiunit homes doesn't come as a surprise to Adrianne Schutt, a Peterborough resident who lives in a small apartment building and has recently been bothered by smoke from neighbours.

If there were a ban in Ontario on smoking in apartments, "I would be overjoyed, absolutely overjoyed. It's incredibly unpleasant" to be exposed to second-hand smoke, she said.

She lives in an apartment where the landlord failed to enforce an existing lease provision banning smoking, something that irked her after two heavy smokers moved next door and began smoking on a shared balcony, causing cigarette smoke to drift into her unit.

"You shouldn't be subjected to something hazardous in your own home," she said. "It's not 1930 any more. We know this [tobacco] is going to kill us."

Source: Martin Mittelstaedt, The Globe and Mail

5 minutes to Butt Out

5 minutes of exercise seems to curb smoking desire, at least in the short run

As little as five minutes of exercise seems to help smokers curb their craving for a cigarette, a review of a dozen studies found.

The research showed that moderate exercise, such as walking, significantly reduced the intensity of smokers' nicotine withdrawal symptoms.

"If we found the same effects in a drug, it would immediately be sold as an aid to help people quit smoking," said Dr. Adrian Taylor, the study's lead author and professor of exercise and health psychology at the University of Exeter.

Taylor and colleagues reviewed 12 papers looking at the connection between exercise and nicotine deprivation. They focused on exercises that could be done outside a gym, such as walking and isometrics, or the flexing and tensing of muscles. According to their analysis, just five minutes of exercise was often enough to help smokers overcome their immediate need for a nicotine fix.

After various types of moderate physical exertion, researchers asked people to rate their need for a cigarette. Those who had exercised reported a reduced desire to smoke.

"What's surprising is the strength of the effect," said Dr. Robert West, professor of health psychology at University College London, who was not involved in the study. "They found that the acute effects of exercise were as effective as a nicotine patch."

West cautioned that it was unknown how long the effects of exercise would last. "You could in theory use exercise to deal with short bouts of nicotine cravings, but we don't know if it would help in the longer term," he said. It is likely that exercise would have to be combined with a larger strategy of other anti-smoking techniques to be successful in helping people quit.

Nearly anything that distracts people from smoking is thought to help, but scientists have long suspected that exercise might have a more potent effect. Taylor theorized that exercise could produce the mood-enhancing hormone dopamine, which could, in turn, reduce smokers' nicotine dependence.

Still, experts were not convinced about the study's practical applications. "Doctors can tell patients to do things until they're blue in the face, but the limiting factor may be getting people to actually take up exercise," said Dr. Peter Hajek, professor of clinical psychology at Queen Mary University Hospital in London. Hajek was not involved in the study.

He said that if people were taught simple exercises, including isometrics they could do at their desk, they could potentially stave off their need for a cigarette break. "When you are dying for a cigarette, you can try to exercise instead," he said.

Source: CBC.ca

Smoking Visuals Decrease Habit

Graphic warnings on cigarette packs working, study says

SHERYL UBELACKER

Canadian Press/ Globe and Mail February 6, 2007

TORONTO — When it comes to changing the behaviour of smokers with warning labels on cigarette packages, it seems the bigger and more graphically in-your-face the better.

That's the conclusion of a four-year study that looked at differences in package warnings and their effects on smokers in Canada, Britain, Australia and the United States.

And it appears that Canada — with its large-sized warnings that include such photos as a mouthful of teeth with gums blackened by oral cancer and diseased lungs — leads the pack among the four countries in getting the anti-tobacco message across to smokers.

To conduct the study, published Tuesday in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, researchers surveyed 15,000 adult smokers four times between 2002 and 2005. They asked a number of questions related to warnings on cigarette packages in participants' four respective countries, including whether they noticed them and how often they read them.

“We also asked if they noticed cessation information on packages, whether it makes them think about the health risks, as well as whether they've been stopped from having a cigarette because of the warnings or whether it's made them more likely to think about quitting,” said co-author David Hammond, an assistant professor of health studies and gerontology at the University of Waterloo.

“And what we find is that certainly when we started, the Canadian warnings performed far better than all of the others,” Mr. Hammond said from Waterloo, Ont.

In December, 2000, Canada was the first country in the world to put photos on cigarettes to go along with 16 different text messages in English and French, such as “Cigarettes Cause Lung Cancer” and “Cigarettes Cause Strokes,” that take up half the package, both front and back.

In 2002, when the first survey was conducted, Britain had six text warnings comprising just six per cent of packs, front and back; Australia's six were slightly larger (a quarter of the front and a third of the back); while the four U.S. warnings -- unchanged since 1984 -- are relegated to the side of the pack in small text.

In that first survey, warnings were noticed most often by Canadian smokers (60 per cent), followed by Australians (52 per cent), British smokers (44 per cent) and American tobacco users (30 per cent).

But Mr. Hammond said that since 2003, when Britain bumped up its text warnings to 16 and blew up their size to a third or more of the face and back of packages, “U.K. smokers are even more likely than Canadians to say that they look at and read the health warnings.”

The proportion of British smokers who reported noticing warnings “often” or “very often” soared to 82 per cent by the second survey.

“So what that tells us is . . . any time you refresh a health communication you're going to see an increase in the effectiveness, just because they're new.”

To adjust for the “novelty effect,” the researchers compared responses to Canadian warnings two and half years after they came out with those to British messages following the same period of time.

“What you find is that the Canadian warnings are either as good as or better than the U.K. warnings in every case,” said Mr. Hammond. “And in many ways it's common sense. The more vivid and engaging you make a warning, the more effective it is,” he said, pointing to how tobacco and other advertising campaigns employ pictures to sell their products.

“And so I think it really only makes sense to do the same when communicating health information.”

Roberta Ferrence, a senior scientist at the Centre for Mental Health and Addiction in Toronto, said the “innovative” study has produced a lot of important data on smokers' behaviour.

“Canada for most of the measures is the top or among the top responders with the highest proportion of people responding that it made them think, made them look and so forth.”

“And that's one of the key things that warnings are designed to do,” said Ms. Ferrence, executive director of the Ontario Tobacco Research Unit at the University of Toronto. She was not involved it the study.

While warnings are meant to affect tobacco users, “they can have an impact far beyond the actual smoker who's carrying the package,” she said.

“They create discussion. A parent can be sitting at the breakfast table and there's a pack on the table and a little kid says to him: ‘What does this mean Daddy?' when they see the picture.”

And for the smoker, the package is something they see “more than any billboard or anti-smoking ad or commercial,” she said. “This is something they see every time they have a cigarette.”

Ken Kyle, director of public issues for the Canadian Cancer Society, said the study provides further evidence of the effectiveness of large, picture-based warnings.

“It also provides additional rationale and encouragement to all countries that these warning labels should be adopted,” Mr. Kyle said in a statement. Several countries, including Brazil, Singapore and Thailand, have followed Canada's lead and introduced pictures on packages.

Mr. Hammond said picture warnings can also reach smokers with poor literacy skills compared to those with text-only warnings, an important factor among some Canadians and populations in countries with low education levels.

“I think looking forward to the next round of warnings in Canada. One way of making them more effective is to do things like include real stories from real smokers,” he said. “Conveying health information isn't just about listing diseases or giving statistics. It's about communicating risk in a meaningful way.”

Health Canada is conducting public consultations that may lead to new warning messages, a spokesman for the federal department said Monday. A proposal calls for 48 different warnings, with blocks of them displayed at any one time and rotated every two years.

“The proposed changes include creating messages of encouragement with information on the health benefits of quitting and tips on how to quit smoking,” said the spokesman. Revised warnings would likely not be implemented until late 2008 at the earliest.