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Copyright 1991 Information Access Company, a Thomson Corporation Company ASAP Copyright 1991 Manisses Communications Group Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Week September 25,1991 SECTION: Vol. 3; No. 36 ; Pg. 3; ISSN: 1042-1394 LENGTH: 623 words I-IEADLINE: Tobacco industry a'disease,' says conference speaker; Fourth National Conference on Nicotine Dependence, Raleigh, NC, September 13-15, 1991 BODY: A speaker at a recent conference on nicotine addiction likened the tobacco industry to an infectious agent, spreading the leading public health problem in the world today - tobacco use. "The industry continually modifies, changes and refines the product to adapt to ~ public health concerns using what are really public relations techniques," said John Slade, M.D., who spoke at the Fourth National Conference on Nicotine Dependence. The conference, sponsored by the American Society of Addiction Medicine, was held in Raleigh, North Carolina, from September 13 to 15. Cigarette manufacturers, said Slade, imply their products are safe by reducing tar and making other minor alterations. "But these are not public health efforts to ensure the product is genuinely safe in the same sense the Consumer Product Safety Commission or the Food and Drug Administration insists products be safe," noted Slade. He added, "as long as the product remains essentially unregulated, the industry is free to make little modifications to make it less offensive and more appealing, competing, not so much with other brands of cigarettes, but with quitting smoking or not smoking at all." Slade said it is expected that there will be severe advertising restrictions or a ban on advertising altogether in the upcoming years. In anticipation, cigarette manufacturers are shoring up their distribution system, he said, "providing incentices to wholesalers and retailers to maintain them in the chain of distribution and also increasing direct mail and in-home advertising campaigns." One approach to smoking reduction that has been very successful comes from N 0 ~ Canada, wbere the excise taxes on a carton of cigarettes is between $6 and S8 ~ ~ (Canadian), said Slade, "which has reduced cigarette consumption by about 25 percent." w ~

` Slade predicted there soon will be a stronger effort in the United States to raise tax on cigarettes, given the successes seen in Canada. . Worldwide, said Slade, there are two and a half million deaths each year attributable to cigarette smoking. The half million cigarette-related deaths in the United States each year result primarily from heart disease, and to a lesser extent lung cancer and other cancers caused by smoking, noted Slade. Smoke-Free Treatment Centers As a consultant to the New Jersey Health Department for drug and alcohol treatment programs, Slade is actively involved in efforts to reduce cigarette smoking in the United States. His expertise is creating a smoke-free environment in chemical dependecy units. "About 80 percent of people presenting for treatment of alcoholism or other drug problems are also addicted to nicotine," he pointed out, "and it's been the policy of most treatment services to ignore the problem." Slade drew an analogy between cigarette smoking and other types of substance abuse saying, "if a person is admitted primarily for alcohol and is also using cocaine or marijuana, people don't thin twice about insisting that they address those problems too. We're only doing our patients a disservice by being inconsistent." Slade's advice to chemical dependency units trying to go smoke-free is to start by getting a long-term commitment from the organization's administration. Next, become thoroughly educated about the problems associated with nicotine dependency and the clinical opportunities smoking cessation offers. "A lot of units have found that more gets done in treatment when patients are not hiding behind their smoking." Another point Slade makes is the need for staff members to address their own nicotine dependence and not be actively addicted to nicotine themselves, if they are going to enforce nicotine abstinence on their patients. SIC: 2100 TOBACCO PRODUCTS IAC-NUMBER: IAC 11408343 IAC-CLASS: Health LANGUAGE: ENGLISH LOAD-DATE: October 11, 1995 N O O ~ is W 6'1 4 N CO ~

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