For many folks in tobacco control, October is an exceptionally busy month. I was just at the annual meeting of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco (SRNT) in Madrid last week, popped back to New Jersey for a few days and have just arrived in Basel (via Zurich) for the 4th European Conference on Tobacco or Health. Then later in the month its the US National Conference on Tobacco or Health. Anyone ever think of spacing these things out?
So I have to confess that after getting almost no sleep on arriving at hotel at noon, I sat in the room and switched on the TV. To my delite Eurosport were showing a rerun of the recent France v Scotland football match in which my team thrashed the French AGAIN. I missed this when I was in the states so couldn't resist watching to see McFadden's glorious goal. But now I'm actually in the conference hall, trying to get a sense of whats hot in European tobacco control. Clearly the big push is for comprehensive smoke-free public place legislation. I left to work in USA in 2000 and since then progress on smokefree air has been dramatic. Its great to be able to go out for a drink in the UK without stinking of smoke. Many countries have shown leadership on this, but personally I think we all have a lot to thank the Irish for. So many people around the world know of the Irish pub culture and figure that, "If Ireland can go smoke-free, so can we."
The topic I'm speaking on (smokeless tobacco for harm reduction) is usually quite controversial, so we'll see how that goes tomorrow morning. I'll be interested to see what people thought of the recent Royal College of Physician's report on tobacco harm reduction. It was only published last week and is about 250 pages. I think its an excellent and radical strategy document, and hope people take the time to read and consider it. You can view and download the full pdf for free from: http://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/pubs/brochure.aspx?e=234
OK I'm off to meet up with a few friends - will post a shorter one in a little while.
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