The Department of Health (DOH) Regional Office 8 has declared Maasin City College as the Best Smoke-Free College throughout Eastern Visayas.

Fewer Ontario teens are getting behind the wheel after drinking alcohol and teen smoking is at an all-time low in the province, according to new research from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

It took Tom Heger many attempts before he was finally able to quit smoking after 20 years wedded to the habit. He was finally able to break free of his addiction this year, with the aid of medication, but it was a hard road that made Heger, 42, of Norwalk, wish there was a simpler solution.

“What we found is if you treat smoking like other health conditions and diseases like high blood pressure and diabetes, you’re more likely to be successful,” says lead author Anne Joseph, a physician and director of the University of Minnesota’s applied clinical research program. “With blood pressure, you’ll give medication to get near target goals, change diet and lifestyle and keep monitoring.”

It’s not easy to quit smoking, and many who try turn to anti-smoking drugs for help. But some medications can do more harm than good.

There could be a better way to help people snuff out the smoking habit.

With effect from January 1, 2012, the Indonesian government has decided to increase the excise tax on cigarettes next year by an overall 15%, with the intention, it was said, both to discourage smoking and to increase tax revenue.

Now that the Australian Government’s plain tobacco packaging legislation has passed into law, the three tobacco transnationals which sell cigarettes in Australia are jostling to show who has the hairiest legal chest.