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Report finds global smokers consider quitting due to graphic health warnings on packages Countries observe World No Tobacco Day on May 31

Health warnings on cigarette packages prompt smokers to think about quitting, according to a 14-nation study. Effective warning labels as a component of comprehensive tobacco control can help save lives by reducing tobacco use, said a report released by CDC.

The study, published in today’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, finds adult usage of manufactured cigarettes varied widely in the 14 countries surveyed: Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Mexico, Philippines, Poland, the Russian Federation, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, Uruguay and Vietnam. Among men, prevalence ranged from 9.6 percent (India) to 59.3 percent (Russian Federation). Among women, prevalence was highest in Poland (22.9 percent) and less than 2 percent in Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Thailand, and Vietnam.

“Tobacco kills more than 5 million people a year - more than HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria combined - and will kill more than 1 billion people in this century unless urgent action is taken,” said CDC director Thomas R. Frieden, M.D., M.P.H. “Warning labels motivate smokers to quit and discourage nonsmokers from starting, are well accepted by the public, and can be effectively implemented at virtually no cost to governments.”

According to the report, the vast majority of men that use manufactured cigarettes noticed package warning labels-more than 90 percent of men in all countries except India (78.4 percent) and Mexico (83.5 percent). Among women, more than 90 percent in seven of the 14 countries reported noticing package warnings, and at least 75 percent in 12 of 14 countries reported noticing a package warning. Among those who noticed package warnings, data suggest there was substantial interest in quitting because of the warnings.

ORANGE COUNTY - From Orange County Sheriff's Office - On April 22, 2011 the Texas Department of State Health Services outlawed marijuana-like substances that are commonly found in K2, Spice and other synthetic marijuana products. The DSHS placed five synthetic cannabinoid substances in Schedule I of the Texas Schedules of Controlled Substances, making it illegal to manufacture, distribute, possess and sell the substances. The five chemicals, JWH -018, JWH-073, JWH-200, CP-47,497, and cannabicyclohexanol are found in K2 and other synthetic marijuana substances. Penalties for the manufacture, sale or possession of K2 are Class A or B misdemeanors.

6 News anchor Ashley Gaston will investigate the K2 seizures Wednesday on KFDM News at Six.

K2 or Spice, often marketed as herbal incense, contain substances that produce psychoactive effects similar to those from smoking marijuana. These marijuana-like substances are readily available through smoke shops, gas stations and the Internet.

On Wednesday May 18, 2011 the Orange County Sheriff’s Office with the assistance of Orange Police, West Orange Police, and Pinehurst Police conducted an undercover operation targeting several primary target locations engaging in the county wide distribution of synthetic marijuana. The targeted stores are believed to be the main source of supply in Orange County. The purpose of this operation is to educate and insure compliance to the new law.

During the operation, Officers went to each location and made contact with the store clerk or owner and advised them of the law concerning synthetic marijuana and also gave them a copy of the new law. Officers seized the synthetic marijuana found at the locations.

No one was arrested as a result of this operation, however follow up visits will be made and arrests will be conducted if the stores continue to violate the new law concerning synthetic marijuana.

Bath Salts do not contain any of the banned substances as required by Texas State Law, which would make it illegal to possess or sell. However, current legislation is being discussed that will ban all bath salts that contain certain chemical. It is expected that this new legislation could be passed and take effect in as little as sixty days and at the latest by September 1, 2011.

The Sheriff’s Office has advised all stores that when the new legislation becomes effective pertaining to bath salts, anyone caught selling them will be arrested and prosecuted. Many of the store owners have voluntarily agreed to pull the bath salts off the shelves in anticipation of the change in the law.

Sheriff Merritt advised he would have liked to seize the bath salts as well but has no lawful authority to do so. Unlike the Cities who can enact City Ordinances making it a Class C Misdemeanor to possess bath salts, Texas

Counties have no Regulatory Authority to enact ordinances pertaining to the possession or distribution of bath salts.

 
In a CSP Daily Exclusive, it was reported Altria Group Inc. told wholesalers last week that its U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Co. is taking prices up 10 cents per can on Copenhagen, Skoal, Cope, Husky and Red Seal MST products.

Increases will also affect the company's snus products, with Skoal Snus seeing an increase of 31 cents per can effective Sunday, May 22, and Marlboro Snus Tins increasing 31 cents per tin effective Wednesday, May 18. (Products marked for promotions that are affected include Skoal Snus with 50 cents off per can, and Red Seal with 75 cents off per can.)

AUSTIN - Texas lawmakers are cracking down on sales of highly caffinated energy drinks.

On Thursday, the House approved a ban that would take alcohol-based energy drinks off the market.

Supporters of the ban say that mixing alcohol with high-caffeine drinks have led to heart attacks and car accidents.

The Food and Drug Administration warned at least four companies, which produce the drinks, that their products were unsafe.

According to the National Conferences of State Legislatures, at least 13 states have already banned the sale of one Four Loko. However, recently the company that makes Four Loko, announced that it had removed caffine from the product.

By Erica L. Rodriguez

NEDERLAND- It's a $20,000 milestone. Law enforcement officers pulled K2 and Bath Salts out of a convenience store in Nederland in one of the first such investigations in Southeast Texas.

The seizure comes just days after Nederland passed rules outlawing K2 and Bath Salts. The federal government has outlawed the use of five new drugs that are used in K2. The Nederland Police Chief is vowing to continue the crackdown. "These people are selling this stuff without any regard for human safety. It's money driven and that's all it is," says Chief Darrell Bush.

And the money is big. Officers seized an estimated $20,000 worth of K2 and Bath Salts. "If you're doing it we are coming after you," adds Chief Bush.

That's exactly what they did. The state joined Nederland Police Tuesday in seizing the drugs from the Touchdown Convenience store on Nederland Avenue. "The administrative action is to either revoke or suspend their beer and wines sales permit."

KFDM News decided to go to the store to get some answers. We showed up at Touchdown and asked the clerk about the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission inspection the previous evening. The store owner wasn't there and the store clerk said, "the owner told me not to talk on this issue."

We went to look for the owner. According to public records, the owner lives at a home in Port Neches. A man answered the door, denied he's the owner, but spoke with us.

He said the drugs were taken off the shelf a week ago. But officers tell us they found K2 and Bath Salts hidden in the back of the store.

The man continued denying he's the owner when we pressed him with more questions.

The chief is vowing to get answers because, "we've got people dying from this stuff. But nobody seems to care so we are going to try to make it to where they do care."

The Nederland Police Department is waiting to see if it can file this case with the federal government. That would make the charge a felony.

By: Lindsey Kovacevich

BUNA (UPDATE) - It's a fatal addiction striking from coast to coast, in America's heartland and in Southeast Texas. The addiction is affecting a staggering number of people across the nation, including a family in Southeast Texas that says a husband and father lost his job and his life because of his addiction to bath salts and K-2.

K-2 is synthetic marijuana. Bath salts, not the type sold for decades at markets, but a new type sold in small packages at convenience stores. It mimics the effects of cocaine. They can cause hallucinations lasting days, weeks, and can kill.

Richard Kerkau of Buna shot himself on March 28 at the family's home in Buna. His family says he was smoking K-2 and snorting bath salts.

The Kerkau family describe themselves as tight knit, often enjoying barbecues together. But March 28 changed their lives forever.

"He went into the front room and I noticed he had his rifle with him," said Kerkau's wife, Amber. "He had told me he just couldn't take anything anymore. He told his children to go to their room and he took his own life." 

His mother, Rebecca, added, "I talked to him 20 minutes before. He seemed fine."

Richard's parents and his wife started recognizing strange behavior in him after he began smoking K-2 and snorting bath salts.

"He was hallucinating a little,"  He was saying odd things that didn't make sense. It wasn't him," said Amber.

"Paranoid about everything," added his father, Richard.

The Kerkaus say they watched Richard change, deteriorate, and within weeks they didn't even recognize the person he had become.

"Very fast," said Amber. "He became someone else someone different very fast. Within two weeks he was not the same."

Richard says his son "lost so much weight. Stout man, withered to nothing that quick."

That quick, dramatic change is a story playing out every day, week and month across the nation.

Here are some numbers that tell the story: The American Association of Poison Control says in just the first four months of this year, it's received more than 1,700 calls about bath salts. That's up from only 302 calls last year.

Poison Control had more than 2,800 calls in 2010 about K-2, and already has had more than 1,600 hundred calls in 2011.

"It's not meant for humans. It will kill you," said Amber.

Family members of Kerkau say it killed him. Killed a man who never had a drug problem in the past, a man who had been a dedicated Marine, the type of person you'd never expect would see his life spiral downward and fall apart.

"It will take the person you love and it will destroy them," said Amber. "It makes them someone they're not. I had a perfectly good husband and father and it turned him into somebody I no longer have."

A life cut short. Kids that will never grow up with a father. A wife who will never again see her husband. Parents that had to bury their own child.

"We love him very much. We miss him so badly. Want him back. We just want him back," said Richard.

While they long for the impossible, they fight to make sure Richard Kerkau's life had meaning for themselves and others.

"Watch your children. Watch them closely. If they start acting funny something is going on. I will continue talking about it until something is done," said Richard's mom.

Richard Kerkau's autopsy is pending.

K-2 and bath salts are gaining national attention. Nationally known Dr. Mehmet Oz wrote an article about them in this month's TIME Magazine. The Texas legislature recently passed a bill banning K-2 and substances like it. Many cities, including Jasper, Kirbyville, and Port Arthur, have banned the sale and consumption of K-2.

A bill to outlaw bath salts is moving through the legislature and local law enforcement agencies are hoping it will pass in this session. Nederland is the first city in Southeast Texas, to our knowledge, that has approved a law banning bath salts. It did so this week.

SOUTHEAST TEXAS - It's a fatal addiction that's affecting a staggering number of people across the nation, including a family in Southeast Texas that says its loved one lost his job and his ultimately his life because of his addiction to bath salts and K2.

Bath salts are sold at many convenience stores in small packets or containers of white powder. They aren't the bath salts sold for decades in grocery stores, but the type that mimic the effects of cocaine. People report hallucinations that last days and even weeks.

A number of communities and legislatures are working to ban bath salts.

K2 is synthetic marijuana. The Texas legislature has voted to ban K2.

Reported by Lindsey Kovacevich

The National Prescription Medicine Take Back Day will be held April 30, 2011 at Central Mall in Port Arthur, located at 3100 Highway 365. The event will begin at 10am and end at 2pm.

  “Over 3,400 sites nationwide have joined the effort that seeks to prevent increased pill abuse and theft. Government, community, public health and law enforcement partners will be collecting potentially dangerous expired, unused, and unwanted prescription drugs for destruction. The service is free and anonymous; no questions asked.”

 This local Prescription Medicine Take Back event has been organized by Southeast Texas Regional Planning Commission and the Substance Abuse Division’s Regional Alcohol and Drug Abuse Advisory Coalition (RADAAC) and DEA.

The Texas Department of State Health Services is outlawing marijuana-like substances that are commonly found in K2, Spice and other synthetic marijuana products. The ban will become effective April 22.

DSHS placed five synthetic cannabinoid substances in Schedule I of the Texas Schedules of Controlled Substances, making it illegal to manufacture, distribute, possess and sell the substances. Penalties for the manufacture, sale or possession of K2 are Class A or B misdemeanors.

K2 or Spice, often marketed as herbal incense, contain substances that produce psychoactive effects similar to those from smoking marijuana. These marijuana-like substances are readily available through smoke shops, gas stations and the Internet.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration used its emergency scheduling authority to temporarily ban synthetic marijuana or similar “fake pot” products that mimic the effects of marijuana. The DEA action March 2 made it illegal to manufacture, sell or possess these products for at least one year.

Following the DEA’s action, DSHS is required by state law to place the substances on the Texas Schedules of Controlled Substances unless the commissioner objects.

Schedule I, the most restrictive category on the Texas Schedules of Controlled Substances, is reserved for unsafe, highly abused substances with no accepted medical use. Five chemicals, JWH -018, JWH-073, JWH-200, CP-47,497, and cannabicyclohexanol that are found in K2 were placed on the Schedule.

Penalties for the manufacture, sale or possession of K2 are outlined in Section 481.119 of the Texas Controlled Substances Act. The penalties remain in effect unless the Texas Legislature determines a different penalty group for the substances.

Persons found guilty of a Class A misdemeanor are subject to a fine not to exceed $4,000 and/or confinement in jail for a term not to exceed one year. Persons found guilty of a Class B misdemeanor are subject to a fine not to exceed $2,000 and/or confinement in jail for a term not to exceed 180 days.

Since January 2010, approximately 600 calls were made to the Texas Poison Center Network related to K2 exposure. Reported adverse effects associated with use of these marijuana-like substances include chest pain, heart palpitations, agitation, drowsiness, hallucinations, nausea, vomiting, dizziness and confusion.