Smoking Apps Help Hook Addicts, Australian Study Finds

Source from:  The Star 11/02/2012

Public health scientists working to create mobile phone applications to help smokers quit have stumbled on more than 100 apps they believe are a new route to hooking addicts.
 
The study found a wide-open world of "pro-smoking content including explicit cigarette brand images are reaching millions of users, including teenagers and children."
 
The 107 apps identified as pro-smoking included virtual cigarettes smoked by blowing on the mobile device’s microphone, tobacco store finders, games and brand explanations.

 
 

"Some of these apps are trying to deliver the message of 'If you are new in this world, we are here to guide you,’ " lead researcher Nasser BinDihm of the University of Sydney, Australia, told the Star.
 
One free Google Play app for Android, Smoke Virtual Cigarette, has been downloaded more than 1 million times. Its developer, MJMS Solutions, runs a Swahili-language website.
 
Other apps were designed as lit cigarettes that could be used as battery gauges, screen savers and even virtual ashtrays. One allowed users to collect points for buying Marlboro cigarettes.
 
Some smoking simulation apps claimed to be a method to quit smoking, the study found.
 
Research says otherwise, BinDihm said.
 
"There is now well-established evidence from many studies that children’s exposure to pro-smoking messages and images is linked to increasing the likelihood to initiate smoking in adulthood.
 
"For smokers who are attempting to quit, the exposure is linked to initiate craving to smoke."
 
Researchers stopped short of tracing the home countries of the app developers, which governments may need to stop them, but did turn over their research on the developers when the Australian government asked for it.
 
"Android and Apple app stores have an advanced infrastructure that can be used to control the app content if required."
 
As well, the developers selling to the Google and Apple app stores can limit which countries receive their ads.
 
Apple flags apps meant for adults with a "maturity" warning; Android does not.
 
In the less than two weeks since the study was published in the British Medical Journal, the Australian government has reacted quickly, BinDihm said.
 
"The government has actually contacted the app stores to check if they are aware of the current legislation in Australia," he said.
 
BinDihm and other scientists pointed out in their research that the pro-smoking apps "appear to be violating Article 13 of the World Health Organization Framework, which bans advertising and promotion of tobacco products in all media, including the Internet."
 
That would also apply to countries which ban tobacco advertising; Canada is among them.
 
BinDihm discovered the pro-smoking apps through his work creating the Smart Health Project, which develops smartphone apps for consumer health care and research.
 
"We are really looking forward to the app stores’ positive response to these public health concerns," he said. "Maybe this will open doors for co-operation between public health research and app stores." Enditem