OTTAWA, ONTARIO – A new study on the effect on children of watching smoking in movies found that federal and provincial subsidies to Hollywood studios undermine public health efforts to reduce smoking.

“Studies worldwide show smoking in movies is one of the most powerful recruiters of young people into lifelong tobacco addiction,” said Neil Collishaw, research director of Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada, which commissioned the study “Tobacco Vector”. “Now we have estimates that 130,000 teenage Canadians who currently smoke were recruited by their exposure to smoking on screen, of whom 43,000 will die prematurely from smoking.”

The compelling evidence that exposure to smoking in films causes young people to become smokers has led the World Health Organization, the U.S. Institute of Medicine, the U.S. National Cancer Institute, and now today the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, among many others, to call for steps to permanently and substantially reduce young people’s exposure. The U.S. film industry has so far refused appeals to change its self-administered rating system to apply an adult rating to new films with tobacco content.

“Canada’s provincial movie ratings don’t protect children as well as U.S. ratings,” said Dr. Chris Mackie, whose organization has coordinated campaigns for smoke-free movies in central-west Ontario. “Because so many R-rated films are re-rated ’14A’ or ‘PG’ when they cross our borders, Canadian youth can watch more than two-thirds of these smoking movies. American youth see fewer than half.”

“Canadian provincial and federal governments are unintentionally contributing to the problem,” said Jonathan Polansky, author of the study and a consultant to tobacco prevention agencies and policy research projects in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and other nations. “First, the provincial rating systems allow many of the U.S. studio films with the most smoking, R-rated in the U.S., to be dumped into the Canadian youth market, spiking youth tobacco exposure. Second, scores of U.S. studio films with smoking, accessible to young people, are actually being paid for by Canada’s taxpayers through generous production tax credits.”

The study estimated that, over the past five years, Canada’s provinces and the federal government granted a quarter of a billion dollars to fund Hollywood productions intended for young audiences and that featured smoking. Every dollar in film subsidies may in the end cost Canada $1.70 in societal tobacco losses.

“Our concerns are not with film artists, small producers, or documentary film-makers,” said Neil Collishaw. “The problem is with big Hollywood studios wittingly or unwittingly promoting smoking around the world, and with Canadian tax dollars being used to harm the health of young people world-wide.”

The report identifies several steps governments should take, including changing rating systems to ensure youth-rated films do not depict smoking (unless the smoker is an actual historical figure known to have smoked or the film unambiguously portrays the dire health consequences of tobacco use), ending display of tobacco brands in films, requiring film producers to attest that their production was not influenced to show tobacco, and making future youth-accessible films that depict smoking ineligible for public subsidies.

Smoking scenes are still common in Chinese movies and television dramas, according to the “2009 Report on Smoking in Chinese Movies and TV Dramas” released by the Chinese Association on Tobacco Control on Aug. 22.

Two hit movies – “The Message” and “The Founding of a Republic” – have both been put on the warning list. The association also sent an open letter to the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television appealing for a ban on smoking in movies and on television.

The association started compiling the annual statistics on smoking scenes in popular Chinese movies and TV dramas in 2007. According to analyses of 40 movies and 30 dramas shown in 2009, 31 movies have smoking scenes, accounting for nearly 78 percent of the total, and 28 dramas have smoking scenes, 93 percent of the total. Only nine movies and two dramas do not depict smoking at all.

Over 54 percent of the 11,000 middle school students surveyed said that they often see smoking in movies and dramas, and nearly 39 percent think that actors have shown their maturity and charm through smoking.

In addition, nearly 60 percent approve of or have no negative opinions on smoking scenes, according to a survey report released by the School Health Research Institute under the Beijing Center for Disease Control on Aug. 22.

The proportion of students who have imitated smoking by characters in movies increases from junior high schools to senior high schools to vocational high schools. Nearly 33 percent of middle school students said that they have imitated actors’ smoking behaviors, and nearly 58 percent of students in their last year of vocational high schools have imitated smoking. In addition, a certain portion of students took up smoking simply because they have seen their idols smoke.

Health activists are lauding the Commerce Ministry’s push to remove alcohol and tobacco products from a list of products covered by a free trade deal with the European Union.

Center for Alcohol Studies director Thaksaphon Thamarangsi yesterday said alcohol and tobacco should be considered “special products” and should not be included on the list of products to be discussed at trade negotiations with the EU.

Deputy Commerce Minister Alongkorn Pholbutr’s decision to exclude alcoholic beverages and tobacco from the talks will help safeguard Thai consumers from an influx of hazardous products, which will become cheaper if they are listed under the free trade deal, he said.

The trade pact will also force governments to soften their alcohol consumption control policy, Dr Thaksaphon said.

About 80% of imported alcohol from the EU is well packaged and designed, and could attract young drinkers to try their products, he said.

“If these two products are included on the list, they will be exempt from customs tax,” he said.

“The price of imported alcohol and tobacco will be cheaper and these products, which damage health and society, will be more accessible to young drinkers and smokers.”

Studies show that more teenagers are drinking alcohol on a regular basis than in the past.

Anti-alcohol and tobacco activists recently petitioned Mr Alongkorn not to bow to pressure from alcohol and tobacco producers.

Imported alcohol products attract 60% customs tax. The volume of alcohol imports from the EU last year – valued at 5.14 billion baht – accounted for half of total alcohol imports to the country, Anti-Alcohol Network coordinator Kamron Choodecha said.

“Free trade agreements are important for economic growth as well as the country’s development and competitiveness, but the effect of alcohol on society should be taken into account,” Mr Kamron said.

Tobacco Control Research and Knowledge Management Centre director Siriwan Pityaransrit said the removal of tobacco from the Thai-EU trade talks will benefit the public.

An estimated 10.9 million Thais smoke cigarettes. If the customs tax is reduced following the trade talks, the price of a packet of cigarettes will be at least five baht cheaper. This will lead to an increase of at least 4% in the number of smokers, she said.

Schindler’s List star Liam Neeson’s has blamed his role as cigar-puffing Hannibal Smith in The A Team movie remake for forcing him to begin smoking again after quitting 16 years ago.

The 58-year-old actor believes that smoking on camera has caused him to resurrect his old nicotine habit, reported Contactmusic. “I stopped smoking 16 years ago so it was a real issue for this movie. The props guys got me these amazing fake Cuban cigars but then I was given real ones. I said, ‘I can’t do this I’m an addict’,” said Neeson.

After just two days of filming, the actor was addicted again and has vowed to insist on “rubber cigars” in future to help him curb his cravings. “By day two of filming I had discovered cigars and I was in trouble. If we do a sequel I think I will have to insist on rubber cigars!” he said.

Neeson stars alongside Bradley Cooper and Quinton Jackson in the film about a group of rogue military mercenaries who are on the run over a crime they didn’t commit.

She may not be planning to give up the cigarettes any time soon but at least Lindsay Lohan appears to be battling her booze problem.

The actress was snapped leaving a court-ordered alcohol awareness class in Los Angeles yesterday as part of her DUI probation.

And in a change from her recently scruffy attire, the 24-year-old looked quite chic in an outfit that flattered her slender figure.

The Mean Girls star was seen entering and leaving the Right On Programs class which she has been ordered to attend once a week.

Clutching a packet of cigarettes, she was expressionless as she made her way past the cameras.

And she looked very trendy in denim hotpants, a cropped white top with a long mink scarf round her neck and sexy knee-high suede boots, which covered her alcohol-monitoring bracelet on her ankle.

And while it may look as though she was having a crafty beer, Lohan was actually drinking Tru Blood orange juice.

Launched off the success of the TV series Tru Blood, the drink, which is synthetic blood in the series, is a carbonated blood orange drink.

Lohan recently had her probation bond doubled after setting of her SCRAM monitoring bracelet at the MTV Movie Awards this weekend.

At the end of the class, she was met by her sister Ali and was whisked away in a car to attend a drug test.

Lohan finally seems to be taking the seriousness of her probation on board having passed two random drugs tests last week with flying colours.

The probation stems from a 2007 arrest for which she pleaded no contest to two DUI counts and two counts of driving under the influence of a controlled substance after cocaine was found on her person.

Under the terms of her probation for a drink-driving case Lohan is barred from drinking alcohol or using drugs.

This week her bail was increased to $200,000 after her monitoring device went off as she partied at the MTV Movie Awards on Sunday even thought Lohan insisted she hadn’t touched a drop.

By Georgina Littlejohn
Dailymail, 10th June 2010

The University of Michigan is going to become a no smoking campus in July 2011, but Michigan Stadium isn’t going to wait that long to be smoke-free. Starting on Sept. 4, 2010, when Michigan opens its season against UConn, the Big House will be completely smoke-free rather than just smoke-free in the bowl area of the stadium.

“We have allowed individuals to smoke on the concourse in the past, but with the new renovations and the university’s commitment to become a smoke-free campus in 2011, we decided it was in the best interest of everyone to institute the change now,” said U-M director of athletics Dave Brandon. “The move will ensure a healthier environment for all fans attending Wolverine football games.”

I hadn’t really noticed the smoking too much (mainly because I go nowhere near the south concourse where most of the smoking takes place), but I do think this is a good idea going forward. Just like the smoking ban in the state of Michigan, I’m sure many people will disagree, but in the end the less smoke, the better as far as I’m concerned.

Whether Jon Bon Jovi is living on a prayer or not is debatable. But one thing he’s definitely not living on is cigarettes. According to the singer, his 16-year stint as a smoker has come to an end thanks to an unlikely source – a life insurance premium report.

“I tried to get life insurance and the price was so ridiculous,” Bon Jovi said. “It was enough to piss you off and just throw them in the garbage.”

I haven’t seen Bon Jovi’s financial statements, but I can assume due to his success, BJ is pretty wealthy. So if smoking is too expensive for him, then I can’t imagine it’s worth it for everyone else to be getting their nicotine fix. Bon Jovi kicked the habit before the group’s current tour, and says he hasn’t picked them up since.

“I quit because of the hard truth,” the rocker said. And just in case you weren’t sure Bon Jovi was a bad ass, he’s not doing any sort of tapering down with nicotine gum or anything. According to Bon Jovi, he’s spent his last cent on anything involving cigarettes.

“It was cold turkey for me.”

Bon Jovi and the crew are reportedly working on a greatest hits album to be released this year.

Model Kate Moss has reportedly enlisted a hypnotherapist to help her give up alcohol and cigarettes so she can try for another baby.

The 36-year-old is dating The Kills guitarist Jamie Hince and has a seven-year-old daughter from her relationship with magazine editor Jefferson Hack.

A friend said to UK newspaper The Sun: ‘Kate is aware that she smokes heavily and probably drinks a little too much. So she has been to a Harley Street therapist to help her break those habits.

‘Jamie is keen to start a family and Kate knows that it would be wise to try to conquer her vices before she gets pregnant again.

‘She’s really been enjoying her sessions and has already begun to see the benefits. Her daughter Lila has been hinting that she wants a sibling and Jamie has made it clear that he’d love to be a dad. Now Kate is coming round to the idea of having another child and the first step on the process is to cut out her bad habits.’

Pupils at an elite public school have defended their mutiny over mass expulsions and say the situation is ‘tense’.

The mob of angry youngsters abandoned lessons yesterday and marched into the Uppingham School quad, chanting for the headmaster, Richard Harman.

One boy, who would not be named, said: ‘Everyone was really angry – we think the expelled sixth formers were wrongly accused.’

The scenes were reminiscent of the notorious film If… in which a boarding school rises in violent rebellion against oppressive teachers.

To quell the mounting revolt the headmaster later held an emergency assembly for the entire school in the chapel.

He told the mutinous youngsters – whose parents pay £27,500 a year for them to study at the 400-year-old school – that he had no option but to expel six lower sixth-formers and one upper sixth former for bullying a 17-year-old schoolmate.

But the pupil told the Mail: ‘I’ve been told the bullying just came down to one brawl, and one of the so-called bullies was asleep when it happened.

‘To make our point up to 500 of us walked out of lessons. Classrooms were just left empty. It was a serious mutiny.

‘We went walking through the streets of Uppingham and on to the school fields, and people were smoking and drinking.

‘At one point two or three hundred of us went into the quad outside the headmaster’s office and were chanting “Harman out! Harman out”.

‘Harman then came out, and we all stood round him shouting abuse, saying we wanted the expelled pupils allowed back.

‘He said he recognised our right to protest but wanted it to be peaceful. The atmosphere is so tense.’

Last night Mr Harman, in charge of the school in Uppingham, Rutland, for four years, claimed the air of mutiny had dissipated, and he had the situation under control.

But a number of pupils remained fired up after smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol on the playing fields instead of attending lessons.

The alleged bullying that led to the expulsions and rebellion included repeated demands for donations during a poppy appeal in November 2009, verbal abuse, and culminated in a physical attack late last term, which left the boy bruised and hurt.

After the Easter holidays the boy’s parents made a complaint, leading to an investigation and the expulsions.

One of the boys involved gained 13 A* GCSEs, and another is due to begin sitting his A levels in a couple of weeks.

News of the expulsions spread rapidly through the boarding houses on Monday night.

Another source claimed a number of sixth formers walked out in protest during the headmaster’s emergency assembly in the chapel.

Last night Mr Harman said some of the claims were exaggerated. He has no plans to allow the seven expelled boys back, but is allowing them to sit their exams at Uppingham.

Extraordinarily, he is not disciplining any of the pupils involved in yesterday’s mutiny.

He added: ‘Although I do not condone poor behaviour or cutting lessons, I kind of respect the fact that they [pupils] need to express their feelings.

‘Very sadly I have had to ask seven pupils to leave the school. They have a lot of friendships which go back a long time

‘A number of the sixth form are very upset that their friends have gone.

‘Probably 100 of them came into the quad and made their feelings known.

‘I had already decided that we were going to have a special assembly to explain about the disciplinary issue, and that I did. There was certainly unhappiness about the expulsions.

‘In the chapel the atmosphere was actually very quiet and calm. I explained the positive values we have with regard to things like bullying. They listened very well. Things have calmed down considerably.’

The victim of the bullying campaign is currently being kept off school by his parents, but is due to return soon.

Uppingham’s 750 boys and girls are today educated amidst 120 acres of grounds with state-of-the-art facilities.

The school was founded in 1584, and boasts that its first pupil, Henry Ferne became chaplain to Charles I.

Later famous old boys include world water speed record holder Donald Campbell, Carphone Warehouse multi-millionaires Charles Dunstone and David Ross, Charlie Simpson of pop band Busted, and Harry Judd of pop band McFly.

TV personalities Stephen Fry and Johnny Vaughan – both of whom have been jailed, for fraud and drug offences respectively – also went to the school.

By Neil Sears and Rebecca Camber
Dailymail, 5 May, 2010

Clergy and cops backed a ban being pushed in the General Assembly to classify blunt wraps — a tobacco leaf often used to roll marijuana — as drug paraphernalia.

Blunt wraps come in flavors such as cherry, peach and purple thunder and are used to camouflage the potent smell of pot. The wraps can be found at gas stations, liquor and convenience stores. Because of their low cost, easy availability to urban youth, and “lack of legitimate uses,” the flavored wraps have become targets for lawmakers and religious leaders.

“Having this product in mainstream stores is like having drug pushers in our neighborhoods,” Bishop Larry Trotter, the pastor at Sweet Holy Spirit Church, said today. “Blunt wraps are an indefensible product marketed to children and entirely identified with illegal drug use.”

Blunt wraps are displayed today at Sweet Holy Spirit Church on the South Side. (Tribune / Michael Tercha)

Over the next week Trotter said he will circulate petitions in 50 Cook County churches to garner support for the legislation. He plans to lead a contingent of ministers and community leaders to Springfield armed with signatures to urge passage of the bills.

The anti-blunt wraps legislation is being sponsored by state Sen. Kwame Raoul and state Rep. Art Turner. Some cities have prohibited the sale of blunt wraps, including Boston.

In the meantime, Trotter said he plans to ask the liquor store across the street from his church to stop selling mini-cigars, which are often emptied of tobacco and filled with marijuana. “If it is not removed from the store, then we will shut it down,” Trotter said during Sunday’s church service.

Mike Mohad, the manager of Fitzgerald’s Liquors, said if asked by the church he would no longer stock the miniature cigars which he sells for 85 cents each.

“We don’t have (any) problems getting along with the community,” Mohad said. “If I can’t sell it, people will go down the street to a different store. It’s popular in Chicago.”

Neither Mohad nor other store owners were aware of the legislation.

“It’s a profitable item and in this economy every penny counts,” said Joe Patel, who manages a Mobil gas station on Garfield Blvd. “We sell (cigars) to be smoked as sold. How people use it when they get home I have no control over.”

Cigarettes have turned out to be among the most popular gifts for the upcoming Spring Festival, a public health survey has found.

More than half of the poll’s 1,200 respondents, some of whom are smokers, said they will give away cartons of cigarettes as gifts during the festivities. Recipients of such gifts ranged from family members to business partners.

The survey was conducted by the Jiangsu provincial center for disease control and prevention (CDC).

More than 68 percent of those polled also said they were fully aware of the scientifically proven health hazards of tobacco.

“Brand name and expensive cigarettes are always the safest choice for gift giving in China to show respect. Few people, including non-smokers, will openly deny the practice because of health concerns,” said Wu Yiqun, deputy director of the Thinktank Research Center for Health Development, a Beijing-based nongovernmental organization.

Fu Rong, a college teacher in Beijing, said two cartons of brand name cigarettes helped make up the Spring Festival gift list for her father back home in Shaanxi province.

“I don’t want him to smoke because of health concerns, but I still give him the cigarettes and always ask him to smoke less,” she said. “For chain smokers like him, cigarettes are an easy choice. They are also light and easy to carry.”

That also seems to be true for non-smokers.

In a country with 350 million smokers, cigarettes as presents can be a welcome option for recipients, Wu said.

In varied social settings like family and business meetings, people tend to pass around and light cigarettes to be polite, she said. “It’s something quite unique to China,” she said.

Cigarettes are also usually the first things on plates before food at formal dinners, she said.

Official statistics show that one million Chinese people die from smoking-related diseases each year in the country.

Source:China Daily
February 05, 2010

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — The restaurant smoking ban that took effect Tuesday across Virginia is a healthy development — literally — in a state that has revered tobacco since Jamestown’s settlers began raising it 400 years ago, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said.

In a statewide victory lap touting the most conspicuous policy triumph of his final year in office, Kaine planned to show up at four eateries to celebrate the compromise that the 2009 General Assembly passed over the objection of Virginia’s muscular tobacco lobby.

“This is a historic day,” Kaine told a small gathering at Hamilton’s at First and Main, a high-end restaurant in downtown Charlottesville that has banned smoking since Bill and Kate Hamilton opened it 14 years ago.

“Virginia was the home for the start of the tobacco industry in the New World. Those settlers who came to Jamestown couldn’t find the gold they were looking for and they couldn’t figure out how to raise crops that would economically support the growing commonwealth until they hit on tobacco. Tobacco was the cash crop,” said Kaine, who is barred from seeking re-election by Virginia’s Constitution. He leaves the office on Jan. 16 to Republican Bob McDonnell.

Virginia joins a growing number of states that have enacted laws to limit smoking. Twenty-eight states and the District of Columbia have laws banning restaurant smoking, according to the American Lung Association.

The Democratic governor and Democratic National Committee chairman had sought an outright restaurant smoking ban for two years. It never survived a Republican House of Delegates, with cigarette giant Philip Morris and the rest of the tobacco industry battling it. Philip Morris operates the cigarette factory that supplies the world with Marlboros a few miles from the Virginia Capitol. Frescoes of golden-brown tobacco leaves adorn the ceiling of the Capitol rotunda.

The breakthrough came in January when Republican House Speaker William J. Hamilton approached Kaine with a compromise. The bill, sponsored by Del. John Cosgrove, R-Virginia Beach, and Sen. Ralph Northam, D-Norfolk, eventually passed with bipartisan support.

The new law allows smoking only in separately ventilated rooms, away from nonsmoking patrons. It also permits smoking on outdoor patio areas, and private membership clubs such as Elks Clubs or American Legion posts are exempt. Violators are subject to a $25 civil fine.

The state’s restaurateurs opposed the bill, preferring an outright ban on grounds that wealthy chain restaurants would have the capital to make the necessary adjustments that small, family owned eateries could not.

Restaurant industry lobbyist Thomas Lisk estimated that only about one-tenth of restaurants that still allowed smoking would make the modifications required to accommodate smokers.

About 70 percent of Virginia’s restaurants had already banned smoking voluntarily, Lisk said.

The Medical Society of Virginia had lobbied for several years for a smoking ban. The organization’s immediate past president, Dr. Tom Eppes, said secondhand smoke kills about 1,700 Virginians every year.

Kaine said he pushed hard for a ban because of the damage done to employees in bars and restaurants where concentrations of cigarette smoke are several times higher than they are in offices or residences where occupants smoke.

Eppes, a family practitioner in Forest, Va., said not only was the smoking ban good public policy, it had strong and widespread support, even if supporters weren’t vocal about it.

“I knew we had done the right thing when my wife and I went out to dinner on March 3 at a restaurant in Lynchburg and the waitress asked us, ‘Smoking or nonsmoking?’ I said, ‘You know, after Dec. 1, you never have to ask that question again,’ and she turned with this big smile and said, ‘Yeah!’”

Yesterday was the 34th Great American Smokeout, the annual event that encourages smokers to kick cigarettes for 24 hours or set a date for being tobacco-free.

Congratulations and good luck to those who have chosen to take part. You deserve all the praise and support you can get.

One resource is the Kansas Tobacco Quitline at (800) QUIT-NOW (784-8669) or (866) KAN STOP (526-7867) which offers free tobacco cessation and coaching services from experienced counselors.

The program offers one-on-one calling sessions for smokers to map out a quitting strategy and then deal with cravings as they wean themselves off of nicotine. Smokers can enroll 24 hours a day, and all calls are tailored to participants’ schedules.

Studies strongly suggest such programs can work wonders, doubling the chance of making a successful break from tobacco.

State officials said a survey showed that, of participants who received four or more counseling sessions between June 2006 and May 2007, 46 percent were able to quit using tobacco within three months.

And that’s not the only help available. Smokers can find tips and methods for quitting at the Great American Smokeout Web site, greatamericansmokeout.org, where there’s also a toll-free telephone counseling program.

There’s plenty to gain from quitting. The American Cancer Society says smokers who quit at age 35 gain an average of eight years of life expectancy, while those who kick the habit at 55 buy an average of five more years. Even longtime smokers who quit at 65 get an average of three more years of life.

“We know that quitting smoking is tough and that most smokers have to try several times before quitting for good,” said Alan G. Thorson, MD, FACS, national volunteer president for the American Cancer Society, in a news release. “The American Cancer Society offers a variety of effective resources ranging from online tips and tools to personalized telephone coaching by trained specialists. We hope that smokers will use the Great American Smokeout to map out a course of action that will help them to quit, and in turn to stay well and celebrate more birthdays.”

The smokeout comes a week after the Centers for Disease Control released statistics showing the movement toward reducing smoking was hitting a wall. The report said slightly under 21 percent of Americans were smoking in 2008, up slightly from 2007. It was the first increase in adult smoking since 1994.

The smoking rate has plummeted since the mid-1960s, when about 40 percent of American adults were smokers, but it’s been stubbornly hovering around 21 percent in recent years.

Kansas is below the national average, at 17.9 percent, which is good news. The bad news is the rate was exactly the same in 2007 and has been bouncing around the 17 to 20 percent range for years.

So here’s hoping the Great American Smokeout draws good participation this year.

If more Kansans can quit smoking, any irritability they display today will be quickly forgotten.

One-third of the stores that sold tobacco products in 2008 have stopped doing so, and the remaining tobacco merchants would have to pick up the tab to monitor them under a proposal going before the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.

The number of outlets went from 78 to 58 in the unincorporated county — those areas not within a city limit.

The county pays staff members to regulate tobacco sales, and to make that program break even, stores that still sell the product should absorb a fee increase of $54, or 14 percent, according to Nikki Schmidt of the County Administrator’s Office. That would bring the cost to $394 per retail license.

County departments reviewed 3,191 fees. Department heads are recommending that 2,043 remain unchanged, 236 increase and 280 decrease. They want to introduce 51 new fees and drop 581.

Among the other changes suggested are:

• Golf: While 77 fees will remain unchanged, six others, all related to golf cart rental, could increase by 50 cents to $1.

• Parks: Eighty-five of 108 fees would not change. Nine could be eliminated as the county streamlines its camping fee structure to two rates — base and high-use. Ten fees could increase because of extra staff time needed to guard against quagga mussels. Yearly passes for boats would jump from $80 to $100.

• Agricultural Commissioner: The fee for processing a minor use permit would drop by $91, “due to a reduction in staff time required to provide this service.”

• Airport: At the San Luis Obispo Regional Airport, vehicles that have access to the airfield could have to pay $10 more, from $35 to $45.

• Animal shelter: The impound discount for owners whose animals have a current license would disappear, shifting the cost back to the owner. Twenty seven of 79 fees would increase, with the average boost being $23. A pet shop permit fee would rise from $275 to $360 a year.

• Killing livestock: For the first time, Animal Services will ask the Board of Supervisors to suggest a fee for euthanizing livestock. It has a fee schedule for “owner-requested euthanasia” of pet animals, rabbits and rodents.

• Planning: Appeals fees on Planning and Building Department decisions would jump in some case by as much as hundreds of dollars, and the cost of removing property from an agricultural preserve also would increase.

• Sheriff-Coroner: The department would add two fees: a low-level urine test for drug-endangered children; and a rave and rape drug screen urine test, at $179.

There are thousands of other recommendations, ranging from hundreds of dollars down to the library late fee for children’s books, which would now be 15 cents a day up to $8.

The full proposed fee schedule can be viewed in a 314-page staff report on the county Web site.

In her message to supervisors, Schmidt wrote that fees help “offset the cost of providing county services to those who benefit from services that exceed basic tax-supported services.”

Money from fees and permits makes up approximately 11 percent of the county’s revenue, she wrote.

By Bob Cuddy, Nov. 01, 2009, Sanluisobispo

What if we had a less dangerous cigarette for people who can’t kick the habit, letting them keep on smoking but stay alive longer while they’re doing it? It’s available in Canada, France, Russia and a few places in Asia. The 350 million smokers in China may also get their hands on it. The U.S.? Forget it.

It’s another perverse result of the 1998 settlement that had tobacco companies–and, ultimately, their customers–chipping in to balance state budgets and pay for lawyers’ yachts. The deal turned the big tobacco companies into a cartel and locked in their market shares. The state attorneys general who put together the $206 billion agreement ward off potential competitors so the money keeps flowing to their states. One way to fend off rivals: pounce on any company making health claims. How convenient for Philip Morris and R.J. Reynolds.

In this case the target is an eight-year-old Hong Kong biotech company, Filligent. Its MicroBlue filter blocks many of the toxins that make a cigarette dangerous but doesn’t disturb the ingredients that give it flavor and produce that seductive though addictive nicotine buzz. “For years the public health community has just assumed that the smoke from cigarettes is all bad,” says Scott Ballin, director for the Alliance for Health, Economic & Agriculture Development in Washington, D.C., which is funded by economic development groups in tobacco-growing states and has been critical of the settlement. “Now advances in basic science have given us a much more nuanced understanding of what’s in that stuff–what’s harmful and what’s mainly benign.”

Fewer than 5% of the people who try to stop smoking succeed for as long as five years, says Filligent Chief Executive Melissa Mowbray-d’Arbela. So given the futility of getting smokers to end their addiction, tobacco experts such as Dr. Judith Mackay of the World Lung Foundation in New York say Filligent’s product could be the next best thing to quitting.

Traditional filters work like sieves, mechanically blocking everything that’s in cigarette smoke, not only the carcinogens but also the nicotine. But the highly addictive nicotine is what smokers want. If they don’t get enough from one cigarette, they reach for the next one. They wind up with almost as much deadly tar and nitrosamines as they would have smoking conventional cigarettes.

The MicroBlue filter is different. It includes a biochemical substance that attracts and immobilizes the carcinogens while letting nicotine slip through. Says one Filligent customer, Canadian distributor Edward Roundpoint: “People normally hate reduced-harm cigarettes. But this is different: It does not affect the flavor or the nicotine experience at all.”

By Donald Frazier, November 16, 2009 Forbes

GALVESTON — Citing a state law designed to shield businesses from government regulation, a group of bar and restaurant owners is challenging a sweeping city ban on tobacco smoking set to become law Jan. 1.

In a letter to the city’s attorney, the Galveston Bar and Tavern Owners Association asked the city to conduct an assessment of how the ordinance would affect its member businesses.

Such an accounting, called a “Takings Impact Assessment,” is required under the state’s Private Real Property Rights Protection Act, the association argues.

The association wants to negotiate with the city to amend the ordinance, which will prohibit lighting up in bars, restaurants, private clubs and even tobacco shops.

Failing that, the association plans to take its complaint to the Texas attorney general, according to the letter.

The ban constitutes a regulatory taking because it would drive away customers, the association argues.

But the group has a tough fight ahead trying to prove the ban denies its members economic use of their property, constitutional law experts and observers of legal battles sparked by smoking bans said.

Along with the letter, the group this week gave City Attorney Susie Green a list of signatures from owners of 28 properties.

The group continues to gather signatures, Steve Everts, an owner of the 815 21st St. building that houses Marie’s Albatross, said.

Everts also supplies jukeboxes, pool tables and countertop games to island venues.

Under the state law, a taking is a governmental action that causes a reduction of “at least 25 percent in the market value of the affected private real property.”

Such takings are difficult to prove because government has the authority to regulate use of private property, especially to protect public health, according to guidelines about the protection act published by the Texas attorney general.

City council members who voted for the smoking ban did so with public health in mind.

“Governmental actions taken specifically for the purpose of protecting public health and safety may be given broader latitude by courts before they are found to be ‘takings,’’’ according to the attorney general’s office.

If the group filed a lawsuit using the takings argument, it likely would lose, said Richard A. Epstein, a law professor at the University of Chicago and author of “Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain.”

“There is no strong line of authority that backs it,” Epstein said.

Business groups in other states have used the takings laws to no avail.

Owners of Toledo, Ohio, bars challenged the constitutionality of a smoking ordinance with a regulatory takings argument, according to the Tobacco Control Legal Consortium.

The court acknowledged evidence some of the businesses lost revenue but said that alone was insufficient to rule the government’s action a taking.

The consortium concluded the vast majority of laws banning smoking in public have been upheld.

The takings argument is becoming less common, Maggie Mahoney, deputy director of the consortium, said.

“It has been used, but groups haven’t gotten far with it,” Mahoney said.

Groups for smoking bans argue few businesses can attribute a drop in business to the bans, while others have even seen an increase in business after a ban.

The island’s smoking ban is one of the strictest around, observers said.

Adopted in July, it forbids smoking even on decks and patios at restaurants and bars. Smokers must stand 15 feet away from doors.

City officials could avoid a legal fight if they either rescinded the ban or amend it to allow smoking on restaurant patios and decks and inside bars and taverns, Everts said.

Council members Danny Weber, who voted against the ban, and Tarris Woods agreed Thursday to put the ordinance on the agenda for the next meeting on Oct. 22.

“There’s too much interference in private business,” Weber said.

By Laura Elder
The Daily News
October 10, 2009

The Ministry of Social Affairs and Health is proposing legislation with the aim of turning Finland into a completely tobacco-free country. If the legislation is approved, Finland will be the world’s first country to pass laws with the sole aim of eradicating tobacco use.

The Ministry made the announcement Thursday, when it presented Parliament with an outline of the plan. Parliament is expected to debate the proposals next week.

One of the proposal’s authors, Ismo Tuominen, stresses that tobacco use won’t be criminalised. Instead, existing anti-tobacco legislation will be broadened with a number of measures to remove it from sight and restrict its use in public.

“In Ireland in July, it became a requirement to hide tobacco products under counters,” notes Tuominen. “We’re following that example.”

In addition to banning the open display of tobacco products in shops, the reforms would also raise the minimum age to purchase tobacco to 18. It would also make it illegal for minors to sell, possess, or bring tobacco into the country. Behavioural restrictions would also be implemented; for example, it would be illegal to smoke in a car with children on board.

Tuominen feels that a government-backed agenda to end tobacco use sends a strong message. He says that simply aiming to reduce smoking is a tacit approval of tobacco.

The Ministry is now waiting for the expected furore from the tobacco industry.

Palm Beach County Tax Collector Anne Gannon has decided the butt stops here.

She said Wednesday she will no longer hire anyone who has regularly used tobacco products, saying smokers in her office stick taxpayers with paying for rising health-care costs.

Existing smokers among her 240 employees get to keep their jobs, but are being “encouraged” to quit, Gannon said. But they will pay more for health insurance: She plans to increase what those employees pay toward their coverage by as much as 20 percent.

Gannon said her goal is to cut down on rising health insurance costs and to encourage a healthier, more productive working environment.

Taxpayers pay $2.5 million a year toward health insurance for tax collector employees, a cost that rose 45 percent in three years, Gannon said. Job seekers will be required to submit an affidavit indicating they are non-smokers to go along with their job application to be considered for employment, according to the new policy.

“We believe that smoking is the driver of our health care costs. A person who smokes has chosen to do that,” said Gannon, a non-smoker who said both her parents died of smoking-related illnesses. “The public is really paying.”

Critics say Gannon’s new policy infringes on personal liberties. The move is “outright discrimination,” said Sid Dinerstein, chairman of the Republican Party of Palm Beach County.

“If you can pick on people because they smoke, you can pick on people because they eat fatty foods. … You can go down a very long list of telling people how they should live their lives.”

It is well-established that smoking and other uses of tobacco cause cancer, heart disease and lung disease. Cigarette smoking leads to $96 billion a year in health care costs and more than 400,000 deaths annually in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Gannon said she did her legal research before enacting the policy. The Florida Supreme Court in 1995 upheld North Miami’s ban at the time on hiring smokers.

Gannon’s new policy is patterned after other local government and business actions to phase out employee smoking.

Boca Raton doesn’t hire smokers for its police or fire departments or other union positions, and Sarasota County stopped hiring smokers in 2008. Broward County government workers who smoke this year face new surcharges that could add $520 a year to premiums deducted from employees’ pay.

Not hiring smokers is a “positive step” that encourages people to give up smoking, said Brenda Olsen, CEO of The American Lung Association of Florida.

“It is not a constitutional right for people to smoke,” Olsen said.

The Tax Collector’s Office already has an employee-led, voluntary “Biggest Loser” weight-loss program, where teams compete to see which group can lose the most, Gannon said.

Outside of the Tax Collector’s Office, County Commission-controlled departments focus on encouraging voluntary exercise and other health programs, but stop short of smoking surcharges and hiring bans, Human Resources Director Wayne Condry said.

“Where does that stop?” Condry said about the smoker-hiring ban. “What else are you going to decide people shouldn’t be doing?”

Andy Reid can be reached at abreid@SunSentinel.com or 561-228-5504.

Clearing the air
Boca Raton doesn’t hire smokers for its police or fire departments or other union positions. Palm Beach County Tax Collector Anne Gannon, right, has decided her office also will be smoke-free.

Copyright © 2009, Sun-Sentinel

One of the most valuable crops that could be grown as a replacement for tobacco is hemp.

Although similar in appearance to its intoxicating cousin, it is not itself an intoxicant.

It can produce 4.1 times the fiber of trees per similar acreage, and is a source of edible oil and seed.

So many times we see articles about the legalization of medical marijuana, but hemp gets scant attention.

Yet, the real value of cannabis is in paper, clothing and food production.

This is a plant that could be saving forests and helping to eliminate hunger.

It is a plant that produces paper that doesn’t decay, durable fabrics and synthetic fuel oil.

I suspect that it could be smoked. It would probably take a pound and the effect would be mostly carbon monoxide.

Careful licensing would differentiate between legitimate growers and those clandestine farms producing “medical” marijuana.

Our farmers would have a real cash crop replacement for king tobacco.

Sometimes laws just aren’t well conceived and those prohibiting hemp production need to be revised.

This is too useful a crop to ban simply because it looks like marijuana.

September 30, 2009 Wpcva
Emory Davis
Chatham

PREMIERSHIP side Dynamos are set to lose close to US$1 million from their official sponsors — Savanna Tobacco — if they play in an Oya Challenge, which is bankrolled by a rival tobacco company Blend Value on October 4. DeMbare, who are are sponsored by Savanna Tobacco through their Pacific Storm brand have been hand picked to play against CAPS United in the Oya Challenge.

The new kid on the block is using the derby to promote their brand — Oya.

Savanna Tobacco have threatened to pull the rug on Dynamos if they go aheadand play as the contract forbids them from associating with rival tobacco companies.

DeMbare are set to lose US$370 000 which is expected to go towards the purchase of a luxurious team bus. In addition to this, the Glamour Boys will lose their branded kit and the payment of salaries for the players.

Savanna Tobacco dropped the bombshell on DeMbare, in a letter to Zifa chief executive officer Henrietta Rushwaya on Friday.

Part of the letter reads: “Savanna Tobacco has been sponsoring local football for the past three years and we are at various stages of investing over USD 750 000 into local football. We are sure you are aware of our sponsorship of the following premier league teams this season — Dynamos FC, Highlanders FC, Black Rhinos FC, Eagles FC. This shows our total commitment to football sponsorship for the benefit of our country’s citizens.

“Savanna Tobacco expects a certain minimum level of professionalism from the custodians of football in Zimbabwe. Our sponsorship agreement with Dynamos Football Club precludes their participation in the proposed Oya! Challenge Match.

“As a result, by way of this letter, we would like to inform you that should the report in the press be correct, Savanna Tobacco will have no option but to immediately withdraw all football sponsorship in Zimbabwe.”

Savanna said they were not entirely against the idea after having initially expressing its willingness to play a role after being approached by Zifa.

“We have nothing against the grudge match as communicated by Savanna to the Zifa CEO on the 19th of September and we are fully behind the government efforts to support the Warriors’ cause. However what we do find deplorable is the unprofessional expectation for a sponsored team to participate in an event that would jeopardise its agreement.”

Onias Gweru, the Savanna marketing manager said the participation of Dynamos in the Oya Challenge contravenes their agreement.

Dynamos secretary Stan Kasukuwere last night said the executive would meet in an emergency meeting this morning to digest the letter from the sponsors.

“There has been correspondence between our sponsors Savanna, Zifa and Dynamos. We have called for an emergency meeting tomorrow (today). We are also going to look into the contract with Savanna.

Remember Murerekwa (Tawanda) was part of the executive, who entered into the contract,” Kasukuwere said.

Murerekwa is a former DeMbare secretary.
BY FANUEL VIRIRI & ENOCK MUCHINJO

MANHATTAN – Convenience stores and gas stations across the state say a recently enacted increase in tobacco permit fees, to pay for health care, is unconstitutional. The retailers say their flat annual fee of $100 has been jacked up in some cases to $5,000, and is not based on how much tobacco they sell, but on gross sales.
The retailers say the state unfairly increased the cost of their tobacco permits by 900 percent to 4,900 percent.
Retailers previously paid a $100 flat fee for the permits, but the amended tax code approved in April changed the fee to a sliding scale based on gross sales of all products.
Stores grossing less than $1 million have to pay $1,000 for their tobacco permit; those grossing between $1 million and $10 million pay $2,500; and those grossing more than $10 million must pay $5,000.
The retailers say that because the fee “is not calculated based on the amount of tobacco products sold,” it is not a permit at all, but a tax by another name.
“New York has no plausible rational basis for calculating a registration fee for the sale of tobacco products based upon the gross sales of completely unrelated products, such as gasoline and diesel fuel,” the plaintiffs say.
They also object that instead of using the money for “monitoring the registrant tobacco retailers,” the state will use some of it for the Health Care Improvement Act.
They claim the new fees are arbitrary and discriminatory, and violate their rights to equal protection.
Plaintiffs include the United 7-Eleven Franchise Owners of Long Island and New York, Long Island Gasoline Retailers Association, New York State Association of Service Stations and Repair Shops, New York Association of Convenience Stores, and Service Station Dealers of Greater New York Inc.
Represented in New York County Court by Andrew Curto with Forchelli, Curto & Deegan, they seek declaratory judgment and relief

Copyright © 2009 Courthousenews

Except for the 3,100 clubs exempt from the 2008 Clean Indoor Air Act. And the nine casinos that still cater to smokers. And the 2,700 restaurants, bars and lounges granted exemptions in the past year.

That’s almost 6,000 establishments — including 96 restaurants and lounges and more than 150 private social clubs in the Lehigh Valley — where people can still smoke ‘em if they got ‘em. An additional 350 applications for exemptions are in process, and new ones are arriving each week.

So thousands of workers and nonsmoking customers continue to breathe second-hand smoke each day. Still, even the most dedicated anti-smoking advocates say the law is doing what it was intended to do — protecting most Pennsylvanians.

”The act, overall, has been very successful,” said Jeanne Fignar of the Partnership for a TobaccoFree Northeast Pennsylvania. ”We lost some of the battles on exemptions, but we figure more than 90 percent of workers are protected. That’s a success.”

People on both sides still are trying to get a handle on the law’s impact. It’s clear some patrons have switched watering holes, based on whether they smoke or not. But it’s less clear how much it has affected business, largely because of the recession.

Several things seem clear: The people who lobbied against the law still hate it, those who worked to get it passed say it is working, and exemptions are generating buzz.

Statewide, 2,463 places have been able to get an exemption by showing that food sales are less than 20 percent of their business and by barring anyone under 18 years old. An additional 170 have received another kind of exemption by showing they have a special smoking room with its own entrance and ventilation.

”We know some people who wanted no exceptions to the rule are frustrated, but we advocated for the most stringent Clean Indoor Air Act possible,” said state Department of Health spokeswoman Stacy Kriedeman. ”If they’re not happy with it, we suggest they contact their state legislator.”

Private clubs that hoped the ban would expand their niche say they’ve experienced no drastic increase in membership.

”It’s been sort of a double-edged sword,” said Harold Kirkhuff, president of Heights Athletic Association, Bethlehem. ”For every new member we attracted, we probably lost a member who doesn’t like all the smoke.”

The Pennsylvania Tavern Association, which lobbied heavily against the law, says most restaurants without smoking have experienced a decline in sales. But Patrick Conway, president of the 7,000-member Pennsylvania Restaurant Association, said the recession is mostly the reason.

Anecdotally, there’s been at least some shifting of business.

Edge Restaurant on Broad Street in Bethlehem experienced weekly losses of $300 to $500 when the ban hit, managing partner Fran Mantz said. He traced it to a handful of regular customers who smoked.

”They all went outside for a while, but then winter came and we lost them for good,” Mantz said. ”They come in to say ‘hi’ to the bartenders once in a while, but they want to smoke while they drink and you can’t do that here anymore.”

The customers went across the street to Ripper’s Pub, one of 40 restaurants, bars and lounges to get an exemption in Northampton County.

Mantz said he doesn’t regret the change or blame an uneven field.

”Yes, we’ve lost some business, but honestly, we’d been wanting to go nonsmoking for a few years,” Mantz said. ”This gave us a chance to blame it on the state.”

Judy Oches, director of the state’s tobacco and prevention control program, said the ban has been a success. Rather than looking at the fraction of lounges that still have smoking, she points to the more than 20,000 restaurants that no longer do, and the thousands of workplaces statewide that are universally smoke-free.

Perhaps just as important, she said, is that more people support the ban than ever. According to state surveys, 92 percent of Pennsylvanians believe secondhand smoke is harmful and 78 percent believe smoking should not be allowed in any indoor workplace — a 7 percent increase over 2006.

‘We’re proud because we know we are changing attitudes,” Oches said. ”The number of adults who smoke in Pennsylvania is down to 21 percent. Everything this past year has surpassed our expectations.”

And the granting of exemptions may soon slow. By next month, the state Department of Revenue will begin analyzing tax returns to make sure establishments comply with the 20 percent food cutoff. Scofflaws probably would be forced to go smoke-free.

”We are very pleased with the law we have,” Fignar said, ”but we’re not done.”

matthew.assad@mcall.com

610-820-6691

A NUMBER OF EXEMPTIONS

More than 20,000 state eateries now ban smoking, but there are public places where smoking remains:

3,100 — private clubs statewide

2,700 — restaurants, bars and lounges granted exemptions because they serve little food and deny entry to children or have separate nonsmoking areas

9 — casinos, including Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem (on half the gambling floor)


– Source: Rendell administration

Hong Kong cultural activist Leung Man Tao is a smoker. For many times, he just disappeared when we were giving a speech, dining or chatting and was later found smoking outside.

Leung has been devoting himself to Buddhism in recent years and he has even quit alcohol. However, he is still quite persistent in smoking.

When I asked him why, he said that it has nothing to do with “looking for inspiration”, as many thought. In fact, smoking just helps him to concentrate and provides a “sense of being”. (Such effects do not applicable to everyone. Children should not imitate.) Even smoking has become very inconvenient and many of his friends have quit smoking because of this, Leung still insists that “a person has the right to not smoke and at the same time, he or she has the right to smoke, too”. He has an unwavering faith in smoking.
“Non-smoking measures are in fact still controversial.”

However, he sighed that smokers have become more and more discriminated as smokers are portrayed as murderers and immoral in all kinds of anti-smoking campaigns and anti-tobacco advertisements.

Smokers have been pitifully expelled to outdoors, and even they have been forced to smoke on the street, passers-by still cast them a look of contempt and dodge away from them.

Eventually, smokers may have to smoke in dark alleys like drug addicts.

Therefore, Leung threatened to launch an “anti-anti-smoking” campaign together with other smoking cultural activists in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan next year.

As a repentant former smoker, I can only have sympathy for Leung and other smokers.

Although the anti-smoking movement in Malaysia is less harsh compared to Hong Kong, those disgusting pictures printed on our cigarette packages may be the worse in the world.

In order to avoid further hurting Leung’s feelings, I tried my best not to let him see Malaysia’s cigarette packages. Luckily, he smoked only his own rolled cigarette and his speech performance was not affected by cigarettes.

Non-smoking measures are in fact still controversial. From the liberal point of view, the measures are limiting a person’s choice and freedom.

In particular, many smokers are working class. Smoking is their main flavour of life but the living space that they can enjoy becomes lesser and lesser in the future.

However, anti-smoking movement is certainly a mainstream of the world community. The world will keep the anti-smoking movement based on personal health and the government’s health-care costs.

Not long ago, an American old woman, who had smoked for 47 years, died of lung cancer. Her daughter sued the tobacco company and requested for compensation. The jury voted nine to three in favour of the daughter and ordered the tobacco company to pay US$13.8million (about RM50 million) to the daughter.

Perhaps, not only the public will no longer dare to smoke in the future, but tobacco companies will dare not to sell cigarettes, too. (By TAY TIAN YAN/Translated by SOONG PHUI JEE/Sin Chew Daily)

Beneath a shady grove of trees in the heart of Tacoma’s Wright Park, Eugene Clark sucked the butt of a hand-rolled cigarette and exhaled his opinions about a pending City Council proposal.

“It’s way overstepping people’s rights,” said Clark, punctuating his words with a wispy blue-gray stream.

“I don’t think they’ll be able to stop us,” he added. “The park is an open, public area, and smokers are as much a part of the public as the people who hate smoking.”

Moments later and several hundred yards away in a sun-drenched park playground, Athena Nation threw her hands behind her tottering 3-year-old, Tanner, and her support behind a park smoking ban.

“Absolutely, I think it’s a good idea,” said Nation, as her son wriggled atop a jungle gym.

“I don’t care if you smoke, but you shouldn’t smoke around children,” she added. “And I’m sorry, but parks are places where children convene.”

The City Council’s public safety committee voted 3-1 late last month to back a proposal to ban smoking anywhere in any city park. The committee sent the measure to the full council, which is set to decide on it next month.

Supporters say the ordinance isn’t about punishment, but awareness of public health and safety.

“The whole idea behind this has always been … an opportunity to again help educate folks about the dangers of tobacco and second-hand smoke,” said City Councilman Rick Talbert, who also chairs the Tacoma-Pierce County Board of Health. “It has never been to be punitive.”

Committee members had considered a ban on smoking only near playgrounds or other areas where children frequent, but most instead backed the all-inclusive prohibition. Banning smoking in only designated areas would be too difficult to enforce, supporters reasoned, possibly requiring more regulatory signs and increased costs.

“The whole concept of trying to manage the smoking ban in piecemeal, it almost starts not to make sense,” Councilwoman Marilyn Strickland said.

TACOMA WOULDN’T BE ALONE

Nationwide, at least 429 municipalities impose bans on smoking at public parks and beaches, according to the American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation in Berkeley, Calif.

In Pierce County, Puyallup and Gig Harbor already have such bans. Other Washington cities, including Seattle, Spokane and Wenatchee, are considering similar measures.

Many cities with park smoking bans have imposed much harsher penalties than what Tacoma is proposing.

Puyallup sets punishment at a $1,000 fine or up to 90 days in jail. In San Francisco, violators face a $100 fine for the first offense, $200 for the second, and $500 for each ensuing offense.

“This is happening all over the country (but) there’s been very minimal controversy,” said Dan Pritchard of the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department.

Pritchard, who noted that about 1,000 local deaths are attributed each year to tobacco, said he sees the ban as another way to reduce the number of smokers over time.

“We support as many smoke-free environments as possible,” he said. “We think that this is the beginning.”

When controversy has flared over smoking bans, it primarily has centered on individual rights versus the public benefit.

“This is just utter nonsense,” said Gary Nolan, when told about Tacoma’s proposal.

Nolan, a national spokesman for The Smoking Club, a New Hampshire-based property rights group that opposes government-imposed smoking prohibitions, said such ordinances primarily are based on fear-mongering with little scientific evidence to support them.

There’s no evidence, he contends, that second-hand smoke, particularly in an outdoor environment, causes health problems.

“When it’s outside, it’s really diluted,” Nolan said. “So there is no plausible argument to be made for banning smoking in a park.”

If any Tacoma council member is willing to debate the issue, Nolan added, he would travel to Tacoma on his own dime “in a New York minute.”

The City Council already has its own detractor to the proposal – at least in its present form.

Councilman Mike Lonergan, the lone committee member to oppose the measure, prefers a more “flexible” ban that would restrict smoking in only certain areas, such as near playgrounds.

“The idea that you could still walk around and smoke a cigar at Meadow Park Golf Course, I think is OK,” he said.

Most Pierce County residents – about 80 percent – do not smoke, Talbert said. While smokers might frame a ban as a trampling of their rights, “I would flip that around and say, the act of smoking next to someone who does not smoke inconveniences that person,” he said.

“It’s not about taking away people’s rights,” added Ryan Mello, a member of the MetroParks Tacoma Board of Commissioners. “All we’re asking is that when people come to a public place, come to a public park, that everybody has the opportunity to breathe fresh, clean, healthy air.”

Both the parks district and the Health Department support an ordinance for smoke-free parks.

WHAT, EXACTLY, IS A ‘PARK’?

Defining a “park” under the ban could spark further discussion. City staff noted one definition could include “all parks, squares, drives, parkways, docks, piers, moorage buoys and floats, boulevards, golf courses, zoos, beaches, playgrounds and recreation areas and facilities” that are owned or managed by the parks district or the city.

Other cities have excluded golf courses and parking lots at parks. Another possible exception to a Tacoma ban might be Cheney Stadium, according to city staff reports.

Enforcement could prove difficult as well. If the proposal passes, Tacoma police will not specifically respond to calls notifying police about potential violations, Capt. Mark Langford said. Officers patrolling the park who come across smokers likely will use “discretionary enforcement” and may give only warnings, he added.

“It’s not going to rise to the place of high-priority enforcement,” he said.

Rather, police officers more likely will work with park officials to educate the public.

“I really see this evolving somewhat along the lines of the smoking ban in restaurants and bars,” he said. “It would be phased in with a lot of education and social acceptance.”

Enforcement is a challenge, agreed Talbert. “But that alone is not a reason not to do this,” he said.

Not all smokers object to the measure, Strickland added.

“I’ve talked to people I know who are smokers, and they think this is a good idea,” she said.

Eugene Clark isn’t one of them.

During his recent visit to Wright Park, Clark, a 50-year-old Puyallup tribal member who has smoked since he was 12, said smokers are becoming an endangered species – and not for legitimate reason.

“Some people think it’s their jobs to tell everyone else how they should live,” he said. “It has almost gotten to the point where you can’t smoke anywhere outside anymore.”

Lewis Kamb: 253-597-8542

lewis.kamb@thenewstribune.com

What the proposed Smoke-free parks law says

The Tacoma City Council’s Public Safety, Human Services and Education Committee recently supported a measure that would ban smoking from public parks. The full council is expected to consider the issue Oct. 13. Here’s the proposal:

Smoking in parks prohibited

It is unlawful for any person to smoke or light cigars, cigarettes, tobacco or other smoking material within a park. The Director or City Manager shall post signs in appropriate locations prohibiting smoking in parks.

For the purposes of this section, “smoke” or “smoking” means the carrying, holding, or smoking of any kind of lighted pipe, cigar, cigarette, or any other lighted smoking equipment.

A violation of this section is a class 4 civil infraction of $25, not including statutory assessments. Such penalty is in addition to any other remedies or penalties provided by law.

Copyright © 09/15/09 Thenewstribune

In a better attempt to comply with a law forbidding smoking within 20 feet of any public building, PCC has implemented four designated smoking areas to be used by students and faculty.

According to the PCC website, the areas are located at the north east corner or parking lot 1, the northeast corner of parking lot 3, The northwest corner of parking lot 5a, and outside the new media center.

“To comply with CA GOV 7597, the law forbidding smoking within 20 feet of a public building, the school has announced these designated areas as the college’s way of extending the courtesy of giving smoking a place,” said Lt. Brad Young.

As far as enforcement is concerned, Young made it clear that it is not a top priority of the campus police to make sure smoking is only allowed in these areas.

“We [campus police] are just hoping that everyone will voluntarily comply. If it is not a violation of the law then we really have no authority to intervene,” said Young.

According to Young, as the only law relevant to public smoking is the one concerning smoking within 20 feet of a building, the only cause for citation would be one from a student or faculty member whom blatantly disregards this law to the point that a formal complaint is issued.

“I don’t believe the new policy implies that smoking be restricted only to those designated areas,” said Young. “It is more of a courtesy then anything.”

According to the PCC press release, student violators will be referred to the Office of the Vice President for Student and Learning Services for violation of the student code of conduct and education code section 76033(3).

The new policy is receiving mixed responses from the campus. Some students see it as an encroachment on personal freedom.

Pricilla Lara, 20, Psychology major and a smoker, says it’s going to be humiliating for the smokers to stand by the parking lots.

“It’s a shame how they are going to put smokers in a corner of a parking lot. Like a bunch of beggars looking for handouts while everyone stares at them,” said Lara.

Instructor Loknath Persaud didn’t have a problem with the designated areas but did have some concerns with their locations.

“I don’t like the dehumanization of smokers being confined to parking lots versus other areas that could be designated,” said Persaud.

Some students see it as a positive change. Allen Tsay, President of AS, seems to fully advocate the new policy.

“Myself, as well as the collective AS are in full support of the newly implemented policy,” said Tsay.

Regardless of the way it is received, the policy is meant to give smokers a place to smoke, not to restrict smokers to only four areas.

As long as they stay 20 feet from a building, and remain responsible, smokers are not breaking any law.

WAURIKA — Jefferson County Turning Point Coalition (JCTPC) is attempting to partner with the Waurika and Ryan school districts in the 24/7 Tobacco Policy program.

The 24/7 Tobacco Policy is sponsored by the Oklahoma Department of Health (ODH), with the goal of school districts forbidding tobacco use on school grounds at any time. Turning Point Coalition has identified teen tobacco use as one of the primary public health problems in Jefferson County.

During the group’s August meeting, Jefferson County Health Department RN Autumn James said she and Brandie O’Connor, from the Oklahoma Turning Point Coalition, were to meet with Waurika Superintendent Roxie Terry to discuss bringing the district into compliance with the state-wide 24/7 Tobacco Policy program.

“Brandie has talked with Mr. Terry, and he advised they already have a similar policy in effect (at Waurika Public Schools),” James said. “However, some of the wording needed to be changed slightly to be in compliance with a 24/7 policy.”

She said the state health department has agreed to contribute to covering the cost of signs that would be installed on school property, should any county schools choose to participate in the program.

JCTPC Chair Fran Bergeron said she had spoke with administrators in the Ryan school district, but they were not interested in joining the state-wide program at this time.

“(Ryan administrators) said they didn’t have anyone to enforce the policy and didn’t think community members were ready,” Bergeron noted, adding that Ryan officials felt there was a need for more public awareness of the 24/7 program.

Coalition members discussed having the media play a role once one of the county’s school districts adopts the 24/7 Tobacco Policy

Coalition member Anna Duran, from the Oklahoma Department of Health, said the state Turning Point Coalition was initiating a Certified Health Business program, which would recognize businesses, both profit and non-profit, which are working to improve the state’s health status by providing health and wellness opportunities for their employees.

Businesses that participate will be recognized at a luncheon hosted by the ODH. Business owners wishing information on the program and an application to participate can go to the Web site www.okturningpoint.org.

Duran also said plans are being made for JCTPC to partner with the Jefferson County OSU Cooperative Extension Office to offer a baby-sitting seminar and training in mid-October. It would be open to students from 12 to 16 years of age, who could become certified baby-sitters by participating in the training.

During the meeting, it was also noted that JCTPC wants to schedule a child car seat check and distribution in December, and Penny Gardner, from Women’s Haven of Stephens and Jefferson counties, noted that October is Domestic Violence Month. She said a recognition program is being planned for Jefferson and Stephens counties.

Copyright © September 09, 2009 Waurikademocrat

WASHINGTON, – The following is a statement by Matthew L. Myers, President, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids:

Avis Rent-A-Car’s famous advertising slogan “We Try Harder” was never more apt than it is right now. The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids applauds Avis Budget Group, Inc. for its announcement today that beginning October 1st, 2009, all Avis and Budget rental vehicles in the United States and Canada will be smoke-free.

By prohibiting smoking in its entire North American rental fleet, Avis will not only be saving on cleaning costs, it will be making renting a car a healthier and far more pleasurable experience for its customers.

In ridding Avis and Budget rental cars of the 4000 chemicals, including over 60 carcinogens, in secondhand smoke, Avis is protecting the rights of all of its customers to breathe clean air. A recent study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health concluded that concentrations of secondhand smoke are significantly higher in cars than concentrations generally measured in bars, restaurants and other public places that allow smoking. In addition, residues from secondhand smoke can remain on cushions and fabrics long after secondhand smoke has cleared.

Avis Budget Group Inc. obviously cares about its customers .They do Try Harder. We hope Avis’s announcement will spur other rental car companies to follow Avis’s lead and make their rental fleets smoke-free as well. It will make renting a car a far healthier and far more pleasurable experience for all consumers.

Copyright © 2009 Prnewswire

AN INVESTIGATION has found that children in Malawi who are forced to work as tobacco pickers are exposed to nicotine poisoning equivalent to smoking 50 cigarettes a day.

Child workers, some as young as five, are suffering severe health problems from a daily skin absorption of up to 54 milligrams of dissolved nicotine, according to international children’s organisation Plan.

Plan claims that an estimated 78,000 children work on tobacco estates for as little as 1p an hour for up to 12 hours a day.

Forty-four children from tobacco farms in three different districts were asked by the organisation to take part in a series of workshops.

They found that the children suffered from common symptoms of green tobacco sickness (GTS), or nicotine poisoning, including severe headaches, abdominal pain, muscle weakness, coughing and breathlessness.

GTS is a common side affect of workers who come into contact with tobacco leaves and absorb nicotine through their skin, particularly when harvesting.

The long-term effects are not known but some experts believe that it could seriously impair children’s development.

Neal Benowitz, professor of medicine, psychiatry and biopharmaceutical sciences at California University in San Francisco told the Guardian:

“The brain of a child or adolescent is particularly vulnerable to adverse neurobehavioral effects of nicotine exposure.”

Plan has called on the Malawian government to enforce tougher child labour and protection laws to provide safer, working conditions for those children who have to work.

“This research shows that tobacco estates are exploiting and abusing children who have a right to a safe working environment. Plan is calling for better enforcement of child labour laws and harsher punishments for employers who break them,” said Plan Malawi’s child rights adviser, Macdonald Mumba.

“These children are risking their health for 11p a day.”

Source: Voice-online

Muslims are being encouraged to quit smoking during Ramadan.

NHS Manchester’s Stop Smoking Service is offering support for people who want to quit smoking or using tobacco products and enjoy a smokefree Ramadan, which starts on Saturday (22 August).

During the 30 days of Ramadan, Aurangzaib Amirat, a specialist stop smoking advisor, will be visiting the following Mosques to provide one-to-one support for anyone ready to quit:

* Dar-us-Salam Mosque, 47 Slade Lane, Longsight M13 0QJ
* Victoria Park Mosque, 20 Upper Park Road, Victoria Park, M14 5RU
* Al Quba & Shah Poran Mosque, 109-115 Beresford Road, Longsight, M13 0TA
* Makki Mosque, 125 Beresford Rd, Longsight, M13 0TA
* Madina Mosque, 2 Barlow Road, Levenshulme, M19 3DJ
* Al Furqan Mosque, 42 Great Southern Street, Rusholme, M14 4EZ

Quitting smoking or using tobacco products isn’t always easy, but support from an NHS specialist advisor can help make the fresh start to a smokefree life.

Bashir Ahmed is one of many people who received support from an advisor who visited a mosque in Manchester during Ramadan 2008.

After smoking for over 25 years, Bashir has gone smokefree.

He had tried to quit during Ramadan when he received information from Aurangzaib, but was not quite ready. Instead he kicked the habit when he was admitted into hospital last December.

Bashir said: “I was not allowed to smoke for three days while I was in hospital. On the fourth day I thought; if I managed not to smoke for three days then maybe I’ll try four, then I tried 5 days and I’ve not smoked since.

“I used to smoke a lot of cigarettes when I broke my fast each day, so I would not have any cravings while I was fasting. But now my whole life has changed since I’ve quit – my chest is clearer, I can concentrate and I don’t get terrible headaches. I am really looking forward to a smokefree Ramandan this year.

“I want to help people realise that smoking is bad for their health. Ramadan is a really good time to take advantage of the support offered to stop smoking.”

Smoking tobacco is a cause of many diseases, including cancers, heart disease, respiratory diseases . Smokeless tobacco is a cause of cancer of the mouth, lips, tongue and betel nut is also associated with serious pre-cancerous condition. When tobacco is chewed by pregnant women it can reduce the growth of their unborn babies.

People from Parkistani, Bangladeshi and Indian Backgrounds have around a 50 per cent higher risk of heart disease than the UK population as a whole.

Abbie Paton, Manchester Stop Smoking Service Tobacco Lead said: “Ramadan provides an opportunity to receive support to stop smoking and enjoy a healthy smokefree Ramadan.”

For dates and times of the mosque visit, or for help and advice to stop smoking or chewing tobacco call Manchester Stop Smoking Service on 0161 205 5998.

Copyright © August 19, 2009 Theasiannews

Columbus — Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland says the state will appeal a county judge’s decision barring the use of tobacco foundation funds to help balance the budget.

“This judge has in my judgment no right to say how the Legislature and the governor should be expending public tax resources,” Strickland said Aug. 11 shortly after the decision was released. “He had a legal decision to reach, and I think he interjected himself quite inappropriately in an area that was rightfully the responsibility of the Legislature and the executive.”

Nearly a decade ago, lawmakers appropriated about $235 million in tobacco settlement payments into an endowment fund for use by a statewide foundation to support programs aimed at curbing tobacco use.

But last year, lawmakers and Strickland moved to use the endowment funds as part of a job stimulus package. They subsequently liquidated the endowment and abolished the foundation, prompting legal action by the latter to stop the move.

In his decision on the lawsuit, Franklin County Common Pleas Judge David W. Fais ruled that lawmakers and the governor had other funding options and did not need to liquidate the tobacco endowment.

He also noted that action would cause irreparable harm to individuals who rely on foundation programs “to become and remain tobacco free,” according to documents. “… Depletion of the endowment fund and discontinuance or reduction of the tobacco prevention and cessation programs funded by the endowment fund would result in a substantial increase in tobacco-related premature death and disease in Ohio and result in a substantial increase in medical expense for both Ohioans and the state of Ohio for treatment of tobacco-related disease.”

Strickland said he doesn’t think the ongoing legal battle will have an immediate effect on state spending. A total of $258.6 million in tobacco foundation funds were earmarked in the recently enacted two-year budget to pay for Medicaid services, child and adult protective programs and cancer screenings.

“His ruling is not a surprise, but I am terribly disappointed quite frankly that this judge took 18 months to reach a decision that he should have been able to reach rather quickly,” Strickland said, adding, “I’m glad that we finally have a decision so we can get it to another court. I continue to feel very confident that when this is finally resolved that it will be in a way that will enable us to use these precious resources to continue to provide the auxiliary services ….”

Senate President Bill Harris, R-Ashland, agreed with Strickland’s decision to appeal.

“I’m very surprised that that’s his ruling,” he said. “I think the objective was that those dollars could be used very effectively to support a shortfall in the budget. I think we’re taking lots of action to continue to encourage people not to smoke.”

Copyright © 2009 Stowsentry