Thursday, the state’s tax on cigarettes climbs to 57 cents a pack from its current 7 cents a pack.

Smokers can expect to cough up an additional $5 a carton.

Residents, retailers and health care advocates are split on the whether the increased tax, which will help pay for health care for the state’s poor, cancer research and smoking prevention and cessation programs, is a good thing.

“They should raise it to $10 per pack,” said Richard Lee, 58, as he manned the office at his auto repair shop, Richard’s Automotive, in West Columbia.

Lee points to a wall photo of himself and his brother who had a portion of a lung removed after years of smoking. Lee’s father and another brother died of lung cancer.

“Every bit they raise, it will keep people from smoking,” said Lee, who added he has never taken a puff in his life.

That’s what anti-smoking groups and lawmakers are banking on.

The increase is expected to prevent more than 23,000 S.C. children from becoming smokers and persuade 13,000 adult smokers to quit, according to the S.C. Tobacco Collaborative, an anti-tobacco group that includes the American Cancer Society and the American Lung Association, which have worked to increase the tax for the past decade.

There are gains for nonsmokers, too, they claim.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, every S.C. household pays nearly $600 a year to cover tobacco-related health care costs.

“There is a huge direct and indirect tax burden to everyone in South Carolina, whether they smoke or not,” said Louis Eubank, director of the collaborative. “So what you’re talking about is a lessening of that burden. Plus, people will be healthier.”

Not everyone agrees.

Just steps outside of Lee’s office, one of his mechanics, David Davis, offers a different take on the tax increase as he works on a BMW.

“It’s ridiculous,” said Davis. A smoker for the past 20 years, Davis said he smokes 11/2 packs a day, depending on how long his work day stretches.

“Some people are going to stop smoking (because of the tax increase), and, eventually, the state will get less money,” he said. “And that will put some businesses out of business.”

Those same two reasons — the regressive nature of the tax and its effect on cigarette retailers — persuaded Gov. Mark Sanford and some state lawmakers to reject a proposed increase.

But in May a majority of lawmakers, faced with a looming $1 billion budget deficit, overrode the governor’s veto, ending South Carolina’s 33-year reign as the state with the nation’s lowest cigarette tax. Starting Thursday, South Carolina’s cigarette tax will rank 42nd among the 50 states and Washington, D.C. New York leads the nation with its $4.35-a-pack tax.

Since 2002, 47 states, Washington, D.C., and several U.S. territories have increased their cigarette tax to bolster state budgets and wean tobacco-addicted residents.

The federal government has taken up the tobacco tax habit too, increasing the federal tax by 62 cents a pack to $1.01 in April.

The double punch of state and federal cigarette tax increases could threaten the livelihood of some S.C. convenience stores, particularly those in counties that border North Carolina and Georgia, said David Jordan, marketing director of R.L. Jordan Oil Co., which operates 41 Hot Spot convenience stores in South Carolina. Cigarettes make up about 25 percent of the company’s sales.

“There is no other product that generates money and jobs like cigarettes,” Jordan said.

“We don’t know how much business we’ll lose to North Carolina and Georgia, but we know it’s going to happen,” he said, adding both border states will have lower taxes than the Palmetto State starting Thursday.

Jordan said his company anticipated a drop of 5 percent to 7 percent in cigarette sales when the federal tax was increased. The drop turned out to be more than 10 percent.

“Some stores right on the border will have to adjust to the way they do business. They’ll have to live on a lot less (profit) margin,” he said. “Some probably will go out of business.”

The higher price has smokers, including Claude Williams of Columbia, fuming too.

“They’re getting something over on us. Man, this is exactly why I need to quit,” Williams said as he recently finished off the last of a lunch-break cigarette.

But as Williams thought about it, he realized he wasn’t that upset.

“Who am I kidding?” he said. “I’ve got to have my Newports.”

Taxing smokers

Federal and state tax hikes on smoking will make the habit more expensive. A by-the-numbers look at the how the increase in cigarette taxes will affect smokers:

$4.09: The cost of a pack of cigarettes in South Carolina before on March 31, 2009

$4.71: The cost of a pack of cigarettes in the state after a 62-cents-a-pack federal tax increase

$5.21: The projected cost of a pack of cigarettes in South Carolina after the state’s cigarette tax is raised by 50 cents a pack on July 1
By GINA SMITH
Heraldonline, Jun. 28, 2010

The proposed tobacco control law being mulled by the Lebanese Parliamentary Administration and Justice Committee has stirred debate between health-minded civil society activists, lobbyists from the tobacco and advertising industries keen to protect their commercial interests and a public skeptical of how serious the government is about enforcing any real tobacco control policy.

Arguments have covered not only health concerns but also Lebanon’s economy, asking whether or not the country can afford to lose the cash raised by the tobacco industry, specifically in the agricultural, hospitality and advertising sectors.

The controversial legislation would be surprisingly strict compared to the current law, calling for a ban on smoking in indoor public places including bars and restaurants, forbidding advertising of all tobacco-related products and insisting on pictorial warning labels on cigarette packs equivalent to 40 percent of the packaging size.

Proposed as a series of amendments to a draft law from 2006, this version revisits the country’s stance on tobacco following its commitment to the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), an international treaty that Lebanon signed in 2004 and ratified the next year. The FCTC arose as a global response to scientific data, albeit from the 1960s, which revealed the gravity of the health risks associated with tobacco use and is the treaty that prompted tobacco control legislation across the world.

Implementation of the draft tobacco control law would allow Lebanon to catch-up on its FCTC obligations, as the country has already missed the 2008 compliance deadline for implementing larger warning labels, the 2009 deadline to ban advertising and the 2010 target to ban smoking in indoor public places.

According to George Saade, program coordinator at the health ministry’s National Tobacco Control Program (NTCP), the tentative deadline for parliamentary approval of a national tobacco control policy is May 31, coincidentally “World No Tobacco Day.”

Smokey quantification

A study released last month by the American University of Beirut’s (AUB) Tobacco Control Research Group — authored by Jad Chaaban, Nadia Naamani and Nisreen Salti — has quantified a number of previously undocumented tobacco-related figures.

For starters, the study reports that 40.3 percent of Lebanese are smokers. With cigarette consumption reaching an estimated rate of 12.4 packs per person per month, Lebanon also has one of the highest overall consumption rates in the world. The figure is three times that of Syria, and 12 times that of Singapore.

Looking at the overall benefits to the economy, the net revenue from tobacco is estimated at $271 million, taking into account tax revenues, subsidies to Lebanon’s 24,000 tobacco farmers, advertising, revenues from licensing and all other net gains for the government, international tobacco companies, distributors and retailers, and the Regie du Tabac et Tombacs — the state-run entity under the Ministry of Finance, which oversees Lebanon’s tobacco industry.

When evaluating overall costs to the economy, the sum includes health care costs, productivity loss, environmental costs due to forest fires and street waste clean-up, totaling $326.7 million, around 1.1 percent of Lebanon’s GDP. This figure is relatively high; in Egypt, where smoking prevalence is also high, the costs represent 0.7 percent of GDP.

The balance of tobacco’s revenue and costs leaves the country with a net loss of some $55.4 million. The real figure could be even higher since the study excluded costs related to regular exposure to second-hand smoke, as well as excluding many smoking related diseases due to a lack of sufficient data.

“What is obvious is that Lebanon’s economy is losing money on smoking,” said Chaaban.

According to Public Health Researcher Jade Khalife at the Ministry of Health’s NTCP, international data strongly supports the economic assertion that employers will benefit from increased tobacco control in the form of improved employee productivity, reduced hiring costs and lower building maintenance costs. Khalife raised the example of Ireland, where smoke-free environments saved employers the equivalent of 1.1 to 1.7 percent of GDP.

In the hospitality sector, studies conducted in other countries generally show that banning smoking in indoor public places either does not affect, or actually increases, revenue for restaurants and bars. In Ireland, the first European country to ban smoking in enclosed workspaces in 2004, a study in the Irish Journal of Medical Science found that a year after the ban was enacted customer numbers in Dublin pubs had increased by 11 percent.

More recently in Turkey, hospitality sector revenue rose some 5 percent in 2009 following a public indoor ban. And in Lebanon, apart from the fact that the majority of Lebanese are non-smokers, a recent survey done by the NTCP underlined that restaurants could also see increased business from a ban, with 56 percent of Lebanese smokers reporting that they are bothered by smoke in restaurants, and 98 percent recognizing that second-hand smoke is harmful to them.

The American University of Beirut is ahead of the game and has already designated specific smoking areas

“In our bars and restaurants 60 to 70 percent of the people are smoking,” estimated Gemmayze Development Committee member Paddy Cochrane, who is coincidentally Irish-Lebanese. “After experiencing the ban in Ireland and being a non-smoker myself, I think it’s a fantastic idea, but as a bar owner, I’m not there to tell people what they can and cannot do. But if the government passes a law, it’s different.”

Although restaurants and bars would lose money made off of the promotion and sale of cigarettes in their venues, the impact is negligible, added Cochrane.

No more Marlboro man

The advertising sector also stands to lose from the proposed legislation. According to AUB’s study, tobacco advertising comprised 4.5 percent of total advertising spending in Lebanon in 2009, a figure roughly coinciding with an estimate of 4 percent provided by the President of the Lebanon Chapter of the International Advertising Association (IAA) George Jabbour. Research company IPSOS reported that tobacco advertising made up 1 percent ($7.2 million) of the total media advertising, excluding ‘below the line’ advertising, such as promotions, handouts and events – which the industry would rather see exempt from any ban.

According to Jabbour, advertisers need time adjust to the change.

“We need a grace period. We have employees that we cannot just throw away. We need to restructure,” he said.

“No one is saying it should be stopped as a legislation. But we don’t want this legislation to just be propaganda. We don’t want the advertising industry to be the scapegoat,” said Jabour, concerned that ban or no ban, smokers will carry on regardless, leaving advertisers to carry the can.

Skeptics argue that smoking is as much a part of the local culture as general disregard for the law. In focus group studies conducted by the AUB Tobacco Control Research Group, even researchers in favor of the policy had to admit that the most frequent concern about the policy implementation cited by participants was the willingness of the general public to abide by a law, even if it passes. Last month NTCP’s Saade released a statement saying that fines for breaking the law may reach $663 for establishments and $33 for individual smokers. But who would implement this remains undetermined as yet.

Trying to ban smoking in public areas in Lebanon

More recently, a modification of the draft law regarding the public ban was introduced to provide exemptions for public establishments that make separate smoking and non-smoking areas. This move drew sharp criticism from the AUB Mechanical Engineering Department, which “strongly advises against any such exemption because it has been shown through numerous scientific studies that partitioning indoor spaces into smoking and non-smoking areas does not work, even when advanced ventilation and filtration technologies are used.”

A similar attempt to impose separated areas in Spain failed and the country is now considering a complete ban, after many establishments already invested in redesigning their businesses.

Applying policy… maybe

The AUB Tobacco Control Research Group also strongly warned that “multinational tobacco companies have consciously thwarted previous policy attempts to limit the reach of this harmful product… The industry should not be allowed to weaken tobacco control policy.”

While the NTCP estimates that 3,500 Lebanese die each year due to tobacco use, the public health aspects of the tobacco control law, and even the economic ones, have thus far been trumped by political interests in the halls of government. Lebanon’s three largest tobacco importers, Philip Morris, British American Tobacco and Japan International Tobacco, declined the opportunity to contribute to this article.

Both Major League Baseball (MLB) officials and members of Congress would like to see all tobacco use by players banned, but the player’s union will have the final say when the current collective-bargaining agreement expires next year.

MLB Fanhouse reported May 3 that while smoking is banned in dugouts and on the field, about one-third of MLB players use smokeless tobacco. Use of smokeless tobacco is now banned in the minor leagues, but not the majors.

“It’s not something I’m proud of or something I want to continue doing,” said San Francisco Giants outfielder Mark DeRosa. “It’s like any addiction. It calms me down before I go to the plate. You tell yourself that. Even though you know it’s not reality, it’s my reality.”

Congress recently held hearings on tobacco use in baseball and urged MLB to enact a ban. MLB Executive Vice President Rob Manfried called that “a laudable goal” but said the union would have to agree.

“If it’s legal in the United States of America, you can’t say someone can’t do it,” said Giants reliever Jeremy Affeldt, who does not use tobacco. “It’s a free country. You start going down those roads, taking away freedoms this country is based on … I think we are seeing signs of more and more of that happening and we need to back off.”

However, many employers prohibit workers from activities that are legal in other settings, and some players said that allowing the use of smokeless tobacco projects a bad image for the game. “Sometimes when I’m watching the games you see a guy throw in a big dip and the camera focuses in on it, I know kids are watching,” said A’s infielder Eric Chavez. “You want guys to be able to do what they want. Everyone is an adult, but you also have to be aware of the message that you send to kids.”

A proposal to ban smoking in Japanese workplaces would herald a big political shift in the world’s fourth-biggest cigarette market and accelerate the decline of its giant tobacco lobby, industry experts say.

It would also bring Japan into line with much of the developed world, where prohibitions on smoking at work have been widespread for years.

A health ministry panel is expected to finalise a report by April that will recommend smoking be banned in offices and factories or, as an alternative, confined to separate rooms, Japanese media has reported.

The report would pave the way for the ministry to submit a bill to parliament as early as next year.

If passed, it would be a dramatic step for a country where smoking is still permitted in parts of hospitals and schools, and where the atmosphere in restaurants, cafes and bars is often thick with smoke.

In April Kanagawa will become the first of Japan’s 47 prefectures to regulate smoking in public places – but it will exempt small hotels and restaurants.

The proportion of the population that smokes has fallen a long way since 1965, when roughly 82 per cent of men indulged the habit. But it remains high for the industrialised world: last year 25 per cent of adults counted themselves as smokers.

Professor Manabu Sakuta, of the Japan Society for Tobacco Control, said that ”it’s late coming and could take up to four years to go through, but legislation would signal a big change in the political landscape”.

Japan had lagged a long way behind most of the developed world ”because of politics and money”, he said. ”There’s traditionally been a cosy connection between the Liberal Democratic Party [removed from power last September after more than half a century of near-uninterrupted rule], tobacco growers and cigarette sellers.

”Then you have the Smoking Research Foundation, which spends ¥5 billion a year selling its message that smoking is not necessarily harmful for you.”

Cigarettes are cheap at ¥300 ($3.77) a pack of 20 and are widely available in the country’s 570,000 tobacco vending machines.

But the government, which owns 50.01 per cent of Japan Tobacco, will introduce a tax increase of ¥3.5 a cigarette from October.

Japan Tobacco said it expects the government eventually to sell its stake in the company to raise funds to reduce the country’s soaring public debt.

A spokeswoman said ”Japan Tobacco recognises that certain illnesses are caused by tobacco. But to protect smokers’ rights, we would hope that the government allows smoking rooms in workplaces and does not enforce a total ban.”

JUSTIN NORRIE
February 27, 2010

New Yorkers are used to getting nickel-and-dimed to death from their state government.
In fact, it has become the state’s favored way to create more revenue.

From fishing and hunting fees to taxes on just about anything that moves, governors and Legislatures have favored the small stuff to grab greater amounts of money to pay for ever-expanding state spending over the past 20 years.

Those who smoke know the scheme. They pay among the highest taxes in the nation at $2.75 a pack, and if Gov. Paterson has his way, they’ll pay even more. He’s proposing to raise the state tax on cigarettes again another dollar. Add in the higher federal taxes enacted in the past year and cigarettes now average at least $7 a pack. That’s over $80 a week for a pack-a-day person on one of the most unhealthy things you can do to your body.

Many health advocates support higher tobacco taxes as a way to spur people to quit, figuring some people will decide to give up the habit for financial reasons if the health dangers aren’t compelling enough. But for many others hopelessly hooked on smoking, it just means more money out of their pocket.

Sadly, the state appears to want it both ways. They claim they want people to quit smoking, but don’t mind using tobacco taxes as a source of revenue.

And while Paterson is ready to jack the tax on a pack of smokes by a buck, funds for tobacco-cessation programs in the state are being cut. That’s hypocrisy.

Adding another dollar of taxes onto each pack isn’t going to expand the ranks of former smokers. If you can’t quit when the price is a jaw-dropping $7 or $8, what’s another buck? Maybe that’s what Paterson is betting on as well.

But Paterson’s targets go beyond smokers, a group that doesn’t have a whole lot of friends in Albany. He’s proposing a number of other taxes and fees as well, including a so-called sugar tax on beverage syrups and bottled drinks and powders. On face value, it’s not a bad idea, given alarming hikes in obesity among younger people that health officials blame in part on sugary drinks that pack a caloric punch. But again, is the tax to deter consumption or an easy revenue source?

Maybe it’s time for Albany to play it straight with taxpayers. Whether the state picks your pocket in the convenience store, in your fishing license or out of your paycheck, the effect is the same. If the governor and Legislature don’t have the gumption to cut spending enough to match existing revenues, then raise income taxes.

They’re hoping you won’t recognize that while they haven’t taken any more money out of your pay, they raised your taxes just the same.

MUNCIE — Local health advocates are pleased to see a watered down version of a bill banning smoking in public places statewide go up in a puff of smoke.

Three amendments added to House Bill 1131 diluted the proposed ban so much that sponsor Rep. Charlie Brown, D-Gary, pulled it on Monday. Originally, the only exemption to the ban was casinos. Rep. Dennis Tyler, D-Muncie, offered an amendment that added an exemption for bars, fraternal organizations, private clubs and taverns.

“I applaud Rep. Charlie Brown’s decision because the bill was too weakened, too many amendments to make it an effective piece of legislation,” said Cecilia Williams, program coordinator for the Tobacco Free Coalition of Delaware County.

Williams and others, including Delaware County Health Department Administrator Bob Jones, want a comprehensive ban that prohibits smoking in all public places. Indiana is one of 12 states, known as the Dirty Dozen, without such legislation.

The reasoning is that employees, as well as customers, have the right to breathe smoke-free air.

“From a public health perspective we would encourage regulations that would ban smoking in the workplace and any place that the public does visit,” Jones said.

Red Dog Saloon owner and Indiana Licensed Beverage Association President Lewis Coulter doesn’t buy the argument that the ban protects his employees. Most of them, he said, are already smokers, and those who don’t want to work in a smoke-filled environment are free to work elsewhere.

Making bars and taverns smoke-free would be their death knell, said Coulter, who agrees with the Indiana Licensed Beverage Association that there should be exemptions for such establishments.

“People have the right to go in if they want to,” Coulter said. “I don’t like smoking. I wish everybody would quit, but that’s not my choice. I don’t think government has a right (to dictate). It’s my choice whether I have smoking or not.”

Tyler listened. According to campaign finance reports, Tyler received a combined $1,200 from the Beer Industry, Indiana Licensed Beverage Association and Indiana Association of Beverage Retailers, but says those donations didn’t sway his opinion.

“I just thought that was too much of an intrusion,” Tyler said of the original bill. “It’s just tough times and talking to those small business people all over the state of Indiana that type of hit would put a number of them out of employment.”

Tyler is hopeful Brown brings the bill back before the legislative session ends. If he does, Williams wants a strong bill, or her organization will push for stronger smoking bans at the local level.

“We’re here to protect all workers,” Williams said.

West Hollywood, California (January 11, 2010) – Half a dozen LA County municipalities have banned smoking near their outdoor dining facilities, with a few banning it from publicly-owned property – sidewalks, medians etc. – across their city entire.

All did so citing public health concerns, but none did so based on scientific evidence that second hand smoke (SHS) near an outdoor area poses a health risk, because no such peer reviewed study existed.

The first scientific study on detecting outdoor second hand smoke levelsin exposed persons, published by University of Georgia Athens (UGA) researchers in November, 2009, found increased levels of SHS in their subjects, but not levels considered to be risky.

The Athens-Clarke, Georgia, County Commission sought to extend their 2004/5 indoor smoking bans to outdoor areas in late 2009.

By chance, UGA happens to contain a world class environmental health sciences department that works alongside the United Nation’s World Health Organization (WHO) to study indoor smoke and other contaminants around the world.

Environmental health science professor Luke Naeher told WeHo News that he conducted the study (in Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene November 2009) because of the indoor ban – he wondered if allowing it in outdoor areas simply moved the risks associated with SHS in employees outdoors.

“I do indoor air exposure assessment and health studies in parts of the developing world, looking at diesel and wood and other kinds of air pollutants,” so when Georgia banned smoking indoors and restaurants and clubs established outdoor areas for smokers, “I developed a study to look at levels of outdoor SHS.”

He said that his study intended to show, and did show, that “you can measure these particles contained in SHS such as carbon monoxide, and they correlate with the number of cigarettes smoked at any given time and did not correlate with traffic and background pollutants.”

Based on those findings, he partnered with the Centers Of Disease Control to conduct a deeper study that “shows, where you have these outdoor smoking settings, you can measure these cotinine levels, which is an indication of nicotine, in saliva.

“The levels are not earth-shattering, but they are measurable,” he said.

The study, conducted in the summer and fall of 2007 in outdoor standing and seating areas of bars and family restaurants in Athens, involved students spending six hours at a time during the busiest periods.

In all test results cotinine saliva levels rose – even in the control location on a college campus courtyard (13 percent). The bar patrons saw a rise in cotinine levels increase the most at 62.5 percent and the dining patrons levels went up 52 percent.

The highest median levels of cotinine found in the subjects was .296 ng/mLl.

The best science on the risk associated with SHS by James Repace, a Maryland scientist, determined that an average salivary cotinine level of 0.40 ng/mL – or 2.2 times (220 percent) higher than those found in Athens – corresponds to an increased lifetime mortality risk of 1/1000 for lung cancer and 1/100 for heart disease.

As the report reads, “The average salivary cotinine levels for all six study dates in our study did not reach this level, although the average post-exposure salivary cotinine level for the bar site participants in the summer was 0.296 ng/mL,” which is 75 percent of the risk levels reported by Repace and colleagues.

“Additional studies are needed to determine if workers repeatedly exposed to SHS at outdoor bars have sustained salivary cotinine levels in the range of 0.30 – 0.40 ng/mL, which would indicate an increased risk for lung cancer and heart disease,” he writes in the study.

The study acknowledges other faults, including not doing “an accurate count of the total number of cigarettes lit during each sampling period,” and not measuring how the “concentration of components of SHS in an outdoor location is… influenced by meteorological factors, such as wind speed, temperature, and humidity.”

After hearing the science, Athens-Clarke officials said they have no plans to revive talk of an outdoor smoking ban.

A UGA student clocking exposure to second hand smoke. WeHo News.

According to the Athens Banner Herald, “the county commission and the state legislature both considered extending the ban to 25 feet outside doorways but abandoned the idea.

“County commissioners,” they wrote, “said they would either not support an outdoor ban or are waiting for more evidence before tackling the issue.

“UGA researchers did not go so far as to say outdoor cafes and patios are hazardous. They said they do not know the health effects of outdoor secondhand smoke yet.”

Luke Naeher told WeHo News that he would uncover answers to better address the question of risk in his Spring 2010 study.

“Is this of public health concern,” he asked, “do these levels pose a risk? We haven’t answered that yet.”

In the new study he said he will use NNAL (a metabolite of tobacco-processing associated nitrosamines) as a marker. “That [metabolite] is a known carcinogen, so it is an accurate measure of health risk. Having the data can help policymakers and public health officials determine appropriate measures,” he said.

NEW YORK – In a move that will undoubtedly present significant ramifications for Japan Tobacco Inc., Philip Morris International Inc. and British American Tobacco PLC, Japan is preparing to announce its biggest-ever tax increase on cigarettes, The Wall Street Journal reports.

In the $38 billion tobacco market where 40 percent of the male population smokes and a pack of cigarettes costs less than $3.50, the tobacco companies can expect a “shrinking market and falling demand” if prices are raised, according to the WSJ. As a result, any growth is expected to come from seizing market share from rivals.

“We have to grow our share in this country through innovation,” said Naresh Sethi, president of BAT Japan. “We need an iPod of cigarettes.”

Japan’s Prime Minister, Yukio Hatoyama, is expected to triple taxes on cigarettes from one yen to three yen per cigarette. This amounts to a “monumental” increase, as the country has seen workers’ salaries decreasing.

A government official said that an announcement could be made as early as next week and would then have to be passed by Japan’s parliament next year, a move that was described as a “formality.”

“For health reasons, the idea was to raise the tax rate by a greater level, but we had to raise it more gradually,” said a finance-ministry official. “The new administration wants to raise health consciousness.”

A group of inmates at the South Dakota State Penitentiary wants the Department of Corrections to reinstate their right to use tobacco during religious ceremonies after it was taken away because of concerns about addiction and abuse.

A federally recognized inmate group called the Native American Council of Tribes says the way the change was made constitutes a violation of their right to religious freedom, but it is unclear whether the group’s federal complaint will be allowed to proceed.

“They would normally need to exhaust all the administrative remedies before a lawsuit can be heard,” said Robert Doody, the American Civil Liberties Union’s Director for South Dakota. “I’m not sure if they’ve done that.”

In October, the DOC rescinded an exception to its system-wide tobacco ban, instituted in 2000, that had allowed Native Americans to include it in a blend of herbs smoked during the ceremonies.

“Medicine Men and Spiritual leaders, who lead ceremonies at our facilities, have brought to our attention that it is too addictive to be used for ceremonies,” Director of Prison Operations Doug Weber wrote in a letter announcing the change.

The letter also noted that inmates had been caught separating the tobacco from the rest of the herbs and selling it to other inmates.

The Native American Council of Tribes’ complaint alleges that the change was made without any hearings or input from the inmates using the tobacco.

The complaint names Weber, Attorney General Marty Jackley and Department of Corrections Secretary Timothy Reisch as defendants.

The inmates contacted the ACLU in October, Doody said, but the group is not representing them. While the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995 requires inmates to try to handle their grievances through administrative channels before taking them to a judge, he said, the inmates are working on an issue that has grown in stature.

Some religions historically have been misunderstood and oppressed within the prison system, he said, and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 opened the door for practitioners of minority religions to address their concerns by taking legal action.

“Especially those minority religions and minority faiths have suffered from a lack of understanding and awareness,” Doody said.

Michael Winder, spokesman for the Department of Corrections, declined to say whether the inmates had asked for an administrative appeal. The DOC does not comment on pending litigation, he said.

Reach John Hult at 331-2301.

EU finance ministers will next week try to agree an increase in the minimum rates of excise duty on cigarettes and other tobacco products.

The proposal under discussion would raise the minimum excise rate to €90 per 1,000 cigarettes, compared to €64 today. The legislation would also close loopholes that have allowed companies to market cigarettes as cigars and cigarillos, and some fine-cut tobacco as pipe tobacco. Tobacco companies have exploited these loopholes to benefit from lower tax rates applied to those products.

The European Commission proposed the changes in July 2008 to reduce the variations in the price of tobacco in different national markets.

It said that these variations were a stimulus to illegal cross-border trade, as it was often cheaper for people to buy cigarettes that had been smuggled in from other EU countries than to buy those legally for sale. The Commission said that this trade undermined government attempts to wean people off smoking and helped to fund organised crime.

According to Commission figures, the amount of excise duty in 2008 per 1,000 cigarettes varied from €37.36 in Latvia to €249.99 in the UK. Excise as a percentage of total cost varied from 51.6% in Latvia to 77.6% in Slovakia.

Revenue losses

The UK government is believed to lose around £3 billion (€3.35bn) a year in tax revenue from tobacco smuggling. The Commission has estimated that 13% of all tobacco sold in the EU is sold outside the market where it is taxed.

The finance ministers failed in May to reach an agreement to raise minimum rates. Member states on the EU’s eastern border were concerned that the move could encourage cross-border smuggling of cigarettes from Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine, where prices are much lower.

But diplomats said that these concerns had largely been addressed by a proposal from the Swedish presidency that Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia and Greece would be given until 1 January 2018 to apply the new rates, instead of the 1 January 2014 deadline for the rest of the EU.

This is more generous than the extension proposed by the Commission, which had suggested that Poland, Hungary and Slovakia should apply the new rates from the start of 2015, while Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia should be given until January 2016.

Diplomats said that discussions between governments were now focused on temporary restrictions that should be placed on cigarette sales to foreigners in the countries that would benefit from the 1 January 2018 deadline.

Caps on sales

Some governments believe that caps on sales should be used to minimise the competitive advantage that countries with an extended deadline will enjoy.

A compromise text, drawn up by the Swedish presidency and discussed by national ambassadors yesterday (4 November), would allow member states to charge people extra excise duty at the border if they try to bring back more than 300 cigarettes from a country benefiting from the extended deadline.

The draft legislation needs unanimous agreement before it can be adopted.

By Jim Brunsden
05 November 2009,

VANCOUVER , Canada — The only city in North America where addicts can shoot heroin into their veins at a government-sanctioned injection site is now considering allowing crack cocaine smoking too.

Officials in Canada’s westernmost British Columbia province are touting the idea of opening up an existing smoking room at Vancouver’s Insite centre, but stress it is currently only at the “concept stage.”

British Columbia provincial health officer Perry Kendall told AFP: “There’s a growing amount of evidence that smoking crack cocaine increases the risk of contracting HIV.”

The British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS is the latest to make the link in a study published Tuesday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

“By taking addicts off the street and allowing them access to supervised smoking rooms, we could reduce the risk while putting them in contact with health workers” and potentially break their drug habit, Kendall said.

In turn, this would reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS, he said.

The study did not pinpoint the cause of higher incidence of HIV infection among crack cocaine smokers.

But it suggested these individuals may be taking more risks, such as participating in unsafe sex, during crack cocaine binges. They may also attract more HIV-positive individuals into their social groups.

As well, wounds in and around the mouth of addicts often caused by the use of metal or glass pipes may make them more vulnerable to HIV transmission during activities such as oral sex or pipe sharing, said the study.

“I think now is the right time,” Kendall said. “We know what the problem is. We just need to address it.”

In recent years, cities across Canada have experienced an explosive increase in the use of crack cocaine, whereas the use of other illicit drugs such as heroin appears to be on the decline, said researchers.

Vancouver’s Insite facility opened in 2003, but its drug smoking room was never opened as evidence was lacking to support such an approach to treat crack cocaine abuse.

Also, the facility’s exemption from Canadian laws allowing it to host heroin users is specific to those clients only — not crack cocaine users.

The federal government has been fighting in court to revoke Insite’s special permission to operate, granted by a previous administration.

As well, there remain unresolved concerns for staff about second-hand smoke from crack cocaine inhalation, said Kendall.

TRENTON — A northern New Jersey lawmaker says she wants to limit electronic cigarettes like the real thing.

State Assemblywoman Connie Wagner (D-Begen) said she is concerned that e-cigarettes are being marketed to children because they offer flavors like chocolate, banana and strawberry.

The Democrat from Paramus intends to introduce a bill in the Legislature subjecting them to the same restrictions as pipes and regular cigarettes.

E-cigarettes look like the real thing but don’t contain tobacco. They employ a metal tube with a battery that heats up a nicotine solution. Users breathe in the resulting vapor.

Wagner’s bill would prohibit their use in public places and workplaces.

Several provinces are planning to work together against tobacco companies to recover health-care costs related to smoking, says Quebec’s Health and Social Services Minister Yves Bolduc.

Quebec confirmed yesterday it is joining British Columbia, New Brunswick and Ontario in filing a multibillion-dollar lawsuit against tobacco manufacturers.

“First each province will launch their lawsuits. As for the strategy that will follow, there will be discussions among the different [provincial] governments,” he said in an interview yesterday.

Last week, Ontario announced it was launching a $50-billion lawsuit against three tobacco companies, Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd., JTI-Macdonald Corp. and Rothmans, Benson & Hedges Inc., to recover the cost of treating smoke-related illnesses dating back as far as 1955. Quebec said yesterday it still wasn’t ready to file its claim, but that a lawsuit was definitely pending. “We are committed to filing a lawsuit as soon as possible,” Mr. Bolduc said. “We believe we have a solid case.”

The provinces began to consider legal action after a Supreme Court of Canada ruling in 2005 that upheld a 1998 British Columbia law allowing the province to seek compensation against tobacco companies.

“Each provincial case will have their own particularities. Banding together could eventually be an option, but it’s still too early,” said Justice Ministry spokesman Philippe Archambault.

By Rheal Seguin, Oct. 06, 2009 Theglobeandmail

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved an ordinance Tuesday banning smoking at county parks, beaches, golf courses and other public spaces, with some exceptions.

The board voted 4-1, with Supervisor Don Knabe in opposition, to adopt the proposal at its meeting.

The ordinance will take effect in 30 days.

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who proposed the ban, supported the ordinance mostly for health reasons.

Secondhand smoke leads to the deaths of 52,000 non-smokers, according to a memorandum presented to the board by the county’s Department of Parks and Recreation.

Under the ordinance, movie and photo shoots are exempt with a proper permit.

Another exemption of the ban allows county golf courses, “contract-operated facilities,” to designate areas where smoking is permitted.

The courses’ open spaces, such as the holes, are expected to remain open for smokers. Smoking will likely be banned at the driving ranges, putting greens or areas near buildings.

The financial impact on law enforcement is expected to be “minimal” since each park will include the smoking ban with other rules they enforce, officials said.

The ban will turn offenses into misdemeanors that may include fines or short jail time, officials said.

About $36,000 is expected to be spent for signs and supplies at the parks, according to a county memo. An additional $12,750 is planned to fund an educational outreach campaign and smoking cessation classes.

james.wagner@sgvn.com

(626) 962-8811, Ext. 2236

While DCTFF has made impressive progress with its current budget, tobacco use continues to take its toll on DC residents, especially in Wards 5 through 8, and more funding is needed to enable it to continue the work it has already started. DCTFF has implemented a model that specifically targets the underserved, low SES smokers who are less likely to have access to evidence-based treatments, and provides significant support to these smokers through cessation services.

Tobacco use kills more than 700 DC residents every year and costs the District $243 million just in annual excess health care costs – much of it borne by taxpayers. Productivity losses from smoking total an additional $232 million per year in the District, not even counting the productivity declines from smokers being sick more often than other workers and taking cigarette breaks while on the job. Despite recent progress in reducing smoking rates, 16.2 percent of adults in DC still smoke, a rate that varies widely among different wards. Youth also continue to smoke – 10.5 percent of high school kids smoke, and 8.1 percent of high school males use smokeless tobacco products. More than 1,600 District kids try smoking in the state each year and 400 more kids become regular, daily smokers every year, one-third of whom will die prematurely.* Statistics can be numbing, but we cannot forget that they represent mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, colleagues and friends. Their suffering and their deaths have devastated too many families and communities.

The CDC recommends that DC spend $10.5 million per year on a comprehensive tobacco control program that includes District-wide and community programs and media campaigns to prevent kids from starting to smoke and to help smokers quit.4 Not including grant money from the CDC, DC only spent $3.6 million on tobacco prevention in FY 2009. This ranks DC 15th in the country in funding tobacco control programs.

At the same time, DC received $74.9 million from the 1998 tobacco lawsuit settlement payments, related bonus payments, and its tobacco taxes. The tobacco settlement was meant to provide funds to support state tobacco prevention efforts; but, so far, DC has not adequately allocated the tobacco settlement payments to prevent and reduce tobacco use and its harms.

Meanwhile, tobacco companies are spending at least $16.0 million annually on marketing and promoting their products in the District, especially in the Wards where you see the highest tobacco use rates. Many of these efforts target specific populations and are meant to encourage youth to start smoking, either by making the products look attractive or by lowering the product price to make them accessible to price-sensitive youth. Tobacco companies’ own documents reveal how they consider youth the future of their business.

Although the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement placed some restrictions on tobacco company marketing activities, it failed to address many important matters. For example, the tobacco companies significantly increased their point-of-sale advertising after the MSA’s ban on tobacco billboards went into effect. This trend continues today as tobacco companies have recently focused on in-store promotions and point-of-purchase advertising to attract younger smokers.

This benefits the tobacco companies since research indicates that retail cigarette advertising increases the likelihood that youth will initiate smoking and cigarette promotions increase the likelihood that youth will move from experimentation to regular smoking.5
In addition, evidence clearly demonstrates that the tobacco industry targets the African-American community through intense advertising and promotional efforts. African-American communities have been bombarded with cigarette advertising – research indicates that there is more interior and exterior tobacco advertising in retail outlets in low-income communities and communities with larger African-American populations. In addition, since the MSA, the average youth in the United States is annually exposed to 559 tobacco ads, every adult female 617 advertisements, and every African American adult 892 ads.

Further, new and less-expensive candy- and fruit-flavored products are being marketed aggressively, and young people are the most likely to use them.* A proven-effective way to oppose tobacco companies’ attempts to attract youth to a lifetime of addiction and health problems is to invest in a comprehensive tobacco prevention program.

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

HANOI – Vietnam will ban smoking in all indoor public places next year and raise tariffs on tobacco products to reduce consumption, the government said.

Starting from January 1, smoking in schools, hospitals, libraries, cinemas, factories, offices and on public transport will be prohibited, a government statement seen on Tuesday said.

The ban will extend to all indoor public spaces by the end of 2010, the statement said, adding the government also plans to apply “high tariff levels” on tobacco products next year to cut consumption.

Tobacco products are subject to a tax rate of 45 percent at present. The government statement did not provide details of the planned tax hike.

Annual consumption of tobacco products in the Southeast Asian country was estimated at about $500 million in 2007, state media reported.


Copyright 2009 Reuters News Service.

Shanghai may become one of the first Chinese cities to ban smoking in public places. A smoking ban is supposed to be implemented in the city by the end of the year. How strict it will be, depends on city lawmakers who are set to discuss a draft that outlines several options which could be adopted.

The draft includes four types of smoking bans: The most strict bans smoking both indoors and outdoors in kindergartens, schools and hospitals and public transportation waiting areas. Venues such as restaurants, gyms, and work places would be required to set up designated smoking areas. While owners of other public venues would be required to adopt their own smoking bans.

Officials say more discussions are needed on how to divide space in restaurants and hotels.

Qu Jun, Shanghai People’s Congrass, said, “Setting up smoking areas in big restaurants won’t be a problem. But we need more detailed measures for those smaller ones.”

The draft also emphasizes the need for enforcement…saying the law should specially protect pregnant women and children.
Copyright © 2009 People

The stop smoking package is an NHS Choices initiative to inform people on the health effects of smoking cigarettes and to help them make the choice to quit smoking and to stay smoke free. The NHS understands that quitting smoking is hard but wants smokers to know they are not alone and so offers support with articles, videos, tools, advice and helpful hints and tips on stopping smoking.

London, England,- NHS Choices, the digital front door to the NHS, has embarked on a public education campaign to provide ongoing help and resources to those battling an addiction to smoking. The NHS website provides a number of educational materials as a part of their stop smoking package. These resources include articles, videos, tools, advice and
helpful hints and tips on stopping smoking. The smoker will find information on the impact of this habit on their health, finances and those around them; and what support they can get to break the habit, quit smoking and stay smoke free.

Quitting smoking isn’t easy, but the drastic improvements to life and health are really motivating. The damage that smoking causes to the body is terrible, and secondhand smoke can also cause problems for everybody else. NHS Choices offers help and resources for people wanting to stop smoking and continue to live smoke free.

“Smoking is unattractive and dangerous and the costs are high and increasing year on year,” according to an NHS Choices spokesperson. “Stopping smoking and going smoke-free will have people feeling great and give them extra money in their pockets. It may be tough, but they are not alone; the NHS is here to help them along, every step of the way.”

NHS Choices offers its website on stopping smoking to help, inform and educate on the risks and effects of smoking, and their Stop smoking package aims to help people to quit smoking and remain smoke free. People looking to stop smoking can access tools such as the Smoking Calculator that allows them to figure out the financial and health costs of their habit. They can also download the Stop Smoking Widget, which is a desktop application offering a 30 day course of daily messages, information and tips straight to their computer.

“A study of 43,000 Norwegian smokers published in 2005 suggested that those who smoked up to five cigarettes a day were three times more likely to die of heart disease,” says GP Dr Michael Apple. “Smoking just one cigarette a day trebles your risk of lung cancer and raises the risk of chronic lung disease, as well as cancer of the mouth, throat, bladder, pancreas and many more. It also makes it more difficult to conceive, lowers sperm count and causes more complications in pregnancy. Study after study shows that the risks increase the more you smoke, but all risks start with just one cigarette.”

The NHS Choices stop smoking package offers the following resources to help people quit smoking and remain smoke free:

1) Why stop smoking? – Includes information on the benefits of stopping smoking, the drastic improvements to health and life it can bring and the effects of secondhand smoke on non-smokers and children.

2) What Suits Me? – Includes information on all of the free NHS services available to support people as they go smoke free, such as local support groups and the NHS Smoking Helpline.

3) Real Life Quitters – Real life and celebrity quitters tell their true stories about how they successfully stopped smoking and how they used the free NHS support.

4) Questions? – Includes answers to commonly asked questions and the facility to submit questions to trained NHS advisers. People can share their own experiences by posting to the message wall where they can find out about other people’s stories as well.

5) Smoking and Pregnancy – Information on the effects of smoking on baby development.

6) Quit Tools – There are lots of tools on this website that can help people to go smoke free. They can find out about what happens to their body when they quit smoking, assess their current addiction levels, download inspirational videos, order support packs and more.

“It’s never too late to stop,” says an NHS spokesperson. “Stopping smoking at any age will increase life expectancy, provided that a serious disease has not already developed.”


Copyright © 2009 Pr-inside

Bangkok – Laos would soon make lighting up more difficult with a ban on smoking in restaurants and inside public buildings, Radio Laos said Thursday. No date was set for implementing the ban in nearly all public places, but it would be soon, the state-run radio station said in a broadcast monitored in Bangkok.

Smoking is common among Laos’ 6 million-plus people with both locally made cigarettes and imports available.

In another effort to get people to kick the smoking habit, the Ministry of Public Health started discussing increasing the tax on cigarettes in late 2008. That move was complicated because smuggling is common across Laos’ borders with both Vietnam and Thailand.

Copyright © 2009 Earthtimes

The US Congress has recently given the Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate tobacco industry. These severe restrictions have been praised by public health groups and anti-smoking activists; however, they are excessive, constitutionally doubtful and actually useless.

The regulation imposes severe restrictions on the advertisements and promotions of tobacco products, bans the industry from sponsoring sports and other events, demands placing bigger health warnings on each pack and prohibits flavored cigarettes excluding menthol flavoring.

Moreover, the FDA requires tobacco companies to stop using such terms like “low tar”, “light,” and “mild”.

Of especial trouble are the regulations related to the advertisements, since they interfere with industry’ rights to advertise their legal and approved for consumption products. Several organizations, advocating for commercial free speech, like the American Civil Liberties Union, state they would legally challenge these regulations.

In addition, such restrictions are simply not useful, since the nationwide smoking rates have been falling continuously during previous years. For, instance the smoking rates among adults have dropped from 43 percent in the 60’s to less the 20 in 2008. And they keep falling.

This significant drop can be explained by raising the public awareness about the health risks related to smoking and rise in state excise taxes on tobacco products during the last couple of years. It is estimated that within the last 7 years the average nationwide rise in cigarette taxes was 70 cents per pack. Moreover, the raise of federal cigarette tax by 62 cents in order to generate revenue for Children’s Health Insurance Program made the cigarettes and even more expensive pleasure.

These efforts have been proven to be efficient, since they caused the dramatic decline of number of smokers in the country, especially among young people. Therefore, such measures are way more useful than the latest regulations.

Opponents of the recently signed legislation argued, reasonably mentioning that the legislation would only increase the existing level of bureaucracy. They said that the FDA that would be entitled to oversee tobacco products, has been already in great struggle to carry out its principal job of monitoring the safety of food and pharmaceutical products selling in America. In addition, many critics are concerned with the fact that FDA approval would make smokers think that cigarettes are now safe for consumption and healthy, like all other products approved by the latter organization.

Of course, anti-smoking groups think that FDA oversight will speed up the drop of smoking rates across the country. In conformity with the legislation, the FDA is not entitled to prohibit cigarettes or demand the complete removal of nicotine from cigarettes. Nevertheless, FDA is able to require tobacco industry to decrease the volume of nicotine and other additives in their products, to make them non-addictive.

However, we indeed do not need those regulations, because they do not provide any change in the attitude to tobacco products. Smoking rates have seen a dramatic decline, not due to various regulation but because of individuals deciding to live healthy.

The cdc’s 2007 “best practices” report claims that a range of $15 to $20 per capita is a reasonable annual target for each state to fund tobacco control activities. Appropriate activities include anti-smoking ads, cessation interventions (intensive counseling services and cessation medications), and enforcement of age restrictions on the purchase of tobacco.
How state spending on tobacco control over 2000–2007 compared to cdc-recommended minimum levels? Percentages of cdc-minimumlevels are shown. Two states — Maine and Mississippi — averaged over 100 percent over this period, and three states — Michigan, Missouri, and Tennessee — spent nothing.
Total spending (in 2005 dollars) has been declining since 2003, and percent of cdc minimums has ranged between 33.6 percent and 46.9 percent. Aggregate spending is $5.3 billion, which is roughly $18 per capita. The cdc is thus arguing that states should have spent at least $8 billion more during those years, for a total of $13.3 billion, tomeetminimumrecommended levels of funding. That works out to roughly $44.30 per capita over those years. The summary measures appear to indicate ample variation with which to assess cdc claims that consistent meeting of recommended spending targets over time leads to significant reduction in tobacco use. As mentioned previously, the cdc stresses the importance of maintaining state funding over time at levels that meet or exceed minimum targets.
This suggests that it takes many years of tobacco control activity before full effects of programs can be detected. Spending is hypothesized to act as advertising: successful campaigns (in this case) reduce demand both today and tomorrow. The Hu et al. American Economic Review paper, the Farrelly et al. Journal of Health Economics paper, and my 2006 Cato Journal paper each found some evidence that cumulative measures of spending that discounted past spending on tobacco control were associated with less tobacco use. This article employs discount rates of 5, 10, 15, and 20 percent in its analysis of the effectiveness of the cdc recommendations. This article also considers a cumulativemeasure of funding adequacy as defined by how closely states have met spending recommendations over time.
Average values are $19.53 and $11.68 for discount rates of 5 and 20 percent, respectively. Table 4 displays cumulative measures of funding adequacy, as defined as percentage of cdc minimumspending targets, at discount rates of 5 and 20 percent. Average values are 274 percent and 167 percent for discount rates of 5 and 20 percent, respectively. Cumulative measures of funding levels and adequacy thus range widely across states throughout the period.

One of the best hospitals in the UK states 30 percent of treated minors got ill because of exposure to secondhand smoke by their parents.

Dr Ronald Clark, head of Cardiac Surgery Department at the Birmingham Children’s Hospital admits such diseases as asthma, tonsillitis, and otitis could be reduced in case parents gave up smoking habit.

Dr. Clark stated that he often had cases when parents even hidden the fact that they had been smoking in presence of children.

According to The British Department of Health more than 16,000 children under five years old are treated annually from the smoking related illnesses.

In an interview with Sunday Times, Dr Ronald Clark said that the hospital treats almost 140,000 annually. From this number, 10,000 minors got there because of exposure to secondhand smoke.

Dr. Clark said among those children treated from asthma and various ear and throat infection up to 30 percent were those who suffered from passive smoking.

Parents are often negligent with their children, particularly in such issues as smoking, since having a child and taking care of him is fun, but when it turns to renouncing from such habits like smoking it becomes rather stressful and difficult.

However, the doctor says he does not believe the stricter anti-smoking policies would contribute to reducing the issue, but thinks it is up to parents to protect their children from the hazards of secondhand smoke.

The highest level of health risk for children presents exposure to secondhand smoke in cars, what is like a gas chamber with no way out for them.

Children are also exposed to a high level of risk when mothers are smoking especially during breastfeeding and yearly years of their lives.

Other things that expose children to cigarette smoke are the clothes of smokers.

Dr. Clark even stated that the Birmingham Children’s Hospital forces its personnel to put on special clothes when going outside for a smoke in order to prevent children from smelling and breathing in the cigarette smoke from their clothes.

Dr Anna Gilmore from anti-smoking group ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) said that more than a half of all children whose parents are regular smokers have been exposed to the dangerous smoke from their birth.

She said that passive smoking is even more hazardous than active, however many smokers simply do not realize that they expose their own children to probable severe health complications, while smoking in their presence.

Dr Gilmore also stressed that after smoking has been prohibited in all indoor public places, parent-smokers should consider their homes as a public place and light up outside.

A study made public several years ago showed that minors whose parents smoked were five times more likely to start smoking themselves and two times more likely to suffer from various respiratory infections than their peers born to non-smoking parents.

The Health Department also issued a statement, admitting that passive smoking has been proven to be deadly, and therefore, they would apply every possible effort to make people aware of the hazards of cigarette smoke and prevent children from being exposed to it.

The Health Department spokesman said they have spent £50 million on Smoking Cessation Programs and Campaigns, and their efforts did not go in vain since they managed to reduce smoking rates by 1.5 percent and they plan to reduce it even more to the historical low 21 percent next year.

Atascadero now joins the list of Central Coast cities that have moved forward with a ban of tobacco in public areas.

San Luis Obispo County Public Health officials say the Atascadero City Council voted 4-0 Tuesday night to implement a full tobacco ban at outdoor recreational areas. That includes parks, sports fields, trails and the Charles Paddock Zoo.

The ban not only prohibits smoking, but also tobacco products such as snuff, chewing tobacco, dipping tobacco and bidis.

The Parks and Recreation Commission originally recommended the ban, which would create what they call a more readily enforceable and easier to understand law.

The opponents of Salina’s clean indoor air ordinance have come up significantly short of the signatures they needed on a petition seeking to call a special election to have voters decide the issue of a public smoking ban.
Although the opponents claimed to have 2,150 signatures gathered, the Saline County Clerk’s office could find only 1,757 on the 90 pages of petitions that were turned in by Gary Swartzendruber and Beth Owens on June 9. Opponents are seeking to have the ordinance, which took effect May 2, repealed.
The ordinance bans smoking in nearly all public places, including bars, private clubs and bingo parlors.
The number of signatures that could be verified totaled 994, short 396 from the 1,390 signatures that were needed, said Saline County Clerk Don Merriman. That number represents 25 percent of Salina city voters who cast ballots in the last election.
Only city voters were eligible to sign the petition. Many signers were either not registered to vote or their addresses they listed didn’t match the address in the voting registration records, Merriman said.
Copyright © 2009 Saljournal

The Oregon Legislature has taken on tobacco with the approval of a bill to limit cigarette distribution and an upcoming measure to increase taxes on moist snuff.

Senate unanimously passed House Bill 2136 on Tuesday. The bill bans the sale of tobacco products from vending machines in areas accessible to minors. Such vending machines, once the bill is signed into law, will still be permitted bars and other youth-free environments.

Forty-eight states and the District of Columbia already restrict youth access to vending machines, according to a National Cancer Institute’s State Cancer Legislative Database report in March 2003.

Senator Jackie Dingfelder, D-Portland, who carried the bill said that the American Lung Association gave Oregon a “C” because of the vending machines’ availability to minors.

The bill will also prevent health care costs by making it harder for young people to get their hands on tobacco, Senator Laurie Monnes Anderson, D-Gresham, said. The bill will return to the House for concurrence.

The Senate will vote on House Bill 2672 on Tuesday. The measure would tax moist snuff per ounce and is expected to raise $5.51 million in additional revenue in the 2009-2011 cycle.

The governor’s office said that Governor Ted Kulongoski will sign both bills into law.

Copyright © 2009 Oregonlive

Major US, Canadian and British life and health insurance companies have billions of dollars invested in tobacco companies, a study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine said.

Wesley Boyd, the study’s lead author, found that at least 4.4 billion dollars in insurance company funds are invested in companies whose affiliates produce cigarettes, cigars and chewing tobacco.

“Despite calls upon the insurance industry to get out of the tobacco business by physicians and others, insurers continue to put their profits above people’s health,” said Boyd, a faculty member of Harvard Medical School.

“It’s clear their top priority is making money, not safeguarding people’s well-being,” he wrote.

Tobacco is considered the leading cause of lung cancer and a major risk factor for heart attack, stroke, pulmonary disease and cancer.

According to the World Health Organization, it is a contributing factor in 5.4 million deaths a year.

Researchers first revealed that health and life insurance companies had major investments in tobacco companies in 1995 in an article in the British medical journal Lancet.

“Although investing in tobacco while selling life or health insurance may seem self-defeating, insurance firms have figured out ways to profit from both,” Boyd wrote.

“Insurers exclude smokers from coverage or, more commonly, charge them higher premiums. Insurers profit — and smokers lose — twice over.”

According to the study, US insurer Prudential Financial Inc. has 264.3 million dollars invested among three US tobacco companies, including Reynolds America and Philip Morris.

Canadian insurer Sun Life Financial Inc., which sells life, disability and health insurance, has a stock portfolio with more than one billion dollars in two tobacco companies, including 890 million dollars in Philip Morris.

Prudential Plc, which sells health and disability insurance, has 1.38 billion dollars in two tobacco companies, including British American Tobacco.

The study also details the substantial tobacco investments of the US firms Northwestern Mutual and Massachusetts Mutual Life, and the Scottish firm Standard Life Plc.

Many countries require that tobacco product* packaging includes health warnings about the risks associated with tobacco use. Health warnings on tobacco product packages are effective in highlighting the perception of health risk , supporting the intention to quit tobacco use, discouraging the intention to begin tobacco use, and increasing cessation rates. Prominent displays of health warnings increase their effectiveness; larger warnings, with pictures, are more likely to be noticed, better communicate health risks, provoke greater emotional response, and further motivate tobacco users to quit. This report assesses the current status of tobacco packaging health warning requirements worldwide. Governments could further discourage tobacco use by requiring prominent health warnings on tobacco packaging.

Placing health warnings on tobacco product packages was one of the key evidence-based interventions included in the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO-FCTC), the first public health treaty negotiated under WHO auspices, which was adopted in 2005. Within 3 years, participating countries agreed to implement health warnings describing the harmful effects of all tobacco products. Article (Packaging and labeling of tobacco products) of WHO-FCTC requires government bodies such as ministries of health to approve and ensure the display of large, clear, visible, and legible warnings on at least 30%, and preferably 50% or more, of the principal display area of tobacco packages.

In early 2007, WHO’s Tobacco Free Initiative collected information about legally mandated use of tobacco health warnings through a questionnaire distributed to all 193 WHO member states and one territory. Data specific to health warnings were collected for seven criteria: 1) mandate of specific tobacco use health warnings; 2) inclusion of health warnings on tobacco packs and outside packaging; 3) use of large, clear, and visible health warnings; 4) rotation of health warnings; 5) use of the principal languages of the country; 6) inclusion of pictorial warnings; and 7) descriptions of specific harmful effects of tobacco use in health.

National data collectors were appointed by ministries of health and local WHO offices in each country to complete the questionnaire; regional data collectors, appointed for each of the six WHO regional offices, verified the accuracy and completeness of the data. The regional data collectors in turn submitted the data for further processing and analysis to the Tobacco Free Initiative. The results were validated by each of the member states and then published in 2008.

Data reported from 176 member states indicated that 77 (44%) did not require any warnings on cigarette packs, and 71 (40%) required warnings covering less than 30% of the principal display area. Among the member states, 23 (13%) had warnings that covered at least 30% of the main package display area and included one of the seven warning criteria. Five countries (Australia, Brazil, Canada, Thailand, and Uruguay) (3%) had warnings that covered 50% or more of the principal display areas and included all seven criteria. Among the 176 countries, 15 (9%) required pictorial warnings, and 66 (38%) countries had laws that ban the use of deceptive marketing terms (such as “light” and “mild”) that falsely convey that a particular product is less harmful than other tobacco products.

The percentage of member states that had no warnings or warnings that covered less than 30% of the principal package display area was high across all WHO regions: African Region (88%), American Region (74%), Eastern Mediterranean Region (82%), European Region (92%), South East Asia Region (82%), and the Western Pacific Region (71%). The level of implementation of health warnings was associated with a nation’s economic status.† Approximately 58% of low-income countries, 45% of middle-income countries, and 24% of high-income countries had not implemented any health warnings

Copyright © 2009 Cdc

Eight months after the ban on smoking in public places came into effect, a survey has revealed that while 88% restaurants, bars and pubs are aware of the smoking ban, only 64% are implementing it. Also, hookah bars recorded the worst air-quality levels.

Youth volunteers surveyed a sample of 60 restaurants, bars and pubs in the city and the suburbs from March 19 to April 30.The air quality monitoring survey by Healis Sekhsaria Institute for Public Health also revealed that the city still has some way to go as far as complete implementation of the ban is concerned.

“Air quality at indoor public places where people smoke is far worse than garbage dumping grounds,” said Dr PC Gupta, Director, Healis Sekhsaria Institute.

Compared to the average particulate matter concentration of 97 PM2.5 µ/m3 in non-smoking venues, smoking venues averaged nearly 363 PM2.5 µ/m3 — worse than the average values seen at Mumbai’s different garbage dumping grounds (149-169 PM2.5 µ/m3), he explained.

The BMC and NGOs have been organising workshops with the support of the Association of Hotels and Restaurants in Mumbai (AHAR). “They came up with suggestions like a ‘smoke-free’ helpline, a ‘flying squad’, distribution of uniformly sized no smoking signs etc,” said Dr Surendra Shastri, head, preventive oncology, Tata Memorial Hospital.

Copyright © 2009 Dnaindia

In what he casts as an attack on litterbugs and nicotine addiction alike, Mayor Gavin Newsom wants to impose a fee on an age-old inhabitant of city streets: the cigarette butt.

The proposal, to be introduced next month to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, would add 33 cents to the cost of a pack of cigarettes, to offset the estimated $10.7 million the city spends annually removing discarded butts from gutters, drainpipes and sidewalks.

The added cost, Mr. Newsom hopes, will also dampen smokers’ urge to light up.

“In general, fees help reduce the consumption and use of tobacco,” he said in an interview. “And we think that will have a very beneficial public health component.”

Officials here say the municipal fee would be the first in the country to take aim specifically at cigarette butts, particularly filters, which are not biodegradable. But the idea is expected to run into fierce opposition from tobacco companies.

“Obviously we think people should follow the littering laws, in California and elsewhere,” said Frank Lester, a spokesman for Reynolds American Inc., the nation’s second-largest manufacturer of cigarettes. “But we oppose any additional taxation on smokers to pay for that.”

Philip Morris USA, the nation’s biggest cigarette company, generally echoed that anti-fee sentiment, though it said it would not comment on Mr. Newsom’s proposal specifically until it was formally presented to the board.

San Francisco has already proved to be tough on smokers. Last year the city imposed a ban on the sale of tobacco at drugstores, a restriction that is being challenged in state and federal courts.

Mr. Newsom, moreover, has shown a willingness to legislate good health in other ways, proposing a fee in 2007 on any large store that sells drinks with high levels of fructose corn syrup. This so-called soda tax has not yet been taken up by the Board of Supervisors but is expected to be debated there this summer, said Nathan Ballard, a mayoral spokesman.

Mr. Newsom said cigarette butts became a target after San Francisco’s annual “litter audit” found that cigarette detritus made up a quarter of all the trash in the city’s public spaces. With the city spending some $44 million a year on litter cleanup — and facing a $500 million deficit for the coming fiscal year — a fee was born.

“It’s not a huge part of the overall budget,” the mayor said of the $11 million or so in annual revenue that the fee could generate. “But it’s enough to keep street sweepers employed.”

But Mr. Lester, of Reynolds American, said smokers were often targets of budget-crunched legislators, most recently on April 1, when the federal excise tax on cigarettes rose 62 cents a pack, to $1.01. “We feel smokers are already paying their fair share,” he said.

Serena Chen, regional director of policy and tobacco programs for the American Lung Association in California, said litter-mitigation efforts aimed specifically at cigarettes had been proposed in legislatures in a couple of states (though never enacted), but that a city-level approach was new and welcome.

“Anytime you raise the price of cigarettes, you discourage new starters,” Ms. Chen said, “and you increase the motivation of people who want to quit.”

Copyright © 2009 Nytimes