Tobacco News 4/27/95
HEALTH
MATERNAL SMOKING AND PREGNANCY
Boston, MA April 12, 1995. A threefold increase in SIDS risk may be due to maternal smoking, according to a meta-analysis of 100 studies linking neo-and prenatal problems with smoking. The analysis also found 7.5% of all miscarriages may be due to maternal smoking
Many studies have found increased risks of miscarriage, low birth weight and SIDS among smokers' babies. The meta-analysis attempted to determine the actual numbers involved.
The study estimated that each year maternal smoking during pregnancy is the cause of:
The study found the following percentage of increased risk for pregnant women who smoke:
Researchers said that nicotine interferes with blood flow to the placenta and uterus, thereby reducing nutrition, and causes a buildup of carbon monoxide in the fetus' blood.
The Tobacco Institute's Brennan Dawson said, "Our position on smoking while pregnant is the woman should seek the advice of her doctor -- that's been our long- standing counsel on that issue."
In a political message to the religious wing of the New Right, study author Joe DiFranza said, "It's very clear that you cannot be pro-life and be pro-tobacco. Tobacco is a major cause of abortions in America."
Rev. Patrick Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition said on an ABC-TV segment on the issue, "Those of us in the pro-life movement need to call them out on that and say: What are you going to stand for: tobacco growers or the sanctity of life?"
The report by Drs. Joseph DiFranza and Robert Law of the University of Massachusetts was published in the April Journal of Family Practice Vol. 40 # 4, pp. 385-394.
TOBACCO GRINDS TEETH?
Atlanta, April 11, 1995. Some tobacco products contain tiny pieces of abrasive silica that gradually may wear teeth, according to an article by researchers from the Baylor College of Dentistry in Dallas, published in the March issue of the Journal of the American Dental Association.
Researchers found the particles in samples from several brands of cigars, snuff, chewing tobacco and "unprocessed tobacco leaves used as cigar wrappers."
Researchers said that the insoluble silica particles--comprising 0.5 percent of the weight of an average tobacco sample--when combined with saliva could form an abrasive paste that could wear down teeth.
The researchers felt their finding may explain why research has found tobacco users suffer from increased tooth enamel and dentin abrasion.
COLITIS RECURRENCE NOT HELPED BY NICOTINE PATCH
Boston, MA. April 12, 1995. While active ulcerative colitis is eased in nicotine patch wearers, the patches do not help prevent the reappearance of the inflammation in nonsmokers, according to a British study of 80 colitis sufferers published in today's New England Journal of Medicine.
Smokers contract ulcerative colitis less than nonsmokers, which is believed due to nicotine's influence. Researchers said effective treatment may involve higher doses of nicotine, or patch use in combination with mesalamine.
DRUG PREVENTION CLASSES WORK
Washington, DC. April 11, 1995. Drug prevention classes do work, according to a new study. The 6-year study conducted by Gilbert Botvin, director of Cornell University's Institute for Prevention Research found, however, clases must begin in the 6th or 7th grades, and be carried through high school with "booster" classes.
Botvin's study followed 7th graders from 56 upstate New York schools, testing and surveying the students for alcohol, marijuana and tobacco use.
It found that the student group given a drug prevention program had:
The drug prevention program "emphasized the skills that are necessary to negotiate through life . . . The message was weighted heavily toward personal responsibility and self improvement," according to Botwin.
"Basically, all adolescents think that if you are over 30 you are dead or you should be dead. So, we focused on nicotine stains and bad breath rather than lung cancer and emphysema," he said.
FEDERAL
REGULATORY REFORM: LET'S GO OUT TO THE LOBBY
April 13, 1995. Washington, DC. Questions have arisen over who exactly is writing the regulatory reform bill introduced by Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-KS). The bill is being shepherded through the Senate by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-UT).
Corporate law firms have been turning up in unexpected areas, possibly forgetting their clients are not the government yet.
Just last week members of Hatch's Judiciary Committee attended a session on revisions to the bill, and were shocked to find the briefing being conducted by the law firm of Hunton & Williams, whose clients include a tobacco company and several utilities which would be deeply affected by the bill, according to an AP article.
"They didn't write the bill," Hatch told questioning Democratic panel members. Hatch claimed the lawyers had been advising Dole on regulatory reform.
The bill would require complex cost/benefit analyses on new regulations and allow industry representatives on regulatory review panels.
Then this week, according to the New York Times, Margery Waxman, ex-deputy general counsel of the U.S. Treasury, called the Consumer Products Safety Commission, saying she "was willing to work out a compromise" on troublesome cost/benefit provisions of the bill.
When asked who she was representing, Ms. Waxman, who works for the Washington law firm of Greenberg, Traurig, Hoffman, Lipoff, Rosen & Quentel, said she would have to call back. On her return call, she said the was "speaking for one of Senator Hatch's aides on the Judiciary Committee," according to the Times.
The Times said the agency was flabbergasted. According to an agency spokesperson, "They [the bill's sponsors] had subcontracted this provision to an outside law firm which clearly brought it to them in the first place. They said: "This is your provision. You go fix it.' "
A Judiciary Committee spokesperson disavowed Ms. Waxman's authority. "We can't control who comes out of a meeting and name-drops," she said.
FURIOUS HATCH PASSES REGULATORY REFORM
Washington, DC. April 27, 1995
"'Then it's over!' Senator Hatch suddenly declared, cracking his gavel down on the wooden table. He slammed down a notebook, turned on his heel and stalked out of the room."
So wrote the New York Times' John H. Cushman Jr., describing how the regulatory reform bill was passed out of chairman Orrin G. Hatch's (R-UT) Senate Judiciary Committee without a formal vote.
Hatch's anger stemmed from a previous promise by Democrats that the legislation would be acted on promptly once the committee returned from congressional recess.
Today, however, Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Joseph Biden (D-DE) began to suggest more time was needed to consider the bill, due to a suddenly-scheduled hearing on terrorism later in the afternoon.
Hatch, "his composure draining," according to Cushman, said "It is clear that some of my colleagues on the committee wish to filibuster this measure. But the dilatory efforts of a few members to further delay committee action on this measure will not prevail."
Hatch then ended the meeting with his outburst. Biden later commented, "There's a lot of pressure on all the Republican chairmen to move things through. Are the trains running on time?"
The bill the committee passed is sponsored by Senator Bob Dole (R-KS), and is very close to that envisioned by the Republicans' "Contract with America." A more moderate version has been passed by the Senate Government Affairs Committee, but Dole's seems to be the version most favored by the Republican leadership.
The bill is no stranger to controversy. Last week, members of the committee attending a briefing on the bill were shocked to find lawyers from the PR firm Hunton & Williams--whose clients in the utility and tobacco industries would benefit greatly from passage of the bill--ready to clear up any misunderstandings the members might have about regulatory reform. The open participation of a PR firm in the country's legislative process made headlines.
President Clinton said, "The lobbyists for the big companies thought up these bills, and they were actually invited to sit down at the table and draft the bills and then explain them to the congressmen who were supposed to be writing them."
Ralph Nader has filed a complaint about the meeting with the Senate Ethics Committee.
Charles Lewis, director of the Center for Public Integrity, said that while lobbying is certainly not new to Washington, "what's new is the garish audacity with which all this lobbying is being done. I've never seen such an open celebration of insiderdom and what it gets you."
One irony--Food and Drug Administration chief Dr. David Kessler, who has been called "a bully and a thug" by Newt Gingrich, and whose FDA stands to be eviscerated by the bill, completed his pediatrics residency at night while working days for Sen. Hatch.
PRODUCT LIABILITY PASSES COMMERCE COMMITTEE
Washington, DC April 13, 1995. The Senate Commerce Committee today passed by a vote of 13-6 Senator Jay Rockefeller's (D-WV) lawsuit reform bill, which would limit awards in product liability cases.
The bill caps legal awards to $250,000, and would preempt state laws, but is more "moderate" than one proposed by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) which is closer to that passed recently in the House.
The bill will now go to the full Senate.
W.F. BUCKLEY CHEERS FDA
March 16, 1995. From William F. Buckley's Universal Press Syndicate column:
Three cheers for Dr. David Kessler . . . Dr. Kessler said was that intense study of [tobacco use] entitles us to say that tobacco is a "pediatric disease."
...That statement is backed up by the following observations: If you began to smoke when you were under 19, you are among 90 percent of American smokers. ...The figures tell us that 75 percent of the young people who take up the habit will very soon regret having done so.
...It is a legitimate enterprise of an agency charged by the law to oversee the consumption of drugs to inquire into the merchandising of them.
...Many photographs and cartoons are designed to attract young people to smoke cigarettes. These would be forbidden under federal law . . . the philosophical position is surely sound: i.e., there are professionals who sit down at work and ask themselves: How can I design an ad that entices 15-year-olds to begin smoking?
...The concept -- pediatric disease -- qualifies as an epiphany, given the acknowledged authority of society over a minor. . . It yields no substantial libertarian ground to add to the list enforcement mechanisms designed to dissuade the 15-year-old from taking up a habit that brings on aching experiences (those who give up smoking), and at the other end premature and painful death.
...Thirteen-year-olds at the deathbed of one or another parent would weep with frustration that the pressures hadn't been brought to bear early enough to affect the habits of their mother or father.
QUAYLE: CUT SURGEON GENERAL POST
Indianapolis, IN. March 18, 1995. From an Opinion article in the Indianapolis Star by Dan Quayle:
"Besides its obvious effect of publicizing the health risks of smoking and the benefits of quitting, the 'Surgeon General's Warning' has been great publicity for the office of surgeon general. These notices, appearing millions of times a year, are basically free advertising for the prestige of a position that would otherwise be just another obscure federal job. . . .
"Frankly, eliminating the office of surgeon general won't save huge amounts of money -- only about $7 million a year. But the principle at stake is huge. If Congress can't find the courage to eliminate antique federal programs that perform redundant tasks incompetently, then there really is no hope of ever shrinking the federal giant."
GINGRICH ON SMOKING
April 17, 1995. American Medical News quoted House Speaker Newt Gingrich talking to physicians who came to Washington to support tort reform: "In a society where we have not solved crack cocaine, solved heroin, I'm not sure that I want to go out of my way to war on people who voluntarily smoke. But I discourage it, and I'm willing to work with people who actively discourage it."
LOCAL
MA: BAN ON NICOTINE PASSED
Boston, MA. April 14, 1995. The Massachusetts House quietly passed a statewide ban on nicotine in tobacco products by 2002, according to AP.
The bill was added to next year's state budget.
Said sponsor Rep. Douglas Stoddart, "It doesn't prohibit smoking. People can smoke all they want in the year 2002. There just won't be nicotine in the product."
MA: NONSMOKING TEENS GET DISCOUNTS
Boston, MA April 17, 1995. Over 150 stores in 10 malls are participating in a state program by offering discounts of up to 10% to teens who sign a "Smoke Free" pledge card, according to UPI. The program is offered to teens who pledge not to smoke, or to quit smoking. The cards have an 800 number on the back for help in stopping smoking.
The Massachusetts Tobacco Control Program also will begin a run of TV ads featuring a lip-synched camel making fun of R.J. Reynolds' Camel cigarettes.
NY: SMOKING BAN TAKES EFFECT
New York, NY. April 10, 1995
Amidst hurrahs and squeals, New York City's Smoke Free Air Act took effect today.
RESTAURANTS:
SMOKING IS BANNED IN
Smoking is allowed in:
THE WORKPLACE:
SMOKING IS BANNED IN
SMOKING IS ALLOWED IN:
OUTDOOR FACILITIES:
SMOKING IS BANNED IN
SMOKING IS ALLOWED IN:
ENFORCEMENT
As with the 1988 Smoke Free Air Act, which imposed a greater change in the way restaurants did business, the law is expected to be self-enforcing. By the first day, the city had received six complaints about violations. Officials expect initial difficulties to settle down once people get used to the new way of dining.
Upon receiving a complaint, the Department of Heath will issue a warning to the offending restaurant. The complainant will then be expected to return to the restaurant within a week, to check if the violations are still occurring. If so, the department will send out an inspector, who may issue a fine, from $200 to $1,000, for repeat violators. Smokers may be fined $100.
A spokesperson for the department said, "while we do enforce the law, it's not intended to be ubiquitous. There will be little bumps in the beginning, but we know it will work."
The Department of Health has set up a round-the-clock hotline at (212) 442-1838. Complainants must provide the restaurant's name and address--with zip code.
A complaint may also be filed by writing:
NYC Department of health Complaint Division 125 Worth St. Room 316, Box 17 New York, NY 10013Mayor Giuliani, who signed the bill into law January 10, said that while he had smoked cigarettes before, he had never inhaled. "No, I never actually learned how to inhale a cigarette which is why I then turned to pipes and cigars." He said he quit smoking a pipe 10 years ago.
COSTS
While for most restaurants the costs of the changeover are minimal--limited to a few signs going up and coming down--some restaurants have installed expensive smoking lounges.
--The venerable Old Homestead steak house spent $80,000 to enclosed its bar. --The Upper East Side's Drake's Drum removed 36 seats to reach the 34 seat maximum, and spent $40,000 to become "Drake's Drum Smokeasy." --Sniffing the winds of change last year, the East Side's Tatou created an upstairs club, Le Cigar, which seats 100. --Celebrity hangout Marylou's in Greenwich Village spent $40,000 to create a closed-off smoking room--mainly to please their favored customer, Jack Nicholson.CELEBRIPHOBIA
The Daily News ran an article on the terror many restaurateurs felt at the prospect of telling their celebrity customers they couldn't light up.
Particularly feared were smokers like Axl Rose, Mickey Rourke, Matt Dillon, Matthew Modine, Johnny "If I could grow another mouth to smoke out of, I would" Depp, and cigar-lovers Jack Nicholson and John F. Kennedy, Jr.
Said the owner of Boom, "Some celebrities know how to behave . . . But what about Johnny Depp? He once threw a chair against a wall here for no reason. How's he going to respond if I tell him to put a cigarette out? Or Sean Penn?"
On the other hand, one owner said, "Anthony Mason (of the New York Knicks) was in here yesterday and he said the smoking always bothered him and he was glad about the ban."
PUBLIC OPINION
The city's newspapers were filled with personal interviews. Some smokers said they wouldn't eat out as often; some nonsmokers said they would eat out more often. Here are some sample quotes:
"This is practically a breach of the Constitution . . I should be allowed to smoke whenever and wherever I please."
"It doesn't bother me not to smoke. The more places I can't smoke, the more places I don't smoke. If I can't smoke, I won't. Its not good for you"
"I'll be going out to dinner less,"
`I guess I'll go to restaurants with less than 35 people."
Restaurateurs were equally divided.
"What am I gonna tell the Italians and Germans who expect to smoke'."
"Someone pulls out a cigar and then another customer will ask me to make them put it out. Now when I tell them to stop, I can just say, "I didn't make the law."'
"We should protest in the streets like they do in France."
"My customers will live longer."
RESTAURATEURS CRITICAL OF THE LAW:
RESTAURATEURS WHO EXPRESSED SUPPORT FOR THE LAW:
The most vehement tirade against the law came from New York Daily News columnist Sidney Zion, who accused the proprietors at his old haunts ("21," P.J. Clarke's) of being "wimps," and vowed to continue to protest. He ended his column quoting Churchill, "We shall fight them on the beaches . . . We shall fight them in the streets. We shall never surrender."
NY: A CRUSADER LAYS DOWN HIS LANCE?
New York, NY. April 11, 1995. Excellent news for the tobacco industry today: Joe Cherner is calling it quits, according to a New York Newsday article by Ellis Henican. More than any other single person, Cherner and his organization, Smokefree Educational Services, has revamped how tobacco is promoted and used in New York City.
--Cherner was instrumental in providing information, and in rounding up a wide variety of proponents of the Smoke Free Air Act. When Mayor Giuliani signed the bill last January 10, Public Advocate Mark Green commended the Mayor, Speaker Vallone, the city council, and Joe Cherner--the only "civilian" so honored.A few days before one hearing, an organization called United Restaurant, Hotel, Tavern Association of New York State ran radio and full-page newspaper ads saying what economic harm the bill would cause "our city."
On seeing the ad, Cherner testified at the hearing, he began calling people in the restaurant industry. No one had ever heard of URHTA.
He dialed information, and finally located their headquarters in Albany, NY--some 150 miles away.
He asked if they had a chapter in Manhattan, and was told that chapter was "defunct." As were chapters in the four other boroughs. He was finally told, "our representation is upstate."
At the same hearing, Scott Wexler, the head of the organization, told the City Council under questioning that the Tobacco Institute had paid for the ads. City Council chair Enoch Williams criticized Wexler for bringing "this type of pressure against this body when considering health legislation . . . we resent it."
Not only had no local news organizations done this footwork, no news organization covered Cherner's testimony or Wexler's rebuke. In fact, many quoted Wexler without comment.. One even said the organization represented 2,000 restaurants in the city.
--Cherner's photographing of 10 & 11 year olds being given cigarette samples led to a New York City ban on the practise in 1990. --He sent 12-year-olds out to see how easy it was to buy cigarettes from vending machines in bars and restaurants. They dumped the packs they had bought on a table in front of the City Council, which passed a ban on unsupervised vending machines in most areas. --For years he has fought and organized pickets of Shea Stadium to protest its large Marlboro billboard (it was recently removed.) --In 1988, Cherner organized a poster contest for schoolchildren. There were over a hundred thousand entries, and many of the winners were put into a book, "Kids Say Don't Smoke," published by Workman Publishing. Two of the posters "Come to Where the Cancer Is," and "Pack of Lies," were run in the subways--which resulted in a public brouhaha when Gannet Transit refused one of the ads --In 1993 he ran ads in Variety asking movie directors to follow television's guidelines--actors do not smoke unless smoking is essential to the role.Subtlety wasn't Joe's way.
--He sold stickers for a dime which said things like, "Cigarette companies--You give them money; they give you cancer," and "Kool Kauses Kancer." The stickers somehow found their way onto tobacco ads around the city.
--In March of 1992, when Mayor Dinkins--lacking the support of community leaders--approved the Marlboro Grand Prix of New York race, Cherner said, "The Mayor's for sale, and I'd love him to put out a list of all his beliefs and the price on them." --At a 1993 Loews Corporation annual shareholders meeting, Cherner spoke of president Laurence Tisch's accomplishments in the fields of charity, insurance and tobacco. "Everyone knows you gave $50 million to New York University Hospital," Cherner said. "It even changed its name to Tisch Hospital. This is the first time in the history of philanthropy that one man has provided the patients, the insurance, and the hospital." --He would introduce laryngectomy victims to people like Tom Lauria of the Tobacco Institute. He was instrumental in the entry into anti-smoking ranks of ex-cigarette model and laryngectomy victim Janet Sackman, and even brought her to speak at a Philip Morris shareholders meeting in 1993.S0ME QUOTES:
__" Mr. Cherner's crusade illustrates not only the complicated policy considerations surrounding tobacco, but also how one man can force an issue onto the public agenda."
--New York Times 4/26/93 --"Joe Cherner of Smokefree Educational Services . . . almost single-handedly convinced the Mass Transit Authority of New York City to eliminate all cigarette advertising from the city's buses and subways."--Priorities, 1992Former Mayor Koch, whose administration passed the landmark 1988 Smoke Free Air Act, has said. 'I think he's brilliant. . . Much of the success in New York City and State in cutting down further where smokers can smoke is attributable to Joe Cherner."
Cherner has said that while a business student at Columbia University in the early 1980s, he promised himself he would take time off to promote a worthy cause should he ever have enough money.
Shortly after, as a senior vice-president of Kidder Peabody, he made money--a lot of it--in the bond market. He started Smokefree Educational Services in 1988 with $100,000 of his own money. He took a one-year leave of absence from Kidder in 1989, and never returned.
Mr. Henican concludes his column on Cherner, " . . . on a day filled with bad news for cigarette executives, here was something for them to smile about."
...
Well, sort of. Cherner says he is not giving up Smokefree Educational, but simply planning to go back to work, and is sending out his resume. As he also has two small children, his time spent on his "crusade" will undoubtedly diminish.
NC: "SMOKER'S CANDIDATE" CONTRACTS LUNG CANCER
March 3, 1995. Spartanburg, NC. Jerry Fowler, North Carolina's Democratic "Smoker's Candidate," actively sought tobacco industry support in his bid last November for the House seat of Republican Bob Inglis (R-SC). Now Fowler has been diagnosed with lung cancer, and Inglis is helping make sure his Social Security disability application is in order.
Fowler told AP, "Bob Inglis is a good man, and we've been friends for a long time. We're both Christians, and we serve the same God."
Fowler, running as the "smoker's candidate," had said smokers were being treated like second-class citizens. He recently told a local paper "he regrets ever smoking," according to AP.
THE FUNNY PAGES
The most restrictive smoking ban in the nation took effect this week in New York, and already the city has gained over 9,000 pounds.
--Norm MacDonald, Saturday Night Live April 16, 1995***********************
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