Tobacco.org

EDITORIAL: The rights and the wrongs of smoking in public 

While living in the San Fernando Valley in early 2006, I remember thinking how ludicrous it was that the Calabasas City Council had adopted an ordinance that basically eliminated the ability for anyone to smoke in public. The secondhand smoke control ordinance specified that smoking was prohibited in all public places where other persons could be exposed to secondhand smoke, including indoor and outdoor businesses, hotels, parks, apartment common areas, restaurants and bars where people could reasonably be expected to congregate or meet.

At the time, as a half-a-pack-a-day smoker, I felt persecuted and loathed. . . .

After I left the Valley, I moved up north and found myself in a pro-smoking environment. It was widely accepted, if not condoned, as a bridge to meeting new people. But as the butts piled up, I found the habit to be more destructive and bothersome. The initial buzz that everyone gets with the first cigarette wears off as the day progresses. Instead of relaxing and enjoying cigarettes, I was tense and frustrated because my nicotine level wasn't high enough. And as a friend pointed out, it wasn't the nicotine that was making me feel relaxed; it was taking deep breaths throughout the day to deliver more oxygen into my body -- something that was defeated as my lungs sucked up nasty carcinogens.

By December 2007, I decided I'd had enough. . . .

although I am not in favor of the government legislating certain behaviors, the problem is that when you are a smoker, you simply aren't taking into account how you are affecting other people, be it their health, their level of comfort or their children by modeling for them that smoking should be a norm in our society. . . .

because fighting between the smokers and nonsmokers will never cease, cities like Thousand Oaks and Moorpark have decided to follow Calabasas' lead and make it more difficult to expose nonsmokers to the carcinogenic plumes of cigarettes through their own anti-smoking ordinances. . . .

While not every provision of the new laws seems fair, including forbidding smoking in rental homes, it isn't about the person who is committing the act; it is about everyone else who has to be subjected to it. For this reason alone, Moorpark and Thousand Oaks are headed in the right direction toward putting an end to exposing others to a debilitating habit.

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EDITORIAL: State smoking ban all but certain 

we're glad to see the controversial issue go to the ballot, but we're disappointed another 16 months will pass before public smoking becomes a thing of the past in our state.

This state has already endured a robust debate on public smoking. Before the Legislature passed the proposed ban, the pros and cons were well documented; exceptions were discussed and debated and a vigorous public debate added to the spirited legislative one.

And yet here we are. . . .

One thing seems clear: Unless Stalley's group finds insufficient signatures to force a recount at the Secretary of State's office, we can expect 16 months of robust and spirited debate, again.

And then on one day, in November 2010, we'll put the issue to rest.

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Editorial: New smoking ban unbalanced, unfair  

The new law will ban the production of "flavored" tobacco products and the use of the word "light" cigarettes. What I fail to understand is how this should apply to tobacco products but not alcohol products.

Obama says that 90 percent of people who smoke began at the age of 18 or younger and that is why flavored tobacco should be outlawed. So flavored tobacco is appealing to minors but flavored alcohol isn't?

News flash, President Obama, the average age of a first drink for a boy is 11 and for a girl 13. . . .

Smokers are taking on major fallout including outrageous tax prices all the while alcohol is somewhat affordable. Tobacco companies are suffering profit loss while the alcohol corporations grow richer. Some people may agree both should be banned from advertising and maybe so, but for now it remains a civil unbalance in some opinions.

How do we weigh one factor of loss of life as opposed to another?

What about fast food? Perhaps burgers should taste bad and be taxed like no other so that America will be forced to eat healthy.

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EDITORIAL: Welcome action  

A BAN ON the display of tobacco products and other in-store advertising has been imposed and will, hopefully, lead to a reduction in the incidence of smoking by children and young persons. . . .

Recent research discovered that under-aged persons were being allowed to buy cigarettes from vending machines at 40 per cent of all outlets. To counteract that, the machines will now have to be operated by tokens and will have to be placed under the control of a staff member. Fines of up to €3,000 can be imposed for breaches of this and other regulations.

Price has always been the single most important factor in determining whether - and how much - children smoke. Most users go on to develop a nicotine addiction between the ages of 14 and 18 years. Price is also a major factor in encouraging users to quit the habit. Here too, the Government has been active. The price of 20 cigarettes was pushed up by 75 cent within the past year and it may rise again in the next budget.

The cost to the health services of treating tobacco-related illnesses has been estimated at €1 billion. That is a great deal of money and it could be used productively elsewhere. More important than money, however, is the 6,000 deaths a year caused by nicotine and the tens of thousands of addicts whose lives are blighted by poor health. Young women are now more likely to smoke than young men. They find it harder to quit. If these laws protect members of a new generation from death by lung cancer they will be fully vindicated.

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Editorial: Smokers, pay up 

Clearly, as Gov. Charlie Crist said recently in considering the tobacco tax, the health benefits of hiking the cigarette tax by $1 a pack outweigh the political disadvantages of raising taxes. Indeed, the political advantages of this tax might be duly noted by employers who pay a share of the cost in not only health-insurance benefits but also the loss of productivity and absenteeism due to smoking-related illnesses of their work forces.

However, while enacting the new cigarette tax makes sense as a way of encouraging Floridians to stop smoking, it is not a broad-based tax. It falls mostly on the 2 million smokers and not the other 16 million residents.

The state should continue to look for ways to grow our tax base . . .

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EDITORIAL: Tapped out: Smokers, diners can't pay more  

When John Lynch was first elected governor in 2004, New Hampshire had a cigarette tax of 52 cents per pack. In 2005, Lynch got legislators to raise it by 28 cents to 80 cents per pack. The budget passed on Wednesday raises it for the fourth time since Lynch became governor. It will be $1.78 per pack in five days.

At $1.78, New Hampshire's cigarette tax, once roughly 33 percent to 50 percent of what neighboring states charged, is now only 22 cents less than Maine's and 21 cents less than Vermont's. It's 73 cents less than what Massachusetts charges.

The governor and legislators have relied on this tax to fund their spending increases for four years. What are they going to do in 2011? Smokers in Vermont and Maine already have little incentive to drive over the border for their smokes. Our tax advantage on this product has been nearly erased. Will legislators, addicted to the revenue it produces, turn it into a disadvantage in two years?

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EDITORIAL: Regulation was overdue for tobacco products 

The effort to give the Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate tobacco has been about as difficult as a typical person's battle to quit smoking.

But it was a major breakthrough when President Barack Obama signed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act . . .

It would be nice to celebrate this breakthrough as the death knell for all the evil deeds of the tobacco companies. The manufacturers have been elusive, deceptive and uncaring about the effects of their products on unsuspecting customers. Sadly, the companies long ago began to see their viability in foreign markets. But at least it can be said that the United States has begun to see enough of this health hazard. Tobacco won't be eliminated, but it will be heavily regulated. The tougher regulation was a long time coming. It's a welcome sight.

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EDITORIAL: Saving the local pub from a lingering death  

A combination of cheap alcohol from supermarkets and shops, the ban on smoking in public places and changing lifestyles has conspired to place immense pressures on the traditional pub. . . .

In such circumstances, one would expect the pub industry to be straining every sinew to make their operations as attractive as possible to a dwindling customer base.

Not a bit of it, if today's report from the Commons business and enterprise select committee is anything to go by.

The MPs have found that the way pub firms compel their tenants to buy their alcohol from them is pushing up prices and leading to an "ever-increasing disparity" between beer prices in pubs and those in supermarkets, thereby undermining the viability of pubs.

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Editorial: New rules for nicotine  

Given how deadly tobacco products are known to be, an outright ban on smoking may seem less hypocritical than regulation. But it would have been politically impossible to achieve. And in any case, it would have simply driven smokers into an underground black market.

Though it has taken a long time, social attitudes toward tobacco use in this country have changed. Today, just one American in five smokes. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that, over the next decade, the new law will cut youth smoking by 11 percent and adult smoking by about 2 percent. It may not be perfection, but it certainly sounds like progress.

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The Greenville News editorial: New federal tobacco regulations not necessary  

President Barack Obama recently signed new, sweeping tobacco regulations. The new rules have been long sought by anti-smoking advocates but they're heavy handed, constitutionally suspect and simply unnecessary. . . .

The fact remains that onerous new regulations are not needed. Smoking already is in decline nationwide, not because of federal intervention but thanks to individuals making healthy choices.

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EDITORIAL: The smoke clears  

It will still be a long time before we can look around this country and find no smokers. And the limits the bill puts on tobacco advertising may yet face serious First Amendment challenges.

But the new law is a serious step toward admitting that we have a problem, that many of our friends and neighbors --children among them--are powerless to save themselves and that each small but deliberate step toward the freedom from addiction is well worth the effort.

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EDITORIAL: FDA oversight means public health victory on tobacco  

President Obama acknowledged the AMA's longstanding commitment to this effort to safeguard children's health in his June 15 address to delegates at the Annual Meeting. Hundreds of other organizations with a like-minded commitment to the most vulnerable patients also lent their voices in support of the legislation and helped defeat concerted attempts to derail it once more.

Doctors need to stay vigilant in the bigger battle against tobacco, but it appears that the tide is turning when it comes to the debate over whether nicotine is a harmful drug. When this legislation first emerged a decade ago, many dismissed it as a fantasy. But thanks to the persistence of the AMA and others committed to public health, it is now a reality.

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EDITORIAL: TOM-TOM  

Meet the new Tom -- same as the old Tom.

That would be Tom Farley, Mayor Mike's replacement for ex-city Health Commissioner Tom Frieden, recently departed for the Obama administration.

Frieden lived to stick his nose in other people's business -- totally for their own good, of course -- and it seems that Farley is struck from the same mold.

New Yorkers who didn't see enough of Frieden's disgusting anti-smoking evangelism on TV can now expect even more revolting agit-prop in the corner bodega -- courtesy of Farley. . . .

what's in the works now is about power, not public health.

Mayor Mike and his new health commisar mean to festoon food stores with massive, disgustingly graphic images because they can, not because they should.

Indeed, Mike's the one who needs to get the message.

Please just stop it.

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EDITORIAL: So long, Hav-A-Tampa 

We are parochial enough to wish the federal tax could have spared cigars, which do not represent the health threat of cigarettes. Certainly federal and state lawmakers should not add to the cigar industry's existing burden.

But the truth is smoking bans and tobacco taxes, supported by the public, are not going away. And changes in Americans' smoking habits, more than anything, had withered the industry that contributed so much to the region's growth and prosperity.

We would suggest a federal bailout program, or the promotional slogan "Have a smoke to help a child," but sometimes an industry simply cannot escape economic realities.

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EDITORIAL: State smoking ban all but certain 

Smoking ban proponents have a sure knockout on their hands if they can only wait for the public to weigh in the state's proposed smoking ban in November 2010.

But they're not waiting.

Earlier this week, Jennifer Stalley of the American Cancer Society, was in the Secretary of State's office photocopying some 25,000 petitions so her group could check their validity firsthand.

Maybe they're not confident it's a sure thing?

It's more likely they're simply taking a precautionary first step in what will be a months long battle over the future of the state's health. . . .

Exceptions exist only for some smoke shops and hotel rooms and that is exactly what the people will be voting on in November 2010.

At this point, we're not sure what the opposition to the ban hopes to gain by this delay. Is it simply to give the state a chance to weigh in on the matter? Or could it be they see another Legislative session as an opportunity to introduce other legislation that would circumvent the current proposal?

One thing seems clear: Unless Stalley's group finds insufficient signatures to force a recount at the Secretary of State's office, we can expect 16 months of robust and spirited debate, again.

And then on one day, in November 2010, we'll put the issue to rest.

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