Tobacco.org

• National smoking ban draws mixed response 

The Swiss Pulmonary League has slammed the cabinet’s announcement yesterday on terms of the nationwide smoking ban, which will come into effect on May 1 next year. The ruling has, however, been broadly welcomed by the hotel and restaurant industry.

The Pulmonary League has accused the government of ‘bending over backwards’ to accommodate the tobacco industry’s lobbies, saying the law, as discussed in parliament, has been woefully watered down.

On the other hand, representatives of the hotel and restaurant sector say they’re relieved that the cabinet has steered the legislation ‘more or less back on the right track’.

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• Hotel smoking bans: Can you get away with beating a ban?  

On Tuesday, I asked you "Do you think hotels are too tough on smokers?," which proved to be a hot topic even though it's been almost three years since Marriott became the largest hotel operator to ban smoking in all its hotels.

Hands-down, I'd say the most eyebrow-raising comment came from reader Zipptydoda, who revealed a way to beat the ban (and risk of being charged a $250 room cleaning fee by Marriott hotels). Here is what Zipptydoda wrote:

"When I go to a non-smoking hotel such as Marriott, the first thing I do when I get to the room is light up. Then after I finish my cigarette, I go down to the front desk and complain that the rooms smells of smoke. When the ask me if I would like to switch rooms I say, 'No, I just unpacked. Please make a note of it.' I then proceed to smoke for the rest of my stay," Zipptydoda wrote. "I have never been charged a smoker's cleaning fee." . . .

* Go further with hotel smoking bans: Reader gersh94 criticized people who light up in non-smoking rooms and appreciates the bans since "you cannot control where the smoke goes, or the stink you leave behind." Gersh94 complained about a Le Meridien hotel in France where, even though the room was a non-smoking room, the pool allowed smoking.

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• Smoking law change supported 

Gambling and tourism industry lobbyists succeeded Sunday in 11th-hour efforts to get the Nevada Assembly to endorse a partial rollback of a voter-approved ban on smoking in public places.

On a voice vote, the Assembly agreed to a conference committee plan to allow for smoking at some trade conventions. The plan is being grafted onto AB309, which deals with the crime of stalking.

Assembly Judiciary Committee Chairman Bernie Anderson, D-Sparks, said the amendment sought by the lobbyists seemed "touchy relative to germaneness" because AB309 is an anti-stalking bill but was found to be OK by the lawmakers' legal counsel.

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• Meth makers leave behind a toxic trail at motels 

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) -- Methamphetamine "cooks" are secretly converting hundreds of motel and hotel rooms into covert drug labs - leaving behind a toxic mess for unsuspecting customers and housekeeping crews.

They are places where drug-makers can go unnoticed, mixing the chemicals needed for the highly addictive stimulant in a matter of hours before slipping out the next morning. The dangerous contaminants can lurk on countertops, carpets and bathtubs, and chemical odors that might be a warning clue to those who follow can be masked by tobacco smoke and other scents. . . .

Even short-term exposure to vapors and residue where the drug is smoked or cooked can cause eye and skin irritation, vomiting, rashes, asthma problems and other respiratory issues.

"It probably happens all the time," said John Martyny, a National Jewish Medical and Research Center associate professor who is also an industrial hygienist and meth researcher. "The difficulty is, how do you make that attribution? You might think it is from cigarette smoking."

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• Slovak MPs approve partial smoking ban in restaurants  

Slovakia's parliament on Tuesday passed a bill that partially bans smoking in restaurants but allows customers in pubs and cafes to light up.

Under the bill, still to be signed into law by the president, restaurants must earmark at least 50 percent of their floor area for non-smokers and separate them from smokers by a wall.

"This bill represents an important milestone in the protection of non-smokers and a step towards the introduction of further limits on smoking in bars and cafes," Robert Ochaba from the Public Health Bureau told AFP.

"We supported a total smoking ban, we don't consider this partial solution very fortunate," Pavol Kasuba, secretary-general of the Association of Hotels and Restaurants, told AFP.

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• Pennsylvania rethinks smoking ban in hotel bars after lawsuits are threatened 

Health officials may relax the state's new ban on indoor smoking in response to lawyers' complaints about rules against lighting up in hotel bars.

Judy Ochs, director of the state Health Department's Division of Tobacco Prevention and Control, said the department is doing a legal review after attorneys for about a dozen hotels called to challenge the ban.

Trey Matheu, general manager of a western Pennsylvania resort that now prohibits smoking in its cigar bar because of the new law, said he hopes the state will relent without a protracted court battle. . . .

Hotel bars weren't explicitly covered by the legislation, and Ochs said the Health Department now is trying to figure out what to do with them.

So far, she said, more than 300 hotels with liquor licenses have applied to have their bars exempt. The state denied more than 200 of those requests, and still is deciding on some.

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• More hotels go completely smoke-free 

Amid growing public concern about the dangers of secondhand smoke, the number of lodgings prohibiting smoking indoors has tripled in three years, according to a USA TODAY analysis of American Automobile Association data.

There are more than 8,300 smoke-free lodgings in the USA -- nearly 6,000 more than in 2005, AAA's figures show.

CHART: Smoke-free hotels across the USA

More than 7,000 of the smoke-free lodgings are hotels, motels, inns and B&Bs, while the rest are condos, cottages and other rentals.

AAA has the most extensive list of smoke-free lodgings, but the total is undoubtedly higher.

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• Rees put brake on smoke bans 

NATHAN REES has been dubbed the key man behind what was criticised as a soft approach by the former Carr government to introducing bans on smoking in hotels.

The recently retired head of the Australian Hotels Association, John Thorpe, dropped the bombshell at a farewell celebration in his honour, thanking the Premier for being an architect of the controversial delay in a full smoking ban in hotels.

Sources told the Herald Mr Thorpe said at the function on Tuesday that of all those who had helped him in government, the one person he was most grateful to was a policy adviser to the former health minister Craig Knowles who had now become the Premier. Mr Rees was heavily involved in the policy decision announced by Mr Carr which resulted in a ban in only half the indoor space of hotels in 2005, and a quarter of hotels' indoor space in 2006.

Even the full ban in July last year was controversial because less than a quarter of "outdoor" areas has to be outdoors to allow people to smoke there.

Mr Thorpe confirmed his comments, made to an audience of 600, to the Herald and said Mr Rees supported hotels with the staged ban and had gone against the wishes of the Cancer Institute head, Jim Bishop, who wanted to see a full ban immediately introduced in hotels.

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• Ban on smoking gains overwhelming response in Kerala  

Earlier, you could at least find a few puffing cigarettes furitively at bus stands and railway stations as there is already a Court directive against smoking in Kerala, but the Centre's recent ban is fast ensuring that such incidents do not occur anymore, thanks to the special initiative taken by police.

"Smoking in public places is even otherwise punishable in the state since 1999, following a High Court directive. But what the recent ban has done is to take up the issue more seriously, demanding the police to be more effective', says City Police Commissioner Anoop Kuruvilla John.

`The ban has been reasonably well-enforced in the state even earlier, when the guilty had to personally appear in the Court to pay a fine upto Rs.500', he says, adding that on an average, about 350 cases were booked a month in Kozhikode alone till recently. . . .

Interestingly, many hotels and restaurants have come up with signboards issuing warnings against smoking, thereby solely leaving it to the customer to run the risk of being apprehended in case of violating the ban.

Reports from neighbouring Malappuram district say that the `urge' for smoking has driven smokers even to use-and-pay public toilets.

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• Sensing legal trouble over Oct 2 smoking ban, govt rushes to SC  

Sensing a spate of litigation in high courts challenging its decision to completely ban smoking in public places from October 2, the Centre on Friday rushed to the Supreme Court seeking transfer of all such petitions from the HCs to the apex court for a uniform adjudication.

The first of such apprehended litigation has already been filed in the Delhi high court by ITC, one of the largest cigarette manufacturers, and Indian Hotels Association arguing that the notification banning smoking made no distinction between a public place and private space.

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• ITC moves HC against smoking ban 

Indian Tobaco Company (ITC) Ltd, on Tuesday approached the Delhi High Court challenging the Centre's notification banning smoking in private offices and other establishments from October two.

Under the curbs, those caught smoking in public places and other private organisations will be fined Rs 200 which may increase to Rs 1,000.

So far, smoking is banned only in public places and in private offices an area has been allotted as smoking zone for the cigarette smokers.

Besides ITC, two others petitioners including Indian Hotels Association have also moved separate plea challenging the May 2008 notification issued by the Union Health Ministry.

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• Smoking ban ensures a healthy Games 

the city's municipal government is also making efforts to ensure a healthy Games by prohibiting smoking in public areas.

The regulation was enacted to meet requirements from the World Health Organization (WHO).

In a 2004 meeting with Premier Wen Jiabao in Beijing, former WHO Director-General Dr. Lee Jong-wook said it was his hope that all athletes and spectators coming to the Beijing Games have a smoke-free environment at the competition venues.

Premier Wen agreed, noting that a smoking-free Olympic Games is in line with the Olympic spirit, and would further enhance tobacco control in Beijing.

Health authorities in Beijing banned smoking in public areas beginning on May 1. . . .

To meet the regulation, a total of 6,700 no smoking signs were place at all Olympic sports venues.

To create a smoke-free dining environment, the Beijing Health Bureau and other organizations issued a regulation requiring no-smoking areas in the city's 40,000 restaurants in February 2007. . . .

Another no-smoking campaign requires medical organizations to take the lead to turn hospitals into a no-smoking environment, then promote the initiative to all of society.

The Beijing Health Bureau has formulated six standards for smoke-free hospitals. . . .

From April to June in 2008, a total of 165 reports on smoking control appeared in the news media.

Posters to promote tobacco control were placed in many communities in Beijing. . . .

The Beijing Health Bureau has also strengthened cooperation with WHO and other international organizations to enhance the tobacco control task in the city.

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• Hotels use anti-smoking laws to build outdoor gaming rooms 

IN the long, dark gaming room of Sydney's Epping Hotel, barely a sliver of light can be seen through the wall of "louvres" that separates a row of poker machines from the outside world.

But this is one of a growing number of NSW hotels taking advantage of unclear anti-smoking laws to build these so-called outdoor gaming rooms.

Anti-smoking groups have blamed what they say are inadequate laws for a rise in the number of outdoor gaming areas in the state's pubs and clubs.

"These are rooms full of poker machines that are very much more indoors than out with opening slats and extremely creative use of louvres," Smoke Free Australia co-ordinator Stafford Sanders said.

"The whole things is a shambles and a recipe for evasion."

Hotels following the trend include the Collingwood Hotel at Liverpool, the Hornsby Inn, the Bayview Tavern at Gladesville, the Bondi Hotel and the Ritz Hotel at Hurstville.

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• Kenyan smoking ban due to take effect: official 

A new law banning smoking in public places and regulating the sale of tobacco products in Kenya is due to take effect nationwide within hours, an official said Monday.

Public Health Minister Charity Ngilu said the Tobacco Control Act, passed in August 2007 but given a nine-month implementation period prior to Tuesday's passing into law, is aimed at protecting public health.

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• Hawaii hotels fining smoking scofflaws 

Smokers who light up in a non-smoking hotel room in Hawai'i may may find themselves paying several hundred dollars more for the room cleanup.

Travel Hawaii, a Hawai'i-based Internet retailer, has set up a database -- www.travel-Hawaii.com/smoking.html -- that details the smoking policies of hotels throughout the state.

Travel Hawaii owner John Lindelow said his company updates the information as policies shift. "This is a rapidly changing area of hotel policy, so we make a lot of phone calls to stay on top of what the hotels are doing," he said.

So far, the top charge goes to Aqua Palms & Spa in Waikiki, with a $500 fee to clean a smoke-free room there.

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