Tobacco.org

• 30-M Filipinos exposed to cigarette smoke at home 

Some 29.8 million Filipinos are exposed to cigarette smoke inside their homes, a national survey said, prompting health authorities to campaign against smoking even inside homes and in public places.

The first Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) revealed that "almost half of Filipinos," or 48.8 percent of those who were surveyed, are inhaling tobacco smoke inside their dwellings while 54 percent, representing 32.9 million of the population reported that someone smokes inside their homes.

The GATS 2009 gathered a total of 9,705 individuals 15 years old and above living in rural and urban areas nationwide. The number represents 61.3 million Filipinos in this age bracket.

Interestingly, the knowledge, perception and attitude of the surveyed population on the ill effects of tobacco smoking were high.

Ninety-four percent of them know that smoking causes serious diseases; 95.6 percent believe that smoking can cause lung cancer, 81.3 percent believe smoking can lead to heart attack, and 75.5 percent are aware that smoking can cause stroke.

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• Region to introduce smoking ban in multi-unit dwellings 

Janet Lowrey hopes a new Waterloo regional policy banning smoking in multi-unit dwellings will help her quit the habit.

Isabel Adams has a heart condition and welcomes a move that should reduce the smell of smoke seeping into her apartment from adjoining units.

But Gary Smith, a smoker for 54 years, is opposed to the ban which takes effect April 1.

“What I do in my apartment is nobody’s business,” he said.

All three are tenants at 74 Church St., a 48-unit seniors’ apartment building in downtown Kitchener, owned by the region.

This smoke-free policy will only apply to new tenants who move in on or after April 1. It does not apply to existing tenants unless they move to a new unit. The region owns and manages 2,723 housing units.

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Smokers get break in public housing  

A city councilor's attempt to ban smoking in public housing was quickly extinguished last night.

Councilor Tom Furey wants the City Council to send a resolution to the state Legislature urging it to act, but the measure failed to get support from the Committee on Public Health and Safety, which met last night at City Hall.

While acknowledging Assistant City Solicitor Jerry Parisella's opinion that the City Council "lacks the jurisdiction to impose a smoking ban" in properties controlled by the Salem Housing Authority, Furey said he felt an obligation to protect public health and safety.

"We have to act," Furey said. "We have a moral responsibility. If not us, who? If not now, when?"

In response, Ward 7 Councilor Joe O'Keefe, citing Furey's attempts to impose other bans in the past, asked: "How can we as a City Council morally control all these things?"

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Pleasant Hill Considering Tougher Smoking Laws 

Pleasant Hill could become the next Bay Area city to have tougher anti-smoking rules.

On Monday night, the city council will consider changing the city's smoking regulations.

The biggest changes apply to housing with four or more units, where new rules would ban smoking on private decks, balconies and patios within 20 feet of a non-smoking apartment.

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Smoking Task Force: Clearing The Air On A Slippery Slope  

The inaugural meeting of the West Hollywood outdoor smoking ordinance task force got under way with a clearing of the air and ended up on a slippery slope.

City Manager Paul Arevalo, chairing the first meeting, cast the task before the panel of anti-smoking advocates, residents and commercial interests as advisory, saying, "I've been charged with bringing the city council an ordinance regarding smoking, and that's what I'm going to do."

Mr. Arevalo said his direction from council was to use Los Angeles' recently passed ordinance as a foundation for WeHo's, "Recognizing it's not a done deal yet, but we'll be using that."

Business leaders, however, made it clear they opposed any ordinance at all, calling into question the ordinance's rationale, provenance and warning of a "slippery slope" leading to a citywide outdoor smoking ban which would include multi-unit housing complexes.

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Tighter smoking restrictions introduced 

The City Council on Tuesday introduced an ordinance strengthening anti-smoking regulations, roughly a year after implementing the first set of citywide restrictions.

The ordinance, which faces a final vote next month, would ban smoking on patios and balconies of condominium complexes and apartment buildings. Lighting up in common areas in condo buildings would also be prohibited, according to the tentative ordinance.

While council members were initially wary of imposing any regulations in condominiums, they said Tuesday that they had to consider the quality-of-life issues of tenants who are repeatedly exposed to second-hand smoke from neighboring units.

"At some point we have to factor in the quality of life of other residents," said City Councilman John Drayman. . . .

In January, the American Lung Assn. gave Glendale an A for the second year in a row for its tobacco control policies.

Still, several residents said they were frustrated to repeatedly see smoking in public space, especially parks and outdoor eating areas.

"I live across the street from Wilson Mini Park," Serge Lazar said. "But I can never go to Wilson Mini Park because everyone smokes around there."

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Working toward smoke-free living 

An initiative to create more apartments where smoking is prohibited in Columbia and Greene counties is quietly but concertedly growing in the area and officials say landlords and tenants are becoming increasingly receptive to the idea.

A partner of the Healthcare Consortium, and funded by the New York state Tobacco Control program, the Rip Van Winkle Tobacco-Free Action of Columbia and Greene Counties has been trying to reduce the influence of tobacco in the region since 2001.

Program Director Karen dePeyster and Communications Coordinator Lisa Heintz say their initiative is not out to change laws but to make other choices available to non smokers and those who want to live in second-hand smoke-free environments.

The program's most visible accomplishment was getting the management of the Crosswinds workforce housing complex on Harry Howard Avenue to designate six of its nine buildings smoke free.

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Santa Clara Considers Anti-Smoking Policies 

Smoking in unincorporated areas of Santa Clara County could soon be a much tougher proposition, as the Board of Supervisors is considering a number of new anti-smoking policies.

One of the proposals is to ban smoking in apartment complexes in unincorporated parts of the county.

"These are often old apartment buildings with poor ventilation and a smoker in one apartment ," said Board of Supervisors President Ken Yeager. "There smoke would just go right through the vents to people in the adjoining apartments." . . .

Yeager said they also want to reduce the number of stores selling tobacco.

"Unfortunately, a lot of these liquor stores that sell tobacco are much denser in low income areas," said Yeager. "I think there's a real target, not only for youth, but people in our minority communities, where unfortunately, smoking can be quite high."

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• Number of no-smoking zones expanded 

Educational centres, banks, religious places, sports complexes and hospitals will be turned into no-smoking zones in the next four months, Public Health Minister Jurin Laksanawisit, said yesterday.

According to the Public Health Ministry's announcement on February 27, smoking would be prohibited inside all public buildings, apart from open-air areas.

Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport is the only public area where a smoking zone will be allowed inside.

Educational institutes, petrol stations, offices and state agencies will be allowed to set up outside smoking areas.

Director of the Department of Diseases Control's Office of Alcohol Beverage and Tobacco Control, Dr Churit Tengtriseng, said smoking inside condominium buildings would be totally banned in the future.

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Menlo Park introduces beefed-up smoking ordinance  

Menlo Park residents could face fines of up to $500 for lighting up at apartment complex pools, bus stops or ATM lines after the council agreed to strengthen the city's 17-year-old smoking ordinance Tuesday night.

After about two hours of discussion, the city council voted 4-1 to adopt the proposed changes, which bar smoking in most common areas of multi-unit apartment and condominium complexes but stop short of banning the practice on balconies, patios or inside individual units.

"This is a huge improvement from where we are today," Council Member Kelly Fergusson said before the vote. "Does it go as far as I'd like to see? Maybe not. I hope in the future there would be room for making it stronger."

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Pasadena to explore possibility of citywide smoking ban  

On Monday, the council's Public Safety Committee discussed a long-proposed ban on smoking in apartment buildings, and Councilman Steve Haderlein asked the staff to find out whether the city has the legal authority to put a full smoking ban into place.

Pasadena passed a ban on outdoor smoking in most public areas in 2008, and at the time pledged to consider the apartment restrictions within the next year.

Haderlein, who is the chair of the committee, said he wasn't sure he would support an outright ban, but said he would like to know if it is an option.

"Something that broad and dramatic, we'd really have to go to our citizens and see if it is what they wanted," said Haderlein.

The discussion on extending the restrictions beyond apartment and condo units stemmed from concerns by committee members that it would be unfair to target smokers there, while ignoring smokers who live in single-family homes.

Haderlein noted, for example, that his neighbor is a smoker, and that he can sometimes smell the smoke drifting in through his kitchen window. . . .

Nancy Sagetellian, who owns a condo on South Lake Avenue, spoke Monday and said in a later interview that she was evicted from her apartment for complaining about her neighbor's smoking.

She said that since she bought a condo, she had hoped to avoid the problem, but she has a smoker living in a unit below her.

"I thought as a homeowner I'd have rights, but I haven't been able to find anybody who can help me," said Sagetellian.

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DENNY: Tobacco Industry: ‘Give me your homeless, your poor…’.  

When I first saw Berkeley’s new proposal for smoking restrictions in multi-unit housing, I couldn’t believe the loopholes. It exempts condos and tenant-in-common properties. It offers opt-out options for those who wish to continue smoking in their units. It refuses to identify secondhand smoke . . .

It’s true that homeless people have a high rate of smoking, but it is no accident. The tobacco industry targets homeless and mentally disabled people the same way it targets other marginalized groups by donating free cigarettes to shelters and psychiatric clinics and encouraging the clinics and transitional housing groups to oppose smoking restrictions. It targets the service providers as well, many of whom are formerly homeless, in the hope that they will help the tobacco industry position itself in the public eye as compassionate, generous, and kind.

The difference is that when the tobacco industry targets the gay community or the African-American community, people jump up and down and object. Targeting homeless and mentally disabled people in this way gets little such reaction—on the contrary, tobacco industry rhetoric and mythology is prevalent in the discussions of this embarrassing proposal, which sidesteps the opportunity to protect countless lungs and lives. . . .

Berkeley deserves to lose its leadership role in public health policy if it thinks one can put a smoking section in a room, a theater, or multi-unit housing, and still call it “smokefree.” Ninety percent smokefree is a contradiction in terms.

It’s tragic to lay a foundation for young children to continue to be exposed daily to deadly second- and third-hand smoke because of Berkeley’s misguided, tobacco industry-hatched mythology about “social justice.”

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Beacon Hill Roll Call  

BAN SMOKING IN SOME SENIOR HOUSING (H 1181) - The House gave initial approval to a bill requiring local housing authorities to provide for nonsmoking buildings in multi-building senior housing complexes or for a no-smoking floor in single-building senior housing.

The bill phases in the proposed law, grandfathers in current smokers and prevents their eviction.

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Household environmental tobacco smoke and risks of asthma, wheeze and bronchitic symptoms among children in Taiwan 

In summary, our results showed that prenatal and current household ETS exposure in Taiwan had significant adverse effects on respiratory health in children. Eliminating household ETS exposure may offer the most promising opportunity for reducing morbidity, because this risk factor is potentially modifiable. Public health policy for reducing the burden of respiratory symptoms may require a stronger focus on smoking cessation in the home, where children could gain significant health benefits.

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Household environmental tobacco smoke and risks of asthma, wheeze and bronchitic symptoms among children in Taiwan (PDF) 

Our population-based epidemiologic study showed the harmful effects of fetal and current exposure to tobacco smoke products. Prenatal exposure due to maternal smoking had the strongest effects on respiratory symptoms.

Current household ETS exposure also showed significant adverse effects, but past-only ETS exposure was not associated with any respiratory outcome. In addition, the number of current household cigarettes smoked, the percentage of ETS exposure during lifetime, and the number of current smokers at home showed increasing trends in risks of respiratory symptoms.

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