Tobacco.org

STATSHOT: How Are We Quitting Smoking?  

12%

Stealing mother's Nicorettes instead of her Camels

18%

Pissing off connection in Cell Block 8

11%

Nicotine body grease

20%

Cold Turkey, tomorrow

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VIDEO: Red State Update: No smoking on the battlefield!  

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SCHMIDT: Smoking addiction: An unfortunate case 

I am a very classy cigarette case. My caramel ostrich-skin leather surrounded by a gold border opens sideways to show 8 cigarettes on each side. Very 1940s -- Rick might have used it to offer Ilsa a smoke in "Casablanca." Now I just sit in a drawer.

I never thought it would come to this. My owner loved to smoke. She had it with morning coffee; while driving to work; at work when she thought she couldn't handle the stress; after work with a drink with friends; the last thing before bed. I thought that I was her best friend because I never left her side. . . .

Nope, what really ended it for us were her kids. They started to pretend that they were smoking, imitating her using a straw from their juice boxes. And then she knew it was all over for her and me.

She learned all the tricks to do things differently. No more coffee -- too much of a reminder of the old days . . .

I think I'll have to change careers to get out of the drawer. Maybe I'll start carrying her business cards.

If you would like to retire your cigarette case, call the Illinois Tobacco Quitline, (866) 784-8937, for help and services near you.

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FDA To Regulate Tobacco 

VIDEO: Swine Flu? Forearmed Is Forewarned 

Time for Friday's Reading List, when we catch up with fave items of the week... . . .

2. Some months back, 'Riffs highlighted the engaging animation of "Traced." Now the creator has a new one posted, titled "Smoking." You can view all the work on the TRACED Web site.

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EDITORIAL CARTOON 

[Graphic:

Sick man in bed, surrounded by medical machines and clouds of smoke, with overflowing ashtray on bed. He is smoking and complaining to a visitor who has a gas mask on.

"$10 A PACK??? THOSE TAXES ARE KILLING ME!!"]

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$10 A PACK??? THOSE TAXES ARE KILLING ME!!
Angry sick smoker, in a Sean Delonas cartoon.

WHITELY: Don't blame China for the world's eco woes 

Two Chinese businessmen walk into an international airport smoking room crowded with Western men puffing on cigars. The two Chinese are about to light up when one suit-wearing smoker turns and barks: "Do you mind?"

This is an old analogy used to illustrate the hypocrisy of some in the West who blame China for the world's pollution woes. . . .

London's Great Smog of 1952 is an extreme example of how this situation can go from bad to worse. More than 12,000 Londoners died as a result of the five-day catastrophe. The city's undertakers ran out coffins and it forced the British government to pass the original Clean Air Act.

This is a tragedy no nation wants to repeat.

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ATF Agents Closing In On Nation's Most Notorious Cigarette Bummer 

A spokesperson for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives announced Tuesday that the agency has intensified its manhunt for an individual suspected of bumming more than 75,000 cigarettes nationwide.

ATF agents, who have tracked the elusive cigarette moocher for nearly four years, claimed they could be just days away from apprehending the "single greatest threat" to American smokers. . . .

Agents investigating the site of the most recent bumming believe the fugitive may have struck four times in one night.

"Mark my words," Thompson continued. "His days of annoying the living crap out of smokers everywhere will soon be over."

Representing the largest investigation in ATF history, the nationwide dragnet has nearly exhausted the agency's resources . . .

A break in the case this morning nearly netted the notorious moocher, but officials reportedly let the fugitive slip away when he approached several officers during their smoke break, asked for a cigarette, and quietly went on his way.

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VIDEO: Jimmy Kimmel Live - Cousin Sal And The Great American Smokeout 

[Cousin Sal squirts Kimmel Show employees taking smoking breaks]

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VIDEO: Great American Smokeout - Jimmy Kimmel Live! 

Jimmy Kimmel Live covers the American Cancer Society's Great American Smokeout on November 16, 2006.

[Cousin Sal sprays smokers on the street with a fire extinguisher, saying, "Thanks for not smoking."]

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BUCKLEY: What New Yorkers Should Dread in the New Year  

*

The 2003 public-area smoking ban will be lifted in order to promote early urban mortality.

This sure-to-be-controversial move, which sources say will be announced early in the new year by the City Council, is expected to bring about "significant" savings to the city budget in the area of extended elderly care. Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who reportedly clashed with Mr. Bloomberg over his intention to serve as mayor until 2048, is said to be exerting "fierce" pressure upon the mayor to personally launch a "Light Up, New York!" campaign.

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• DAVIS: All I want for Christmas: cleaner air  

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the House (of Representatives), not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. House Bill 4163 had been through both chambers with great fanfare, and there was a great yell of triumph from the Campaign for Smokefree Air.

Children with asthma were wishing for the best, of visits to restaurants with clean air in their chests. And Mama in her apron could work for a living, without the worry of cancer the secondhand smoke was giving.

When out in the Capitol lobby, there arose such a clatter, the people all wondered just what was the matter? Ohio has done it, and Illinois, too, so many states were smoke free, why is it so hard for Michigan to do? . . .

So write to your lawmakers and tell them to compromise and vote; tell them you're watching and you're taking note. It's good for me and for you, good for health and business too; Be you naughty or nice, a smokefree Michigan is the right thing to do!

-- Dr. Ronald M. Davis, M.D, of East Lansing, who wrote this verse a year ago, died last month of pancreatic cancer.

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Smoker's Lament by Les Fox 

Some time ago, he gave me

Nicotine patches

I couldn’t light them

I used a whole box

Of matches

So I just keep on puffing

Cough and splutter

But at nearly eighty

Does it really matter?

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A healthy dose of humor - Woman who survived cancer takes on Big Tobacco in her comedy act 

San Francisco comedienne Rene Hicks used to be an accountant.

And perhaps, like Newhart, she "killed 'em" - had her audience rolling in the aisles - while on stage.

But this is where Hicks' story takes a strange turn.

Because her audience, you see, darn near killed her.

Hicks, who never smoked a cigarette in her life - she was a long-distance runner in college, for heaven's sake - came down with lung cancer in 2001.

She blames the secondhand smoke she breathed in over years of performing in clubs and bars.

"That's how I got cancer," says the comic, who appears Saturday in Polson at an event where the Lake County Health Department will hand out its Healthy Business Awards.

One of those businesses is the St. Luke Healthcare Network of Ronan, which next week will extend its no-smoking policy to include a ban on smoking outdoors on all its properties in Lake County. . . .

"Anything a tobacco company does is funny," Hicks says. "I mean, they're trying to kill people, and trying to make it seem like they're not. There's good fodder there, the new ways they come up with to sell death to people, to dress it up."

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The Daily Break / The Ledge 

- "Make your 'No Tobacco' position clear to your children." Brand it into their fleshy backsides by extinguishing a series of Virginia Slims. . . .

- "If you use any form of tobacco, don't let that stop you from talking to your children about not smoking tobacco." Right, because if there's one thing teenagers respond well to, it's hypocrisy.

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