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There's no doubt that smoking or being around smokers is a health risk.
But, isn't just about anything we do a risky? Other than sitting inside all day and doing nothing, every single step we take involves some chances. . . .
I find it interesting that nonsmokers who go to bars and want the smoking ban because of health concerns, pour liver-damaging alcohol into their bodies. I find it ironic that Doyle says he tries so hard to keep and help business in the state, but signs a bill that will undoubtedly hurt bars and restaurants.
So, thanks to the state government for telling me as a customer and the many restaurant and bar owners what's best for us all as the further eroding of our freedoms in this country continue.
Good luck bars and restaurants. As if things weren't tough enough in the current economy.
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Pennsylvania's 14 state-owned universities cannot bar faculty members and coaches from smoking outdoors on campus, unless their unions agree to the restriction, a state labor panel ruled. . . .
The Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties, the union that represents 5,800 faculty members and coaches, filed an unfair labor practice complaint challenging the policy on grounds that any such change is subject to collective bargaining.
In a ruling last week, the state Labor Relations Board sided with the union. It ruled that the university system, like other public-sector employers, cannot impose such a ban on unionized employees without the consent of their collective-bargaining agents.
Stem cells that respond after a severe injury in the lungs of mice may be a source of rapidly dividing cells that lead to lung cancer, according to a team of American and British researchers.
"There are chemically resistant, local-tissue stem cells in the lung that only activate after severe injury," said Barry R. Stripp, Ph.D., professor of medicine and cell biology at Duke University Medical Center. "Cigarette smoke contains a host of toxic chemicals, and smoking is one factor that we anticipate would stimulate these stem cells. Our findings demonstrate that, with severe injury, the resulting repair response leads to large numbers of proliferating cells that are derived from these rare stem cells."
Stripp said this finding could be related to the increased incidence of lung cancer in people with chronic disease states, in particular among cigarette smokers.
The findings were published in the advance online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences during the week of May 25.
Tommy Chui, a former director of a Hong Kong cigarette distribution company, was set to testify against his former colleagues and implicate members of the infamous criminal group, the Triad, along with corrupt Customs officials.
That company, Giant Island Ltd. (GIL), was a major distributor of the British American Tobacco (BAT) in China and Taiwan, and was believed to have organized a smuggling network for BAT cigarettes. GIL was reported to have transported cigarettes from Singapore and Subic Bay in the Philippines from freighters to fishing boats in the South China Sea.
Documented by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), the case “reveals the dark underbelly of a billion-dollar business fed by international corporations and operated by organized crime,” its report published in 2001 says.
Links to Manila
Though based in Hong Kong, the operations had links to Manila through a GIL official named Hung Wing-wah, the company’s founder and majority owner, whom Chui had a disagreement with. . . .
BOC officials say that most of those in the super green lane category are multinational companies or companies that belong to the Top 100 corporations of the country with outstanding records. They say that random checks are still made on these shipments if intelligence information directs them to do so.
Customs officials, however, say that because cigarettes are classified as “high risk commodities,” these are always channeled to the red lane, where inspections are mandatory. Likewise, whenever shipments come in from countries on the BOC watch list—China, Hong Kong, and Vietnam, among others—they are automatically assigned to the red lane.
Smugglers know this and find means of circumventing customs checks. They either take pains to hide cigarettes in their 20- or 40-footer container vans that may not be as thoroughly checked by customs inspectors or, as previously mentioned, resort to circumlocutory routes so that goods come from countries not on the BOC watch list. They also alter the documentation of their shipments while in transit, or they simply mis-declare contraband cigarettes or bribe customs officials.
Produced by: University of Kentucky 04/01/2009
Description: Ellen Hahn, professor in the College of Nursing at the University of Kentucky, and her team are conducting tobacco policy research that’s truly having an impact. Hahn’s efforts resulted in the passage of a smoke-free ordinance in all public buildings within Lexington, Kentucky, one of the first cities to do so. Learn about the importance of such policies and the effects they have on the community. . . .
Runtime:00:28:30 . . .
This program will air on ResearchChannel at the following times (GMT-08:00) –
* Wednesday, May 27 1:30 p.m. PT 7:30 p.m. PT
* Thursday, May 28 4:30 a.m. PT 10:30 a.m. PT 4:30 p.m. PT 10:30 p.m. PT
The U.S. cancer death rate fell again in 2006, a new analysis shows, continuing a slow downward trend that experts attribute to declines in smoking, earlier detection and better treatment.
About 560,000 people died of cancer that year, according to an American Cancer Society report released Wednesday. The new numbers show the death rate fell by less than 2 percent, but since that decline was better than the previous year, the cancer society applauded the progress.
Others said the change was not a big deal.
"The improvement was modest," said Dr. Michael Goodman, an Emory University researcher who specializes in cancer statistics. . .
It takes a rate decline of at least 2 percent to offset population growth and cause a drop in the actual number of cancer deaths. That happened in 2002 and 2003 for the first time since 1930. But it hasn't happened since.
The explanation for why the death rate has fallen depends on the type of cancer. For example, better screening has improved deaths from colon cancer. Treatment advances are more of a factor in leukemia death rates. And smoking cessation is the main reason behind improvements in male lung cancer deaths.
But smokers who want to kick the habit may soon be on their own.
Cash-strapped state governments are slashing funding for tobacco prevention and cessation programs in a move anti-tobacco groups say could backfire, costing taxpayers later for treatment of tobacco-related illnesses among people who might've quit.
"We understand the economic times and the pressure that budget makers are under, but right now, this is a penny-wise, pound-foolish approach," said Peter Fisher, vice president of state issues for the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, a Washington-based advocacy group.
In Vermont, a recently adopted state budget reduced funding for anti-tobacco efforts by $1.9 million from the previous year, which critics say will force cutbacks in youth smoking-prevention activities and at hospitals that offer in-person smoking-cessation counseling and nicotine-replacement therapy.
Other states have made similar cuts, or are contemplating them:
Manufacturers and retailers of cigarettes and tobacco products in the city could be in for a tough time on May 31, World No Tobacco Day, and the days following.
Starting Sunday, several three-member police squads will be doing the rounds in Chennai, covering petty shops and retail outlets to check whether pictorial warnings against smoking are printed on tobacco packs, mandatory as per specifications provided by the Union health ministry. Each team will comprise a police official, health officer and school headmaster. Violations would attract fines, with or without imprisonment, commissioner of police K Radhakrishnan said here on Monday.
At a function organised by the directorate of public health to flag off the campaign van, Radhakrishnan said that his department would ensure that the rule was followed for the sake of a healthy future. "In my own family I have seen members suffer because of tobacco. They have faced the direct consequences it," he told reporters.
The Canadian government on Tuesday proposed a ban on fruit-flavored cigarettes and small cigars that anti-smoking groups say are being marketed like candy to lure children into smoking.
Tobacco advertising rules will also be tightened to close a loophole that allows cigarettes to be advertised in newspapers and magazines that claim to be aimed at an adults but are available to anyone and often given out for free.
Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq said the industry's own internal documents showed it was using sweet flavors like grape, banana and peach to entice teenagers to try tobacco for the first time so they become addicted.
"Tobacco is not candy and should never be mistaken as such," Aglukkaq told a news conference in Ottawa.
A New Jersey man pleaded guilty Tuesday to smuggling nearly 16 million cigarettes he bought from undercover federal agents in Virginia to sell in New York and New Jersey.
Mark A. Frondelli, 48, of Parlin, N.J., admitted as part of a plea agreement in U.S. District Court in Alexandria that he paid more than $2.3 million in cash in 47 separate transactions with undercover agents between November 2007 and August 2008.
Nearly all of the purchases were made in northern Virginia, though some were made in New Jersey and Maryland. . . .
Mike Campbell, a spokesman for the Washington field office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said Fairfax County has become a hot spot for cigarette smugglers. As cigarette taxes have increased in some states, so has the profit opportunity for smugglers.
Campbell said one recent case involved an offer to pay for contraband cigarettes with a kilogram of cocaine; another case revealed links to Korean organized crime.
At memorial services, people sometimes offer up items which the deceased liked, or wanted to have, during their life. In the late former President Roh Moo-hyun's case, it was a cigarette.
Some mourners gingerly lit up a cigarette and offered it to the late President at memorial altars in his hometown in southeastern Bongha Village and other locations across the nation.
Their offerings of lit cigarettes instead of laying flowers or burning incense were prompted by the news that Roh asked for a smoke from a security guard before killing himself. . . . Mourners are apparently feeling sorry for him because he couldn't smoke at the last moment of his life.
Roh used to be a heavy smoker, going through more than two packs of cigarettes a day. He quit smoking in October 2001, but about a year later, began to smoke again as his approval rate for the presidential candidacy was only around 10 percent.
The powerful state House Democratic leader who drove the Legislature to pass a statewide indoor smoking ban had surgery Tuesday to remove part of his lung, his legislative aide said.
House Majority Leader Hugh Holliman, D-Davidson, had surgery at Forsyth Medical Center in Winston-Salem and was recovering in the hospital's intensive care unit, his legislative assistant, Carol Bowers, said after speaking with the legislator's wife, Ellen.
Holliman had a lower lobe of his right lung removed, Bowers said. Test results will determine later whether the removed section was cancerous, Bowers said. He was in stable condition Tuesday, hospital spokeswoman Freda Springs said.
Holliman, a former smoker, previously had a cancerous tumor removed from his lung in September 2007. He also was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1999, but declared himself cured in 2005. . . .
Holliman, 65, had said his struggle against lung cancer, which also caused his sister's death, motivated him to push the smoking ban.
The Michigan House voted today to ban smoking in workplaces including bars and restaurants, but allow it on gambling floors at Detroit's three casinos, cigar bars and specialty smoke shops.
The 73-31 vote set up another faceoff with the Senate, which last year voted for a total smoking ban, no exceptions.
The smoking ban remains a hot issue, led by anti-smoking advocates encouraged by smoking bans approved in recent weeks in Wisconsin and North Carolina, a tobacco industry state where a smoking ban was once unimaginable.
But like last year, a stalemate looms again between Michigan's House and Senate over whether to allow smoking in Detroit's casinos. A state imposed smoking ban would not affect Indian-run casinos.
Ask cigarette smokers why they light up and one answer you're likely to hear is that it relieves stress.1
But if that's the goal, it's not at all clear that cigarettes deliver the goods. Half (50%) of all smokers say they "frequently" experience stress in their daily lives, compared with just 35% of those who once smoked and have now quit and 31% of those who never smoked, according to a Pew Research Center Social & Demographic Trends survey conducted June 16-July16, 2008 among a nationally representative sample of 2,250 adults.
The finding raises as many questions as answers. Does it mean that the kinds of people who smoke are pre-disposed to stress? Does it mean that the stress relief smokers get while smoking doesn't last once they don't have a cigarette in hand? Or might it mean that the whole idea that smoking relieves stress is illusory?
Psychologists, physiologists and neuroscientists are better situated than public opinion researchers to supply answers. Nevertheless, the Pew Research survey sheds some new light on the subject by allowing for a range of comparisons among current smokers, former smokers and non-smokers on matters related to stress, happiness, health and life satisfaction.