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Q How many cigarettes a day do you now smoke? Do you smoke alone or in the presence of other people? And do you believe the new law would help you to quit? If so, why?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, first of all, the new law that was put in place is not about me, it's about the next generation of kids coming up. So I think it's fair, Margaret, to just say that you just think it's neat to ask me about my smoking, as opposed to it being relevant to my new law. (Laughter.) But that's fine, I understand. It's an interesting human -- it's an interesting human interest story.
But I've said before that, as a former smoker, I constantly struggle with it. Have I fallen off the wagon sometimes? Yes. Am I a daily smoker, a constant smoker? No. I don't do it in front of my kids, I don't do it in front of my family, and I would say that I am 95 percent cured, but there are times where -- (laughter) -- there are times where I mess up. And, I mean, I've said this before. I get this question about once every month or so, and I don't know what to tell you, other than the fact that, like folks who go to AA, once you've gone down this path, then it's something you continually struggle with, which is precisely why the legislation we signed was so important, because what we don't want is kids going down that path in the first place. Okay?
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I don't know what to tell you, other than the fact that, like folks who go to AA, once you've gone down this path, then it's something you continually struggle with, which is precisely why the legislation we signed was so important, because what we don't want is kids going down that path in the first place. Okay?President Barack Obama, on his smoking.
I would say that I am 95 percent cured.President Barack Obama, measuring with a cessation yardstick no one's ever heard of.
It fell to President Barack Obama to confirm the gossip that his aides had spent weeks trying to snuff out: He still sneaks an occasional cigarette. "There are times where I mess up," Obama said at a White House news conference on Tuesday.
But, the president hastened to add, he never smokes in front of his young daughters and not on a daily basis. Oh, and he's "95 percent cured."
It was the first public acknowledgment from the president that he still hasn't completely kicked the habit. In the past, he had alluded to his three-decades-old habit without giving direct answers.
One day after signing the nation's toughest anti-tobacco legislation into law, Obama was asked again Tuesday about his smoking habit and came clean.
"Look, I've said before that as a former smoker I constantly struggle with it. Have I fallen off the wagon sometimes? Yes," Obama said. "Am I a daily smoker, a constant smoker? No."
Today Altria Group called President Obama's signing of legislation giving the Food and Drug Administration regulatory authority over tobacco products an important and historic achievement. The company has supported tough but reasonable federal regulation of tobacco products for more than eight years.
"We have consistently advocated for federal regulation that recognizes the serious harm caused by tobacco products, that helps ensure tobacco companies do not market tobacco products to children and that also acknowledges that tobacco products are and should remain legal products for adults," said Michael E. Szymanczyk, Altria Group's chairman and CEO. "We believe a comprehensive regulatory framework, implemented thoughtfully, can provide significant benefits to adult consumers."
Kansas City can continue to ban smoking from its bars and restaurants under a ruling issued today by the Missouri Court of Appeals.
The court affirmed Kansas City's comprehensive smoking ban. An appeal had been filed by JC's Sports Bar in Clay County.
Jonathan Sternberg, the attorney representing the bar, had argued that Kansas City is not allowed to regulate smoking in bars, billiard parlors and restaurants that seat fewer than 50 people because state law permits smoking in such places. He said Kansas City's strict smoking restrictions are in conflict with state law and violate the Missouri Constitution. . . .
Sternberg said he was discussing the possibility of an appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court with his clients but they have not yet made a decision. He said the Supreme Court takes about 10 percent of the appeal requests it receives.
One of the real tests of how federal regulation will affect tobacco use could be something you'll spot at a convenience store counter.
A new law signed by President Barack Obama yesterday will, among many changes, move all tobacco products -- snuff and cigars as well as cigarettes -- behind the counter.
How they share space back there could clear the way for more competition in a market now dominated by Henrico County-based Altria Group Inc.
It's competition that Chesterfield County-based Swedish Match North America is hoping for, and a rule it believes could lead to something it's long wanted: more space on retailer's shelves for its snuff and chewing tobacco.
"It's back to old fashioned blocking and tackling, how to be more competitive -- including against cigarettes," said Gerry Roerty, Swedish Match's president and general counsel.
Both Richmond-area tobacco companies broke with most of the rest of the tobacco industry in supporting the regulation of tobacco by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. . . . .
"This puts Philip Morris absolutely in control of the American market," said Alan Blum, director of the Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society at the University of Alabama. "This means Marlboro is king."
It is also likely to make oral tobacco -- snuff and similar products -- a major public-health issue, he said.
Swedish Match thinks regulation could open up the market, especially for its oral tobacco, Roerty said.
Celebrity chef Antony Worrall Thompson today joined a campaign to amend the current smoking ban to bolster the pub and club industry.
The TV chef joined MPs from the three main political parties in calling for the comprehensive ban to be relaxed to help establishments losing revenue, laying off staff or facing closure.
One of the changes the group hopes will be considered is the adoption of the Spanish model - where venues with limited floor space can choose to be smoking or non-smoking, but venues larger than 100 square metres can have a designated, fully-partitioned, smoking room.
They are also proposing that smoking of tobacco be allowed in venues that can secure a licence by ensuring an agreed level of ventilation and air quality in all areas.
Smokers and tobacco users will have to wait months, perhaps up to three years, to feel a substantial impact from federal oversight of the tobacco industry, analysts say. . . .
FDA regulation is likely to spur consolidation by driving up compliance costs for smaller discount manufacturers.
"It will force them to register with the FDA and test their products," said Adam Spielman, an analyst with Citigroup Global Markets Inc. "It probably will make it impossible to launch new brands and lines without a series of tests that will be expensive for them.
"It probably will require them to use tobacco that has been treated in complicated ways to reduce certain constituents."
All of which could add tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars in expenses, Spielman said.
"Due to lesser-scale efficiencies, these manufacturers could either be forced to take meaningful price increases -- lower price gaps for premium brands -- or be forced out of business due to the costs of new labeling costs of compliance with FDA standards and more complex inventory management," said Nik Modi, an analyst with UBS.
Calvin Phelps, the chairman and chief executive of Renegade Holdings Inc. of Mocksville, said that it will take years of FDA regulation to determine how much of an impact it will have on the industry. . . .
Bill Godshall, the executive director of SmokeFree Pennsylvania, said that where Reynolds could be impacted is in its elaborate cigarette packaging compared with Marlboro.
"Whereas most Marlboro smokers know that a red Marlboro box means regular, gold means light and silver means ultra light, there is no similar color coding for Camel," Godshall said.
Some analysts said that there's no guarantee that the law will fulfill the far-reaching promises touted by anti-tobacco groups.
For example, UBS research found that in four of five countries that have regulatory warnings covering most of the cigarette pack -- Australia, Brazil, Canada and United Kingdom -- sales dropped only between 0.8 percent and 2.4 percent in the first three years. In India, sales increased by 0.5 percent.
"None of the goals envisaged will be achieved as similar provisions in other countries have failed," said Anthony Hemsley, a vice president of Commonwealth Brands
Super double special irony alert! President Obama signed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act into law yesterday, hailing it in a Rose Garden ceremony as "an extraordinary accomplishment" that will "save American lives and make Americans healthier."
Well, let's hope so. But doesn't "healthier" start at home? Wouldn't this be the same President Obama who still has a little tobacco habit of his own?
It's hard to know for sure, because everyone at the White House acts like a kid caught smoking when the subject comes up, but it appears that Obama is the first president in decades to smoke cigarettes while in office. . . .
For a guy with a smoking past and maybe present, Obama's blindingly white smile made reporters wonder whether they should be focused on the coverup and not the crime. So the question hung in the air for the assembled news types, all of whom are doubtless paragons of perfect health and fitness themselves. "Mr. President, how difficult has your struggle with smoking been?" shouted CNN's Dan Lothian from the behind the rope line, as Obama worked the sweltering Rose Garden crowd a few feet away.
It's hard to know for sure, because everyone at the White House acts like a kid caught smoking when the subject comes up, but it appears that Obama is the first president in decades to smoke cigarettes while in office.A risible sense of irony suffuses this WP item on Obama's smoking.
Summary: Several deleterious effects have been described in asthma because of smoking: accelerated decline in lung function, more severe symptoms, impairment in quality of life and diminished therapeutic response to steroids. The harmful effect of tobacco smoking is not only on asthma but also on rhinitis playing a role in disease outcomes. Tobacco exposure can influence innate immunity diminishing innate production of antigen-presenting cells cytokines, as well as an impaired response to toll-like receptor ligands. Active smoking is associated with current symptoms of asthma and rhinitis and seems to be a risk factor for developing new asthma in patients with rhinitis. Tobacco smoking has been also found among the factors inducing nasal obstruction and decreased muco-ciliary clearance in nonallergic rhinitis. . . .
The early exposure to ETS, both prenatal and postnatal, increases the risk of IgE sensitization to indoor inhalant and, in particular, food allergens[13••,14] and subsequently may have effects on atopy and airway hyperresponsiveness, with the consequent presence of atopic diseases.[15,16]
More studies are needed to gain insight in the relationship between tobacco smoking, ETS and the immune response and inflammatory lower and upper respiratory illnesses. . . .
All these findings suggest tobacco exposure control should be a tool in the management of asthma.
Conclusion
1. Tobacco smoking provokes a strong immunological imbalance to those exposed. The innate immunity is impaired by tobacco exposure.
2. As a consequence, typical allergic diseases such as rhinitis and asthma could initiate or aggravate preexisting conditions or both. Active smoking is a factor for nasal obstruction in NAR.
3. Tobacco smoking (and probably ETS also) has a detrimental effect on the efficacy of inhaled corticosteroids, leukotriene receptor antagonists and on those patients in programs for controlling asthma in deprived populations.
4. Robust evidence is provided in order to empower both primary and secondary prevention by physicians.
Many smokers are too stressed by the hard economic times to attempt to give up their habit, research suggests.
Almost a quarter (23%) of smokers quizzed by Ipsos Mori said they had put off plans to quit.
And 28% said they had simply been too stressed to make a successful attempt to quit in the last six months, blaming job and financial worries.
If reflected across the country it could mean more than two million people have delayed plans to quit.
President Barack Obama signed a law yesterday settling a decade-long battle between health groups and tobacco companies. Left unresolved was the question of his own fight with nicotine.
The president invoked his personal struggle in lauding the legislation to strengthen regulation of tobacco products, particularly provisions that he said would curtail the marketing of cigarettes to young people.
“Each day, 1,000 young people under the age of 18 become new regular, daily smokers, and almost 90 percent of all smokers began at or before their 18th birthday,” Obama said at the White House. “I know; I was one of these teenagers.”
“I know how difficult it can be to break this habit when it’s been with you for a long time,” he said.
Obama, 47, and his aides haven’t answered directly when asked periodically whether the president has completely broken the habit since winning the White House. . . .
As an Illinois state senator in the late 1990s until 2004, Obama took part in a weekly poker game with colleagues in Springfield. There, away from his Chicago home, he would light up, all the while hoping Michelle wouldn’t find out, colleagues from the time said. During one of those games, his wife called and Obama immediately put out his cigarette.
"I know -- I was one of those teenagers," he said, standing beneath a punishing afternoon sun at a Rose Garden ceremony. "I know how difficult it can be to break this habit when it's been with you for a long time."
With that, Mr. Obama moved on. He did not mention whether he still smokes, a topic that has been a subject of considerable curiosity, and family drama, for years. Instead, he talked about the dangers of the addiction and its causes.
"Kids today don't just start smoking for no reason," he said. "They're aggressively targeted as customers by the tobacco industry. They're exposed to a constant and insidious barrage of advertising where they live, where they learn and where they play." , , ,
When Mr. Obama entered the presidential race, he said his candidacy had been contingent on a deal with his wife, Michelle, that he quit smoking. The couple discussed his habit on "60 Minutes," where Mrs. Obama declared, "I hate it."
"That's why he doesn't do it anymore, I'm proud to say," she continued. "I'm the one who outed him on the smoking. That was one of my prerequisites for, you know, entering this race, is that he couldn't be a smoking president."
Now there are few touchier questions inside the White House than whether Mr. Obama is still smoking. One senior administration official declined to answer, but pointed out that the president spoke Monday in the present tense, saying, "I know how difficult it can be to break this habit," as opposed to "I know how difficult it was to break this habit."