Tobacco.org

Bars against possible smoking ban 

With the announcement of a movement to make bars smoke free in Wahpeton, area bar owners are not happy.

The Richland County Tobacco Free Coalition is gathering signatures of support for a smoke-free ordinance in Wahpeton. Firehouse Pub owners Kirk Peterson and Steph Hickel said it comes down to a basic freedom of choice.

"Patrons who are here choose to be here," Peterson said. He argues if the city passes a smoke free law, its taking away his right to provide service to everyone. He said a lot of issues are not being addressed including job loss and economic impact.

Firehouse Pub bartender Jaki Ristow works full time at the bar and is opposed to the possible smoking ban in Wahpeton. The Richland County Tobacco Free Coalition is gathering signatures of support to impose a smoking ban in the city. Bar owners and employees are worried their livelihoods are in jeopardy. photo by Anna Jauhola

Jump to full article »

St. Raphael sidewalks may go smoke-free 

Despite a legislative snag last week, sidewalks around the Hospital of St. Raphael, located on Chapel Street near Orchard Street, will in all likelihood become smoke-free in the coming weeks.

At the Board of Aldermen meeting last Monday night, the board shelved a proposal to ban smoking on the sidewalks surrounding the hospital. Ward 23 Alderman Yusuf Shah, whose ward includes St. Raphael’s, attempted to fast-track the ban through a process known as unanimous consent, but Ward 1 Alderwoman Rachel Plattus ’09 and Ward 9 Alderman Roland Lemar voiced objections, arguing that the ban should not go into effect before residents of the neighborhood have a chance to voice potential concerns.

A public hearing on the measure is scheduled for Oct. 6, although city officials said the ban is sure to pass without much opposition.

Jump to full article »

• So you've tried, and tried, and tried, AND TRIED to quit  

Somehow, this time - maybe it was the nicotine-replacement patch, maybe the counseling - Collins resisted the call of the cigarette. But there is no denying: The stranglehold nicotine places on smokers can sometimes prove insurmountable.

Ask Jerry Remy, the Red Sox TV analyst who acknowledged last month that, despite enduring lung cancer, he still falls prey to the occasional impulse to smoke.

Ask Barack Obama . . .

The failure to quit, research has shown, has nothing to do with weakness of will. Nicotine, the primary addictive agent in tobacco, steals into the brain, setting on fire circuitry that regulates our sense of pleasure. At the same time, cigarettes acquire a sort of social permanence in smokers' lives - a way to start the day, to end a meal, to celebrate good times, to muddle through bad times.

So specialists who treat smokers now emphasize a double-barreled approach that combines counseling and medication, including patches, gum, and other nicotine substitutes along with drugs designed to thwart nicotine's addictive effects. There's even a nicotine vaccine being tested that would prevent the substance from reaching the brain.

Still, it's estimated that while roughly 70 percent of smokers want to quit, fewer than 10 percent succeed each year. . . .

Her first major attempt to quit was in 2000, when she went to group counseling at Mass. General. "I'd go there and I'd talk. And I'd leave immediately and have a cigarette.'' She tried again and again to stop smoking for good. Finally, last year, she decided, "This is ridiculous.'' She again sought counseling and wore the most potent nicotine patch available.

Her last drag on a cigarette, she said, was last October.

"No one can tell you to quit smoking. No one can make you feel like a social miscreant to make you quit smoking,'' said Collins, who lives in Belmont. "You have to summon it up from inside. You really, really do.''

Jump to full article »

READER POLL: Should revenue from the tax on cigarettes be used for smoking cessation programs?  

Yes 57.3%

No 42.7%

votes: 124

Jump to full article »

• Just blowing smoke? 

On Thursday, the state tax on cigarettes will increase by a dollar, from $2 to $3 for a pack of 20, or from 10 cents to 15 cents for each cigarette. The increase makes Connecticut second only to Rhode Island, where the state tax is $3.46 per pack. . . .

Across Center Street from the Day Spa, Paul E. Raczynski runs "Fire N Smoke," a shop that specializes in cigars, other tobacco products and, somewhat incongruously, hot sauce. Cigar sales make up about 95 percent of his business, he said.

On Thursday, the state tax on those tobacco products will increase from 20 percent to 27 percent. The price of the only cigarettes Raczynski sells, American Spirit, will rise from $8 to $9 a pack.

Many cigar enthusiasts smoke just one or two a week, but there are others who puff anywhere from six to a dozen a day, said Raczynski . . .

But there are those who feel it's not right to tax cigarettes without spending at least some of the money raised on smoking-cessation initiatives.

The hope was that some of the money would go toward programs like nicotine replacement therapy for Medicaid patients, "and that just hasn't happened," said Margaret R. LaCroix, a spokeswoman for the American Lung Association of New England.

"I go further and call it immoral and unjust," said Dr. Patricia Checko, an epidemiologist who is chairwoman of the coalition MATCH, which stands for Mobilize Against Tobacco for Connecticut Health. . . .

Connecticut continues to use little of the more than $100 million a year it receives from the settlement with tobacco companies, which Blumenthal signed in 1998, on smoking cessation or prevention.

Connecticut's tax increase will put the average state tax on cigarettes at $1.34 a pack, according to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. South Carolina has the lowest state cigarette tax rate, at seven cents a pack. . . .

South Carolina is also one of just four states not to have raised the tax on cigarettes since 2000. The others are California, Missouri and North Dakota.

Jump to full article »

• Electronic Cigarettes Find Fans, but Most Want Regulation  

A strong majority of Americans want to see electronic cigarettes regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (59%), but nearly half (47%) say the smokeless devices should be an option available to people trying to quit smoking, similar to patches, gum and lozenges currently on the market, and that number increases to 57% among those who have heard about ecigarettes prior to taking the poll.

The Zogby Interactive poll of 4,611adults was conducted August 28-31 and carries a margin of error of +/- 1.5 percentage points. Margins of error are higher in sub groups.

In the hunt for a safer cigarette, electronic cigarettes, often referred to as ecigarettes, are becoming a popular option among those either trying to quit or who are looking to replace standard tobacco smokes with an alternative that manufacturers claim to be safer. Ecigarettes vaporize a solution often containing nicotine, but there is no smoke, just odorless water vapor, and produce almost no dangerous carcinogens.

Almost half of all respondents (48%) say they have heard of electronic cigarettes. About a third of those polled (35%) say that because electronic cigarettes produce no smoke, they should be allowed in places where smoking is currently prohibited, while about half (46%) say they should not.

Jump to full article »

Americans give electronic cigarettes mixed reviews 

Should electronic cigarettes be a new option for smokers trying to kick the habit? Reactions from Americans are mixed.

More than half of people questioned in a poll think electronic cigarettes should be regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, but 47 percent believe the devices should be available to smokers who want to quit.

"In the hunt for a safer cigarette, electronic cigarettes, often referred to as ecigarettes, are becoming a popular option among those either trying to quit or who are looking to replace standard tobacco smoke with an alternative that manufacturers claim to be safer," Zogby International, which conducted the poll, said in a statement.

About half of the 4,611 adults who took part in the poll had heard about ecigarettes . . .

Nearly a third of people questioned in the poll think that e-cigarettes, because they don't produce smoke, should be allowed in places where smoking is forbidden, but 46 percent disagreed.

Jump to full article »

• Croydon Council criticised for investing pension money in tobacco firm 

The council has been accused of dealing with "traders in death" by investing in tobacco companies.

The attack came from Cllr Maggie Mansell, Labour's shadow cabinet member for health at Monday's meeting of the council's cabinet which backed a new anti-smoking strategy to reduce tobacco consumption across the borough.

The council has around £20m of its pension fund for employees tied up in shares in Imperial Tobacco and British American Tobacco.

Cllr Mansell said while she supported the strategy itself, she wondered how many people would be puzzled by the investments in the industry.

She said: "The tobacco companies are drug traders, they are traders in death."

But Cllr Dudley Mead, who chairs the council's pensions committee, made it plain at the meeting that investments would go on.

He pointed out that in 1995 the then Labour council had refused to invest in tobacco companies and he believed that until the investments were restored by the Conservatives the policy had cost the pension fund £35m.

Jump to full article »

Conroe residents attempt to snuff out smoking ban 

A petition that could bring a recent smoking ban ordinance back to the Conroe City Council has about half the 461 signatures needed for action, a local restaurant owner said.

Organized by several restaurant owners after the City Council passed an ordinance Sept. 10 to prohibit smoking in all public and private workplaces – with the exception of patios at bars – the petition had gathered about 240 signatures at 30 businesses as of Friday afternoon, said Jim Hallers, owner of Tailgators Pub and Grille at Texas 242 and Interstate 45.

“We’re halfway there, but we need more,” Hallers said.

The group, Be Fair Conroe, seeks to overturn the ordinance by getting the signatures equal to 20 percent of voters

Jump to full article »

Illegal tobacco sales soar  

Smuggling of counterfeit cigarettes into Ireland nearly doubled in the first half of this year, in line with the deepening recession.

In the first six months of 2008 there were 28 seizures of illegal cigarettes, compared with 51 seizures in the same period this year.

The figures were revealed in a Millward Brown survey funded by Retailers Against Smuggling (RAS). The survey identified a correlation between the beginning of the recession and the increase in smuggling.

Jump to full article »

Small retailers plead for support in opposing law to ban displays of tobacco products  

A group representing 18,000 independent UK retailers has pleaded with Labour MPs to oppose new legislation that would ban tobacco products being displayed in shops.

The National Federation of Retail Newsagents (NFRN) said the proposals failed to protect small retailers and were a concession to the "onslaught of misinformation from the anti smoking lobby".

Jump to full article »

British American Tobacco Latvia shuts down its production plant in Riga  

British American Tobacco Latvia is shutting down its production plant in Riga (Miera Street 58) at the end of September 2009, and releasing 223 employees. The main reasons – the high excise tax of recent years, which has significantly brought up prices for cigarettes and boosted the black market.

Jump to full article »

EDITORIAL: Candy and cigarettes  

Is there a symbiotic relationship between candy and cigarettes? It almost seems so.

The ties that bind these oral temptations were in the news again this month when the Food and Drug Administration banned the sale of flavored cigarettes. It was the agency’s first big move since Congress authorized it, within limits, to regulate tobacco products.

Many are not even aware that they make cigarettes with strawberry, chocolate or other flavoring. At one point, R.J. Reynolds put out Twista Lime, Kauai Kolada and Warm Winter Toffee as part of its Camel Exotic Blends. Yuck.

But some younger people think these things are great. “These flavored cigarettes are a gateway for many children and young adults to become regular smokers,” FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg said. . . .

Another example of mixing tobacco and sugar was brought to our attention by Oregon’s junior senator, Jeff Merkley. When he was visiting several weeks ago, he pulled out a tin of candies, each containing a small amount of dissolvable tobacco.

This product has been test- marketed in several places around the country, including Portland. Merkley and Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio won unanimous Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee approval of an amendment directing the FDA to refer to the Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee “the issue of the nature and impact of the use of dissolvable tobacco products on the public health, including such use among children.” Their amendment was attached to the bill granting the FDA authority to regulate tobacco products. . . .

That is not the kind of innovation America needs to stay competitive in the age of globalization.

Jump to full article »

Hrant Vardanyan: Masis Tobacco operates without downtime 

Masis Tobacco operates without downtime and has not incurred the crisis impact, Grand Holding owner Hrant Vardanyan told journalists. The factory, he said, has 1600 permanent employees and 1050 seasonal workers. "Crisis has not affected our work; on the contrary, we had new job openings. All difficulties are possible to overcome if one uses common sense. Over the whole period of our work we have never sought Government's financial assistance," entrepreneur said, adding that per kilogram price for tobacco leaves comprised AMD 73 which the company paid to villagers.

Touching on possible opening of Armenian-Turkish border, Vardanyan noted that it created good opportunities for Armenia, considering Turkey's big market

Jump to full article »

ANTI-TOBACCO CAMPAIGN RE-BOOTED - FOCUSES ON AILING INFANTS 

An ailing infant, emaciated and hooked up to oxygen support after being birthed by a tobacco smoker, will grace the packages of cigarettes sold in Chile starting in November.

Jump to full article »