Tobacco.org

Fags smoked out 

Millions of contraband cigarettes are being smuggled from Dubai to Ireland, costing the economy dearly, say customs officials after a latest haul this week.

Investigators seized eight million cigarettes at Dublin Port on January 1, hidden on a container ship that had set out from Jebel Ali on December 29 and arrived in Ireland via Antwerp in Belgium.

The cargo was listed as heating units but officials spotted the illegal Palace-branded tobacco inside 1,071 cartons.

A spokesman for Irish Customs said: “The maritime container was declared as containing cartons of heaters, shown consigned from a company based in Dubai and shown consigned to a non-existent company in Dublin.

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HOBSON: New smoking ban is overdue and welcome  

It is now an offence punishable by fine in New Brunswick for an adult to smoke in a motor vehicle when a person younger than 16 is present.

The Department of Health, under the Smoke-free Places Act, put the regulation into effect on Jan. 1 in a move that is similar to legislation already in place in Ontario, British Columbia, Nova Scotia and the Yukon.

It is a welcome change and overdue. . . .

I am all for any regulations that limit smoking and make it a less attractive habit. It's not that I don't believe smokers are entitled to their rights, but anything that can in the long run decrease the number of smokers we have in our province is obviously a positive step forward.

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SMOKERS' AREAS 

Ministry of Health has directed the managements of hotels and restaurants to stop allocating designated areas for smokers in their premises to allow them using cigarettes, pipes, cigars and 'Sheesha.'

According to official sources, they have been asked to implement anti-tobacco laws to protect the health of non-smokers, as there is no permission of allocating any designated area for smokers. While taking notice of open use of tobacco in the premises of hotels, restaurants and international food chains, the ministry has asked the chairman Pakistan Hotels Association and president Pakistan Food Association to take immediate steps for complete ban on any form of smoking.

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HUME: Now they’re giving up more than cigarettes 

The UK authorities have just made their usual pious New Year's resolution on our behalf: they resolve that we shall all give up smoking this year. Hence 2010 has begun as 2009 ended, with yet another round of state-sponsored anti-smoking propaganda, starring those all-singing TV adverts which insist that you should stop smoking for your kids, because they would 'do anything for you'. (These ads were presumably made by people without children.)

As one who has long been irritated by the increasingly shrill and illiberal anti-smoking crusade, I have been thinking again about the issue over the past week. Because this New Year marked the twentieth anniversary of the day I stopped smoking for good.

The intervening two decades have brought remarkable changes in the way that both smokers and giving up smoking are viewed in our society. It seems to me now that these changes are about far more than the way we see cigarettes. They mark a downward shift in the predominant cultural view of our humanity, and a demeaning of the qualities of adult autonomy and independence.

When I started smoking as a young teenager in the early 1970s, we all knew already that it was Very Bad for us. Those who imagine that bombarding youngsters with the terrible truth about smoking today will magically stop them taking it up are historically ignorant as well as naive. . . .

This is a symptom of a wider cultural shift in which the illiberal authorities insist that you can no longer be allowed the right to make the 'wrong' choices about how you live. They have even invented a new political language to justify such interventions as being for our own good. As I noted when it first appeared alongside the smoking ban, the official unhyphenated word 'smokefree' fits pretty exactly George Orwell's description of a newspeak word created to turn 'freedom' into its opposite. . . .

Since the habit of smoking tobacco is now deemed not just an addiction but almost to be a pathology, it must surely require therapy and psycho-medical intervention to 'cure' the sufferer.

Thus smokers are now inundated with offers of support groups and helplines and expert advice. . . .

But even those who have never touched one should surely be concerned about the diminished view of adult autonomy and free choice that the anti-smoking crusade has helped to spread, opening the door to the new interfering 'politics of behaviour' in a way that would never have been tolerated in the smoke-filled rooms of yore.

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Deadly apartment fire began with embers on balcony 

Authorities said Tuesday the fire that killed 23-year-old Rory Elizabeth Michaelson last weekend started with embers from a smoking device, probably a cigarette, discarded on the balcony of her apartment. . . .

The fire at 3 a.m. Saturday killed Michaelson, a recent University of North Carolina Wilmington graduate, and landed her roommate in the N.C. Jaycee Burn Center in Chapel Hill. . . .

The investigation found the fire started on the balcony of Michaelson's apartment, where a container held cigarette butts.

The fire has been ruled accidental, with embers from a butt that wasn't fully extinguished as the cause, Hines said.

WFD's Fire Educator Meg Langston said people who smoke should wet their cigarettes before discarding them to be safe.

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Hookah bars across the state rebel against smoking ban 

The Juggling Gypsy isn’t the only hookah bar in North Carolina puffing in the face of the new smoking ban for bars and restaurants.

WECT reported this week that the Castle Street bar was attempting to get around the ban by installing a Web cam since the state law created an exemption meant to protect play, TV and movie actors lighting up for their performances.

Other hookah bar owners aren’t even bothering with a loophole.

Adam Bliss, who owns Bliss Hookah Bliss in Chapel Hill, plans to flaunt the law and fight any fine he might get in court, according to The Herald-Sun.

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VIDEO: Bars, smokers still adjusting to smoking ban 

MEDFORD, Ore. -- One year into Oregon's smoke-free law, and some Southern Oregon bars are still adjusting.

The law requires that many public places be smoke-free, and bar owners say business has taken a small hit.

Many customers who often showed up to bars on breaks to play a lottery game and have a cigarette now stay outside to smoke.

But bar owners said the air quality in their establishments has improved, and they say food sales have increased because of it.

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• Senecas fight tobacco sales bill  

The Seneca Nation of Indians is publicly lobbying against a proposed federal regulation that it fears would severely damage Indian-operated cigarette sales and manufacturing operations.

Billboards along the I-190 in downtown Buffalo make pleas to Sens. Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand to vote against the federal Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act bill that the Seneca Nation and other Indian tribes feel will all but shut down mail-order cigarette sales. If enacted, the bill could see more than 1,000 people locally lose their jobs, the Senecas say.

Many feel the bill is being championed by major cigarette manufacturers as an attempt to shut down or severely limited Indian-operated cigarette businesses.

"We applaud the goal of halting rogue tobacco smuggling, but it's wrong to wipe out legitimate jobs in the process," said Barry Snyder, Seneca Nation president. "Tobacco trade is a key component of the Seneca Nation economy."

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VIDEO: Study: Quitting smoking raises diabetes risk 

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

* People who quit smoking are at high risk of developing diabetes because of weight gain

* Health benefits of quitting smoking far outweigh the risk of diabetes, doctors say

* People in the study who quit smoking gained an average of 8.4 pounds

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省卫生厅机关全面禁烟 

从1月1日起，省卫生厅机关办公楼全面禁烟，为推动全省医疗卫生系统控烟工作做出表率。

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研究发现心脏病患者戒烟后死亡率可降低37% 

据国外媒体31日报道，事实证明，何时戒烟都不迟，一项最新研究发现，戒烟的心脏病发作幸存者比那些继续抽烟的人活的时间更长。该研究对1500多名心脏病发作幸存者进行了长达13年的追踪调查。研究还发现，那些虽然没戒掉烟，但是减少了抽烟量的人，也具有很大的生存优势。

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Even quitting smoking can trigger illness  

Cigarette smoking is so powerful that even the act of quitting may cause changes in body chemistry that impact one's health. In a study of more than 10,000 middle-aged people, researchers from Johns Hopkins University found both current smokers and recent quitters had a greater risk for type 2 diabetes.

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公共场所控烟工作进一步推进 

吸烟对健康的危害众所周知。为此,在成功办无烟北京奥运的基础上,我国进一步推动室内公共场所和工作场所全面禁烟工作。

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Smoking, Quitting Smoking, and the Risk for Type 2 Diabetes 

What are the implications of the study?

When smokers quit, they should get advice about how to prevent weight gain and be monitored for diabetes in the years soon after quitting. Quitting smoking provides many health and other benefits. Persons should not continue to smoke to reduce diabetes risk. The best way to reduce the risk for smoking-related diabetes is not to start smoking.

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禁烟使土耳其香烟消费大幅下降 

据世界卫生组织日前公布的消息，土耳其在封闭式公共场所实施全面禁烟后，全国香烟消费大幅下降。

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