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Businesses Impacted by Smoking Ban 

32 cities in Mississippi have passed limits on smoking in all public buildings and businesses.

Columbus is the most recent. The smoking ban went into effect more than a week ago.

The new rules are affecting several businesses.

According to Christa Goldade, the new smoking ban is already hurting her business.

She's the owner of the Magnolia Lanes in Columbus.

She says 90-percent of the bowlers who come there on league nights are smokers.

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Woman pushes smoke-free Mingus Park 

Teenagers gather in crowds there, watching each other perform tricks and trying out new maneuvers.

But one local personal trainer is concerned that the park is also leading some teens to admire other skaters' smoking habits. So Jennifer Stephens is asking the city to ban smoking in the entire park.

"I'm not saying smokers shouldn't use the park," she said. "I'm just asking that those people not have that particular behavior while they are in the park."

She'll have a chance Tuesday night to share her concerns with the City Council, said City Manager Rodger Craddock. The council could ask staff to gather information or prepare a draft ordinance, but so far city employees haven't responded to Stephens' proposal. . . .

The idea came to her when she was walking by the skatepark, Stephens said. She noticed an older teenager smoking a cigarette and thought he was setting a bad example to the younger skaters watching him. She also runs through the park and doesn't like when she has to go through smoke.

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INDIVIGLIO: Judge Overrules FDA On E-Cigarettes  

One of the ways that the government managed to pass its recent tobacco reform bill was by enlisting big tobacco's support. So the FDA and big tobacco have a symbiotic relationship. The government gets billions of dollars from excise tax revenue on and lawsuits related to cigarettes. Big tobacco gets regulation that makes it harder for smaller companies to compete. So the FDA needs to keep up its end of the bargain here and not allow a threat like e-cigarettes to take hold in the U.S. -- even if they did turn out to be good for the American people.

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You Don't Have To Quit Smoking Abruptly! 

Is quitting cigarette today is more difficult than from the past? If your answer is yes, it's better to think twice than not. If you think it's a challenge, you better surf in the internet and check the best product that you know it's a reliable and doctor's recommended that will assured you, after trying the product, it will work.

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This program is intended to help you quit smoking while smoking the best electronic cigarette within 30 days. Now, after you know all regarding the product, quitting cigarette is already not a challenge. The challenge now is to live free without the cigarette. What do you think?

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Do You Like To Inhale Air Mixed With Cigarette Smoke? 

[GRAPHIC: baby reaching for cigarette]

Secondhand smoke warns everyone who inhales it, especially kids. Many young children live in a home with a smoker, and the result is an increased risk for health problems. Secondhand smoke submits not only to the smoke given off by the burning end of a cigarette, pipe or cigar, but also to the smoke exhaled by smokers, the American Lung Association (ALA) says. . . .

Forty-three percent of children come upon secondhand smoke in their homes, the ALA says. Children are further vulnerable to secondhand smoke because their lungs are still developing; exposure leads to decreased lung function.

Introducing The Best Electronic Cigarette123 or E-Cigarette, which represent the revolutionary option smoking products. Electronic Cigarette 123 offers you all the benefits of traditional tobacco cigarettes, however without the disadvantages. These smokeless cigarettes are odorless. No more smoking outside.

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Shinsachi Media Incorporated: The Hope Of The Chain Smokers 

Shinsachi Media Inc. is one of the catalysts of clean living. It aimed to promote a nicotine-free environment by providing a solution that is evidenced-based and cost-effective. Electronic Cigarette 123 is the leading manufacturer of Electronic cigarettes. It has unique features that other brands do not have.

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SULLUM: Federal Judge Rebukes FDA for Seizing E-Cigarettes  

In fact, as I've noted before, there is no question that puffing on a smoke-free e-cigarette is much less hazardous than lighting tobacco (or anything else) on fire and sucking the combustion products into your lungs. This is a point so obvious that only the FDA and a certain brand of zero-tolerance anti-tobacco activist would try to deny it. Assuming that e-cigarettes do end up being regulating under the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, Michael Siegel argues, the law allows them to remain on the market as a pre-existing tobacco product, provided their manufacturers stop talking about (or implying) their safety advantages. Under one of the law's many destructive, consumer-hostile provisions, that sort of comparison would render e-cigarettes a "modified risk tobacco product," meaning they could not be sold until their manufacturers had met a prohibitive burden of proof.

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Washington $1.00 Cigarette Tax Hike to Increase Smuggling 

The state of Washington is considering an increase in its cigarette taxes by $1 per pack. As we've shown in our 2008 study on cigarette taxes, these tax hikes carry a large degree of unintended consequences. Increasing cigarette taxes is expected to ensure that half of all cigarettes smoked in Washington are smuggled in from other states.

In December 2008 we published a study "Cigarette Taxes and Smuggling: A Statistical Analysis and Historical Review." The study reviewed the efforts of states trying to fight the growth of smuggling, documented the history of cigarette taxes in Michigan, New Jersey and California, and modeled the level of illicit tobacco use in states due to cigarette tax rates. We recently updated the model to include changes to the Federal Excise Tax, as well. . . .

The bulk of the cigarette smuggling increase comes from commercial smuggling--of organizations that import cigarettes from lower tax areas or through counterfeiting with distribution systems in state. If the tax hike passes, it's expected that 3 out of 10 cigarettes in Washington will be through these means.

A greater amount of smuggling also means more of the activities that go along with it: violence, counterfeiting, hi-jacking and theft. All of which are discussed in the study.

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Tribe stands up for treaty rights  

A crowd of Yakama tribal members waving signs outside Yakima's federal courthouse Thursday in support of three tribal members on trial for selling untaxed cigarettes wasn't enough for the judge to sequester the jury.

Inside the courthouse, the trial of Harry and Jeanne Smiskin and their adult son, Kato, entered its fourth day.

Across the street from the courthouse, more than 50 tribal members held signs reading, "Our treaty can not be denied" and "Treaty rights are not a crime."

Demonstrators contend-ed that the three on trial are protected by the Yakama Nation's 1855 treaty with the United States.

At least three members of the 14-member Yakama Nation Tribal Council were among the demonstrators.

"We're just here to support our treaty rights," said Councilwoman Terry Goudy-Rambler. "We know the federal government is supposed to protect our treaty rights; we just want to remind them not to forget."

Councilwomen Ruth Jim and Fidelia Andy also participated in the demonstration.

"We have given up thousands of acres of land for our treaty, and our treaty stands before Washington was ever a state," Andy said.

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• LAFAIVE / NESBIT: Tobacco tax hike could backfire  

Should they turn their gaze northward, state legislators looking to increase tobacco taxes by as much as $1 per pack will discover a cautionary tale.

One recent report out of Canada suggests that 48 percent of cigarettes consumed in Ontario, for example, come from smuggling — a rate that has increased and decreased with excise tax rates.

Our own research indicates that, if the $1-per-pack tax increase is adopted in Washington, the state’s cigarette smuggling rate will leap to more than 50 percent of the total market, along with other very expensive unintended consequences. . . .

In December 2008 we published a study with colleague Patrick Fleenor, titled “titled “Cigarette Taxes and Smuggling: A Statistical Analysis and Historical Review,” designed to measure the smuggling rates of 47 contiguous states. We recently updated the model to include changes to the Federal Excise Tax.

Based on that model, we believe that hiking taxes $1 per pack will lead to a leap in the total smuggling rate in Washington from 39.3 percent to 51.5 percent. That is, 51.5 percent of the cigarettes smoked in the state of Washington will be contraband.

We also expect legal paid sales to drop by at least 20 percent over 12 months . . .

Consider some parallels: violence against police, corruption of law enforcement, the sale of adulterated products manufacturerd by illegal producers (“bathtub smokes,” anyone?), smuggling, theft, hijacking, expansion of organized crime syndicates and even the sale of “loosies” – cigarettes illegally sold one stick at a time. (During Prohibition, men would sell single shots of whiskey to factory workers leaving manufacturing plants in the Detroit area.)

If state lawmakers wish to hike cigarette taxes, they must do so with the knowledge that the new rate is likely to generate a fraction of the new revenues they suspect and much more in the way of crime.

Today’s cigarette smuggling issues — on both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border — are the product of an addiction: Politicians addicted to the tax revenue generated by the sale of a legal product that people want.

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Officials reject tobacco proposal to lobby for state ban on flavored products 

Wisconsin lawmakers on Thursday rejected a health department proposal to use $3 million in stimulus funding to lobby for a statewide ban on candy- and fruit-flavored tobacco products.

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President Barack Obama signed a law last year that banned candy-flavored cigarettes but left other products such as mint-flavored smokeless tobacco and strawberry-flavored cigars on the market.

The Legislature's Joint Finance Committee voted unanimously to send the request back to the Department of Health Services, which promoted the plan as a way to reduce tobacco use among children. Critics said the proposal would do little to stimulate the economy and that tobacco policy should be left to the federal government.

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Board to consider ban on smoking, spitting in Seattle parks 

No spitting. No smoking. No sex.

The list of rules in Seattle parks may be about to grow.

A proposed ban on spitting in parks -- one of 13 behaviors Seattle Parks and Recreation wants to regulate, including a ban on smoking on its grounds -- already is generating heated public comment.

The proposal was presented Thursday night to the park commissioners.

But after reports about the proposed ban, even before the meeting, commissioners were getting e-mail. . . .

But it's the spitting and smoking bans that have drawn the comments.

"Walking through a drift of tobacco smoke usually makes me cough, and often triggers a coughing attack ... I have left parks because of just one or two people smoking," said another e-mail.

But someone else wrote, "... there are no studies linking exposure to secondhand smoke outdoors to any health risks.

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Health is motive to ban smoking in Alderney 

The best interests of the health of the Alderney people was behind the casting vote to bring in a smoking ban, Sir Norman Browse has said.

The president of the States of Alderney has faced criticism over his decisive vote on the legislation after a five-all tie among the States members.

Discussion over the ban, which comes into force in June, split the island.

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• VIDEO: Finland aims to stub out smoking habit 

Finland's government is planning some of the world's toughest measures to stop people smoking.

Ilkka Oksala, state secretary in the health ministry, drew up the latest plans and his approach is uncompromising.

"The goal is to get rid of smoking once and for all. It is a long-term goal, but still we are going to achieve it.

"Of course, this would mean the end of the tobacco industry if all the countries in the world took the same kind of steps as we are.

"We have had negotiations with that industry, naturally, but to be quite honest, our goal is against their business. At the moment, it is legal to manufacture tobacco here, but we will make many changes to help people stop smoking."

It was as early as 1976 that the Finnish parliament first outlawed tobacco advertising.

Soon it will most likely be illegal for tobacco even to be visible in shops. . . .

Anne Edwards is director of external communications for Philip Morris International. Her company lodged an official complaint against the Finnish government's plans.

"I think you can have measures in place that reduce smoking, but that, at the same time, recognise that there is a legitimate industry out there that supports regulation but does not want to be so penalised that, at the end of the day, it can't operate any more," she says.

The Finnish government previously failed to disclose its intention to end all tobacco use in Finland eventually, she says.

"We think that, if you are going to have a far-reaching discussion about tobacco policy, then it's only fair to disclose the objectives while you have a public consultation.

"Tobacco products are certainly harmful, but I don't think that simply hiding them [beneath shop counters] is going to solve any of the problems that society has with them. . . .

if you look at some of the statistics to do with smoking here in Finland, about a million tobacco products are sold to teenagers in shops every year.

"If you contrast that [with the fact that] there have only been two fines handed out to retailers for selling to kids in the last 30 years, it seems to me that the problem lies elsewhere."

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Grant received by the AUB Tobacco Control Research Group 

The AUB Tobacco Control Research Group (AUB -TCRG) has just received a two-year grant of $198,258 (US) from the International Development Research Center-Research for International Tobacco Control (IDRC-RITC) to support tobacco control research, dissemination, and networking in Lebanon and the region.

Housed in the Faculty of Health Sciences's Center for Research on Population and Health and led by Assistant Professor Rima Nakkash, the project will use the grant to support the dissemination of information on the local level, the translation of its findings into policy, and the development of a tobacco control regional research network.

At the local level, research will build support for policy change. Dissemination, with the support of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs will, for example, target lay persons on the effects of narghile smoking on health, and policy makers on best evidence for tobacco control policies in order to contribute, potentially, towards moving policy debate to the forefront of the national agenda.

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