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• Reynolds American Foundation donates $100,000 for Haiti earthquake relief (PDF) 

Reynolds American Inc. (NYSE: RAI) announced that the Reynolds American Foundation has approved a donation of $100,000 to the American Red Cross to help provide relief to the hundreds of thousands whose lives have been devastated by the worst earthquake in Haiti in 200 years.

“Anyone watching the news coverage is aware of the horrible destruction and loss of life caused by this earthquake,” said Steve Strawsburg, president of the Reynolds American Foundation. “Given the magnitude of this disaster, the foundation board felt it was important to help those in need.”

In addition, he said, the foundation plans to match, dollar for dollar, earthquake-relief contributions from employees of Reynolds American and its operating companies.

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Smoking dips -- and few are complaining 

More than two weeks after the smoking ban took effect in North Carolina, there have been no reports of angry mobs of smokers in the throes of withdrawal organizing mass smoke-ins in a show of civil disobedience. All indications are that the change has been pretty smooth.

Philip Melton, the interim director of the Rutherford-Polk-McDowell Health Department, said the phone has been silent, as far as complaints go.

"We haven't had any calls," he said. McDowell businesses covered by the law have been compliant. He said he had been impressed by the state efforts to get both businesses and agencies like his ready for the change.

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Texas City holding off on smoking ban  

When debate about Galveston's smoking ban was raging last spring, Texas City Commissioner J.W. "Scooter" Wilson took notice. He wondered just how many people in Texas City were in favor of more extensive restrictions on lighting up in public places.

So he took a survey and reviewed readers' comments to a story about his survey that was published in The Daily News.

"I did receive a lot of e-mail from the citizens," Wilson said. "The outcome between the (Daily News online forums) and the e-mails I received was that 87 percent of the citizens were in favor of a smoking ban for restaurants but not bars."

Texas City's ordinance requires restaurants to provide separate smoking and nonsmoking sections.

Despite the overwhelming response, Wilson is in no hurry to propose changing Texas City's ordinance.

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Meridian council to vote on smoking ban  

Nearly five years after a former mayor vetoed Meridian's last no-smoking ordinance, the City Council is ready to try again.

The proposal is by Councilman Bobby Smith, who proposed the ordinance that passed in 2005 by a 3-2 vote. He says he and the city attorney based the proposal on Jackson's ordinance.

If enacted, it would prohibit smoking in all enclosed public places excluding stand-alone bars, and some outdoor areas.

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• In Colorado, fighting to keep smoking onstage 

The Paragon Theatre's artistic director, Warren Sherrill, has thought about staging "Agnes of God" for a while.

Problem is, one of the key characters is a psychiatrist who chain-smokes. And in Colorado -- one of 25 states with indoor smoking bans -- actors can't light up on stage.

The state Supreme Court last month found the 2006 smoking restriction constitutional, rejecting theater companies' argument that it infringed on their freedom of speech and stifled artistic expression. Actors, the justices noted, had alternatives to convey the act of smoking.

For Sherrill, the decision means he'll keep passing on plays in which smoking is integral to the plot or to character development; he refuses to employ methods he considers unacceptable. . . .

Instead the Paragon, along with Denver's Curious Theatre, will pursue a legal case, hoping to win an audience with the U.S. Supreme Court.

Of the states that prohibit smoking in public venues such as restaurants and bars, at least six -- including California -- provide a theatrical exemption, according to the group Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights.

When Colorado passed its ban, theater companies objected. They weren't demanding to smoke tobacco, but wanted at least the option of using cigarettes made of herbs or tea leaves

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Casino Issue May Snag Smoking Ban  

A leap by Kansas into the casino business has created an obstacle for public health advocates as they push for statewide restrictions on smoking in public places.

Two proposals before the Legislature ban smoking in bars, restaurants and other places but exempt the gambling space in casinos authorized by a 2007 law.

Those casinos -- one in each of four areas -- would be built by developers who have a contract with the Kansas Lottery, and the lottery would own the rights to the new gambling and the gambling equipment.

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Santa Fe among first to ban smoking  

When it comes to snuffing out smoking in public places, Santa Fe actually was a trail blazer in Galveston County. Just five months after Kemah created its more restrictive smoking ban, Santa Fe followed suit.

The smoking restrictions in Santa Fe prohibit smoking in restaurants, except where a separate room with its own ventilation system is designated as a smoking room. That room, however, cannot be larger than 30 percent of the seating area of the eatery, and access to children must be restricted.

Bars also are exempt from the smoking restrictions.

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With exceptions, smoking OK in Kemah 

KEMAH -- Smokers wanting to light up without many restrictions have options in Kemah.

According to Kemah's smoking ordinance, passed in April 2005, puffing on a cigarette inside restaurants, retail stores and malls is banned.

But lighting up in a restaurant's bar, lounge bars, tobacco shops and the convention center exhibition areas is allowed. All of these areas can be found on the Kemah Boardwalk. Tim Anderson, general manager of the Kemah Boardwalk, is fine with Kemah's ordinance.

"It's a pretty equitable compromise," he said.

Even with smoking laws that are lax compared to Galveston, Anderson said 95 percent of the Kemah Boardwalk's buildings are nonsmoking inside. He also said the smoking policy of the boardwalk's restaurants is up to individual managers.

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Alfresco smoking ban urged by cancer group  

The Cancer Council wants smoking banned from outdoor dining areas in South Australia.

Council CEO Brenda Wilson says the state is lagging behind others in the fight against smoking.

"Queensland and Western Australia and Tasmania have implemented partial bans on smoking in alfresco areas and we've asked the public through surveys and 89 per cent of the public would like smoke-free alfresco dining," she said.

The Cancer Council has put its views to the major parties ahead of the state poll in March.

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• Smoking ban hasn't led to any citations  

GALVESTON -- After more than two weeks, Galveston's smoking ban has gotten a little hazy.

While some bars and restaurants are complying with the new law banning smoking indoors, on patios, decks and on sidewalks in front of restaurants and bars, smokers continue to puff away in banned areas across Galveston.

The Galveston Police Department has not issued any citations for smoking.

Most restaurants and bars have banned smoking indoors, but many business owners are turning a blind eye to those who light up on patios and decks, Dennis Byrd, president of the Galveston Restaurant Association and owner of The Spot, said.

Some Galveston establishments continue to allow smoking indoors, and that's causing some problems for restaurants and bars that are attempting to comply with the indoor smoking ban, Byrd said. The Spot's waiters, waitresses and bartenders have had trouble explaining to people that smoking is banned citywide, he said.

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• Cities set to order ban on smoking 

To protect people from exposure to secondhand smoke, seven cities in China will take the first steps in creating legislation on stopping smoking at public venues and workplaces.

Under the project, jointly held by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the International Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease(UNION), the cities - Tianjin, Chongqing, Shenyang, Harbin, Nanchang, Lanzhou and Shenzhen will implement a smoking ban in public and in workplaces.

Currently, smoking is allowed in certain areas in public places, and experts said the enforcement of smoking bans is poor.

"This project would create strict legislation to guarantee 100-percent smoke-free public venues and workplaces and figure out a feasible and forceful working mechanism to enforce the smoking ban," said Wang Yu, director of China CDC at the project launch Friday.

"Only with the support of the pilot cities' municipal governments and legislatures can the people there finally enjoy smoke-free environments," he noted.

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• Ohio weighs crackdown on violators of smoking ban 

As far as the state is concerned, it's time for recalcitrant smoking ban violators to pay up.

But if it goes after downtown Toledo's Rip Cord with an injunction as it has done with two bars in Columbus and Cincinnati, co-owner Terry Hymore says he would shutter the 19-employee bar instead of paying $36,600 in fines levied against the establishment.

"I would rather close the bar down and walk away," Mr. Hymore said. "They can pay the unemployment."

Nearly three years after enforcement began of a voter-approved smoking ban prohibiting lighting up in most public places, hundreds of bars, clubs, restaurants, and even factories statewide continue to rack up violations, said Mandy Burkett, administrator of the state's smoke-free work force program for the Ohio Department of Health.

In Lucas County alone, where the biggest smoking ban violators are bars, the local health department has levied $118,600 worth of fines, of which just $5,134 have been paid. And Rip Cord owes nearly twice as much in fines as any other establishment, according to the Toledo-Lucas County Health Department.

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Ohio appeals court sides with Reynolds Tobacco 

An appellate court in Ohio ruled yesterday that R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. cannot be blamed for the content of a Camel advertisement in Rolling Stone being placed around a pullout containing cartoon images.

The decision is the latest of several appellate rulings that have targeted court rulings that Reynolds violated the Master Settlement Agreement with the pullout in the Nov. 15, 2007, issue.

The magazine ran four pages of Camel cigarette ads as bookends to five pages of editorial content about independent, "or indie," rock music. The ads promoted a now-defunct Camel Web site aimed at adult consumers.

Attorneys general in nine states, not including North Carolina, sued Reynolds over the advertisement in December 2007. They accused Reynolds of violating the 1998 agreement between 46 states and tobacco manufacturers because they considered the pullout as one presentation -- potentially attracting underage consumers -- rather than separate advertising and editorial content.

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Who woulda thunk it: Kansans FAVOR boosts to sales, cigarette taxes, new poll shows  

Lawmakers in Topeka already are balking at the idea of raising taxes this year, as recommended by Gov. Mark Parkinson.

But a new poll released this week showed that Kansans, by a significant margin, back increases to both the sales and cigarette taxes as Parkinson suggested.

The SurveyUSA poll concluded this: . . .

* Residents favor a boost in the cigarette tax from the current 79 cents a back to the national average of $1.34 a pack by 56-42 percent.

* 65 percent of Kansans want smoking banned in public places compared with 33 percent who say it should still be allowed.

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• Whistle-blower in Big Tobacco case seeks quiet life in Dunedin  

For 40 years, corporate attorneys had contended smoking was safe, and they had never lost a case. But Williams' damning files showed that executives knew of the risks, allowing a breakthrough for anti-tobacco litigation.

The nation's attorneys general mounted a landmark lawsuit demanding repayment for decades of public health costs.

On Nov. 23, 1998, the Master Settlement Agreement was born. Tobacco companies agreed to pay $246 billion.

And Merrell Williams disappeared.

The man at the door of the modest Dunedin bungalow last week looked tired, his face carved with wrinkles. Williams is 69 now and speaks slowly.

"I actually don't have an opinion about it anymore," he said. "The world is the way it is. If you go to Paris, you're going to smell (cigarette smoke), you're walking through it. You go to Ireland, you smell it, you're walking through it. Go to Florida, you're walking through it. It's here to stay."

Williams splayed across a recliner in his home on Milwaukee Avenue. In the next room sat his memoirs, Playing with the Tobacco Mafia, translated into Portuguese. Near that, a letter from Daniel Ellsberg, who released the Pentagon Papers, praising him as a personal hero.

But the legacy of Williams' crusade against cigarette companies now seems stuck in a distant history. The "racket," once his enemy, is now a fact of life.

"These are killers," he said. "But I don't really care. I can't do anything about it." . . .

By all measures, he had won. But he felt abandoned.

"When I was in the middle of this, I was thinking I was important, this was important," he said. "The whole thing was nothing but a scam. … If the lawyers had really intended to do something good, they would have done it. And yet their whole purpose was not to do good, but to make money."

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I'd like to think there was good that came of it, but there wasn't. I know who the winners are. The losers are the American public.
69-year-old Merrell Williams, whose groundbreaking secret document disclosures led to lawsuits and eventually, the MSA.