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New Mexico Drops a Bill for $1 Cigarette Tax Hike 

A bill that would raise cigarette excise taxes in the state by $1 a pack to raise money for education was snuffed last week when a legislative committee voted unanimously against the idea, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported. However, two other bills remain that could raise the state's cigarette tax.

The House Business and Industry Committee voted to table House Bill 35, sponsored by Democratic Rep. Brian Egolf, which killed it for this session. Egolf said the legislation would have raised $36 million, earmarked for the public schools.

Health advocates, including the American Cancer Society, supported the bill, along with several labor and religious organizations. Supporters saw the bill as a way to prevent further cuts to education and other state programs as the state faces a $600 million budget shortfall, the report stated.

Opposing the bill were tobacco lobbyists and representatives of several business groups, among them Mark Smith, of the Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Co.,

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• Cigarettes make up 33% of accidental ingestion cases by young children+ 

Cigarettes made up one-third of accidental ingestion cases involving infants and very young children at home in the year ended last March, accounting for the largest number for 30 years in a row, a government survey showed Sunday.

The results were shown in the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry's survey on health damage involving household articles and others reported by hospitals across the country during the year to March 2009.

An official at the Japan Poison Information Center said the many cases involving cigarettes are characteristic of Japanese living style -- people live mostly on tatami mat-covered floors and adults often put cigarettes on floors and low tables within the reach of young children.

Although cigarettes are on the decrease in the ratio of the total cases as more people refrain from smoking, a ministry official called on parents to pay attention to prevent young children from swallowing them by accident.

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Jersey Shore Cast Quitting Smoking 

The Cast of the Popular show is under fire for wanting to negotiate a new deal for the second season of the show.

They have decided to at least quit using tobacco cigarettes by switching to SmokeStik products.

In the attached picture you can see the cast using the Smokestik Electronic cigarette instead of the usual tobacco cigarette often referred to as "analog" smoking.

More info on this product can be found at www.smokestik.com

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• Cigarettes could be sold in plain packaging in latest bid to sweep away smoking from Britain  

The Government's 'tobacco control strategy' also proposes banning smoking at entrances to buildings and selling cigarettes in plain grey packets as part of a series of policies aimed at halving the number of smokers by 2020.

The plans were dismissed as ' meddlesome' and 'unworkable' by critics.

But Health Secretary Andy Burnham said: 'I make no apology when it comes to protecting children and giving them the best start in life.

'I want to see a smoke-free future, a future where people lead longer and healthier lives because they don't smoke.'

The proposals, to be announced today, include a review of the law to consider if areas such as entrances to buildings should be included in the smoking ban.

Children's health forms a key part of the crackdown, which proposes running 'smoke-free community' campaigns highlighting the benefits of smoke-free homes and cars.

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• Italy's 2million new smokers 

ITALIANS are so worried about the state of their economy that they are returning in droves to their favourite vice - cigarettes.

More than two million people have started smoking again since the country's authorities imposed a UK-style ban in 2005.

The law, which made smoking in all indoor public places illegal, bore results at first, with loyal customers choosing not to place owners of their favourite bars and restaurants at risk of massive fines.

But an initial 12 per cent drop in cigarette sales has been reversed, with the latest shock figures revealing that Italy now boasts a record 13 million smokers.

In 2009 alone, four ex-smokers in every 100 took up the habit again.

Last night experts blamed the recession, claiming that the added stress had caused ex-smokers to relapse, while unemployment and boredom were encouraging the young to take up smoking for the first time.

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EDITORIAL: Our View: Smoking ban needs to be enforced 

In this edition of The Marion Star you can read an account of businesses and other establishments that continuously have been found in violation of the Ohio indoor smoking ban.

Not only is it outrageous that so many have continued to ignore the law, it appears that the state is nearly helpless when it comes to enforcement. . . .

Permitting your bar, restaurant or club to fill up with a known carcinogen and then paying people to work there unprotected is the same thing.

We don't even need to get into how unfair the situation is to reputable establishments that follow the law.

The state needs to get serious about bringing offending businesses into compliance.

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VIDEO: Grassroots meeting pushes for Indiana smoking ban 

A group of people met in South Bend Saturday to push for a state wide smoking ban. It's a part of a grassroots movement that started a few years ago, but the proposal is not popular with everyone.

"My feelings are, from a business perspective, I don't think it's really needed," owner of Pitt Stop Bar and Grill, Bill Pitt said.

Only the bar portion of Pitt's restaurant allows smoking. He said a statewide smoking ban would hurt business.

"I don't know if a ban on the whole establishment is necessary," Pitt explained, "I think it caters already to smoking and non-smoking."

St. Joseph County already mandates that restaurants separate smoking sections by enclosing them and adding an air filtering system.

Bill Pitt said that three years ago he spent thousands of dollars to get his business up to code. A project that he is still paying for.

"Which was a big undertaking and a big expense, but we did it to cater to the public," Pitt said.

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Dozens attend town hall meeting to support workplace smoking ban  

A statewide smoking ban for Indiana is in danger of being snuffed out, and on Saturday, supporters of a grassroots campaign met to urge lawmakers to fire the ban back up.

Dozens of people gathered at the Sister Maura Brannick Health Center in South Bend Saturday morning to push for a smoke-free workplace law that protects all employees, including those in bars, restaurants and casinos.

Just this week, an Indiana smoking ban bill was amended by lawmakers. It originally only allowed smoking in casinos and some horse racing venues. But the House voted to exempt bars and tobacco shops, too, prompting the bill's sponsor to consider killing it altogether.

One woman at Saturday morning's meeting, whose stepfather is a cancer survivor, says we can't give up.

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Statewide smoking ban in Indiana at issue 

An array of agency representatives and local residents came together Saturday to discuss a bill that would ban smoking in Indiana.

The recently proposed bill would prohibit smoking in all public places, businesses and workplaces, except casinos.

The town hall-style meeting at the Sister Maura Brannick Center in South Bend addressed benefits along with concerns regarding the bill. Panelists included health representatives, an Elkhart City Council member, a high school student, a business owner and a local physician.

About 40 residents also attended the meeting.

Ron Troyer, Elkhart City Council member, said he would like to see the bill pass in Indiana. He spoke highly of his city's comprehensive ban and said it would make sense for more consistency in surrounding areas. As it stands, Elkhart County does not have a smoking ban and Goshen has separate rules. . . .

Worries of local business owners also were discussed at the meeting. If passed in its original form, the bill would make all businesses, bars, clubs and workplaces smoke-free.

Carol Meehan, with Fiddler's Hearth, spoke about her family's fears when St. Joseph County's ban first went into effect and the loss of some chain-smoking customers. But since the local ordinance took effect, Meehan said, business has increased by at least 30 percent.

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Employees calling it quits: Program helps snuff out smoking habit  

At a time when smoking is frowned upon by many, the smoking break room at Evergreen Retirement Community, a sprawling retirement complex on North Westfield Street, is a bit of a dinosaur.

Human Resources Manager Erin Sanders calls it the elephant in the room. It is there to accommodate the smokers among the nearly 300 employees at Evergreen.

Come July 5, it will be gone; the doors to Evergreen's smoking lounge will close. That's the day Wisconsin officially goes smoke-free; all workplaces must be 100 percent smoke free by that date.

To prepare for that reality, Evergreen is offering a version of Affinity's Call It Quits smoking cessation program to those employees who want to stop smoking or using tobacco products of any kind. Three are currently participating.

The multidimensional motivational and educational program provides a combination of support groups, medications and counseling to help participants overcome their addictions to tobacco. There is no charge to employees and they are reimbursed for nicotine replacement products such as patches, gum or lozenges.

Now more than ever the Call It Quits program is the answer, said Dr. Brian Harrison of Affinity, the physician who works with the program and prescribes medications for those who want that kind of support to become non-smokers.

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Cigarette Smoking is a Risk Factor for Alzheimer's Disease: An Analysis Controlling for Tobacco Industry Affiliation Journal 

To examine the relationship between smoking and Alzheimer's disease (AD) after controlling for study design, quality, secular trend, and tobacco industry affiliation of the authors, electronic databases were searched; 43 individual studies met the inclusion criteria. For evidence of tobacco industry affiliation, http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu was searched. One fourth (11/43) of individual studies had tobacco-affiliated authors. Using random effects meta-analysis, 18 case control studies without tobacco industry affiliation yielded a non-significant pooled odds ratio of 0.91 (95% CI, 0.75–1.10), while 8 case control studies with tobacco industry affiliation yielded a significant pooled odds ratio of 0.86 (95% CI, 0.75–0.98) suggesting that smoking protects against AD. In contrast, 14 cohort studies without tobacco-industry affiliation yielded a significantly increased relative risk of AD of 1.45 (95% CI, 1.16–1.80) associated with smoking and the three cohort studies with tobacco industry affiliation yielded a non-significant pooled relative risk of 0.60 (95% CI 0.27–1.32). A multiple regression analysis showed that case-control studies tended to yield lower average risk estimates than cohort studies (by −0.27 ± 0.15, P=0.075), lower risk estimates for studies done by authors affiliated with the tobacco industry (by −0.37 ± 0.13, P=0.008), no effect of the quality of the journal in which the study was published (measured by impact factor, P=0.828), and increasing secular trend in risk estimates (0.031/year ± 0.013, P=0.02). The average risk of AD for cohort studies without tobacco industry affiliation of average quality published in 2007 was estimated to be 1.72 ± 0.19 (P< 0.0005). The available data indicate that smoking is a significant risk factor for AD.

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• Study Shows Cigarette Smoking a Risk Factor for Alzheimer's Disease 

A UCSF analysis of published studies on the relationship between Alzheimer's disease and smoking indicates that smoking cigarettes is a significant risk factor for the disease. After controlling for study design, quality of the journals, time of publication, and tobacco industry affiliation of the authors, the UCSF research team also found an association between tobacco industry affiliation and the conclusions of individual studies. Industry-affiliated studies indicated that smoking protects against the development of AD, while independent studies showed that smoking increased the risk of developing the disease.

For many years, published studies and popular media have perpetuated the myth that smoking is protective against the development of AD. The disease's impact on quality of life and health care costs continues to rise. It is therefore critical that we better understand its causes, in particular, the role of cigarette smoking

We know that industry-sponsored research is more likely to reach conclusions favorable to the sponsor

Our findings point to the ongoing corrosive nature of tobacco industry funding and point to the need for academic institutions to decline tobacco industry funding to protect the research process.

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Only 5.4% of world's population covered by comprehensive smoke-free laws 

Only 5.4% of the world's population was covered by comprehensive smoke-free laws in 2008, up from 3.1% in 2007, WHO reported today in its second report on the global tobacco epidemic.

This means that 154 million more people are no longer exposed to the harms of tobacco smoke in work places, restaurants, bars and other indoor public places. Seven countries – Colombia, Djibouti, Guatemala, Mauritius, Panama, Turkey and Zambia – implemented comprehensive smoke-free laws in 2008, bringing the total to 17. These findings, and others are contained in the WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic, 2009.

"Although this represents progress, the fact that more than 94% of people remain unprotected by comprehensive smoke-free laws shows that much more work needs to be done," said WHO Assistant Director-General for Noncommunicable Diseases and Mental Health Dr Ala Alwan. "Urgent action is needed to protect people from the death and illness caused by exposure to tobacco smoke."

WHO chose to make smoke-free environments the focus of the report because of the harm of second-hand smoke, which causes about 600,000 premature deaths per year, countless crippling and disfiguring illnesses and economic losses in the tens of billions of dollars per year.

"There is no safe level of exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke. Therefore, action is needed by governments to protect their people," Dr Alwan said. "The WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic, 2009 is an essential resource."

The report devotes particular attention to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control's Article 8, which addresses protection from exposure to tobacco smoke. The Framework Convention, which took effect in 2005, is ratified by nearly 170 countries.

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• Smoking ban plan has mixed support 

Residents in 70 apartment buildings throughout unincorporated Santa Clara County will not be allowed to light up in their homes under Supervisor Ken Yeager's proposal this week to ban cigarette smoking in apartment complexes.

But the idea, while cheered by clean air advocates and all but one of his fellow supervisors, is being met with dismay by apartment owners and managers, not to mention many smokers whose last refuge to smoke may now become off-limits.

Patty Delong, who puffs a half-pack a day, assumes her fellow smokers won't like the proposal. "They're going to think the government is in their business, which it is," she said.

She, however, supports the idea. "I think that's great. Maybe now I'll be forced to quit," said Delong, 55, who has been smoking since she was 16. She lives in an apartment in San Jose's Burbank area that would fall under a smoking ban.

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WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic, 2009: Implementing smoke-free environments 

- Executive Summary - Available in Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish

DOWNLOAD THE REPORT BY SECTION

Progress is being made - A letter from WHO Assistant Director-General [pdf 1.78Mb]

Report Summary [pdf 653kb]

WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control [pdf 673kb]

Protect people from tobacco smoke [pdf 1.63Mb]

Implementation of effective measures is gaining momentum [pdf 2.99Mb]

Conclusion, references, technical notes and acknowledgements [pdf 3.41Mb]

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