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EDITORIAL: Our view: Salem councilors right in rejecting smoking ban 

A Salem City Council committee took the wiser course Tuesday in rejecting a proposal to ban smoking in the city's public housing units.

For one thing, as Assistant City Solicitor Jerry Parisella advised, the council lacks jurisdiction to impose rules on the tenants of these units, which were built and are operated with state funds. . . .

There's nothing wrong with the SHA stepping up the effort to discourage people from smoking. But an outright ban crosses the line.

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Health board will not ban smokes at gun club  

A couple of months ago, an anonymous letter was sent to the Ayer Board of Health, complaining of cigarette smoke creeping out of the members-only room and into publicly used areas at the Ayer Gun and Sportsmen's Club on Snake Hill Road.

After discussion, the Board opted to table the issue and not seek to snuff out the sportsmen's smoking.

The letter's author identified himself only as a prospective member of the club, but only if the alleged matter was taken care of. The writer said the alleged situation "is a danger to peoples' health and to the health of people who visit of the club for any type of event or activity."

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Smokers get break in public housing  

A city councilor's attempt to ban smoking in public housing was quickly extinguished last night.

Councilor Tom Furey wants the City Council to send a resolution to the state Legislature urging it to act, but the measure failed to get support from the Committee on Public Health and Safety, which met last night at City Hall.

While acknowledging Assistant City Solicitor Jerry Parisella's opinion that the City Council "lacks the jurisdiction to impose a smoking ban" in properties controlled by the Salem Housing Authority, Furey said he felt an obligation to protect public health and safety.

"We have to act," Furey said. "We have a moral responsibility. If not us, who? If not now, when?"

In response, Ward 7 Councilor Joe O'Keefe, citing Furey's attempts to impose other bans in the past, asked: "How can we as a City Council morally control all these things?"

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Letter to the editor: Learning smoking's effects the hard way  

A few hours ago, our family finished the funeral of my mother. She passed away of Stage 3 lung cancer caused by over 60 years of nonstop smoking.

Granted, she died on her 83rd birthday, which is a good life span, and we did know ahead of time of her situation. But I would like to take this time, in honor of her memory, to plead with everyone out there who does smoke cigarettes to please stop. . . .

There is an old saying that tells us "youth is wasted on the young." What that means is that every second of life is precious.

Your life is a gift and every breath you take is given to you. Do not waste a moment on ingesting puffs of poison.

Live for yourself and others. Live for tomorrow. Live for your future. Live long enough to get married and have children and grandchildren. Live a healthy life so you can be happy. You may believe you have a "right" to smoke, but do you have a right to abuse your body?

To all the adults out there who are smoking, I beg of you to please quit. . . .

I will miss my mother, Marion Burgess. She was a hard, independent working mom of seven children, and this letter is dedicated to her.

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Cigarette Blamed For Fatal House Fire  

Fire officials are saying a carelessly flicked cigarette likely ignited the blaze that killed an elderly bedridden Everett woman and her brother early Thursday.

The family of Edna and Edward Power said Edna, 80, was in frail health and only had a few days to live, but her 76-year-old brother likely suffered critical injuries trying to save her anyway.

Edna Power was killed in the blaze. Her brother, Edward, was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital, where he later died.

Investigators said a first-floor tenant of the three-story house at 8 Blake Terrace disposed of a cigarette butt that landed on a pile of garbage on the porch

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Selectmen propose beach smoking ban 

At their meeting this week, the board decided to put an article on the May town meeting warrant asking for a prohibition on smoking from June 15 through Labor Day

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Individual, Social-Normative, and Policy Predictors of Smoking Cessation: A Multilevel Longitudinal Analysis  

Objectives. We assessed the prospective impact of individual, social-normative, and policy predictors of quit attempts and smoking cessation among Massachusetts adults. . . .

Conclusions. Although previous research showed a strong relation between local policy and norms, we found no observable, prospective impact of local policy on smoking cessation over 2 years. Our findings provide clear support for the importance of strong antismoking social norms as a facilitator of smoking cessation.

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• For tobacco, a real drag  

Dr. Jeffrey Kulhmann recommended that the president, who has acknowledged smoking the occasional cigarette, stick with nicotine patches. In fact, some smokers have been able to cut back or kick the habit with the help of cessation programs. But the most powerful antismoking force in America is simple economics. Steep tax increases and a terrible economy probably reduced the number of cigarettes smoked in the United States last year by about 10 percent, one of the steepest annual declines in decades.

Cigarette sales have been declining for many years. But that slide has been slow and steady, reliably cutting consumption by about 2 percent a year. By comparison, the sales decline last year was off the charts.

"Both taxes and diminished income are playing a big role in declining sales of tobacco, and the nation is going to be healthier for it,'' says Gregory Connolly, director of the Tobacco Control Research Program at the Harvard School of Public Health. . . .

Altria's Philip Morris USA unit, which sells brands including Marlboro, Parliament, and Virginia Slims, recorded a 10.5 percent decrease in 2009 domestic cigarette shipments. The decline was even steeper in the last three months of the year, when US cigarette sales at Philip Morris USA slumped by 12 percent. . . .

Researchers such as Connolly say some cigarette smokers don't quit so much as switch to other products, including cigars and smokeless tobacco.

But most of the huge cigarette sales decline of 2009 is very real. Taxes, and basic economics, do more than anything else to make smokers quit.

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Beacon Hill Roll Call  

BAN SMOKING IN SOME SENIOR HOUSING (H 1181) - The House gave initial approval to a bill requiring local housing authorities to provide for nonsmoking buildings in multi-building senior housing complexes or for a no-smoking floor in single-building senior housing.

The bill phases in the proposed law, grandfathers in current smokers and prevents their eviction.

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State budget: Tax cigars and pipe tobacco 

State legislators should support the governor's proposal to hike taxes on cigars and pipe tobacco in the 2011 budget. The increase in the excise tax is expected to raise $15 million, which would help the Commonwealth fend off the sort of revenue shortfalls that force steep cuts in government programs. . . .

In these times of joblessness and economic despair, the state must do all that's possible to preserve the ability of families to feed and clothe themselves. Rather than shore up the safety net through a broader-based tax, in these times of joblessness and economic despair, it makes sense to apply a higher tax to something that is both a luxury and a harm to those who smoke it.

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Local doctor asks Board of Health to ban sale of cigarettes in Walpole pharmacies 

Calling the sale of tobacco products in pharmacies contradictory, Board of Health members will look into banning the sale of cigarettes in Walpole stores that also sell prescription medication.

Walpole resident Dr. Joseph Dorsey presented the topic to the board at their meeting Tuesday night, arguing it didn't make sense that pharmacies, which sell products to improve people's health, would peddle tobacco products.

The board has scheduled a public hearing at their next meeting to discuss changing town regulations to forbid stores with pharmacies from selling tobacco products. Health Director Robin Chapell said businesses would have to choose between selling cigarettes or prescriptions.

Boston, Needham, Newton and Uxbridge have passed similar measures statewide.

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Clubs’ smoking ban ignites debate 

WEBSTER -- Debate about the Board of Health's decision to ban smoking in private clubs ignited last night during a meeting in the Police Department.

Representatives from two of the seven private clubs that allow smoking questioned the board, whose 2-1 vote on Feb. 1 forbids smoking in private establishments effective Monday.

Michael A. Stelmack, manager of TSKK Club on Harris Street, and Carl A. Paglione, commander and bar manager of the American Legion Post 184 on Houghton Street, were concerned about the possibility that a member might simply refuse to comply.

"It's your jurisdiction to have them removed from the club," Health Agent Thomas Purcell said. "Do what you have to do."

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Smoke gets in your soul, pipe lovers say 

MASHPEE -- Yesterday was International Pipe-Smoking Day.

How did you let that one slip by?

On the web

http://www.geigerpipes.com/ . ..

Probably because pipes, once the international symbol of sophisticated masculinity, slipped off the popular radar screen decades ago. . . .

With smokers exiled from virtually all public places in Massachusetts and non-smoking clauses in many house leases, it's become harder for guys like Louie Kircher to enjoy a pipe of Sherlock's Choice, his favorite tobacco blend.

A pipe smoker since he was 17, the 46-year-old Pocasset resident likes the aroma, taste and ritual of cleaning, preparing and lighting his pipe. Cigarettes are like fast food, and cigars are brash, beefy, and extroverted, but pipe smoking, lends itself to a sit, and to contemplation as the smoke wreaths your head and drifts off toward the ceiling.

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LETTER: You smell smoke? Follow your nose, not the realtor 

I am writing in regard to the case of the condo owner who lost her suit over second-hand smoke making her asthma worse. When my husband and I were looking at a house in Lexington, I kept telling the realtor that I smelled smoke. . . .

smoking a cigarette. The realtor must have known that his client was there, but chose to bend the truth, as it were. My husband and I quickly left, laughing our heads off.

The defendant should have gone with her hunch about the smoke she detected, checked the surrounding condos for resident smokers, and then made her decision to buy based on real fact, not the fiction she said the realtor was feeding her. I am surprised she spent nearly two years compromising her health the way she did.

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Patrick: $2.3 million for smoking cessation and youth tobacco prevention 

Gov. Deval Patrick recently announced more than $2.3 million in federal recovery funds to help smokers quit and prevent youth from becoming addicted to tobacco. Massachusetts received the full amount requested for all three tobacco cessation and prevention grants and is one of only a few states in the nation share that distinction. . . .

"We are proud that Massachusetts has the lowest smoking rate in the country, but there is more work to be done," said Secretary of Health and Human Dr. JudyAnn Bigby. "These federal funds support our ongoing efforts to promote wellness and prevent chronic disease in Massachusetts."

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