Email
Password
(Forgot Password?)
A grant awarded to the Arizona Cancer Center at The University of Arizona will be used to study the North American Quitline Consortium, a well-defined tobacco control network, with the goal of identifying best practices across its 62 "quitlines" – located in each of the 50 U.S. states, in 10 Canadian provinces, and in Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. The goal of the research is to identify and then implement best practices to help reduce the number of tobacco users, which has remained unchanged in recent years.
Jump to full article »
A Tucson man is homeless after an accidental fire destroyed his east side condo, killing his dog and bird on Monday, June 23. The owner wasn't home when the fire started, but firefighters say a guest who was asleep inside is lucky to be alive. . . .
investigators found that the fire was caused by a carelessly discarded cigarette. The cigarette was discarded on the porch. "If you smoke, make sure you discard your cigarettes in a big ash tray or an area where it's not going to be combustible," said Tracy.
First of all, what kind of moron smokes a cigarette while pumping gas? Jeez. Even I am not that dumb.
So I think you were entirely within your rights in asking her to put out the smoke.
With the price of gas, groceries and just about everything else going up, state officials last week suggested that quitting smoking is one way consumers can make their dollars stretch further in the difficult economy.
For Chrissy Smith, the $100 a week she's saving by not smoking couldn't come at a better time.
The corner gas station near her Maricopa County home is selling gas for $4.14 a gallon, she said. And since she quit smoking, not only is she saving the $6 per pack she was spending, but now she doesn't have to waste gas doing a late run for cigarettes.
But in an age when an estimated 80 percent of Americans don't smoke, tribal casinos are investing in smoke-clearing equipment to keep non-smokers happy and playing the slots.
"It's a business decision casinos are making," said Sheila Morago, executive director of the Arizona Indian Gaming Association.
"People say they don't want smoke in their faces. And engineers keep coming out with newer and better (smoke-removal) systems."
The Gila River Indian Community is spending approximately $500,000 on a state-of-the-art smoke-clearing system at a casino under construction south of Chandler. . . .
Retired Tempe physician Leland Fairbanks, now president of the Mesa-based Arizonans Concerned About Smoking Inc., explained that toxic particulates from tobacco smoke may remain in the air after the smoke itself is blown out of a room.
"And it isn't the smoke that kills anyone; it's the toxins," he said.
The first month of a statewide ban on indoor smoking drew 182 complaints in Pima County and 1,395 statewide, a report says.
In the subsequent 11 months - June 2007 to April 2008 - the number of complaints in Pima County ranged from 81 to 18.
April logged 220 complaints statewide, 40 of them in Pima County.
According to a report published Friday by the Arizona Department of Health Services, officials looked at the number and nature of complaints since the Smoke-Free Arizona Act went into effect.
The spread of hookah bars around Phoenix has been slow and long-lasting, just like the communal activity of smoking a hookah pipe itself. It was labeled a fad as more hookah places opened around 2004. But the fad shows no sign of burning out, despite a statewide smoking ban that restricts its use indoors and despite what some say could be a cultural barrier to accepting a practice associated with Arab countries.
There are at least 19 lounges or restaurants scattered throughout the Phoenix area that offer hookahs. As recently as 2004, there were just three hookah lounges, all concentrated around Arizona State University in Tempe. Now, hookahs can be found at Mediterranean restaurants in Gilbert and north Phoenix, a coffee shop in Ahwatukee and at two billiard halls in Glendale. . . .
Among the reasons for the hookah craze is the belief that it is safer than cigarettes. The popularity of the hookah has outpaced research on its dangers, and researchers worry that recent studies showing water-pipe smoke is toxic now have to battle popular perception.
Preliminary data from a survey of Arizona high-school students' tobacco use shows a dramatic increase in hookah smoking. In 2005, 11 percent of students reported they had used a hookah. In 2007, that number doubled.
Serious study of hookahs' dangers has come only recently. Tom Eissenberg, an associate professor at Virginia Commonwealth University who did one of the first studies on hookah smoke, said his initial proposals were rejected because hookahs weren't seen as a problem in the United States.
Chances are you know someone with asthma. Asthma impacts more than 15 percent of Cochise County residents.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, asthma is responsible for approximately 500,000 hospitalizations, 5,000 deaths and 134 million restricted activity days per year.
What is asthma? Asthma is a chronic disease that causes the airways in your lungs to narrow, making it difficult to breathe.
It's been one year since Arizona went smoke-free in bars, restaurants and other enclosed public places. Has the ban persuaded people to stop smoking?
Meg Kondrich of the American Cancer Society thinks it has had some effect, but she gives more credit to the higher cost of puffing away.
Kondrich notes that, in the same election in which the Smoke-free Arizona law was passed, voters approved an 82-cent increase in the tobacco tax, bringing it to $2 a pack.
``It's proven that when the cost of cigarettes goes up through tobacco taxes, more people are willing to quit," she says.
Teens, especially, are smoking less because of the social stigma and the simple fact they can't afford the habit, says Kondrich.
Meanwhile, many restaurant and bar owners who feared doomsday with the smoking ban, say their business is okay.
Supporting the argument that smoke-free laws do not damage the hospitality industry, restaurants that ban cigarette smoking haven’t suffered from increased employee turnover, according to a new report published in the current online issue of Contemporary Economic Policy. The report , “Smoke-Free Laws and Employee Turnover,” was the first of its kind to examine the impact of smoke-free laws on the restaurant labor market.
“We already know from multitudes of other studies that going smoke-free doesn’t hurt business,” said Ellen Hahn, professor at the University of Kentucky College of Nursing. “But this is the first one to look at how smoke-free laws may impact employee retention and training.”
The study examined payroll records of a franchisee of a national full-service restaurant chain that operates 23 restaurants in the state of Arizona
( Phoenix ) Here and Now looks at the year anniversary of a state-wide smoking ban.
Some local bar owners say the past year has been a rough one since the statewide smoking ban went into effect.
The law, which was enacted May 1st of last year, prohibits smoking inside restaurants, bars, and other businesses.
This law has forced some businesses to make some expensive accommodations.
BULLHEAD CITY - After a year on the books, most Bullhead City restaurants have not been affected by an anti-smoking law passed in 2006 by Arizona voters.
Proposition 201, approved by voters in November 2006, banned smoking from all enclosed public places and places of employment in Arizona. The law went into effect May 1, 2007.
Some restaurant owners said the slowdown in the economy and the high gas prices have played a bigger role in customer sales in Bullhead City restaurant and bars than the anti-smoking law.
The statewide smoking ban has been in effect since May 1, 2007, and the law is getting mixed reviews from local bar and restaurant owners. Not all have fared as well as Morton's.
"We don't have a patio, and we've noticed a big drop in business. We're just trying to hang on by our fingers," said Connie Jacobs, owner of Famous Sam's in Mesa. Jacobs and her husband also owned a Famous Sam's in Apache Junction, but had to close that location to keep the Mesa sports bar solvent, she said. Jacobs said the bar business has been slammed during the past year by three major events that chased customers away.
"The smoking ban started it, the economy finished it off," she said. Then in January, tougher drunken-driving laws "made people afraid to have even one beer. That's worse than the smoking ban," she said. "It used to be that on football Sundays it was standing room only. Now you can shoot a cannon off in here."
Gov. Janet Napolitano has signed a bill that would require that the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System pay for medications that would help patients quit smoking.
"Private insurance companies provide their clients with coverage for these types of medications," said the bill's sponsor, Barbara Leff, R-Paradise Valley. "We just want AHCCCS to be able to do the same."
According to Kevin DeMenna, legislative spokesman for the American Cancer Society in Phoenix, an estimated 400,000 AHCCCS recipients in the state are tobacco users.