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Mesa State College Associated Student Government members presented three potential tobacco policies Thursday evening in a campus lecture hall.
The first option bans all tobacco products, including chewing tobacco, cigars and menthol, clove or regular cigarettes, from campus property. Implementing the option would include a phase-in process with stages for education about the ban, a smoking-cessation program and then enforcement.
A second possibility is a ban of all tobacco products from all but a few designated smoking areas. These areas would have benches and ashtrays for smokers. Designated smoking areas have not been decided, but the option would place smoking areas roughly east of the academic classroom building, west of Houston Hall and in a parking lot north of the new student center.
The final option would entail doing a better job of enforcing the existing policy of keeping smokers at least 30 feet away from all building entrances.
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Mesa State College Associated Student Government members will sponsor forums at 6 tonight and 6 p.m. Thursday to discuss three potential on-campus tobacco policies.
The meetings will take place in the Wubben Weldon lecture hall.
If you were one of the many students concerned about the dangers of inhaling secondhand smoke on campus, I don't blame you. I personally cannot wait until the first of January when the smoking ban will actually go into effect.
The cancerous tumors popping up in all of our untainted nonsmoker lungs will finally cease and it is a danger we will no longer have to worry about.
However, I would venture to guess that close to none of you are aware of the many dangers DU students face on a daily basis as a direct result of a non-existent administrative policy.
Have you seen the Driscoll Bridge lately? . . .
We ought to hire a responsible adult to hold each and every one of our hands, every hour of every day, for the entirety of our enrollment here.
Student leaders at Colorado State University-Pueblo are exploring whether the campus should go tobacco-free.
The Associated Students' Government formed a committee in September to study whether changes should be made to the university's current policy, which prohibits smoking in any university building and within 20 feet of any building entrance.
"There have been concerns that the smoking stations are too close to the building entrances," said Lindsey Reeves, a student government leader and a member of the research committee. "Right now, there are a lot of schools going to a smoking ban. It's kind of a growing trend. We, as student leaders, decided to take a closer look at our policy."
Reeves said the Tobacco Policy Research and Recommendation committee was charged with researching the topic and then developing a recommendation to bring to the government board.
Despite the statewide ban leaving many tobacco users out in the cold, Smoker Friendly International has found a way to light up the indoors.
The Boulder-based tobacco retailer has added a smoking lounge -- complete with free wireless Internet access, flat-screen TVs, free coffee, and couches with room for about 12 people -- to its Thornton location at 120th Street and Colorado Boulevard, and it plans to retrofit other select stores.
"We want to provide a friendly environment for adult tobacco users to enjoy a smoke indoors," said Terry Gallagher Jr., president of Smoker Friendly. "Our lounge enables a fellowship between the customers that feels like that of a bar or coffee shop."
At the start of the year, smoking on the DU campus will be banned, a decision made by Chancellor Robert Coombe on May 28, following a petition signed by nearly 1,900 community members.
Tobacco products will be banned from all indoor and outdoor areas of campus, including a distance of 25 feet from the campus perimeter.
Although smoking will be prohibited, punishment and violations will be minimal.
The ban extends DU's current policy, which bans smoking within 25 feet of entrances and exits and all university buildings.
"It is important to note that while the university has rules and regulations governing the conduct of its students, faculty, and staff and policies in keeping with current law, it does not regulate legal personal choice unless such choice has a deleterious effect on the community as a whole" Coombe wrote in his letter to the community.
A river brought Anne Landman to Grand Junction. . . .
Landman began working in 1996 for the American Lung Association.
That job heightened Landman's awareness of tobacco-caused diseases and she began noticing cigarette displays in stores — how they always seemed to be out of the line of sight of clerks, placed around the corner near the door and below counter level.
“I started asking clerks: ‘Do you lose merchandise off these displays?'” Landman said.
She said store clerks used words like “tons” and “gobs” to describe the amount of merchandise that was lost. However, they weren't allowed to move the tobacco products display, or they'd lose huge placement fees paid by the tobacco companies.
Clerks in stores all over Grand Junction — many near schools — told Landman that tobacco representatives came and monitored the placements.
A manager of one Stop N Save convenience store near a school in Clifton told Landman she was losing 300 packs a month. Store clerks told Landman it was mostly kids stealing the cigarettes. . . .
Companies were also required to reveal all their secret documents. Millions of pages of internal documents were scanned and placed on the Internet for public access.
In her spare time at home in Glade Park where she had a dial-up connection to the Internet, Landman began downloading tobacco industry documents.
“I was looking for something in the documents to substantiate what I found on the ground,” Landman said.
“I couldn't believe what I saw. I couldn't believe what I was reading. It was like a murder mystery novel with no ending. Confidential memos talked about strategies for undermining public health authorities.”
Landman gathered the information and began putting it on an Internet list serve (similar to an e-mail newsletter). She summarized documents and included excerpts. She began writing and publishing articles in medical and academic journals. . . .
One of her Grand Junction colleagues contacted CBS news in New York, who sent a four-person crew to Grand Junction to report on the tobacco displays and the placement fees for its “Eye on America” segment that was broadcast nationally April 12, 1999. Television stations around the country checked tobacco products displays in their own towns, and localized the issue to create their own segments.
The board of directors of Keep America Beautiful-Topeka/Shawnee County is thrilled with the community support of its Topeka Cigarette Litter Prevention Program.
Keep America Beautiful-Topeka/Shawnee County launched its program on July 9th when the first ash receptacle was installed in front of the Cumulus broadcast station. Local business and community leadership have focused attention on this growing litter problem with support from the City of Topeka, Shawnee County, the Greater Topeka Chamber of Commerce, and Downtown Topeka, Inc. Today, a follow-up scan was completed, and after this program was put in place, we showed a 62% decrease in cigarette litter.
Boulder police are investigating a report that two Hookah House customers were slipped a stimulant while smoking a bowl of apple-flavored tobacco at the University Hill business over the weekend.
A 22-year-old man and a 19-year-old woman, both of Longmont, called police early Saturday after smoking flavored tobacco between 12:30 and 1:45 a.m. at the Hookah House, 1325 Broadway St. unit 215, said police spokeswoman Sarah Huntley.
"They were having some unusual effects of feeling very awake and wired," Huntley said.
“You've come a long way, baby,” was a 1970s advertising slogan for Virginia Slims cigarettes, at least one of which featured a Black woman with an afro, African print tunic top and bell-bottom jeans. Considering, however, that Blacks were at one time forced, as slaves, to pick tobacco and bring great wealth to Caucasian-owned companies, some disagree that Blacks have come a long way when they are the group most devastated by the tobacco industry today.
La Tanisha Wright, Western Region Director for the National African American Tobacco Prevention Network (NAATPN), recently presented a 5 hour “Follow the Signs” seminar in Denver, Colorado to “raise awareness about how Big Tobacco specifically targets Black communities.” She laid out the facts that slave labor made the tobacco industry rich and that now, half of all deaths in the Black community are from smoking-related diseases; more Blacks die from lung cancer than any other group in the U.S.; 72% of Blacks are exposed to secondhand smoke, compared to 50% of Whites and 45% of Hispanics; and that smoking or secondhand smoke plays a large part in the high rate of asthma amongst Black adults and children.
Wright finds the statistics disturbing and thinks the disparities have much to do with tobacco companies targeting “urban” areas which are referred to as the “focus” market of cigarette companies. She knows this very well as she was employed for a leading company as a tobacco industry manager “responsible for developing promotional programs for urban markets.” After four years of firsthand experience, in 2005 she kissed the industry good bye and joined NAATPN to begin spreading the word and sounding an alarm to Blacks across the country.
Many Blacks are unaware that cigarette companies were some of the first to advertise with Black media in the 1950s; that they study and learn everything about Blacks in order to devise advertising campaigns to “lure” new smokers as customers; that the companies, Wright said, will do anything to sell nicotine – even lie and practice deception, and that the industry “preys” on Blacks because there is no outcry and they know they can get away with it. . . .
From the days of slavery, when Blacks were not only required to pick tobacco but were also bought with tobacco payments, to today, the industry appears to need the Black consumer or slave to survive. Wright even used a quote by Harriet Tubman to describe how she views her mission. “I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.”
I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.Harriet Tubman quote cited by La Tanisha Wright, Western Region Director for the National African American Tobacco Prevention Network (NAATPN), in her “Follow the Signs” seminar.
A tied vote during the Alamosa city council's most recent meeting defeated a resolution to prohibit tobacco use in Alamosa city parks and other outdoor recreational areas owned by the city.
Youth from the Get R!EAL Coalition had asked the council to expand the city's clean air ordinance.
The proposed resolution before the council last Wednesday would have prohibited all tobacco use including cigarettes and chewing tobacco on city-owned parks, playgrounds and other open recreational areas such as ball fields and trails.
The resolution stated the measure was necessary to protect citizen health particularly children using the city parks and ball fields, and to provide a positive role model for youth.
So I was sitting in a leather couch at El Cid’s, watching my cigar smoke drift upward and listening to the guys talk about politics and stuff that really matters in life, like the tobacco tax going up again.
El Cid’s has been a nice place to go to hide. No editors at the old Rocky, may it rest in peace, knew about it. And, by God, the tobacco-less creatures would never venture into North Denver to find it. . . .
Guys talked about finer cigars. Gregg with Three G’s had just become my new best friend because he treated me to a $10 cigar to mark the demise of the old Rocky.
And then the conversation turned bitter, to talk of the new tobacco tax coming up in April.
Back when the Republicans ran the statehouse in the ‘80s, whenever they saw a need to raise taxes, they’d call on Sen. “Sin Tax” Tillie Bishop to carry the hike on tobacco and alcohol. He was from Grand Junction in probably the safest district in the state. So he’d sponsor the increase, it would pass and he would be re-elected to another term.
But now, it's the feds who are raising the tax on tobacco.
Ronaldo Ron said that a can of imported pipe tobacco was being priced out of the market.
"I sell the can for $24,” he said. “The new tax alone is going up an additional $28 a can. My customers can’t afford to buy it.”
And as I looked up at that magnificent handmade ceiling, watching my cigar smoke waft upward, I realized that I would have to kick the habit.
I can do without the cigars. I will miss my visits to El Cid’s. No sense sitting around, sucking on a nicotine lozenge and watching the guys who can afford it continue to puff away.
Local health officials and anti-smoking advocates are applauding President Barack Obama's signing of new anti-smoking legislation Monday.
But tobacco retailers in Pueblo say their customers are feeling the pinch of a number of new laws that seem to have come all at once.
In March, new taxes were lobbied on cigarettes that added another $10 to the cost of cartons and tripled the price of rolling tobacco, said Debbie McConnell, manager at a Smoker Friendly store on Greenwood Street.
McConnell said her customers are upset that prices have increased so dramatically and so quickly.
In order to balance the coming year's budget, which begins July 1, Colorado lawmakers transferred to the general fund $20 million from the reserve created by Amendment 35 for tobacco education and treatment, and $11.8 million from the 1998 national tobacco lawsuit settlement.
What's more, state legislators repealed a 50-year-old sales-tax exemption on cigarettes, a move that's worth about $30 million a year. The sales tax is 2.9 percent.
Under the 1998 agreement, states are able to use the national tobacco lawsuit funds however they see fit.
The settlement between the federal government and tobacco companies provided $206 billion . . .
"We learned this week that we'll receive $249,000 this year - 3.5 percent less than last year," said Char Day, the southwest regional director of the eight-county Lasso Tobacco Coalition.
"We'll find a way to deal with it, but it's so shortsighted," Day said. "There will be increased health-care costs in so many ways when young people take up smoking and adults don't stay quit."
The University of Denver will become Colorado's largest school to ban smoking when it implements a strict new rule on January 1.
A letter to the campus community from Chancellor Robert Coome outlined the ban, which will apply only to smoking, not to smokeless tobacco products.