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Roswell bans smoking in city parks 

Following the lead of other metro communities, Roswell passed an ordinance banning smoking on city park property except in specially designated areas.

The city Recreation Commission, with aim of promoting healthier lifestyles, brought the ordinance forward for council approval.

Asked where those "designated smoking areas" might be, Recreation and Parks Director Joe Glover said "in the patrons' cars."

Not only that, the ordinance submitted by the Recreation Commission also stated that smokers must light up with the windows up. Councilwoman Becky Wynn asked if that wasn't going just a little too far. . . .

The motion passed unanimously with the window section thrown out the, um, window.

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Roswell wants to ban smoking in city parks 

Those who want to smoke in Roswell city parks may be limited to enjoying their tobacco in "designated areas," their personal cars.

But under the most recent version of a proposed city ordinance, smokers can have their windows open, a big change for the original proposal that required smokers to close the windows of their cars while puffing.

The city council removed that part from the suggested ordinance, saying it went too far, according to Morgan Rodgers, assistant director of the Roswell Recreation and Parks Department, who was on the committee that drafted the new rule.

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Smoking fee spurs workers to quit  

Chatham County employee James Putney is on his way to becoming smoke-free after 40 years of lighting up.

After attending three of four smoking cessation classes, he is down from 20 to two cigarettes a day, Putney said.

The county's plan to start charging employees who smoke an extra $20 per paycheck for health insurance also helped his fight.

"It's a great incentive to get people to quit," Putney said, "especially with the way the economy is."

Putney's success so far is something county officials are hoping to emulate with their push to get employees to kick the habit.

Of the county's 139 admitted smokers, 115 signed up for the four free sessions. The remaining 24 will pay the fee.

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SGA faces a decision on smoking ban proposal  

A growing trend is blowing across college campuses nationwide. According to the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation, nearly 60 college campuses around the United States have established smoke-free policies that affect the entire campus.

The Student Government Association has recently propsed a tightening of smoking regulations on campus. GCSU currently has limited restrictions banning smoking indoors, in residential housing and student facilities. The new proposal, written by Billy Grace, SGA senator, would prevent the smoking of cigarettes within a 30-foot-radius of any doorway, window or air duct.

After two open forums over the past two weeks, with a total of 50 faculty, students and staff in attendance, the propsal began to get hazy.

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• Tobacco barons charged in U.S. 

Two of the founding partners of Six Nations cigarette maker Grand River Enterprises are facing 16 charges related to trafficking of contraband cigarettes in the United States.

A U.S. grand jury in the state of Washington has indicted Ken Hill of Ohsweken and Peter Montour of Hamilton, alleging they were part of a conspiracy to supply tens of millions of contraband cigarettes over a five-year period to a smoke shop on native land just north of Seattle.

Hill and Montour are facing 15 counts of trafficking in contraband cigarettes and one count of conspiracy to traffic in contraband cigarettes.

Each count carries a maximum penalty of up to five years in prison, as well as the possibility of a fine.

The U.S. district attorney is also seeking a forfeiture order of nearly $5 million US, which represents allegedly unpaid cigarette taxes.

Also charged in the conspiracy is a U.S. company called Native Wholesale Supply and its owner, Art Montour Jr. (no relation), a former band councillor on the Seneca tribe's reservation south of Buffalo.

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ARNOLD: Smokers know the risks, thank you  

Smokers take a lot of heat for their habit, as Mr. Marc McAfee demonstrated [in his Aug. 26 column, "Smokers need to escape grasp of addiction"]. . . .

Smokers have become ostracized to the point that they can't even walk outside - where they're supposed to be - and take one good drag without offending someone. They are followed from class to class by scoffs and coughs from the non-smokers walking behind them.

When this happened to me, as it often did, I always thought to myself, "Wait, I'm the one with bad lungs here, shouldn't you be able to walk faster?"

Cigarette smoke may be annoying and inconsiderate, but so are people who talk unnecessarily loud in the MLC, distracting everyone nearby who is studying and adding to their stress, which has been linked as a risk factor to heart disease - the No. 1 killer in America . . .

After smoking a pack-and-a-half a day for almost four years, I finally quit cold turkey about a month ago.

But a month isn't that long. How do I know it's for good? Because this time I was ready and I want to take care of my body. I don't miss the cigarette, but the amount of time I spent outside and the interesting people I met there.

Call me a realist, Mr. McAfee, but don't expect someone to quit smoking for you or anyone else, especially if the tactic utilized is remotely self-righteous or a guilt trip in disguise.

They'll quit when they're good and ready, and they'll quit for themselves, and it will mean so much more to them that way.

I've never met a smoker who sees cigarettes as a permanent part of their lives.

So ease up; smokers will save themselves.

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Smoke clears on other campuses, but not at UGA  

Tanita Gaither, a senior journalism major, takes a smoke break Wednesday afternoon outside the Miller Learning Center on the University of Georgia campus.

The University of Georgia is the only school or college campus in Athens where smoking is permitted, but that might change in the not too distant future.

Three Southeastern Conference schools recently have moved to ban tobacco on their campuses, and UGA President Michael Adams said he would not rule it out automatically for UGA.

"I'm open to looking at that," he said last week. "I'd want to listen to ideas."

The UGA Athletic Association banned smoking inside the university's huge Sanford Stadium a couple of years ago. Adams is chairman of the athletic association's board.

And smoking has for years been outlawed inside campus buildings, not just in Georgia but in most other states as legislatures have one by one enacted laws against smoking in campus buildings.

A growing number of college campuses have gone even farther, outlawing tobacco use entirely, anywhere on campus.

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Grant will expand former smoker-led intervention program 

Researchers are helping women who live in public housing in Georgia and South Carolina stop smoking through a proven former smoker-led intervention program.

With $3.1 million in funding from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, Drs. Martha Tingen, a nurse researcher at the Medical College of Georgia's Georgia Prevention Institute, and Jeanette Andrews, associate dean for research and evaluation and director of the Center for Community Health Partnerships at the Medical University of South Carolina, will expand the Sister to Sister program to women in public housing units in Augusta and Charleston, S.C. Dr. Andrews, the grant's principal investigator, developed and tested the program while she was a faculty member in the MCG School of Nursing.

Sister to Sister utilizes help from former smokers from the community, a nicotine patch and group support to help the women kick the habit.

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ARCHIVE: 05/07/1986 - Inquiry concerning regulations that apply to smoking in dormitories. 

Marietta to consider smoking ban in city parks  

Marietta City Council banned smoking in the Square's Glover Park earlier this month.

The council's Judicial Legislative Committee will consider expanding that ban to all 21 city parks when it meets Wednesday.

Councilman Philip Goldstein, who chairs the committee, said he is open to a smoking ban in all city parks, but wants to hear what other council members say.

"You have areas that have children's playgrounds and other folks at parks, and smoke is problematic for some folks," Goldstein said.

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State reminds retailers selling tobacco to minors doesn't pay 

While the average retailer profit on a pack of cigarettes is less than a dollar, those who sell cigarettes and other tobacco products to people under the age of 18 risk fines starting at $300 per incident and the possibility of criminal prosecution. Those possible costs to retailers are on top of the very real costs paid by Georgians every year. Cigarette smoking is the number one cause of preventable illness and death in Georgia, with over 10,000 adult Georgians dying annually from smoking-related illnesses, and the healthcare costs and loss of productivity attributable to smoking cost Georgians over $5.2 billon a year. Many of those adults who suffer death and illness will have been addicted to cigarettes since they were teens.

That's why this summer the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities (DBHDD), in conjunction with the Georgia Department of Revenue, Alcohol & Tobacco Division (DOR), is conducting a campaign to remind retailers, young people, and the public at large that selling cigarettes and tobacco products to those under 18 is against the law in Georgia and that retailers are required to check a buyer's ID every time anyone who looks less than 26 years old tries to buy tobacco products. DBHDD's education campaign includes ads on TV, radio, web sites, and in movie theatres, as well as making use of social media such as Facebook. In addition, DOR's Alcohol & Tobacco Division will be conducting compliance checks at retail locations such as gas stations and convenience stores where an estimated one-third of high school smokers buy their cigarettes. . . .

The Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities, which began operations on July 1, 2009, is the state's new department responsible for services, programs, and policies for mental health, developmental disabilities, and addictive diseases.

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Editorial: Solution available for cleaning smokers' trash 

Sorry, but when the first cigarette butt was tossed along a public right of way near their facility, Athens Regional Medical Center officials lost any right to worry about how hypocritical it might seem for the hospital to back away from a smoking ban instituted on hospital grounds earlier this year.

Yet, judging from a hospital spokesman's comments to this newspaper for a Sunday story on how the hospital's tobacco ban has moved smokers and their trash - hundreds of cigarette butts and numbers of cigarette packages - onto surrounding sidewalks, bus shelters and private property, that's exactly what Athens Regional sees as a priority. . . .

Judging from Sunday's story, the major complaint from residents and businesses near the hospital is the trash that smokers leave behind. It would appear, then, that educating smokers about not leaving their trash behind would solve that problem. And eliminating trash from smoking is as simple as showing smokers who may not be aware of the practice how to "field strip" a cigarette.

Briefly, field-stripping a cigarette involves stubbing out the cigarette until all embers are extinguished, pulling any remaining tobacco and paper - both of which are biodegradable - away from the filter, and placing the filter, which is not biodegradable, back into the cigarette pack, or into a pocket, for later disposal in a trash can.

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Marietta Smoking Ban Passes 

No more smoking in Glover Park, in the town square of Marietta.

The city council, in a unanimous vote, has banned lighting up in the park. The move comes a week after the council received numerous complaints about excessive smoking during a concert on the square.

"I come here and park and just sit back and relax. It's just beautiful," says Dakota Lee, who was pleased by the council's action. Others were not so happy.

"I thought it was a free country," says Tavares Copley. "If a person chooses to smoke, then they should smoke, as long as they're not inside of a building."

The smoking ban went into effect immediately. It's sponsor was Marietta Councilwoman Holly Wolquist.

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Ga. jail inmates burned by own smoking habit 

Two inmates at the Chatham County jail in coastal Georgia got burned by their own smoking habit when they started a fire trying to light a handmade cigarette with a spark from an electrical socket.

Both inmates were treated for minor burns after their cellmates quickly doused the fire with water, Sheriff's Deputy Ron Robinson said Wednesday. He said the jail banned smoking more than a decade ago, but it hasn't stopped inmates from improvising.

"Some of these guys have serious habits and cravings," Robinson said. "They try to smoke a lot of things ... lettuce, collard greens, turnip greens, whatever was served to them at lunch that day."

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College of Coastal Georgia bans tobacco on campus 

BRUNSWICK - Good health is as important as a quality education.

Following that philosophy, the College of Coastal Georgia is nudging its students toward good habits and away from bad ones.

As part of a healthy campus initiative, the college banned the use of tobacco effective Wednesday and has overhauled a couple of exercise facilities in hopes of attracting students and faculty.

"As a college, we are focusing on health and wellness without the hazard of tobacco use on campus," said college President Valerie Hepburn.

Throughout the roll-out of the tobacco-free campus, the college has focused on raising awareness through signage, information on its Web site and a partnership with local health agencies to offer smoking cessation classes to faculty and staff, she said.

The signs are up at campus entrances announcing the tobacco ban.

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