Tobacco.org

• Lights out! Smoking ban nears  

Starting in January, if you want to smoke a cigarette during a night on the town at any of Macon's eating and drinking establishments, you will have to drag your butts outside.

The state's smoking ban in bars and restaurants will go into effect on Jan. 2, 2010.

Becky Barr, health education program supervisor and environmental health supervisor Barry Patterson with the Macon County Public Health Center explained the new rules and how they will be enforced at the health board's Nov. 10 meeting.

Barr said one of the goals as they get closer to the enactment date of "North Carolina's Smoke-Free Restaurants and Bars Law" (House Bill 2) is to educate restaurant owners and the public about the legislation.

The gist of the law, which passed in May, is that all North Carolina restaurants and bars permitted to serve food and beverages must be smoke free come Jan. 2.

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• State auditor critical of Golden LEAF Foundation 

A foundation that distributes North Carolina's tobacco settlement money broke the law by approving a $15 million grant behind closed doors, State Auditor Beth Wood said Monday.

In a report, Wood accused the Golden LEAF Foundation of repeatedly restricting and delaying her access to records of the foundation's meetings and investments.

That is worrisome, Wood said.

State lawmakers set up Golden LEAF, which stands for the Long-term Economic Advancement Foundation, in 1999 to manage the proceeds of a historic settlement with cigarette makers.

The Rocky Mount-based foundation has received $706.5 million

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• Cancer institute studies smokeless tobacco 

Is using smokeless tobacco just as harmful as smoking, or is it potentially a safer option?

Getting a definitive answer to that question has proved elusive despite centuries of medical research.

Resolving the issue, and providing clarity amid the heated rhetoric, has prompted a new series of medical studies sponsored by the National Cancer Institute.

One set focuses on whether such smokeless products as snus and the dissolvable products from R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., provide "a truly less-harmful alternative to conventional tobacco products, both at the individual and population level," according to the institute's grant application.

Another set, including one that was started Sept. 1 at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, is aimed at developing strategy to encourage reduced use or even quitting smokeless-tobacco products. Wake Forest is receiving a $2.9 million grant for its study.

Maura Payne, a spokeswoman for Reynolds, said that the company supports "well-designed studies" that could help develop science-based, tobacco-harm-reduction strategies." Payne said that Reynolds does not promote its new smokeless products as a way to quit smoking.

The institute said that the studies are necessary because "previous tobacco-use reduction efforts pursued by the public-health community were disadvantaged by incomplete knowledge and methods for evaluating the health impact of modified tobacco products."

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• New Web Site Provides Info On Upcoming Smoking Ban  

A new government Web site has been launched to ease the transition with a new law that requires restaurants, bars and lodging establishments that serve food and drink to go smoke-free as of January 2, 2010.

The Web site, www.SmokeFree.NC.gov, provides business owners and customers information on the new law, on the health hazards of secondhand smoke and on resources to help those smokers who may want to quit smoking. There are downloadable fact sheets, no-smoking signs and other tools to help make the transition to smoke-free air an easy one.

"This change is historic for North Carolina and will have a significant positive impact on public health," said Gov. Bev Perdue. "By banning smoking in our restaurants and bars, we will greatly reduce the dangers of secondhand smoke and lower health care costs for families. Our goal is to make sure North Carolina's families and businesses have the information they need about the hazards of second-hand smoke and how to implement the new law."

The new law (G.S. 130A-497) was passed by the General Assembly and signed by Governor Bev Perdue in May, and will make virtually all indoor areas of restaurants and bars in the state smoke-free, with very few exceptions.

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• No lighting up, even on sidewalk?  

Jarred Postell, a smoker, says he thinks people should be allowed to smoke outside, so he doesn't support the idea of a ban on lighting up on a section of Elizabeth Avenue.

When N.C. restaurants and bars go smoke-free at the start of 2010, smokers might find another place they aren't welcome: part of Elizabeth Avenue and its sidewalks.

Central Piedmont Community College campuses are going tobacco-free next year, and the school asked the city of Charlotte to ban smoking on Elizabeth Avenue from Kings Drive to Charlottetown Avenue, where it bisects its central campus.

If the City Council approves the ban, Charlotte would be among the first cities in the country to ban smoking on a city sidewalk or street.

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• Cigarette executive sentenced in mail fraud  

The president of a North Carolina cigarette company was barred from the tobacco industry for a decade as part of a federal sentence that includes a year and a day in prison.

Terence P. McLaughlin, president of CLP Inc. of Ayden, N.C., also agreed to pay about $1 million in past-due federal excise taxes.

McLaughlin was sentenced Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Abingdon. In January, he pleaded guilty to mail fraud and to conspiring to violate federal cigarette laws.

CLP, which makes Bridgeton cigarettes, entered guilty pleas as a corporation to the same charges, as did George Chemali, described in court documents as an agent of the company.

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• ROYAL: Bumper crops of addiction 

Do you want to see a beautiful sight? Take a ride through Eastern North Carolina on country roads, avoiding the interstate highways. You'll see the most beautiful crops of tobacco, thousands of acres, likely double or triple the number of acres that this state has ever grown. . . .

This tobacco is being processed in the United States or sent overseas for processing and then sold for smokes in Russia, in India and in Middle Eastern, Asian and European countries. We now have rigid laws in the U.S. . . .

In the meantime, farmers in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and in Colombia, Mexico and other Central and South American countries, are admiring their poppy fields and marijuana fields. They harvest and ship their products to the United States. In some cases "bad guys" reportedly take much of the profit and continue their wars against the United States, resulting in death and injury to our servicemen.

Those countries, farmers and middlemen don't worry about the drug wars, the crimes their drugs promote or the illnesses and deaths these addicting drugs produce in the United States.

There is an old saying: Turnabout is fair play.

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• North Carolina Farm Bureau Urges Canadian Government To Amend Legislation Banning American Tobacco Products 

North Carolina Farm Bureau (NCFB) announced today that it is joining numerous other agricultural and tobacco-growing organizations in supporting an advertising campaign calling upon Congress and the Obama Administration to urge their counterparts in the Canadian Parliament to oppose or re-examine legislation that would ban American cigarettes blended with burley and flue-cured tobacco. The bill, known as C-32, would impose undue hardships on farmers who grow burley and flue-cured tobacco and could lead to other countries following Canada's protectionist lead, a development that could destroy an entire segment of the American tobacco growing community and affect thousands of jobs in the U.S.

C-32 has passed the House of Commons and will likely be considered by the Canadian Senate when the Parliament returns from its summer recess in September. The bill, which was originally intended to prohibit the production and sale of candy-flavored cigarillos to minors, has been expanded into an overreaching bill that would ban the entire category of American blend cigarettes, leading to loss of thousands of jobs and a worsening of trade relations between the United States and Canada. . . .

The advocacy campaign will feature two print advertisements over the next two weeks in Roll Call, The Hill and Politico, three newspapers that are widely read by Members of Congress, U.S. Senators, and policymakers inside the Obama Administration. The advertisements, which are entitled "Barn" and "Farm Couple," are attached to this press release.

"C-32 must be fixed before it is enacted,"

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• E-cigarettes may face regulatory snuff-out 

Tobacco's younger, shinier cousin - the electronic cigarette - is gearing up for a battle with federal regulators, just as the fledgling industry is getting a foothold in a state built on smoking.

Electronic cigarettes, machines that turn liquid nicotine and flavoring into a vapor, have been sold in the U.S. for two years, and their popularity is surging. But the Food and Drug Administration signaled Wednesday that it might seek to stamp out e-cigarettes in their infancy.

The FDA said it plans to address safety issues, and that could include product recalls or criminal sanctions.

The industry is made up of small firms around the country that mainly sell online. Only one is based in North Carolina, still the country's No. 1 tobacco producer.

The Charlotte company, Blu Cigs, is already branding itself as "E-Cigarettes 2.0" - and sees its product as a symbol for North Carolina's changing economy.

Jason Healy, a native Australian with no prior background in the cigarette industry, launched Blu Cigs in May after seeing an electronic cigarette in a Charlotte bar. . . .

Blu Cigs doesn't market its product as a healthier version of tobacco. Healy mainly promotes Blu as a cheaper alternative to cigarettes. Each nicotine and flavor cartridge costs about $1. . . .

For 300 years, tobacco was the primary economic driver of North Carolina, and the state is still the top producer of tobacco in the U.S. The second- and third-largest U.S. cigarette companies, R.J. Reynolds and Lorillard Tobacco, are based in North Carolina.

But in 1959, the Research Triangle Park near Durham opened, and technology began to rise as the state's prominent industry. Soon after, tobacco began a long, steady decline in popularity and importance.

Blu Cigs embodies the change from tobacco to technology, spokesman Steve Goldberg said. . . .

Dr. Adam Goldstein, director of UNC Chapel Hill's Tobacco Prevention and Evaluation Program, said he's "cautiously worried" about e-cigarettes.

While it's possible that they're healthier than regular cigarettes, they're still a source of addiction and could appeal to younger people. And a new study implied that nicotine could itself be carcinogenic.

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• College students' exposure to secondhand smoke 

A total of 4,275 students completed the survey; however, data for the items assessed in this paper were available from 4,223 students (98.8%). The sample was 61% female and 79% White. Few students (2%) were younger than 18 years; 63% were 18–20 years old and 35% were older than 21 years. The average age of the students was 20.4 years (SD = 2.8). Overall, the sample closely mirrored the composition of the undergraduate population of the 10 participating colleges. . . .

Some 38% of students reported past–7-day exposure to SHS in a car, 55% at home or in the same room as a smoker, and 65% in a bar or restaurant. A total of 83% of students reported any exposure to SHS in the 7 days preceding the survey. . . .

In our large sample of undergraduate students at 10 universities in North Carolina, we found high rates of self-reported SHS exposure. Some 83% of students reported any exposure in the 7 days preceding the survey. Exposure in a restaurant or bar was the most common (reported by 65% of students), followed by exposure at home or in the same room as a smoker (55%) and in a car (38%).

A number of variables were found to be related significantly to either site-specific or any exposure to SHS. Daily smokers and nondaily smokers were more likely than nonsmokers to report exposure, which is not surprising . . .

Characteristics of the larger school environment also were associated with the likelihood of exposure. . . .

Our findings of high rates of self-reported exposure, as well as patterns of exposure that reflect the "ecology" of social networks and smoking locations, may offer some suggestions for intervention strategies. First, the high rates of exposure we observed suggest that college administrators should attend to the issue of student exposure to SHS. Administrators have a responsibility to provide a safe and healthy environment for students. Although administrators may be limited in their ability to affect exposure in some locations—such as off-campus housing and bars and restaurants—they can take steps to reduce smoking and concomitant exposure to SHS among college students. These steps include enacting smoke-free campus policies and offering smoking cessation services, such as those recommended by the American College Health Association (2005).

In addition, the large number of students who report exposure to SHS may offer opportunities for advocacy efforts to change campus policies. In our sample, nearly all nonsmokers (93.9%) and the majority of smokers (57.8%) reported that SHS was somewhat or very annoying (data not shown in the tables). The issue of SHS, and the opportunities it offered to mobilize individuals who were affected by the externalities of smoking, played a critical role in galvanizing tobacco control efforts in the United States and elsewhere (Asbridge, 2004; Malone, Boyd, & Bero, 2000). Students who are exposed to SHS may be an important force in efforts to promote tobacco control policy on college campuses.

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• Rates of secondhand smoke exposure high among college students 

Secondhand smoke (SHS) is not only a nuisance, but a potential health concern for many college students, and administrators should be taking steps to reduce students' exposure, according to a new study by researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

It is the first study to provide evidence of the high rates of SHS exposure, and correlates of exposure, among college students in the United States.

Funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, the study can be found online today and will appear in the July 23 issue of Nicotine & Tobacco Research, a publication of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco.

"It is well-known that there are some serious health issues surrounding secondhand smoke," said Mark Wolfson, Ph.D., lead author on the study, professor and section head for the Section on Society and Health in the Department of Social Sciences and Health Policy. "While some college campuses are smoke free, others have virtually no restrictions on smoking, not even in the residence halls. There is a growing national movement to move away from that, but it still very much varies by campus. In this first study to evaluate SHS exposure among college students, we were really kind of floored to see how many, and how frequently, students are exposed to it." . . .

"Debates about smoking restrictions, especially on college campuses, often revolve around considerations of individual choice," Wolfson said. "However, the issue of SHS exposure brings in the rights of all to a healthy environment. This is an issue which is beginning to resonate with many college administrators."

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• North Carolina hospitals becoming tobacco-free zones 

North Carolina health officials are lauding a milestone in their efforts to spread no-smoking zones.

As of Monday, all of the acute-care hospitals in the state have become tobacco-free campuses.

The voluntary policies mean that smoking is not allowed in the more than 100 hospitals - including their buildings, sidewalks, entrances and parking lots.

The effort began three years ago and has been spearheaded by N.C. Prevention Partners, a nonprofit group based in Chapel Hill. The group received a grant from The Duke Endowment and partnered up with the N.C. Hospital Association to spread the initiative.

Hospitals in Rocky Mount, Louisburg and Eden were expected to switch over the weekend, completing the group's goal.

"North Carolina is leading the nation in tobacco-free hospitals," said Meg Molloy, N.C. Prevention Partners' president and CEO.

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North Carolina is leading the nation in tobacco-free hospitals.
Meg Molloy, president and CEO of N.C. Prevention Partners.

• North Carolina Tobacco Farmers Find Friend in Sen. Hagan  

To hear Sharp rant is to understand why Kay Hagan, North Carolina's new senator, joined Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and 15 other senators to become the only Democrat to vote against the tobacco bill. And if any tobacco farmer has Hagan's ear, it is Sharp.

Last year, when Hagan was a little-known candidate running in an uphill battle to unseat Republican Elizabeth Dole, she campaigned at Sharp's farm. The fiscally conservative tobacco farmers along the I-95 corridor here make up a constituency that often helps swing statewide elections, and they backed Hagan strongly.

Hagan, 55, is no stranger to tobacco. A former lawyer and bank executive, she spent summers as a child stringing the leaves on her grandparents' farm. In the state legislature, she represented Greensboro, the headquarters of Lorillard Tobacco, which employs about 2,500 workers there.

To call Hagan merely a defender of the "golden leaf" industry would be an understatement. She is among tobacco's fiercest backers. In 2005, as co-chairman of the state Senate's appropriations committee, she helped shave back an increase in the cigarette tax from the 45 cents a pack proposed by the governor to 30 cents. During last year's campaign, Hagan received $19,200 from the tobacco industry, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

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• FDA wrinkles its nose at electric cigs  

Moss, who lives in Durham and once smoked three packs a day, wasn't bothered by the lack of studies on the e-cigarette.

"It's unproven," he said, "but I have no fear because I'm not smoking cigarettes."

E-cigarettes are available online as well as in a number of gas stations and at least one mall in the Triangle.

Earlier this year the U.S. Food and Drug Administration began cracking down on the import of the devices, stopping shipments at the border. Most e-cigarettes are manufactured in China.

"Basically, we don't have any data on these products," said Karen Riley, an FDA spokeswoman. . . .

Jed Rose, director of the Duke Center for Nicotine and Smoking Cessation Research, said his lab has done some testing of e-cigarettes that focused on the way they deliver nicotine. E-cigarettes don't deliver all the cancer-causing agents that tobacco cigarettes do, but it's not clear exactly what they put in the user's body.

When asked whether e-cigarettes were safer than tobacco-filled ones, Rose said the required studies have yet to be done: "That's a tough question to answer without safety data." . . .

Moss said he used to spend more than $600 a month for cigarettes for himself and his wife. The e-cigarette habit costs only about $150. And because the vapor has almost no smell, he has smoked his e-cigarette in a movie theater as well as on an airplane.

If e-cigarettes are declared illegal, he said, "we'll go underground like anything else."

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• Senate approves FDA regulation of tobacco  

Government would have broad new authority to regulate tobacco products, slash nicotine and restrict advertising under historic legislation overwhelmingly approved this afternoon by the U.S. Senate.

Health advocates cheered the 79-17 passage of the bill, saying it could prevent thousands of deaths in the future. One of every five Americans uses tobacco, and smoking-related disease kills nearly half a million a year - more than any other preventable cause of death.

But North Carolina tobacco interests said new regulation would cost jobs, hurt farmers, and maintain the market dominance of tobacco giant Phillip Morris of Virginia, maker of Marlboros.

Gov. Beverly Perdue, who just signed into law a smoking ban in most public places in the state, said she nonetheless disagrees with FDA regulation because it would overstep regulatory bounds in restricting adult choices.

"I'm concerned about the direction this conversation is going," Perdue said in an interview.

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