Tobacco.org

Police: Mom Left Baby Home Alone To Rob Store Of Tobacco  

Jacqueline Moore, 20, of Rockwood, is accused of putting on a mask and pointing a toy gun at a clerk at the S & S Quick Stop. Police said Moore demanded all of the snuff tobacco behind the counter. The clerk refused, and Moore allegedly fled the scene.

Moore was arrested on charges including leaving her 5-month-old baby home alone.

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• $700,000 Monroe County Jury Award in Careless-Smoking Case  

A Monroe County jury has awarded $700,000 to the insurance company for the owner of a Marshalls Creek building that was destroyed by fire as a result of careless smoking by an employee of an electrical contractor, it was announced today.

The jury deliberated less than two hours at the end of a two-day trial before finding on behalf of Harleysville Insurance Company, represented by the Law Offices of Robert A. Stutman, of Ft. Washington, Pa, in the civil action stemming from the April 21, 2006, fire at the unoccupied building, a former Odd-Lot Outlet store, on Route 209 in Smithfield Township. The 20-year-old building, which was demolished following the fire, was in the process of being renovated into a day care center. Its owner was local developer Frank Riccobono.

Daniel Hogan, Esq., who tried the case for the plaintiff, established that the only possible cause of the fire was careless smoking by one of the two employees of the electrical contractor that had been working in the attic of the two-story structure. Investigators determined that the discarded, smoldering cigarette from the worker ignited the aged attic insulation, which over time loses fire-retardant qualities.

"The worker never admitted smoking while in the attic, where the fire started, that day," said Hogan. "But he testified to carrying cigarettes and a lighter to work and to having been a habitual smoker."

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Mom's cigarette ignites oxygen supply; son charged 

A western Pennsylvania man has been charged with neglecting his disabled mother who weighed just 70 pounds when she died of burns caused when her cigarette caught her oxygen supply on fire.

Police say 53-year-old Rosemary McCurdy died Dec. 26 after suffering facial burns from a "flash fire." The woman had multiple sclerosis and had been bedridden for five years when she was burned Dec. 21.

Police say 22-year-old Victor McCurdy didn't take her to the hospital until five days after she was burned.

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VIDEO: Lit Cigarette Blamed For Fatal Assisted-Living Home Fire 

BRIDGEVILLE, Pa. --

The state fire marshal said a lit cigarette is to blame for a fire at an assisted living high-rise that killed an 86-year-old woman.

More than 100 senior citizens were evacuated Monday from the 11-story Bridgeville Towers at 479 Bank St.

Fire crews were called to the building shortly after 7 p.m. and found Dorothy Haskins burned inside a fourth-floor apartment, where the fire started.

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• Today’s smokeless tobacco is just as addictive and marketed to the young 

It's a misconception that just because you don't smoke nicotine, it is less addictive and less dangerous than a cigarette.

That's the fallacy and danger behind a marketing ploy for a new take on a centuries old product, snuff.

Whereas the old snuff, popular in the 1970s and 1980s in round paper containers or bags under the name Copenhagen or Skoal, was chewed and spit out, today's snuff comes in fancy containers with equally avant-garde aromas and names. And unlike its predecessor, this snuff isn't pinched into one's gums or chewed, it's inhaled through the nostrils. And it isn't being used just by baseball players or teenage boys emulating their sports idols.

Snuff is being marketed to tweens, teens and college students, both female and male, as hip, cool and healthy. It's available for a nominal cost with a simple click online.

Yet, it's anything but harmless, according to an area ear, nose and throat specialist, who is concerned that in any form, nicotine is extremely addictive. And what makes snuff so dangerous is that it doesn't fall under any federal regulations, according to a local tobacco expert.

Many feel it's the burning and inhaling of tobacco that exposes users to most carcinogens. Some specialists feel that, for health reasons, if you are going to use tobacco, you are better off using nasal snuff. But nasal snuff contains nicotine and is highly addictive, says Dr. Zephron Newmark, an ENT specialist with Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center, Plains Township.

"There is danger for long-term use," said Newmark. "If you become hooked, it can be difficult to stop."

Tony Delonti, a member of the local chapter of the American Lung Association who also serves on the Luzerne County Tobacco Free Coalition, said these latest products are outside the realm of the regular tobacco industry. "It's not a direct tobacco product so it's not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration and it doesn't come under the recent tobacco guidelines passed by the Obama administration," he said. . . .

Just how addictive and seductive is cigarette smoking and a nicotine habit to area youth?

According to a 2007 survey by Steps To A HealthierPA Luzerne County, more than half of the teens surveyed (52 percent) reported trying a cigarette. About 12 percent indicated that they had smoked their first cigarette before the age of 13. About 22 percent smoked during the past month with about 7 percent saying they smoked at school. Approximately 14 percent said they smoked 20 or more days in the past month.

More than half of the respondents (53 percent) also said they had tried to quite the habit during the past year.

Education still remains the most viable tool to get children to pass up on snuff

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Cigarette Smokers to Pay Price for New Budget 

Now that the state budget has been signed, those affected are getting a look at how the spending plan will affect them.

For some tobacco users it's going to mean higher prices to take a drag.

Sharon Minarchick of Mahanoy City wasn't happy Monday when she bought her cigarettes. She found out soon she will be paying more for every pack she buys because of a new cigarette tax included in the new state budget.

"I am not going to be smoking that much. Instead of a carton a week I'll go down to half," Minarchick said.

Dealers said although the price of a pack of cigarettes is going up by 25 cents a pack, the price of a pack of small cigars, is going up by $1.60 a pack.

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Pennsylvania’s Rendell Signs $27.8 Billion Budget, Ends Impasse 

Pennsylvania Governor Edward Rendell signed a $27.8 billion budget more than three months into the state’s fiscal year, ending the longest-running financing delay of any U.S. state.

The plan, which the Senate approved yesterday and the House passed Oct. 7, raises cigarette taxes

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• Smoking bans slow to filter in for some areas 

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- From West Virginia to the West Coast, smokers are trying to fend off further restrictions on their habit, and local officials are starting to listen.

In some cases, smoking bans have even been rescinded or postponed, a much less common occurrence than officials declining to impose restrictions.

Opponents of smoking restrictions say these rollbacks are largely driven by economic woe, with local governments wary of imposing new costs or business burdens on restaurants and bars that may already be struggling.

"The economy is in a slump, and these bans almost always hurt the shot-and-beer-type bars and some restaurants," said Gary Nolan, U.S. regional director of the Citizens Freedom Alliance, which opposes laws that restrict smoking.

"If times are trying now in the hospitality industry, you're compounding that by telling bar owners they can't cater to their own crowd," he said.

The concerns of bars and fraternal organizations were at the forefront of a dispute over a proposal in Berkeley County to ban smoking in those establishments.

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Pennsylvania Escapes Cigar Tax 

Pennsylvania cigar lovers may soon have cause to celebrate as lawmakers presented the governor a bill to end the state's 101-day budget impasse that does not include a tax on large cigars.

Previous versions of the budget bill HB1531 had included the state's first-ever cigar tax of 30 percent. Aside from Florida, Pennsylvania is the only state in the union not to tax premium cigars.

The cigar tax, as well as taxes on natural-gas drilling, performance arts and small games of chance, became the focus of a political battle between Democrats, who control the House, and Republicans, who hold a majority in the Senate, that has lasted 101 days.

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Editorial: GOP dilemma 

It's easy to see why Senate Republicans in Harrisburg are upset with worthy last-minute budget changes by House Democrats after the two sides had reached an accord.

House Democrats now want to replace two unpopular taxes with a tax on cigars and the extraction of natural gas. But Republican opposition suggests a link to campaign money from tobacco and energy companies. . . . House Democrats instead proposed to tax cigars and smokeless tobacco, two ideas with broad public support everywhere but in the Senate GOP. Could this be because the tobacco industry donated more than $415,000 to political candidates and their committees in Pennsylvania in 2008 - 81 percent of it to Republicans?

Lobbyists for tobacco giant Altria reportedly persuaded legislative leaders to tax cigarillos but not big cigars. Altria owns cigar-making plants in Limerick and King of Prussia.

That may help explain why Pennsylvania is the only state without a tax on smokeless tobacco, and one of only two (Florida is the other) without a tax on cigars.

It may also explain why when deals get cut in a smoke-filled room, fat cigars remain tax free.

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Cuts snuff smoking cessation programs 

Banks completed a smoking cessation program through the Sadler Health Center and the Cumberland-Perry Drug & Alcohol Commission.

“I’ve never gone back,” she said. “I credit that program. I do not think I could’ve done it with without everyone’s support on a weekly basis. I don’t think I’d have ever quit if I hadn’t done that program.”

But programs like the one Banks completed are facing funding cuts in the state budget.

Massive cuts

The state budget compromise proposed by legislators and Gov. Ed Rendell includes a 50 percent cut in tobacco prevention and cessation programming, cutting funding from $32.2 million to $16.1 million.

“This would have devastating effects on our programs,” said Jack Carroll, director of Cumberland-Perry Drug & Alcohol Commission.

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LETTER: It should matter to officials that anti-smoking efforts work  

As a chemical dependency therapist, a cardiac rehab specialist and a smoking cessation specialist, I am appalled that settlement funding is being reduced for prevention and cessation programs ("State Cuts Imperil No-Smoking Efforts," Sept. 28). What is the logic behind this? . . .

When prevention programs reach youth and make an impact on a young person's life, why doesn't this matter? When someone with heart disease quits smoking and increases her survival rate, why doesn't this matter? When a group member announced that she can walk up a hill since quitting, why doesn't this matter?

I ask someone why doesn't any of this matter? What is the logic?

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Pa. House Dems vote for new taxes on gas, tobacco 

Pennsylvania's long trek toward a state budget took another sharp turn Friday, as House Democrats passed their own tax package just two weeks after their leaders made a different deal with the state Senate and Gov. Ed Rendell.

The largely party-line vote doomed a Sunday deadline for full budget passage that Rendell had asked for earlier in the week, and it irritated Senate Republicans who thought they had already negotiated an end to the months-old stalemate.

Democrats replaced proposals to tax small games of chance that veterans' clubs, fire companies and similar groups conduct as fundraisers and tickets to staged arts events, museums and other cultural institutions with a natural gas severance tax and expanded tobacco-products taxes.

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State cuts imperil no-smoking efforts 

Faced with a 50 percent cut in state funding, Tobacco Free Allegheny plans to dismantle nine of its 12 contracted programs after Wednesday.

"Should the budget materialize with full funding, we can restore the programs, but we're not overly optimistic that will happen," Executive Director Cindy Thomas said.

"We're spending at the rate of a full budget -- we thought we were getting just over $2.1 million. If the cut goes through ... we'll only have $1 million for the year."

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MINOTT: Pennsylvania's smoking prevention programs on the budget chopping block  

In 1998, Pennsylvania's attorney general settled a lawsuit with the country's major tobacco companies recovering some of the financial burden imposed by the industry's predatory practices. Big Tobacco was made to pay $11.3 billion over 20 years.

In 2001, the Pennsylvania Legislature passed Act 77 that allocated that money to various health care concerns. Almost all of the funds went to offset the costs of gaps in insurance and into supporting research. Only a small portion was dedicated to preventing tobacco use among children and helping adults stop smoking.

Despite the minimal allocations, Pennsylvania's smoking cessation and prevention programs have been extremely successful. . . .

What is particularly frustrating is that the tobacco settlement fund is designed specifically to address the harms caused by tobacco and yet those are the programs being cut so the money can be used elsewhere. Joseph Otis Minott The proposed budget before the Pennsylvania Legislature that drastically cuts smoking cessation and prevention programs will only add to the continuing health care crises in Pennsylvania.

As someone who has spent decades working to protect the environmental health of Pennsylvanians, I have been calling, writing and e-mailing Pennsylvania's legislators to beg them not to make these shortsighted cuts.

Most offices are not aware of the proposed cuts and seem to understand why they are a bad idea. Every so often, I get "we had to make cuts somewhere."

This is not an acceptable answer.

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