Tobacco.org

• Target 12 Cigarette tax cash going up in smoke 

The Target 12 Investigators uncover tax dollars going up in smoke. We confront cigarette sellers after discovering some may not be honest in paying cigarette taxes.

Target 12 has learned that Rhode Island is losing thousands, potentially millions of dollars to retailers who try and cheat the system and pocket the cash themselves.

Rhode Island raked in more than a hundred million dollars last year. The money was used to pay for things like education and public safety. But now, with the highest cigarette taxes in the country, there's temptation to cheat.

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• Maternal Smoking During Pregnancy and Neonatal Behavior: A Large-Scale Community Study  

METHODS. Participants were mothers and infants from the Providence, Rhode Island, cohort of the National Collaborative Perinatal Project enrolled between 1960 and 1966. . . .

CONCLUSIONS. In a large community sample, exposure to maternal smoking was associated with increased irritability and hypertonicity in neonates. Exposure to maternal smoking did not influence neonatal response to respiratory challenge. This study is the largest-scale investigation to date of the effects of maternal smoking (heavy and moderate) on examiner-assessed neonatal behavior. Given the associations between both maternal smoking and infant irritability and later behavioral dysregulation, results have important implications for early identification and intervention with at-risk offspring.

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• SHORT CHANGED: BROKEN PROMISES ON TOBACCO CONTROL PLACE MILLIONS OF KIDS ACROSS NEW ENGLAND AT RISK FOR ADDICTION AND EARLY DEATH (PDF) 

Ten years after the November 1998 state tobacco settlement, we find that most of the New England states have failed to keep their promise to use a significant portion of the settlement funds to reduce tobacco’s terrible toll on America’s children, families and communities.

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• Report: NE states fall short on tobacco prevention 

Health advocates said Monday that New England states have failed to deliver on a pledge to use settlement money from tobacco companies to pay for prevention programs, with most states funding programs at just one fifth of recommended levels.

The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids released a report detailing how New England states will spend only 2.3 percent of the $1.8 billion in tobacco settlement and tax revenue on tobacco prevention programs this year when these programs save both lives and money by containing health care costs by preventing tobacco-related illness.

"We know for a fact that these programs save lives and reduce health care costs," said Don Gudaitis, CEO of the American Cancer Society's New England Division. "As more and more Americans face a threat of lack of access to health care and lack of access to health insurance, underfunding the most proven way to reduce health care costs is all the more intolerable."

Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island are funding tobacco prevention programs at less than 20 percent of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's recommendations, according to the report.

The report also said Maine and Vermont are the only New England states funding tobacco prevention at half the CDC's recommended levels.

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• Stored gasoline fueled last week’s fatal fire in Cranston 

The fire that killed a 15-year-old boy in a Cranston apartment last week was driven by containers of gasoline stored in his bedroom.

Kyle Mather, a freshman at Cranston High School East, was known as someone who "liked to play with fire" and had been seen starting fires outside, said state Fire Marshal Jack Chartier.

Chartier said it was not known whether Kyle deliberately started the fire that engulfed his bedroom in his family's second-floor apartment at Cranston Commons East, or whether vapors escaping from the three containers of gasoline were ignited accidentally by an open flame, such as a lighter. The boy's mother allowed him to smoke cigarettes, and fire investigators found seven or eight lighters in the charred bedroom, along with the remnants of three gasoline containers.

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• URI program aims at curtailing risky behavior in middle school 

Statewide, 3,400 sixth graders -- roughly a third of public school sixth graders -- are participating in a $3.5-million research experiment, Project BEST. Designed by researchers at the University of Rhode Island, the computerized program aims to guide pre-teens away from smoking and drinking before those risky behaviors take root, as well as encourage them to eat right and exercise.

The program, financed by a five-year grant from the National Institute of Drug Abuse, is being run by URI's Cancer Prevention Research Center, which conducted similar projects for older students and adults in the 1990s that showed improvement, according to the center.

The computer survey asks the students a series of questions and provides support in curbing risky behavior. The students' answers trigger follow-up questions specific to that student. Researchers hope Project BEST's personal approach will help it succeed where other programs targeted toward preventing risky behaviors among middle school students have failed.

"We haven't had a lot of success so far with classroom approaches in health class or with DARE officers talking to kids,"

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• Council OKs disability plan for firefighters with cancer 

From now on, any Providence firefighter diagnosed with cancer will be presumed to have contracted the cancer on the job, and will be given a generous accidental disability pension, assuming they can prove that they do not smoke, use drugs or abuse alcohol, under a measure passed by the City Council last night. . . .

The fire chief and the firefighters union have made the case that firefighters are exposed to numerous carcinogens and have greater risk of developing blood, lung, lymphatic and skin cancer than the rest of the population. . . .

Firefighters would have to submit to annual physical exams administered by doctors hired by the city to prove that they do not use tobacco products, abuse alcohol or use illegal drugs, and sign affidavits stating that they have not used those substances.

Firefighters who use those substances now have a clean slate going forward, but will have to prove on their next annual physical that they are not using them anymore.

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• LETTER: Don Reese: A juror in the smoke-shop case  

Because I was there for every minute of testimony and because I participated in the jury deliberations, it seems absolutely clear to me that this verdict is far from an endorsement of the state police, Atty. Gen. Patrick Lynch and the governor. Only a very narrow view of the trial -- that any finding of guilt was a victory for the state, and only a not-guilty on every charge would have been a victory for the Narragansetts -- could possibly interpret the verdict as vindication for the state. . . .

given the events leading up to that day and the governor's subsequent behavior with regard to the smoke-shop raid, the trial, and the Narragansett Indians, I'm not holding my breath for the day when the tribe gets a fair shake from the governor.

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• The smoke-shop trial: A split decision  

A Superior Court jury found Chief Sachem Matthew Thomas and two other tribal members guilty of misdemeanor charges while clearing four others in an emotional case that pitted the state against its only federally recognized Indian tribe.

The jury of seven women and five men deliberated about 20 hours across four days before reaching a mixed verdict yesterday on 16 misdemeanor counts stemming from the 2003 state police raid on a tax-free smoke shop.

Although the jury found Thomas guilty of assaulting Sgt. Ernest C. Quarry by grabbing him from behind on the smoke-shop landing, they acquitted him of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.

In addition, the jury convicted Tribal Councilman Hiawatha Brown of assaulting Trooper Ann Assumpico by slamming her arm in the shop door, and also of disorderly conduct. He was acquitted of resisting arrest. First Councilman Randy Noka was found guilty of disorderly conduct, while being cleared of resisting arrest.

Though found innocent of 12 counts, the Narragansetts remained bitter about the verdict and the six-week trial itself.

"I think everyone should have been acquitted," said Councilman John Brown, the tribe's medicine-man-in-training who was found not guilty of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.

Bella Noka took a particularly dark view, though cleared of assaulting a trooper, disorderly conduct and obstructing an officer trying to place her husband, Randy, under arrest. "They took our land, another life and now they want more," she said while leaving the courtroom. She repeated -- as heard during trial testimony -- that she was pregnant at the raid. She lost her baby afterward due to hemorrhaging, she said.

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• Trial Begins in Tribal Smoke Shop Raid 

A trial pitting Rhode Island against its only federally recognized American Indian tribe opened Friday with prosecutors saying seven Narragansett Indians should be punished for blocking and fighting state police during 2003 raid on a tribal smoke shop.

But lawyers for the accused, including Chief Sachem Matthew Thomas, said the state has simply decided to flex its muscle against the less powerful 2,400-member tribe. Attorney William Devereaux asked jurors to send a message.

"Your verdict is going to tell people in power we don't accept this, this isn't the way we do things here in the state of Rhode Island," Devereaux said. "There's a better way."

Thomas and six other tribe members are charged with misdemeanor crimes ranging from disorderly conduct to assault.

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• Carcieri cites executive privilege in smoke-shop appeal  

Governor Carcieri yesterday asked the state's highest court to overturn a lower court ruling that he must testify at the trial of seven Narragansett Indians who were arrested after he ordered a raid on a tribal smoke shop.

Arguing that the governor's testimony is unnecessary and would undermine the concept of executive privilege, the appeal asks the Supreme Court for an expedited review that would resolve the matter before the four-year-old case against the tribal members goes to trial on Sept. 17.

A lawyer representing six of the seven tribal members subpoenaed Carcieri on Aug. 1, seeking details on his instructions to then-state police Supt. Steven M. Pare before troopers conducted the raid.

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• Altria's Exit Stuns City, County and State: Joe Mysak (Correct) 

``Philip Morris Quits North Carolina,'' the Charlotte Observer reported on Page 1, summing things up philosophically, and without a trace of hysteria. . . .

When tobacco bonds were first sold in 1999, the report said that cigarette smoking peaked in 1981, when Americans consumed 640 billion of the things. It also said that consumption would fall to 247 billion by 2032. This new edition of the report now puts the 2032 number at 234 billion. By 2052, Americans will be smoking only 163 billion cigarettes.

That's good news and bad news, of course. It's good news for everyone who thinks people should stop engaging in self- destructive behavior, bad news for the states and municipalities that depend upon tobacco companies for jobs and tax revenue and those annual settlement payments.

Altria hopes to shut down the Concord factory by the end of 2010, giving municipal officials -- and bondholders -- plenty of time to think about how they are going to deal with this ``event.''

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• Don't wager on smoke-free gambling 

Gamblers heading to the nonsmoking sections of Lincoln Park and Newport Grand might not be escaping the smoke after all.

A study commissioned by a New Jersey antismoking group shows significant levels of pollutants in the nonsmoking sections of the two gambling halls.

At Lincoln Park, the nonsmoking area was found to be 39 percent as polluted as the track’s smoking section. At Newport Grand, the pollutant levels were 17 to 37 percent of the levels in the smoking section.

The New Jersey Group Against Smoking Pollution (GASP) has been pushing to get Atlantic City to ban smoking in its 12 casinos. The City Council there had initially contemplated an absolute ban but recently moved to a plan where smoking would be prohibited in 75 percent of the gambling space.

The antismoking group conducted testing in Rhode Island as part of an effort to build their case that nonsmoking sections do not protect nonsmokers. They also found that the smoking sections of Rhode Island’s two gambling halls had heavy concentrations of smoke. . . .

Newport Grand did notice a situation where smoke was traveling down an escalator from the smoking to the nonsmoking areas and is taking action to fix it. As part of a planned expansion and renovation, the ventilation systems will be upgraded further.

At Lincoln Park, Stern said continuing construction has hurt air flow. She said that a new addition soon to open will include “state-of-the-art ventilation” and fix any air-quality problems.

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• Smoking foes say casino compromise fails in Rhode Island  

Isolating smoking areas, as are now proposed for Atlantic City casinos, intensifies smoke contamination inside and out of the smoking area, according to a New Jersey anti-smoking group that took readings on similar gaming floors in Rhode Island.

"The more tightly you concentrate the pollution sources, the more highly you increase the pollution," said Regina Carlson, executive director of the Summit-based group called the New Jersey Group Against Smoking Pollution, or GASP.

Carlson said the smoking section in one Rhode Island casino, containing 30 percent of the gaming area, showed more polluted air than the smoking section in another casino, where the smoking section contained 50 percent of the wagering area.

"But most important, for employees and patrons in any of these smoking areas, quite simply, the air is not fit to breathe," Carlson said.

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• Your cigarettes or your job? 

Things have changed a lot since then. Within the last 10 years Mayette and his fellow smokers at Electric Boat, like workers across the country, have been forced to take their smoking off the work floor and into special rooms, then outside altogether. Away from work, they have been pushed out of restaurants and bars.

Soon they will be subjected to the biggest change of all. Starting March 1, Electric Boat will ban all tobacco use at its Quonset Point campus in North Kingstown. The ban will go into effect at the Groton, Conn., facility on July 1.

Part of an overall move to improve the wellness of employees, the new rule will keep workers from smoking or chewing tobacco anywhere on the company’s property. The rule was announced early last year, and since then the company has been helping workers do what they can to quit smoking. But, according to Mayette and his colleagues, the transition hasn’t been easy and the real challenge will be enforcing the rule once it begins.

“I think everyone thinks they should quit and most want to, but it’s not that easy,” said Mayette, who had his last cigarette Nov. 16.

Smoke-free corporate campuses are on the rise across the country, according to Paul Billings, vice president of National Policy and Advocacy for the American Lung Association.

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