Email
Password
(Forgot Password?)
The 34th Great American Smokeout, sponsored by the American Cancer Society, is scheduled to take place Nov. 19. The purpose of the event is to set aside day to help smokers quit smoking, quit using tobacco products, for at least one day, with the hope they will decide to quit completely.
The Great American Smokeout began in 1971 when a Massachusetts resident asked people to give up smoking for a day and to donate the money they would have spent on tobacco to a local high school.
The best way to prevent lung cancer is to never start smoking at all. . . .
Texas AgriLife Extension Service and the Texas Cancer Council encourage all smokers to take part in the Great American Smokeout on Nov. 19 in a step to eventually quit smoking.
For more information, contact Rita M. Hodges, county extension agent for family and consumer sciences, 701 S. Interstate 35E, Suite 3, Waxahachie; call 972-825-5175; or e-mail rmhodges@ag.tamu.edu.
Jump to full article »
Based on a recent survey of Lone Star College-Kingwood students, faculty and employees and in light of new information about the increasing health risks of second-hand smoke, administrators have approved a new smoking ban policy to be implemented on campus. Effective Jan. 1, 2010, smoking will only be allowed in three designated smoking shelters, located by the parking lots where others will not have to be exposed to second-hand smoke.
“When our campus conducted its own smoking survey in September, almost 400 students and employees responded,” said LSC-Kingwood President Dr. Katherine Persson. “Eighty-three percent of the respondents indicated that second-hand smoke was a concern for them with 73 percent of the respondents concerned about long-term health effects. While the respondents’ preferred smoking policy is to ban smoking everywhere on the LSC-Kingwood campus, more indicated that the best policy for us is to allow smoking only in shelters built for that purpose.”
A campus-wide smoke ban is being discussed in an ASG committee meeting.
At least 365 campuses in the United States are smoke-free, according to the 2009 report taken by American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation.
ASG Sen. Dallen Terrell, who is researching the potential legislation, said he wants Texas State to become 366th. He said the initiative for a campus-wide smoke ban is meant to direct and advise students to healthier lifestyles. Terrell said people who smoke on-campus absorb efforts for the university’s beautification and intrude on students’ right to a healthy, intellectually conducive environment.
“When you obtrude on others rights (to clean air), your rights normally cease,” Terrell said. “Infamous smoking tables like the ones outside Elliot Hall blatantly disregard that a smoking policy even exists.”
The Smoke-Free Waco coalition vowed Wednesday to continue to fight for a comprehensive smoking ordinance after the Waco City Council Tuesday rejected an outright ban on smoking in bars, restaurants and workplaces in favor of tightening restrictions in the city’s existing ordinance.
"In voting for this weak compromise, the Waco City Council is saying that some of our citizens are more valuable and deserve more protection than others. That's not right,” said Dr. Bradford W. Holland, the coalition’s spokesman and the president-elect of the McLennan County Medical Society.
"The smoke-free debate is not over in Waco. These laws are sweeping the nation, we are lagging behind, and one day soon we will need to revisit this issue,” he said.
The new ordinance eliminates exemptions that allowed smoking in restaurants with fewer than eight employees and between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. in restaurants with fewer than 15 workers.
A sharply divided Waco City Council on Tuesday voted to tighten city smoking ordinances after hitting a 3-3 deadlock on a more comprehensive smoking ban.
The council also approved a resolution Tuesday that will remove Dumpster-style bins from alleys and provide those customers with curbside trash collection.
The new smoking ordinance eliminates several exemptions in the current smoking ordinance but preserves exemptions for existing bars as well as restaurants with sealed-off smoking sections. Mayor Virginia DuPuy said she thinks a comprehensive smoke-free ordinance eventually will pass and ban smoking even in those places.
The Waco City Council tonight will attempt to extinguish smoldering controversies over tobacco and trash.
The council will vote on whether to remove metal trash bins from alleys and require all residents to take their trash to the curb. It also will vote on tougher restrictions against indoor smoking, possibly banning smoking in restaurants and bars.
The council has debated both topics for months in work sessions and agreed to bring them to a vote after failing to reach consensus. . . .
The council is expected to adopt one of two possible smoking ordinances. One is a "smoke-free" option that would forbid almost all public indoor smoking. The other would streamline the unwieldy 2002 smoking ordinance by removing several exemptions but continue to permit smoking in restaurants with sealed-off smoking sections and in bars.
The Waco-McLennan County Health District and the McLennan County Medical Society have endorsed the smoke-free ordinance, while some restaurateurs and bar owners have opposed it. The council appears evenly split between the two alternative ordinances.
An investigation by the state Fire Marshal's Office determined Friday evening that unsafe smoking practices caused the fatal house fire earlier that afternoon in the 800 block of 13th Street in Shallowater.
Kelly Vandygriff, an investigator with the Fire Marshal's Office, said the fire claimed the life of only one victim, an adult woman whose name he was not authorized to release Saturday. The fire resulted from "unsafe smoking practices" in one of the house's rear bedrooms, he said.
This study is for people who are depressed and want to quit smoking. Participants will receive nicotine patches and counseling.
The research site is in Houston, Texas.
More information
Please see http://www.clinicalconnection.com/clinical_trials/condition/smoking.aspx.
Prominent Houston attorney John O'Quinn was one of two men who died this morning when their speeding SUV slammed into a tree on Allen Parkway after the driver apparently lost control, police said.
"I'm stunned. The community lost one of its biggest assets," said Rick Laminack, who worked with O'Quinn from 1987 until 2006. "He was a great lawyer who shared a lot of his wealth with people who needed help."
This story originally ran Jan. 11, 1998
. . .
Texas' lawsuit against the major tobacco companies, in which O'Quinn is serving as lead attorney, went on hold for several months, then added another major player, South Carolina tobacco specialist Ron Motley, with whom O'Quinn would have to share the stage. . . .
The great cases and big victories will return, one expects, assuming he does not lose his license. The tobacco case reportedly is on the verge of settling, leaving the plaintiff lawyers with $1 billion or more to split up. But the weight of the accusations and the headlines they've generated has been great.
The Waco City Council is voting on a prospective smoking ordinance on Tuesday. The council will vote on whether to add additional restrictions to the current policies or to ban smoking altogether except in private locations and retail tobacco stores. Through either method, the council hopes to lessen secondhand smoke to non-smokers.
Waco's current smoking ordinance generally forbids smoking at indoor workplaces but allows smoking in bars, small food establishments and small businesses.
While The Lariat supports council's valiant effort to reduce secondhand smoke, passing an ordinance that completely removes the ability to smoke from every place except for homes, tobacco stores and outdoor areas would be too large of a detriment for some businesses.
Those that smoke have every right to patronize the same businesses as non-smokers. Instead of banning smoking altogether, council should take a closer look at what the council is calling "Option 2," an ordinance that is less strict in that it would ban smoking in restaurants and other businesses that do not have separate ventilation for its smoking parties.
Tobacco Town started carrying the products a few months ago. They come with nicotine and without. Distributors say they're becoming more popular.
"A lot of bars and restaurants are in favor of it actually," said Jim Jinright, an electronic cigarette supplier.
Not all bars are smoke-free, but the trend is heading that direction. The Dallas ban took effect in April.
"I've actually had to stop people a couple of times and say oh no, no, no. There's no smoking in here," said Nicole Strawbridge, a bartender at Al's Hideaway.
Now many smokers have to go outside or find an alternative.
'You're more than welcome to bring your electronic cigarettes in here, feel free to light up, or turn it on or whatever," Strawbridge said.
The assistant director for Dallas City Code Compliance says there's nothing about electronic cigarettes on the books, so they're not prohibited in bars. That could change, because he's asked the City Attorney whether the code should be updated. It's currently under advisement.
It's also important to note opposition from health organizations.
By a split vote of 5-2, the Palestine City Council approved an ordinance Monday night which will essentially ban smoking in public places.
Private clubs, bars and bingo halls are exempt from the ordinance which is largely patterned after ones already in place in Tyler and College Station.
Mayor Bob Herrington and council members Andrea Baird, Vernon Denmon Jr., Kathi Masonheimer and Steve Presley voted for the stricter ordinance, while council members Vickey Chivers and Jim Yelverton cast the dissenting votes.
A federal judge in Texas will hear a lawsuit claiming that disgraced former trial attorney Richard "Dickie" Scruggs and several others conspired to defraud a former colleague of millions of dollars in legal fees.
Chief Judge Edith Jones of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday ordered the case be reassigned to U.S. District Judge David Hittner in Houston, Texas.
The lawsuit against Scruggs was filed by William Roberts Wilson Jr. of Tuscaloosa, Ala. He and Scruggs, who currently suits in federal prison, once worked together suing asbestos companies.
Smoking in public places, places of employment and some outdoor areas will be prohibited here under an ordinance adopted Monday by Palestine City Council. Bars, nightclubs and some other places are exempted from the smoking ban.
The ordinance further makes it unlawful to smoke within 20 feet of outside entrances, operable windows and ventilation systems of enclosed areas where smoking is prohibited.
In an unrelated action, the council extended hours for the sale of mixed beverages to 2 a.m.
The nonsmoking order, passed by a majority of councilmembers with two nay votes, makes employers responsible for providing a smoke-free workplace for employees.
It charges the owner, manager or other persons in control of a public place or a place of employment to post "No Smoking" signs conspicuously at the entrance.