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• Tacoma bans smoking in public parks 

By a 6-3 vote, the Tacoma City Council approved late Tuesday an ordinance that makes smoking in any public park in the city illegal.

"To me, this is like the noise ordinance," said Councilman Jake Fey, who supported the measure. "There needs to be a balance."

The ordinance makes such public smoking a misdemeanor punishable by up to a $25 fine, although city officials have said police do not plan to actively enforce the law.

Supporters said the measure is a way to protect seniors, children and others from the dangers of second-hand smoke, as well as to promote overall healthy living.

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• Statewide Teen Smoking-Cessation Trial is the First to Achieve Significant Increase in Prolonged Quit Rates  

For the first time, researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have demonstrated that it is possible to successfully recruit and retain a large number of adolescent smokers from the general population into a smoking intervention study and, through personalized, proactive telephone counseling, significantly impact rates of six-month continuous quitting. These findings, by Arthur V. Peterson Jr., Ph.D., Kathleen A. Kealey and colleagues, are reported in a pair of papers in the Oct. 12 "Advance Access" online edition of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

"When this study started, despite decades of research and dozens of intervention trials, there was no proven way to reach teens from the general population and recruit them into smoking cessation programs, and there was no proven way to help these teens quit," said Peterson, a member of the Hutchinson Center's Public Health Sciences Division and lead author of the paper that reported the results of the Hutchinson Study of High School Smoking, the largest randomized trial of teen smoking cessation ever conducted.

The trial, funded by the National Institutes of Health, involved 2,151 teenage smokers from 50 high schools in Washington.

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• Study: Teen smoking curbed by phone counseling 

A Seattle-based study has found an improved way to trim teen smoking.

That improvement is small, but significant.

A type of phone counseling posted a 4 percentage point higher success rate than a control group to get teens to quit smoking, a Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Institute study concluded.

The results were published Monday in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Acknowledging that a 4 percent improvement is small, Arthur Peterson Jr., one of the researchers, said this is the first time that such an experiment to get teens to quit smoking has shown a solid increase in positive results.

The bottom line is that the new approach being tested showed a 21.8 percent success rate in getting high school seniors to quit smoking for six months, compared with a control group's success rate of 17.7 percent.

"This shows there is still a lot to do. ... There is clearly a need to take the next step to see how the smoking intervention can be improved," Peterson said.

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• Governor blasted over anti-smoking program cuts 

A leading researcher of secondhand smoke sharply criticized the governor and the Legislature on Wednesday for cutting tobacco-control programs nearly in half, saying the cost to the health-care system will quickly overcome any short-term savings.

"Gov. Gregoire is no longer the anti-tobacco governor," Stanton Glantz, professor of cardiology at the University of California, San Francisco, told a group of public health professionals meeting at the Yakima Convention Center.

"The fact that she let the program be gutted means she's just riding on the old coattails."

Gov. Chris Gregoire made her name as state attorney general in 1998 by leading the states in negotiating a master settlement with tobacco companies that poured billions into state coffers nationwide.

That settlement still brings in about $120 million a year to Washington state, with most going to pay for state-subsidized health care.

But the 2009 Legislature cut 43 percent from the state's $28.5 million-a-year tobacco-control program

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• Possible Tacoma park smoking ban burns some  

The City Council’s public safety committee voted 3-1 late last month to back a proposal to ban smoking anywhere in any city park. The committee sent the measure to the full council, which is set to decide on it next month.

Supporters say the ordinance isn’t about punishment, but awareness of public health and safety.

“The whole idea behind this has always been … an opportunity to again help educate folks about the dangers of tobacco and second-hand smoke,” said City Councilman Rick Talbert, who also chairs the Tacoma-Pierce County Board of Health. “It has never been to be punitive.”

Committee members had considered a ban on smoking only near playgrounds or other areas where children frequent, but most instead backed the all-inclusive prohibition. Banning smoking in only designated areas would be too difficult to enforce, supporters reasoned, possibly requiring more regulatory signs and increased costs.

“The whole concept of trying to manage the smoking ban in piecemeal, it almost starts not to make sense,” Councilwoman Marilyn Strickland said.

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• 7 charged in Seattle contraband cigarette case 

Seven people, and a Native American reservation tobacco supplier being sued by a number of states, have been charged with arranging contraband cigarette shipments to an Indian-owned store without paying $28 million in Washington state taxes.

The charges, contained in two grand jury indictments issued in U.S. District Court in Seattle, center on accusations of untaxed cigarette shipment to the Blue Stilly Smoke Shop in Arlington, about 30 miles north of Seattle, a store described in court records as a hotbed of contraband tobacco dealing for years.

Blue Stilly's three founders, all former Stillaguamish tribal council members, were sentenced to prison in March for involvement in untaxed cigarette sales.

Charges of conspiracy to traffic in contraband cigarette and conspiracy to launder monetary instruments in the sale of untaxed cigarettes were filed last week against Rick Conn, owner of Studio City, Calif. cigarette brokerage Moorpark Ventures, and three distributors - Carol M. Silverman and Jay D. Silverman, owners of FTS Distributors in Murrieta, Calif.; and Matthew M. Cunningham, owner of MRC Enterprises LLC in Albuquerque, N.M.

They are accused of arranging with Robert Stuber, owner of Cowlitz Candy & Tobacco Co. Inc. of Longview, to ship more than a million cartons of cigarettes to Blue Stilly,

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• Second Breast Cancer: 3 Lifestyle Risks 

The study, published in the advance online edition of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, focused on women with estrogen receptor-positive (ER-positive) breast cancer. Most breast cancers are ER-positive, which means the tumors grow when exposed to the hormone estrogen.

Data came from more than 1,000 Seattle-area breast cancer patients, including 365 women who developed a second breast cancer in their opposite breast.

The women were interviewed about their smoking and drinking; their BMI (body mass index) was noted in their medical records.

The odds of developing a second breast cancer in the opposite breast were greater for obese women, for women who drank at least seven alcoholic beverages per week, and current smokers.

"We found that obese women had a 50% increased risk, women who consumed at least one alcoholic drink per day had a 90% increased risk, and women who were current smokers had a 120% increased risk of developing a second breast cancer," researcher Christopher Li, MD, PhD, says in a news release.

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• Illegal tobacco trade hurting producers: MPP 

Canadian politicians and tobacco producers are clamouring for action on the illegal tobacco trade after a U. S. grand jury in the state of Washington indicted two founding partners of a Six Nations cigarette maker accused of taking part in a conspiracy to supply contraband cigarettes.

Haldimand-Norfolk MPP Toby Barrett said in weekend interview that he couldn't speak to the specifics of the case, but he was quick to say enforcement eff orts north of the border have been woefully insufficient in countering cross-border contraband activities.

"In Canada and, particularly, Ontario, we are not seeing adequate enforcement with respect to the illegal trade of tobacco products, and both the federal and provincial governments need to do more," Barrett said.

"This trade eliminated most of our Ontario tobacco growers who cannot compete while producing a legitimate product. We've seen the blatant establishment of smoke shacks, particularly on Highway 6 and Highway 54, and not enough is being done to stop it."

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• Parents Play Key Role In Whether Teen Tobacco Use Becomes A Daily Habit 

Researchers have found new evidence showing that parents play a key role in whether or not their adolescent children who experiment with tobacco progress to become daily smokers before they graduate from high school.

A study published on-line and in the September issue of journal Pediatrics shows that parents can be a positive or negative influence on their children's future smoking habit.

"If parents really don't want their children to smoke they need to communicate that by establishing clear guidelines in their families about not smoking and discuss them with their school-age children." said Min Jung Kim, a research scientist with the University of Washington's Social Development Research Group and lead author of the study.

At the same time, parents can increase their children's chances of smoking by their own use of tobacco.

"If parents smoke, teens have more access to cigarettes than teens who have non-smoking parents. A second preventive measure for smoking parents is to quit smoking themselves," said Kim. . . .

She recommends that parents "should not ignore children's experimental smoking at any age because it put them at great risk of progressing to daily smoking." To do that, parents should:

* Set and enforce clear guideline about tobacco.

* Monitor to ensure that your children are following your guidelines.

* Know and monitor your children's friends.

* Provide clear, consistent and positive consequences for following those guidelines and appropriate, consistent negative consequences for violating them.

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• Adult Smoking Drops Again, Saving Lives and $2.8 Billion in Future Health Care Costs 

Washington's adult smoking rate has hit a new low for the sixth consecutive year. Results from the state's most recent survey show the smoking rate has dropped to 15.3 percent -- down from 16.5 percent the previous year. Washington has the sixth lowest smoking rate in the nation and remains well below the national rate of 18.4 percent.

"Tobacco prevention and control is a priority in our state, and it's paying off. Fewer people who smoke means fewer people suffering or dying from tobacco-related diseases. It also means our state will save billions of dollars in future health care costs," said Governor Chris Gregoire. "We must continue to look for ways to reach people who are addicted to this deadly habit, and keep kids from ever starting so they'll live longer, healthier lives."

The adult smoking rate in Washington has dropped more than 30 percent since the state began its Tobacco Prevention and Control Program in 2000. There are now 295,000 fewer people smoking in the state and an estimated 98,000 people will be spared early, tobacco-related deaths. The decline in smoking will save an estimated $2.8 billion in future health care costs. The state has reached its 10-year goal of reducing the adult smoking rate to 16.5 percent or less by 2010. With that the Department of Health has established a new goal of reducing adult smoking to 14 percent or less by 2013.

The department is refocusing efforts to help groups still smoking at higher rates. There are 770,000 adults who smoke in Washington; the majority are from either lower income or lower educational backgrounds. The smoking rate for people with low income is 31 percent; that's more than three times as high as the 10 percent smoking rate for people with higher income.

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• Cigarette wars  

Gottfriedson was one of dozens of Pacific Northwest Indians in recent years to face federal charges over the sale of untaxed cigarettes. She was ordered to repay $9.2 million in back taxes, but because she used the proceeds to benefit the tribe, the judge — impressed by the respect she enjoyed among Northwestern tribes — sentenced her to only five years' probation. State and federal officials say members of other tribes became cogs in the wheels of international cigarette smuggling operations and spent their profits on lavish homes and luxury cars, all in the name of tribal sovereignty.

According to 2003 estimates by Washington's Liquor Control Board, the state has lost up to $223 million each year from the sale of untaxed cigarettes, with 60 percent of that loss due to Indian-owned smoke shops. The battle has been simmering since at least 1980, when a federal court judge ruled that Washington has the right to tax tobacco sold to non-Indians and members of other tribes on the Colville Indian Reservation. Many tribes consider the decision a blow to sovereignty, says Melody McCoy of the Native American Rights Fund in Colorado.

"The court allowed the state taxing jurisdiction to leap over reservation boundaries," she says.

Washington state lawmakers decided in 2001 to negotiate compacts that require tribes to tax cigarettes sold to non-Indians but allow the tribes to keep the tax revenue. Lawmakers hoped the solution would appease the tribes without undercutting non-Indian sellers.

Since then, Washington has increased its tobacco tax to $2.025 per pack, the fifth-highest in the country. Even as many tribes sign compacts with the state, prosecutors are cracking down on Indians who sell untaxed smokes.

Washington is a hotbed for counterfeit, smuggled and tax-free cigarettes because of its high tax, and because it shares a long border with Idaho, where sales laws are less stringent.

The state is also home to 29 federally recognized tribes who have a long history of fighting for rights originally guaranteed by treaties signed in the 1800s.

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• Camel violated ban on using cartoons to sell cigarettes, judge rules 

The four-page Camel cigarette ad in Rolling Stone magazine two years ago was a surrealistic journey to a place called "Camel Farm," where a woman with a retro hairdo sprouted from a green field; where a gramophone, a disembodied hand and a trippy tractor drifted through the air.

It was meant to connect Camels with alternative music, and the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company argued it was far from Joe Camel, the Disneyesque spokescharacter of yesteryear that got it in so much trouble.

But a state Appeals Court ruled Monday that the company nonetheless violated a ban on using cartoons to sell smokes. Now a King County Superior Court judge may have to decide what sanctions the company will face for its ad.

"The Camel Farm imagery depends entirely upon the suspension of the laws of nature," Appeals Court Judge Anne Ellington wrote in the ruling. . . .

However, the court also ruled against the state's contention that a Rolling Stone feature that ran alongside the ad, and also included cartoons, was not R.J. Reynolds' fault.

Assistant Attorney General Rene Tomisser said he was gratified by the ruling because it affirms the state's contention that "it doesn't have to be a cartoon directed at kids ... Any cartoon fits the bill," he said.

Still, it's unclear what, if any, penalty Downing could impose on R.J. Reynolds now.

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Under a blue sky in a pastoral Eden, roosters hitch rides on floating tractors, speakers grow out of the ground and radios fly. This is in a world where the natural laws do not obtain, where cancer and serious health problems can cease to exist. For a product known to cause both, such a world is a potent sales device.
Appeals Court Judge Anne Ellington, on RJR's "Camel Farm" ad in Rolling Stone.

• State Of Washington, App. V. R.j. Reynolds Tobacco Co., Res.  

The chief question here is whether a Reynolds advertisement in the November 15, 2007 edition of Rolling Stone violated this prohibition. A secondary question is whether Reynolds had a duty to ensure the adjacent content within the magazine did not violate the cartoon prohibition.

The trial court ruled the Reynolds advertisement did not violate the cartoon ban and that Reynolds did not cause Rolling Stone's use of cartoons in the editorial content enfolded by the advertisement. The court also ruled that because the Rolling Stone cartoon material was unforeseeable, Reynolds had no duty to prohibit its use.

The State appeals. We affirm the ruling that Reynolds is not liable for the Rolling Stone content. But we hold that Reynolds' advertisement violated the settlement agreement. We therefore reverse.

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• Wash. court: Cartoon cigarette ads broke agreement 

For the second time in two months, a court said Monday that an advertisement RJ Reynolds placed in Rolling Stone magazine broke the tobacco industry's 1998 settlement with the states by using cartoons, and the company will have to pay damages.

The Washington state Court of Appeals overturned a lower court's finding that content Reynolds produced for the 2007 Rolling Stone advertisement did not include cartoons.

Though the photographic images weren't Disney-style illustrations, the appeals court said they were cartoonishly arranged in a bucolic collage. The theme of the "Camel Farm" ad campaign was that Reynolds was helping to support - grow - independent music.

At least eight states - Maine, Ohio, California, Illinois, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Washington - sued the Winston-Salem, N.C.-based company after the fold-out advertisement appeared in one of Rolling Stone's special 40th anniversary issues. . . .

The Maine and Ohio judges sided with the company and California came back with a split decision. In May, a Pennsylvania judge became the first to hold Reynolds liable, ordering the company to pay $302,000 or run a full-page anti-smoking ad in Rolling Stone. Reynolds vowed to appeal.

Washington's court said Monday that Reynolds couldn't be held liable for content produced by Rolling Stone without the company's knowledge, but that the company's own content fell within the settlement's cartoon prohibition, aimed at restricting the tobacco industry's ability to market to young people.

The decision overturned a ruling by King County Superior Court Judge William Downing

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• Judge dismisses Nisqually cigarette sale lawsuit 

A federal court judge has upheld an arrangement between Washington state and the Squaxin Island Tribe that allows cigarette sales at Frank's Landing, a small Indian community between Fort Lewis and Olympia.

For years a smoke shop at Frank's Landing illegally sold untaxed cigarettes. But after federal agents raided it in 2007, the community agreed to lease the shop to the Squaxins, who had authority to tax cigarette sales and use the money for local projects.

Gov. Chris Gregoire formalized the arrangement by amending the state's tobacco compact with the Sqauxins. That upset the nearby Nisqually Tribe, which argued that Frank's Landing was undercutting its own cigarette sales.

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