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• Newspaper Wins Access To Public Comments 

A Morgantown newspaper has won unrestricted access to nearly 3,600 public comments on a countywide smoking ban proposed for Monongalia County.

Monongalia County Circuit Judge Robert Stone ruled in favor of The Dominion Post on Wednesday.

The newspaper had filed a complaint against the county Board of Health last week after the board refused to release the names, addresses and telephone numbers of the people who made the comments.

Phil Magro, an assistant county prosecutor who represented the board, asked Stone to bar access to the letters in their entirety. He argued that the comments were protected under a Freedom of Information Act exemption that restricts internal memoranda or letters received or prepared by any public body from public disclosure.

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RESA VIII presents anti-tobacco gear to local high school baseball teams  

RESA III Tobacco Prevention Program is distributing baseball gear to all high school baseball teams throughout the Eastern Panhandle. The Keyser High RAZE Crew assisted Donna Kuhn, RESA VIII Tobacco Prevention Specialist with the presentation of the gear to the Keyser High Junior Varsity baseball team. Members of the Divisions youth-led anti-tobacco program, RAZE, in conjunction with the Division's spit tobacco Cessation Program Save Face distributed personalized baseball scorebooks highlighting tobacco facts.

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1200 Sign Smoking Ban Petition in Marion County  

FAIRMONT -- The Marion County Board of Health passed an extensive smoking ban last month. Now some residents are expressing their opposition.

A bar owner in Fairmont has been collecting signatures on a petition against the new smoking ban. Michael Talkington says he's visited almost every bar in Marion County, and that both smokers and non-smokers are joining the fight.

Talkington says more that 1,200 people signed the petition in a single week, and that he expects to collect about 4,000 signatures.

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PREVIEW -- Marion County Health Board president plans to ask for reconsideration of recent smoking ordinance 

FAIRMONT -- Commissioner Randy Elliott stated after Thursday's county commission meeting that he will be asking the Marion County Board of Health to reconsider their recent vote on the revised Clean Indoor Air Act which prohibits smoking in all video lottery parlors and free standing bars.

Elliott, who serves as the board president, added that he would like to see the members table the smoking ban issue until the public can comment further on the ordinance.

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Smoking Ban Heating Up in Monongalia County 

Last month more than a hundred people crammed the Monongalia County Board of Health meeting to voice their opinion on the proposed smoking ban.

The crowd was not quite as large Wednesday, but the issue and the opinions, were still strong.

Residents both for and against the proposed ban attended the working session Wednesday afternoon.

Board members wanted to discuss the ban both the original proposal, banning smoking in all establishments and a revised proposal that lottery and bar owners suggested.

That proposal would allow smoking in some establishments.

The biggest debate was about whether the board really be discussing this at all.

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Effort under way to reduce number of smokeless-tobacco users 

FAIRMONT -- Adult men in the state of West Virginia have the second highest rate of using smokeless-tobacco products, at 16.6 percent, behind only Wyoming.

Add in high school males and, according to some statistics, West Virginia then becomes the state with the highest usage rate, according to Bruce Adkins, director of the state Division of Tobacco Prevention (www.wvdtp.org).

"All smokeless tobacco are highly addictive and can lead to lifelong nicotine addiction and dependence," Adkins said. "And adolescents who first use smokeless tobacco are more likely to become cigarette smokers."

In an effort to reduce the number of smokeless-tobacco users, the Division of Tobacco Prevention has 10 $5,000 mini-grants to distribute among the state's 10 regions as part of the "Save Face-Stop Spit Tobacco" campaign.

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Smoke Free Mon County News 

This editorial appeared in the Dominion Post on Sunday, April 13, 2008. Used by permission.

EDITORIAL

The Facts Don’t Blow Smoke -- BOH Should Fulfill Duty to Public, Not Public Opinion

The Monongalia County Board of Health doesn’t need public opinion on its side — it has the facts. . . .

There’s no reason to have a BOH if it’s sole purpose is to rubber-stamp public opinion. Clearly, we are never going to be able to regulate or legislate common sense, but we can regulate and legislate public health and safety in public places.

The reason BOH exists is to make such decisions, without kow-towing to politics or public opinion.

How could the BOH not support a smoking ban that protects everyone? Only by ignoring the facts and its responsibility.

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Dr. Mercer Receives Award  

Dr. William Mercer’s anti-smoking teaching tools include pigs’ lungs, straws and a 500-pound statue of Snoopy’s alter ego, Joe Cool.

Each Wednesday, the items are used to educate children in a different Ohio County school about the dangers of smoking. The students slide on gloves before touching the lungs — one set is pink, the other damaged purposely by smoke to show the children what 20 years of using tobacco can do to them. . . .

For his efforts to educate and his battle to provide Ohio County residents with smoke-free places to frequent, Mercer recently was named the West Virginia Academy of Family Physicians’ Family Doc of the Year during the Scientific Assembly this month in South Charleston.

Mercer, who has a private practice in Wheeling, also serves as the Wheeling-Ohio County Health Department’s health officer.

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Approaching smoke-free 

Efforts to ban indoor, public smoking exist in all the states bordering West Virginia, but the approaches differ depending on rulings by the individual high courts as to what can be done to limit smokers from lighting up.

And activists in Kentucky, with the highest smoking rate in the nation at 28.6 percent, look to West Virginia, with the second-highest rate of 25.7 percent, for ideas.

"We're really having success at the local level, really great," said Amy Barkley, based in Louisville, Ky., and director for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids in the tobacco states and the mid-Atlantic. "West Virginia is kind of a pioneer in the region for local, smoke-free ordinances. That's the model."

Last week, Marion County became the 18th of West Virginia's 55 counties to impose a complete ban on indoor, public smoking

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Fighting teen tobacco use one song at a time  

This week, Family Guidance Center of Ironton held "Guitar Hero" tournaments as part of Kick Butts Day at two Lawrence County middle schools, challenging students' skills on the video game and offering them more reasons to say no.

"I told them we promote young and old people living a healthy lifestyle," prevention and development manager Mollie Stevens said to more than 40 Chesapeake Middle School students Thursday afternoon. "That segued to why we're here, to have good and clean fun."

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Local schools speaking against tobacco use  

A number of area schools will be participating in Kick Butts Day on April 2, a national day of activism that empowers youth to speak up and take action against tobacco use.

At Vinson Middle School in Wayne County, the school is borrowing 1,200 pairs of shoes for a visual exhibit. The 1,200 represents the amount of people nationwide who die each day from a tobacco-related illness.

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Smoking Ban Vote Delayed in Monongalia County  

"This is a clear health threat and there is no safe level of exposure to second-hand smoke," said Beverly Keener, the Regional Tobacco Prevention Coordinator.

Nearly 200 people packed the Board of Health meeting Thursday to comment on the proposed smoking ban.

"Help me be able to provide my children with the opportunity that everyone should be able to have," Shari Kellems said, "to go bowling, to go to restaurants to have opportunities they deserve to have."

But others believe they deserve the right to choose.

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Officials approve proposal to make Bowen Field tobacco-free 

Bluefield's Bowen Field will soon be a tobacco-free facility.

"Officially, we've been in discussions with the ballpark for a couple of years about going tobacco-free," Community Connections Executive Director Greg Puckett said. "We've done surveys of the participants at games as recently as last year asking for their preference. The general consensus, as well as the Division of Tobacco Prevention, is we should be working on tobacco free parks and recreational facilities."

Puckett said late Tuesday evening that the measure had been passed by the city Board of Directors. Board member Ron Crabtree made the motion to accept the proposal and board member Mary Frances Brammer seconded it.

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Fire breaks out at Fairmont tobacco retail store 

A cigarette may have been the cause of a fire which broke out at the Smoker Friendly in Fairhills Plaza Saturday night.

According to Fairmont Fire Chief Roger Wilson, the blaze, which started in the back office of the tobacco retail store, could have been started when an ashtray was dumped into a trash can.

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LETTER: Health Board Must Act on Secondhand Smoke ($$) 

As a member of the [Monongalia County] Board of Health and a citizen, I would like to take this opportunity to address some of the uncertainty voiced as to the BOH's role and responsibility in the clean indoor-air issue. There really isn't any need for debate. Our responsibility is to protect and promote public health.

State Code 16-2-11 (b)(3) clearly gives the BOH the authority and responsibility to protect the health of its represented population.

Some have said that the BOH members are not elected and therefore should not be able to establish rules. It's true BOH members are not elected, but we are appointed by an elected body, the County Commission. The County Commission is required to consider a number of factors when appointing members to the Board of Health: - No more than three BOH members should belong to the same political party. - No more than two members may live in the same magisterial district. - No more than two members may be involved in the same business or occupation. - Members must have knowledge of and interest in public health services.

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