http://www.tobacco.org/newsfeed/state/OH.rss Latest top tobacco news headlines en-us http://www.mariettatimes.com/page/content.detail/id/514049.html?nav=5002 http://tobacco.org/news/286773.html ??The Washington County Tobacco Prevention Program has received a grant that will keep operations going through Sept. 25, but after that the future is still uncertain.????The program, which has helped more than 1,000 area residents stop using tobacco and served more than 10,000 youth through prevention programs, was scheduled to end Tuesday due to funding shifts.????Now, a Rural Hospital Flexibility Grant (FLEX) grant from the Ohio Department of Health will keep full services going for three more months while employees apply for additional funding.????"We have (smoking cessation) classes scheduled, we'll be able to provide materials at no cost, we're moving ahead," said director Stephanie Davis. "For now, we're keeping our jobs and more importantly we'll be able to provide services to the community." Marietta Times kyork@mariettatimes.com (Kate York) Sat, 04 Jul 2009 04:00:00 GMT http://www.newsnet5.com/news/19827785/detail.html http://tobacco.org/news/286492.html An East Cleveland mother and her fiance have been indicted on charges of involuntary manslaughter after the death of her 2-year-old from eating cocaine and nicotine.????Deanna Henderson, 24, and Antoine Fentress, 24, were also indicted Monday on charges of endangering children and domestic violence. . . .????Henderson pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter, and Fentress pleaded guilty to endangering children. WEWS NewsNet5 nn5news@NewsNet5.com Mon, 29 Jun 2009 04:00:00 GMT http://www.ohio.com/news/49365072.html http://tobacco.org/news/286436.html ??A general contractor who lives in Peninsula, Carey has been a cigarette and cigar smoker most of his adult life.????But when April 1 came and he read that taxes on tobacco products increased, he took action.????Carey went on the Internet and found places where he could purchase tobacco seeds.????Within about a week, he had received 40 types of seeds and his life as a tobacco farmer was planted.????''This project is something of an experiment to identify varieties of tobacco suitable for growing in our climate,'' Carey said.????7,000 plants in ground????The tiny seeds, so small they can hardly be seen, grew into plants by mid-June. And when the ground had warmed up, a group of friends helped him put the plants into the ground -- 7,000 in all. Akron Beacon Journal jcarney@thebeaconjournal.com (Jim Carney Beacon Journal staff writer ) Sun, 28 Jun 2009 04:00:00 GMT http://www.local12.com/news/local/story/Butler-County-Teen-Will-Witness-Signing-of/Rny8gNb3IU2FxjVWjarKCw.cspx http://tobacco.org/news/286051.html A local teenager will be a witness to history today. He gets stand beside President Obama when he signs a new bill governing tobacco products.????This isn't 18 year old Kyle Peavley's first trip to Washington D.C.. -- but it will likely be he most memorable. Peavley has been an anti-tobacco activist for seven years. The Edgewood High School graduate tells our partners at the Middletown Journal, the occasion is payoff for many years of hard work.????The Trenton resident started his fight against tobacco at age 11 after seeing a group of his peers smoking outside a local roller skating rink. Peavley has lobbied for the new law for three years.?? WKRC-TV Channel 12 /mediacenter/local.aspx?videoid=40473@wkrc.dayport.com Mon, 22 Jun 2009 04:00:00 GMT http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20090615/NEWS01/306150017/Humana We won t hire smokers http://tobacco.org/news/285762.html ??Humana of Ohio will require all new employees who smoke to quit the habit.????????The insurer, which employs more than 1,200 people at its new headquarters in Walnut Hills and hundreds more at a distribution center in West Chester, said Monday it would give all new employees a questionnaire.??????If the workers use tobacco, they will have 31 days to enroll in a program called Breathe. . . .??????It is not an issue in Kentucky, which has a law making smokers a protected class.???? Cincinnati Enquirer cpeale@enquirer.com (Cliff Peale &#149) Mon, 15 Jun 2009 04:00:00 GMT http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2009/06/13/ecigarettes.ART_ART_06-13-09_A1_8BE5S9S.html?sid=101 http://tobacco.org/news/285609.html Jacobs, a buyer for the Garden, an adult store on N. High Street, said she purchased her InLife brand e-cigarette about a month ago, when her store started selling them.????She uses it at work when she's too busy to take a smoke break and has tried it out at restaurants, bars and airports.????The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not approved e-cigarettes and has halted 17 shipments of them from coming into the country since March 1, said Karen Riley, an FDA spokeswoman. She said many of the blocked shipments arrived from China, where most e-cigarettes are made.????The FDA says e-cigarettes are "drug-delivery devices," not tobacco products, and is evaluating them on a case-by-case basis, Riley said. She acknowledged that it's possible that some overseas shipments still are passing through. . . .??????There was no mention of e-cigarettes, however, in legislation approved Thursday by the U.S. Senate and yesterday by the House that would give the FDA the power to regulate the content and marketing of cigarettes, Riley said. President Barack Obama, a smoker, has said he will sign the bill.????Meanwhile, e-cigarettes are being sold in Ohio and are untouched by the statewide smoking ban.?? . . . ??????Leadbeater said his company sells only to clients who are of legal smoking age.????"There are people out there that believe that the product is being marketed to children," Leadbeater said. "Our company and companies within the association are certainly not doing that in any shape or form."????Puff N Stuff, a shop along N. High Street, has opted against selling e-cigarettes for now. "We've stayed away from it because it doesn't have the (FDA) approval," said Joseph Allen, general manager. "We have no idea what it is. It's a cartridge filled with whatever they tell you." Columbus Dispatch dwilson@dispatch.com (Dana Wilson THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH) Sat, 13 Jun 2009 04:00:00 GMT http://www.cleveland.com/medical/index.ssf/2009/06/smoking_in_ohio_declining_but.html http://tobacco.org/news/285507.html ??Even before the 62-cent-per-pack federal tax took effect April 1, nicotine was losing its grip on a growing number of Ohioans. Recent data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show 20 percent of Ohio adults called themselves smokers in 2008. That's the lowest level anyone can remember, certainly the lowest since the government began annual state surveys on smoking in 1995.????One out of five Ohioans who smoked just four years earlier, in 2004, has quit.????This downward trend is pinned on a variety of causes -- the escalating cost of cigarettes, Ohio's two-year-old workplace smoking ban, anti-smoking programs and social pressure.????The drop-off in smoking has big implications for public health and the costs of treating tobacco-related illnesses. Annual health-care costs directly related to smoking in Ohio are said to be more than $4 billion, and taxpayers pick up about $1.4 billion of that through the state Medicaid program.????But whether the trend can be sustained is open to question. Abboud's wish that cigarettes be outlawed speaks as loudly as anything to the addictive power of nicotine. . . .??????But some are warning that Ohio's progress is threatened by cuts in anti-tobacco programs and legislative challenges to the state indoor smoking ban. State leaders last year diverted $230 million in anti-smoking money for a jobs program, and abolished the tobacco prevention foundation that controlled it. The money is still tied up in a court battle in Franklin County.????"A lot of things we've done to get to this point are now being reversed," said Shelly Kiser, director of advocacy for the American Lung Association of Ohio. "We're winning. We're in the playoffs and now [our progress is] going to stop." Cleveland Plain Dealer hspector@plaind.com (Harlan Spector/Plain Dealer Reporter) Tue, 09 Jun 2009 04:00:00 GMT http://www.athensnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=28209:will-new-federal-smoking-law-affect-number-of-students-lighting-up-at-ou&catid=35:campus-news&Itemid=43 http://tobacco.org/news/285085.html ??About 35 percent of Ohio University students smoke, according to a 2009 survey of 1,200 students conducted by the university’s Department of Health Promotion. Of those, 12 percent identified themselves as “social smokers,” and 7 percent as daily smokers, while only 4 percent said they were attempting to quit.????It will be interesting to see how these statistics are affected by the pending Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. The law will give the federal Food and Drug Administration the authority to regulate changes to tobacco products and marketing strategies geared toward youth. . . .????Senior Rebecca Posey said she started smoking when she was 15, following in her parents and sister’s footsteps. She said she remembers seeing advertisements of camels smoking cigarettes presented as “cool.” Also, she said she wanted to smoke Newports with the other kids behind the high school.????“My mom and dad smoked so I always thought it wasn’t that big of a deal,” she said.????She said she bought a pack of Nicorette Gum once her junior year when she intended to quit, but the pressures of school got in the way.????“I kept telling myself, I have to be mentally prepared to quit and I just never got to that state,” she said. “I’ve been smoking a lot more lately in school. I can’t tell you how many best friends I’ve made by bumming a cigarette.”????The biggest factor that affects how many younger people pick up smoking is prices Athens News Thu, 04 Jun 2009 04:00:00 GMT http://news.prnewswire.com/DisplayReleaseContent.aspx?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/05-29-2009/0005034690&EDATE= http://tobacco.org/news/284775.html Ohio newspapers, radio and TV news recently broadcast the results of a study performed at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health with Elizabeth Klein, Assistant Professor, Health Behavior and Health Promotion, Ohio State University as lead researcher. This study was funded by ClearWay Minnesota, a non-profit organization that funds Minnesota tobacco control, and used employment data as its sole economic indicator. This study gained headlines in the media as "Ban hurting business? No, study says." (Columbus Dispatch, May 19, 2009, front page). All Headline News opened with "New research suggests that smoking bans in bars meant to improve the environmental quality of indoor air doesn't cause job losses." (Note: No reference to restaurants).????What is not mentioned is the reason that this study was conducted. According to the Abstract from Ms. Klein's study, "due to the perception of negative economic effects on alcohol-licensed hospitality businesses, partial CIA policies (those that provide an exemption for freestanding bars) have been proposed as a means to reduce the risk of economic effects of comprehensive CIA policies applied to all worksites."). UWeekly, an OSU student run publication, quotes Klein as saying "the places that made exemptions for bars they weren't significantly different from the places that provided no exemptions for bars."????Glaringly obvious even to a novice is that freestanding bars were supposed to be the target of the study. Even more obvious are these facts. . . .??????Tobacco Control is well aware smoking bans have little effect on restaurants while bars are negatively impacted. So why were restaurants included in Klein's study? According to Pat Carroll, President of the Buckeye Liquor Permit Holders Association, "It's obvious why it was done this way. It's to distort the truth. You can't lump bars and restaurants together. We have entirely different customers and provide different atmospheres. We demand this study be done again without restaurant data." Pam Parker, BLPHA Board Member and co-founder of Opponents of Ohio Bans asks "The problem is that this study, timed quite nicely to be released just as we have SB 120 introduced to exempt family owned bars in Ohio, has been widely distributed. If the data from this study is reexamined and finds that bars are hurt from smoking bans, will the researchers go to similar lengths to see that proper retractions are printed and headlined?" PR Newswire Fri, 29 May 2009 04:00:00 GMT http://search.eurekalert.org/e3/cs.html?url=http%3A//www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-05/osu-ss051809.php&charset=iso-8859-1&qt=tobacco%2C+smoking%2C+cigarettes&col=ev3rel&n=12&la=en http://tobacco.org/news/284624.html New research suggests that exempting bars from community smoking bans makes no economic difference in terms of preserving bar employment, and that even the most comprehensive clean indoor air policies do not lead to a reduction in hospitality jobs.????Researchers hope the findings, based on a study in Minnesota, will factor into future debates within municipalities and states considering the economic and health issues surrounding smoking-ban proposals.????The study examined employment trends over three years in eight Minnesota cities with different types of clean indoor air policies and two cities with no laws restricting smoking. Of the policies examined, some were comprehensive bans prohibiting smoking in all workplaces, while others banned smoking in most public places and businesses, but exempted bars.?? EurekAlert eklein@cph.osu.edu Mon, 18 May 2009 04:00:00 GMT http://uweekly.com/newsmag/05-27-2009/11288 http://tobacco.org/news/284603.html ??As smokers were forced to light up outside due to the smoking ban within public establishments, Ohio State University researchers asked if this influenced employment rates within the hospitality service industry.????This new study published in Prevention Science (Vol. 10, no. 2) attempts to shed some light on the economic effects of smoking bans by comparing the employment numbers of bars and restaurants in ten Minnesota cities with different types of Clean Indoor Air policies.????"We wanted to compare whether or not there was a differential effect on employment," said Elizabeth Klein, an assistant professor of Health Behavior and Health Promotion at Ohio State University (OSU), who led the study. Klein said the study showed that "the places that made exemptions for bars they weren't significantly different from the places that provided no exemptions for bars."????The study was funded by Clearway Minnesota, a foundation formerly known as Minnesota Partnership for Action Against Tobacco (MPAAT). They were established on settlement money from Minnesota's lawsuit against the tobacco industry. UWeekly Wed, 27 May 2009 04:00:00 GMT http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/ohio-news/tobacco-foes-say-smokeless-tobacco-mints-lure-minors-131462.html http://tobacco.org/news/284483.html So Kiser, director of advocacy for her organization and no great fan of Camel Orbs, headed into a Columbus gas station earlier this year and asked for a container of Orbs.????They gave it to her for free.????For smokers long confined to standing outside in crummy weather to get their nicotine fix, Camel Orbs is an alternative that keeps users out of the elements.????For Sen. Sherrod Brown and public health advocates, it's yet another diabolical strategy to get kids hooked on smoking.????Brown, D-Ohio, this week successfully added a measure calling for a quick Federal Drug Administration study of Orbs and other dissolvable tobacco products to a larger bill that would, for the first time, put tobacco products under FDA regulatory authority. The bill, with the amendment, passed the committee last week and now awaits full U.S. Senate approval. It passed the House in April. . . .??????R.J. Reynolds introduced Orbs in Columbus, Indianapolis and Portland, Ore., earlier this year, and the company said early feedback has been positive. Orbs, he said, "meet the societal expectation of no second-hand smoke, no spitting, and in the case of dissolvables, no litter."????He said they're hardly candy. They are made of finely milled tobacco, and designed for adults.????"The bottom line is these are tobacco products," he said. "They are clearly marked as tobacco products, they are marketed as tobacco products and they carry the same warnings as tobacco products." . . .??????Bill Godshall of a group called SmokeFree Pennsylvania counts himself as one of the defenders of Orbs. He compares the products to Nicorette or Commit Lozenges and cites studies indicating they are safer than cigarettes.????"What this comes down to is people fighting for the same market," he said. Dayton Daily News Sun, 24 May 2009 04:00:00 GMT http://www.the-daily-record.com/news/article/4592591 http://tobacco.org/news/284460.html It's one thing to lobby for smoke free legislation. It's another to enforce the law.????Despite the conflict, that's what the Holmes County Board of Health agreed to do, at least for the time being.?? . . .??????Ohio's indoor smoking ban was passed by voters in November 2006, and the Ohio Department of Health estimates there are about 280,000 public places and places of employment covered by the ban designed to eliminate exposure to second hand smoke.????Violation complaints are received by the ODH, which can respond to them or contract with county health departments to do so. Since the ban went into effect, financial compensation to local health departments rose from nothing to, most recently, $150, which is "getting closer to being able to support the manpower," said McFadden, noting to be truly vigilant in ensuring compliance, the department would have to create a part-time position. . . .??????Currently, several health department employees respond to local complaints, which average about eight a year, said McFadden. "That's not going to pay for a part-time person unless there are high fines, and then you become driven by fines rather than compliance," McFadden said. Wooster Record cpratt@the-daily-record.com (CHRISTINE L. PRATT Staff Writer) Fri, 22 May 2009 04:00:00 GMT http://www.cantonrep.com/communities/canton/x124593704/Stark-Countys-smoking-rate-drops http://tobacco.org/news/284458.html The good news is that the adult smoking rate in Stark County dropped to 21.5 percent last year.????The bad news is that local health officials are scrambling to secure continued funding for tobacco use prevention and cessation.????"When the state Legislature dissolved the tobacco foundation, most of the funds disappeared (into an economic stimulus bill to create jobs)," said William Franks, Stark County Health Department commissioner.????"However, Stark County was successful in obtaining a grant from the Ohio Department of Health to continue our programming for at least through the middle of 2009."????Aultman Hospital and Mercy Medical Center got money through that grant to provide tobacco-cessation programs.????Ohio's 2008 adult smoking rate of 20.1 percent was a bit lower than the local rate. . . .??????Though statistics indicate the number of cigarette smokers is down, you wouldn't know it by visiting local restaurant and bar patio areas where smoking is permitted. As the weather warms, smokers happily abandon winter coats in favor of a more welcoming atmosphere.??????A research firm polled a sampling of Stark County residents about tobacco use. Canton Repository dwight.kier@cantonrep.com ( CantonRep.com staff report) Fri, 22 May 2009 04:00:00 GMT http://news.prnewswire.com/DisplayReleaseContent.aspx?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/05-20-2009/0005030467&EDATE= http://tobacco.org/news/284318.html ??The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids applauds U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) for his leadership role in Senate committee approval of legislation that gives the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulatory authority over tobacco products, including the authority to crack down on tobacco marketing and sales to kids. Senator Brown helped lead the debate in the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), which approved the bill Wednesday and sent it to the full Senate for consideration. Senator Brown is also a co-sponsor of the legislation, S. 982, and successfully offered an amendment to make it a priority for the FDA to investigate the sale and marketing of new, candy-like smokeless tobacco products, called Camel Orbs, which are being test-marketed in Columbus, Ohio; Indianapolis, Indiana; and Portland, Oregon.????Thanks to Senator Brown's leadership, we are a critical step closer to enacting this historic legislation to protect our children from tobacco addiction and save lives. We look forward to working with Senator Brown to bring this bill before the full Senate and enact it into law in the near future PR Newswire photodesk@prnewswire.com Wed, 20 May 2009 04:00:00 GMT