Columbia Doesn't Have Smoking Sections

It's a Tuesday night at McNally's Irish Pub and Levi Herborn is ready for a cigarette. He and a few friends bundle up, step away from their drinks and head into the frigid outdoors. If they want to smoke Camel when they hit the town these days, that's what they have to do.

Metroplex bans smoking Friday

Beginning Friday, patients and visitors will be required to put out their cigarettes before arriving at Metroplex Hospital in Killeen.
As of Jan. 1, the Metroplex Health System will ban all tobacco products on its campuses, including cigars, pipes and chewing tobacco.
"Because we are a health system … we wanted to make sure anyone who enters our campuses is living the healthiest lifestyle they can," Metroplex spokeswoman Desirae Franco said Monday.
Currently, Metroplex provides designated outdoor smoking areas for its patients and visitors. The hospital prohibited employees from smoking in June 2008.
The hospital's executive team last October voted in favor of the ban, which includes parking lots, Franco said. People caught smoking on the grounds will be issued a warning and escorted off the campus if they continue to light up.
Across the nation, strict smoking bans are being enforced in buildings and cities. The city of Killeen enacted a citywide smoking ban in June.
The ordinance, which the Killeen City Council passed 5-2, prohibits smoking in all public buildings except in stand-alone bars, pool halls, clubs, bingo halls and bowling alleys.
Scott & White Hospital in Temple became one of the first smoke-free hospitals in the state when it banned tobacco use on its campus in January 2005.
Dr. Jeana O'Brien, a pulmonary critical care physician at Scott & White, said the effort was brought forth by employees as a way to promote wellness. The hospital previously allowed smoking in designated outdoor areas.
Carl L. Darnall Army Medical Center at Fort Hood permits smoking in an outdoor gazebo and officials have not considered a smoking ban, spokeswoman Jeri Chappelle said Monday.
"We're not going to eliminate that anytime soon," she said.

Study finds a third of shops selling cigarettes to minors

APPROXIMATELY ONE-THIRD of minors are illegally able to purchase cigarettes from retailers, a new study has found.
The National Tobacco Retail Audit – 2009 Monitoring Report , published today, examined compliance by retailers with regard to legislation on the sale of cigarettes to minors.
It concluded that children have “an unacceptably high chance” of purchasing cigarettes through shops and licensed premises.
The study carried out by the Office of Tobacco Control found almost one-third of shopkeepers were disregarding laws that prohibit the sale of cigarettes to minors.
More than a third of licensed premises were willing to sell tobacco to minors according to the survey, though compliance levels among these premises increased 28 per cent from 37 per cent in 2008 to 65 per cent this year.
The research found compliance was higher among premises with token-operated cigarette vending machines where 70 per cent prevented children from buying cigarettes, compared to 37 per cent of premises with coin-operated machines.
Compliance among retailers was up 8 per cent, from 60 per cent in 2008 to 68 per cent in 2009.
Some 61 per cent of shops and licensed premises asked children for identification.
Ninety-seven per cent of minors who were asked for ID were refused the sale of cigarettes, the survey found.
Office of Tobacco Control chief executive Éamonn Rossi said although a clear improvement in compliance culture had occurred among retailers, there was still a long way to go.
“While we welcome the increase, still one-third of minors can buy cigarettes,” he said.
Launching the report, Áine Brady TD, Minister of State with responsibility for Older People and Health Promotion, said staff vigilance was essential to ensure young people don’t have access to cigarette vending machines.
In selling tobacco to a child, people may be launching them on a journey to addiction, disease and death, she said.
The Mandate trade union yesterday called on retailers to ensure identification is requested from customers.
Mandate general secretary John Douglas said, “while we recognise that compliance is improving with relation to sales to under-18-year-olds, there is still massive scope for improvement”.

My New Years Resolution And Electronic Cigarettes

Every year millions of people all over the world make New Years Resolutions, but an awful lot of those promises are broken pretty soon. The most popular resolutions are to stop smoking or lose weight, both difficult to do in their own way.
This year I will be making an Old Years resolutions and this is: To carry on giving up smoking and never put one of those disgusting, addictive, foul smelling, cancerous things in my mouth ever again. There I've said it. Do you know how much it means to me and anybody else who manages to stop smoking to be able to say that and know that this time you really mean it?
When you watch TV programmes like the X Factor or Strictly Come Dancing the contestestants always seem to say that winning means the world to them. Well in the real world stopping smoking truly can mean the world to you when you have smoked for many years. I started when I was 14, it was easy to buy separates from corner shops and then graduate to packs of 5 Park Drive if you got some extra spending money or had a pal to share the cost with. Back then in the 60s it was cool to smoke, the height of sophistication if you were an impressionable teenager.
We just didn't know the health risks that went hand in hand with looking sophisticated to our peers. Then the health risks became known but when you are addicted your needs overcome what is good for you. It is hard to stop smoking, very hard for most of us nicotine addicts. Every now and then you try to stop but more often than not you weaken and start smoking again.
You create a pattern until eventually you manage to break that pattern and stop - that is if you don't die from smoking related illnesses first. I will be ending the old and starting the new year as a non smoker and that will be for the first time in 40 years. I won't have a smokers cough or get out of breath while I am partying. Those who I give a new years hug or kiss to will smell Opium perfume on me and not be repulsed by the disgusting ashtray smell.
I won't have to go outside in the cold with the other outcasts who share the horrible habit and I can brag about how much money I have saved. Very important to me and the main reason that I stopped back in May is a massive improvement in my circulation. Last winter I suffered from a lot of excruciating pain in my fingers from Reynards disease. At times it was frightening because there was no circulation in my fingers and it was difficult to get my fingers warm enough to get the blood flowing again.
As I work in a shop that sells chilled and frozen products I couldn't always keep my fingers warm and they and my livelihood were at risk. Now that I don't smoke those problems have lessened to such an extent that it is just an occasional minor nuisance now.
Sometimes it was too painful to use my computer keyboard but now there isn't a problem. For those of you who despair of ever giving up smoking my story is proof that eventually you can stop. With my weak willpower it took a lot of attempts using different methods to stop but eventually I found the way that works best for me and that was electronic cigarettes .
I used them to gradually get rid of my nicotine addiction and I don't smoke anything now - nor am I addicted to anything. One of the things that I did to help myself was to build a blog and keep an online diary.
Knowing that other people would be watching how I did strengthened my resolve and my diary will always be there to stop me from slipping.

Burning Illegal Florida Cigarette Sellers

Florida’s Department of Business and Professional Regulation’s Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco recently launched a campaign to encourage citizens to report illegal tobacco sales.
As part of the campaign, the ABT is asking consumers to report individuals and businesses who sell cigarettes that do not bear a tax stamp, indicating that seller has not paid the requisite state tobacco tax.

Early results show no tobacco violations on campus

Leading up to the Nov. 19 tobacco ban, the main reason given for how the change will be implemented was creating a culture of compliance. With the ban in effect for nearly a month, the plan is seemingly working according to early results.
As of Friday, no student or faculty member had been reported to the Dean of Students or Human Resources for violating the policy, said Gail Hairston, university spokeswoman.
In weeks leading up to the ban, students had said they would simply walk across campus to get their nicotine fix. However, several managers of businesses nearby campus have said they have not noticed an increase in people smoking outside their facilities.
David Wade, manager of Wildcats Textbooks, located at 563 S. Limestone, said he has not seen an increase or change in the amount of people that loiter outside his business.
Gordon Bentley, manager of Phillips Market, located at 553 S. Limestone, said he has not noticed a particular increase in loitering either.
“I can’t tell if that’s made an increase, I know a lot of people that do smoke that don’t particularly care about the ruling,” he said.

Smoking ban puts bad air outside

Smoking bans have made the air healthier in bars and restaurants, but may have made the air just outside the establishments more hazardous, University of Georgia researchers have found.
Nonsmoking diners and imbibers sitting in outdoor patios or sidewalk seating areas connected to the bars or restaurants are picking up doses of secondhand smoke, the scientists found.
In fact, nonsmokers who volunteered to sit in the outdoor seating areas had levels of a tobacco byproduct in their bodies up to 162 percent higher than when they first sat down, said Luke Naeher, a professor in the university's environmental health science department.Collaborating with researchers in the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Northeast Health District, Mr. Naeher and other UGA researchers measured levels of a substance called cotinine.
Mr. Naeher's research team assigned 20 nonsmoking volunteers to spend six evening hours in one of three outdoor areas for the study -- outside a downtown Athens bar, outside a restaurant near downtown or outside UGA's main library."We're looking at real-world settings," Mr. Naeher said.
After six hours, the volunteers gave a saliva sample, which the researchers tested for cotinine, a nicotine byproduct often used as an indicator of tobacco exposure.
Volunteers who hung out where smokers gather outside a restaurant saw their cotinine levels more than double. Nonsmokers outside a bar had their cotinine increase by even more, up to 162 percent.
The study is published in this month's issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene .
Previous studies have shown that restaurant and bar smoking bans reduce the incidence of heart attacks and respiratory illness among people inside the establishments.
But researchers don't know the health impacts of outdoor secondhand smoke."The question is, is it an environment that warrants concern or further study?" Mr. Naeher said. "The answer is, we don't know yet."
The researchers aren't quite ready to declare outdoor cafes a new health hazard for those that may inhale secondhand smoke there -- including children, restaurant and bar workers, and pregnant women and their unborn children.
"We feel like it's something we need to be taking a look at," said Lou Kudon, one of the authors of the study. Mr. Kudon is program manager for the Athens-based Northeast Health District, which includes Clarke and nine other area counties.
Next, researchers will measure levels of a carcinogen called NNAL in nonsmokers who spend time in outdoor places where people smoke.

Smokers feel attacked by local bans

Thursday marks the 33rd annual great American smoke-out.
The American Cancer Society uses the day to encourage smokers to kick the habit, at least for a day.The ultimate goal is to snuff it out completely.
Several municipalities have already done snuffed out smoking, at least in public places.
Just in our viewing area alone, nine cities and counties have kicked the butts.
Seven of those bans have already gone into effect and two others take effect in January.
But the recent bans have left some smokers feeling like they are under attack.
Clarence Lovick enjoys taking a smoke on his lunch break.“If I’m upset, it might calm me down,” says Lovick.
The Columbia resident says he’s been a smoker since he was 16.
But lately Lovick says, lighting up has been harder to do, with smoking bans in capitol city restaurants and bars.
“I think it’s just a waste of time, for somebody to make a law, to have somebody stop doing what they feel they have the right to do,” says Lovick.”"I wish it would be totally banned," says Executive Director of the American Cancer Society, Sue Mclesse.
Mclesse says one way to make people quit smoking, is to make the habit more expensive.
Currently the organization is working to increase to the state’s cigarette tax from seven cents a pack, to a dollar.
But Mclesse says she won’t be completely satisfied until the whole state, is smoke free."What I would like to see, is total cessation, total lack of production, of cigarettes," says Mclesse.
According to the American Cancer society, 440,000 people die in this country every year from tobacco related illnesses.That's more than alcohol, car accidents, suicide, murder and illegal drugs combined.
Clarence Lovick knows the numbers, but wishes the organization would butt out of his personal choice.
"Somebody sometimes might need or want a cigarette, just like somebody might need or want something to eat that they shouldn't it,” says Lovick.

FDA Goes After Online Sales of Flavored Cigarettes

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is warning more than a dozen online cigarette sellers that they may be in violation of the new regulations against selling most types of flavored cigarettes to U.S. citizens and have 15 days to prove that they have stopped those sales or risk government action.A ban on the U.S. sale of cigarettes flavored with anything other than menthol went into effect on Sept. 22 as part of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act.
That law, enacted in June, gives the FDA power to regulate the content of tobacco products, along with the marketing and distribution of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco, and the impact of ads for those products on young people. The new law also lets the FDA limit the amount of nicotine in products and block labels such as “light” and “low tar” that appear to offer “healthier” cigarettes.
The warning letters went out to 14 owners of Web sites that the FDA says are still offering the banned flavored cigarettes for sale to U.S. customers, according to Internet searches conducted by its own Office of Enforcement and by its new Center for Tobacco Products, a division created within the FDA in August to administer the new tobacco ad and promotion policies and review applications for the exemption of new tobacco products.
The FDA sent a previous letter to the tobacco industry at large on Sept. 14 reminding them of the flavored-cigarette ban and stating that company selling the banned products would be subject to enforcement.
This latest round of notices went out to individual merchants, some located in the United States and some based overseas but selling to U.S. citizens through their Web sites. All the letters cite the language of the new bill that “A cigarette or any of its component parts (including the tobacco, filter or paper) shall not contain, as a constituent (including a smoke constituent) or additive, an artificial or natural flavor (other than tobacco or menthol) or an herb or spice, including strawberry, grape, orange, clove, cinnamon, pineapple, vanilla, coconut, licorice, cocoa, chocolate, cherry, or coffee, that is a characterizing flavor of the tobacco product or tobacco smoke.”
If the products listed for sale on the merchants’ Web sites do contain such flavorings, the letters say, they are adulterated tobacco products and subject to FDA penalty. If they don’t, they are misleadingly labeled and also subject to FDA penalty.
Merchants not based in the U.S. who received FDA letters were told that the agency will work to have their shipments into the U.S. stopped at customs, and that the FDA will notify authorities in their home countries that their banned products will not be allowed into the U.S.
The FDA’s enforcement effort is part of its initiative to prevent children and adolescents from taking up the smoking habit—something they can be lead into by candy- or fruit-flavored tobacco products, as well as marketing aimed at young audiences.
“FDA takes the enforcement of this flavored cigarette ban seriously,” Center for Tobacco products director Lawrence Deyton said in a release. ”These actions should send a clear message to those who continue to break the law that FDA will take necessary actions to protect our children from initiating tobacco use.”
In related news, a U.S. District Court ruled a week ago that tobacco companies have little chance of blocking enforcement of the Family Smoking Prevention Act on the grounds that it restricts their free speech rights to market new tobacco products, including smokeless tobacco and so-called “electronic cigarettes.”
R. J. Reynolds, which markets the Camel cigarettes product line, and Lorillard Inc., maker of Newport menthol cigarettes, filed suit against the law Aug. 31 in Richmond, VA, along with several other smaller tobacco marketers. In its filing, Reynolds asked the court to issue a preliminary injunction against the law, arguing that it impaired “their First Amendment right to communicate with adult tobacco consumers about their products.” If granted, the ruling would have prevented the FDA from enforcing the law while the plaintiffs pursued their broader case against it.
But U.S. District Court Judge Joseph McKinley denied the injunction on Nov. 5, saying that the “plaintiffs have little likelihood of success” in challenging the provisions of the law governing new “modified-risk” tobacco products. 
The ruling means the tobacco makers will have to comply with the FDA’s new manufacturing and marketing regulations while the plaintiffs’ lawsuit moves forward. 
That suit contends that the new law prohibits their use of “color lettering, trademarks, logos or any other imagery in most advertisements, including virtually all point-of-sale and direct-mail advertisements.” They also allege that new, more prominent health warnings on package fronts and cartons will relegate their branding to the bottom half of cigarette packaging and make it difficult, if not impossible, to see.”

Tobacco prevention program earns World Health Organization recognition

The state’s Tobacco Prevention and Control Program, a national leader in fighting tobacco use, will take part in an international workshop on effective prevention strategies.
Terry Reid, the program’s director since March 2001, will represent the Department of Health at the World Health Organization (WHO) event in Tunis, Tunisia on November 13 and 14. The group will work on tobacco control measures for use by countries around the world.
“This is a real honor for our state and our Tobacco Prevention and Control Program,” said Secretary of Health Mary Selecky. “Since the program began, adult smoking is down by 30 percent, youth smoking has dropped by about half, and we’ve implemented one of the most comprehensive smoke-free indoor air laws in the country. The invitation is a tribute to Terry’s leadership. Improving the health of our state’s people is the real payoff.”
The meetings in Tunisia bring together WHO representatives and select managers of national tobacco control programs. Reid is the only person from the U.S. who has been invited.
“I’m proud of the effective tobacco prevention and control model we’ve deveoped and the difference it has made in our state,” said Reid. “It’s a testament to the daily efforts of state and local tobacco prevention specialists throughout Washington. Their dedication has helped save our state thousands of lives and billions in future health care costs. I’m delighted to share with an international audience how we’ve achieved those successes.”
“Washington has long been a national leader in tobacco prevention and control,” said Matthew L. Myers, executive director of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. “For the last nine years, the program has implemented a comprehensive effort to help adults quit, prevent youth from starting, and protect people from secondhand smoke, which produced dramatic results.”

Some tobacco farmers dealt late-season setback

LOUISVILLE — Recent heavy rains that soaked Kentucky delivered a late-season setback to some tobacco farmers as their leaf ripens, dampening their hopes for a bumper crop after a couple of drought years.More than a half-foot of rain fell across part of the Bluegrass State last week as the bulk of the burley tobacco crop was curing in barns — an autumn ritual when the long green leaves gradually change to reddish brown in a process that prepares the leaf for market. The prolonged stretch of wet weather in the state that leads the nation in burley production at least briefly heightened the risk of tobacco being afflicted with mold or fungus that can rot away part of the leaf.
Fields with uncut tobacco turned into muddy bogs, slowing harvest and hurting leaf quality.
"It's certainly putting a hardship on the farmers," said Nick Carter, agricultural extension agent in Fayette County in central Kentucky.
Will Snell, a University of Kentucky agricultural economist specializing in tobacco, said burley, an ingredient in cigarettes, started out curing well, but the combination of high humidity and rain has been "very hard on the crop."
That has added to the anxiety of farmers growing tobacco under contract for tobacco companies. A poor crop can be turned away or fetch a lower price.
"There's a lot of fear with guys knowing that the tobacco companies aren't going to take low-quality tobacco," said Kenny Seebold, a UK extension tobacco specialist.
"Everybody here is on thin margins. They need all the income that they can get."
A weekly report stated some farmers indicated that the high humidity and wet weather are "taking a toll on housed tobacco," according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service's Kentucky field office.
Snell said timing could be crucial in determining how well each individual crop cures this fall.
Burley that reached the barn early in the season "may still do well," he said, but later-planted tobacco housed just before the onslaught of rains "may have some major issues."
Another factor, he said, is that "some farmers crammed the tobacco in the barn too tightly due to limited barn space, and that is just adding to the problem."

Tobacco regs to be changed

Belmont, Mass. - The Board of Health will hold a public hearing from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 5, in Conference Room 4 of the Town Hall, corner of Concord Avenue and Pleasant Street.

These changes were proposed by Belmont’s tobacco consortium director in response to changes being made in communities around Belmont. Only two small changes were accepted by the Board of Health in regard to the “Sale of Tobacco Products to Minors.” One is that a tobacco sales permit will not be renewed if the permit holder has failed to pay all fines issued. The other is that revocation of a tobacco sales permit will result if a permit holder sells tobacco products while the permit is under suspension.
The Board of Health has been enforcing the State’s smoke-free workplace law since its enactment in July, 2004. In order to make local changes, a new Belmont “Regulation Prohibiting Smoking in Workplaces and Public Places” is now being proposed by the Board of Health. This regulation will prohibit smoking bars and hookah bars in Belmont and will prohibit smoking in “all outdoor seating areas adjacent to food service establishments where food is consumed.” The popularity of outdoor dining in recent years has brought the smoking issue in these areas to the attention of Boards of Health as well as all of the tobacco consortiums around the State.

NY judge blocks higher fees for tobacco dealers

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York's fee increases for cigarette-selling shops were temporarily blocked by a state judge, a retail association said on Friday, leaving the current $100-a-year charge in effect for now.
State Supreme Court Justice Thomas Feinman issued a temporary restraining order that prevents the state charging fees that could have climbed to as high as $5,000-a-year for stores with high volumes of sales, said James Calvin, president of the New York Association of Convenience Stores.
The fee increases were designed to stop about 40 percent of the state's 24,000 licensed tobacconists from selling cigarettes in an effort to improve public health, he said.
"But that theory is all wet because most of the displaced smokers would merely shift their tobacco purchases to Indian reservations, the Internet and the black market, making things worse for small business, tax revenue and public health," Calvin said in a statement.
A spokesman for New York Governor David Paterson had no immediate comment.
The state's governors have for years failed to force Native American reservation stores to charge New York state taxes on sales of cigarettes and gasoline. The state claims it loses hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenues as a result.
Non-reservation stores say they cannot compete with the lower prices the Native American stores can offer.