Thu Jan 6, 2005
A referendum on the smoking issue!! - Appleton, WI
I wanted to share Thomas Laprade's letter to The Post Crescent Wisconsin newspaper, objecting to the proposed referendum for a smoking ban in Appleton, WI. Appleton is located in northeast Wisconsin, north of Oshkosh and Lake Winnebego in a vacation area. He has given some excellent and valid reasons why referendums of this sort are undemocratic. The referenced article is also included below.
______________________________
Garnet Dawn - The Smoker's Club, Inc. - Midwest Regional Director
The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter - http://www.smokersclubinc.com
Illinois Smokers Group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/illinoissmokers/
mailto:garnetdawn@comcast.net - Respect Freedom of Choice!
----------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Thomas Laprade" <thomaslaprade@hotmail.com>
Thursday, January 06, 2005
The Post Crescent Wisconsin
A referendum on the smoking issue!!
Here are the reasons why a plebiscite or a referendum is undemocratic and wrong.
Negative side of Referendums
1. Referendums are contrary to our system of representation of democracy
2. Referendums can also become divisive and can potentially undermine minority 'rights' through the votes of the majority.
3. They can be controlled by political elites who can set the question and determine campaign rules.
4. Difficult to simplify complex issues into 'yes'/no questions.
5. They can weaken the will of legislature and government to deal with difficult issues.
6. They provide no opportunity for parties and government to engage in
consensus-building.
To sum up this situation
The non-smokers(Majority) can impose their morals on the Hospitality sector(Minority)
The majority never or very seldom patronize the hospitality sector on any given day.
It is wrong for the majority whether it be a referendum or otherwise, to dictate to the hospitality sector in dealing with a legal product on 'private' property _________________________________
Thomas Laprade - Freedom Fighter for your Personal and Business Rights http://thesnowbird.tripod.com
The writings of Thomas Laprade - Smoke free: Freedom of Choice http://thesnowbird.tripod.com/letters1.htm
--------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.wisinfo.com/postcrescent/news/archive/local_19284241.shtml
Posted Jan. 04, 2005
Appleton Common Council: www.appleton.org/council
City smoking ban petitions delayed
Advocates, foes expect to file later this week
By Steve Wideman
Post-Crescent staff writer
APPLETON — Advocates of a workplace smoking ban referendum missed Monday’s self-imposed deadline for filing the documents when petitions were discovered missing from two businesses.
The delay prompted organizers of a separate drive that would exempt bars from any smoking ban to hold off on filing their own petitions until later this week.
Both petition drives, which each need 3,370 signatures to be filed, are intended to force binding referendums on the April 5 ballot following a Dec. 1 Common Council vote defeating a proposed workplace smoking ban.
“The missing petitions did play a part in our decision to delay,” Connie Olson, executive director of Community Action for Tobacco Free Living, said Monday.
The group spearheaded the failed effort to get council approval of a ban and is leading the move to place a smoking ban referendum on the April ballot.
Olson said individual petitions were thought to be missing from Ultimate Fitness, 2637 S. Oneida St., and Osco Drug, 1800 W. College Ave. She said the Osco petitions, containing about 75 signatures, were found later on a manager’s desk.
The Ultimate Fitness petitions, which Olson said contained an unknown number of signatures, remain missing.
“We hung them in the men’s and ladies’ locker rooms. I have no idea what happened to them, whether someone took offense at the petitions or if someone decided to circulate them further,” said Ultimate Fitness manager Jeremy Nadeau.
Olson said the group set a Jan. 3 goal for filing the petitions to ensure the maximum amount of review time granted the petitions under state law.
The petitions would force binding referendums under the state’s direct legislation statute.
Kevin Kennedy, executive director of the state Elections Board, said it is hard to pin down filing deadlines for petitions under direct legislation law. The law requires petitions to contain signatures equal to 15 percent of residents who cast votes in the previous gubernatorial election.
Under the law, City Clerk Cindi Hesse has up to 15 days to verify petition signatures. Petition organizers have up to 10 days to correct any errors found by the clerk. The Common Council then has up to 30 days to accept the petition’s language or refer it to the voters.
A notice of referendum must be forwarded to the Outagamie, Calumet and Winnebago county clerks no later than Feb. 22, six weeks before the April 5 election, in order for the question to be on the ballot.
“The bottom line is everything has to be completed by the council by Feb. 21,” Kennedy said.
The council is scheduled to meet Feb. 16.
Hesse said petition filings later this week or next week could rush the review process.
“It is taking away the maximum time we have for review,” she said.
“I would like as much time as possible if I potentially have to certify 8,000 signatures.”
Hesse said it took her staff about a week to certify the more than 3,650 signatures on a petition that led to an April referendum on the College Avenue bridge reconstruction.
Olson said she expects the total ban effort to gather 3,500 signatures. “We are trying very hard to make sure every signature is valid,” she said.
Petition organizers seeking to exempt bars hope to go far beyond the required number of signatures, said Robbie Johnson, owner of Tom’s Garage, 300 N. Superior St. and spokesman for Citizens for Responsible Regulation, which is seeking to get its Smart Smoking Ban placed on the April 5 ballot. That referendum would exempt holders of Class B liquor licenses from smoking bans.
“We are looking to gather 4,500 signatures so we have a huge cushion,” Johnson said. “Hopefully we will file our petition later this week.”
Terry Harvath, owner of the Wishing Well, 2709 E. Newberry St., went to Hesse’s office Monday afternoon with a box of petitions bearing the necessary signatures as a precaution in case the petitions needed to be filed by the close of business.
Harvath would not disclose exactly how many signatures were on the documents.
“There were a few establishments we couldn’t pick up petitions from on Monday because they were closed,” Harvath said.
Steve Wideman can be reached at 920-993-1000, ext. 302, or by e-mail at swideman@ postcrescent.com
Friday, January 21, 2005
Wed Jan 5, 2005
Passive Smoke Lowers Kids' Test Scores
Letter to the Editor at http://www.forbes.com/story/mag/comments_form.jhtml?title=Article
Dear Editor:
It appears this entire study, concluding that "Passive Smoke Lowers Kids' Test Scores", was based upon measured levels of cotinine in the children's bodies, supposedly supplied by second hand smoke nicotine metabolism in the human body. They were "looking for links between environmental tobacco smoke and performance on cognitive testing". THAT WAS THE PURPOSE OF THE STUDY!
I would like to supply you with some other sources for nicotine in the majority of our population's diet, other than tobacco. According to http://www.fact-index.com/n/ni/nicotine.html.
"It (tobacco) is a potent nerve poison and is included in many insecticides. ...In addition to the tobacco plant, nicotine is also found in lower quantities in other members of the Solanaceae (nightshade) family, which includes tomato, potato, eggplant (aubergine), and green pepper."
I realize that this "new" study (from 1988 to 1994), conducted at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is meant to be an earth shattering discovery. However, the CDC is already notorious as an anti-smoking organization .
I would also like to know how "43 percent of the children reported being exposed to smoking at home", when anti-smoking sources repeatedly quote that less than 25% of adults smoke.
Also, the bias Steven Reinberg has shown by quoting David Katz' "therory" discredits the entire article.
"...."The study does suffer from one serious limitation: There was no measure of parental intelligence," said Dr. David L. Katz, director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine.
It may just be that somewhat less intelligent parents are the ones who expose their children to tobacco smoke; after all, based on evidence available long before this study, doing so simply isn't very bright. If that is the case, serum cotinine in children might simply be a surrogate marker for less intelligence in the parents." .
______________________________
Garnet Dawn - The Smoker's Club, Inc. - Midwest Regional Director
The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter - http://www.smokersclubinc.com
Illinois Smokers Group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/illinoissmokers/
mailto:garnetdawn@comcast.net - Respect Freedom of Choice!
------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.forbes.com/lifestyle/health/feeds/hscout/2005/01/04/hscout523226.html
Health Passive Smoke Lowers Kids' Test Scores By Steven ReinbergHealthDay Reporter By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter,
TUESDAY, Jan. 4 (HealthDayNews) -- Even small amounts of secondhand smoke can sabotage a child's performance on reading, math, reasoning and logic tests, a new study finds.
Scores on standardized exams to measure cognitive function decrease in what is called a dose-response relationship found that, the more tobacco smoke a child is exposed to, the worse he or she does on the test, according to the report in the January issue of Environmental Health Perspectives.
"We were looking for links between environmental tobacco smoke and performance on cognitive testing," said study author Kimberly Yolton, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the Children's Environmental Health Center at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.
Yolton and her colleagues collected data on 4,399 children, aged 6 to 16, who were part of the third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES-III). The study was conducted from 1988 to 1994 by the National Center for Health Statistics at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
To determine the amount of exposure to tobacco smoke, Yolton's team measured levels of cotinine in the children's bodies. Cotinine is a substance produced when nicotine is metabolized. Cognitive and academic ability were measured using parts of standardized intelligence and achievement tests.
"We found that there was a clear, strong association between exposure to tobacco smoke and declining scores in reading, math and problem-solving. Children who had more exposure had a greater detriment in their scores," Yolton said.
"This effect remained significant even at very low levels of exposure," Yolton added. In general, there was about a three-point drop in reading scores and about a two-point drop in math scores among those exposed to the highest levels of secondhand smoke, she noted.
"A lot of people would say, 'What's three points on a reading test that has a mean of 100?' For the individual child, it may not seem like it's a big effect that we need to be concerned about," Yolton said. "But if you think about it, we estimated that somewhere around 33 million children are exposed to tobacco smoke. So if you think about 33 million children across the country losing three points, then it has a greater societal impact."
Whether these effects of secondhand smoke on cognitive skills remain throughout the child's lifetime is not clear. Yolton is not sure if passive smoke causes permanent changes in mental function by altering brain development, or if the changes are temporary.
"Children are getting exposed to tobacco smoke in places other than in their homes," Yolton said. "Parents need to pay attention to where their children are, and what they are surrounded by." While only 43 percent of the children reported being exposed to smoking at home, 84 percent had some level of exposure, she noted.
"The study does suffer from one serious limitation: There was no measure of parental intelligence," said Dr. David L. Katz, director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine.
It is well-established that, other things being equal, more intelligent parents tend to have more intelligent children, and vice versa, Katz said.
"It may just be that somewhat less intelligent parents are the ones who expose their children to tobacco smoke; after all, based on evidence available long before this study, doing so simply isn't very bright. If that is the case, serum cotinine in children might simply be a surrogate marker for less intelligence in the parents."
While this possibility should be considered and studied further, the facts of the study are simple, Katz noted.
"As if we didn't already know this, children should not be exposed to tobacco smoke, period," he said. "To expose children to tobacco smoke is, for all intents and purposes, to poison them." The study has "simply clarified another of this insidious poison's likely consequences."
More information
The U.S. National Cancer Institute explains secondhand smoke and its dangers.
Passive Smoke Lowers Kids' Test Scores
Letter to the Editor at http://www.forbes.com/story/mag/comments_form.jhtml?title=Article
Dear Editor:
It appears this entire study, concluding that "Passive Smoke Lowers Kids' Test Scores", was based upon measured levels of cotinine in the children's bodies, supposedly supplied by second hand smoke nicotine metabolism in the human body. They were "looking for links between environmental tobacco smoke and performance on cognitive testing". THAT WAS THE PURPOSE OF THE STUDY!
I would like to supply you with some other sources for nicotine in the majority of our population's diet, other than tobacco. According to http://www.fact-index.com/n/ni/nicotine.html.
"It (tobacco) is a potent nerve poison and is included in many insecticides. ...In addition to the tobacco plant, nicotine is also found in lower quantities in other members of the Solanaceae (nightshade) family, which includes tomato, potato, eggplant (aubergine), and green pepper."
I realize that this "new" study (from 1988 to 1994), conducted at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is meant to be an earth shattering discovery. However, the CDC is already notorious as an anti-smoking organization .
I would also like to know how "43 percent of the children reported being exposed to smoking at home", when anti-smoking sources repeatedly quote that less than 25% of adults smoke.
Also, the bias Steven Reinberg has shown by quoting David Katz' "therory" discredits the entire article.
"...."The study does suffer from one serious limitation: There was no measure of parental intelligence," said Dr. David L. Katz, director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine.
It may just be that somewhat less intelligent parents are the ones who expose their children to tobacco smoke; after all, based on evidence available long before this study, doing so simply isn't very bright. If that is the case, serum cotinine in children might simply be a surrogate marker for less intelligence in the parents." .
______________________________
Garnet Dawn - The Smoker's Club, Inc. - Midwest Regional Director
The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter - http://www.smokersclubinc.com
Illinois Smokers Group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/illinoissmokers/
mailto:garnetdawn@comcast.net - Respect Freedom of Choice!
------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.forbes.com/lifestyle/health/feeds/hscout/2005/01/04/hscout523226.html
Health Passive Smoke Lowers Kids' Test Scores By Steven ReinbergHealthDay Reporter By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter,
TUESDAY, Jan. 4 (HealthDayNews) -- Even small amounts of secondhand smoke can sabotage a child's performance on reading, math, reasoning and logic tests, a new study finds.
Scores on standardized exams to measure cognitive function decrease in what is called a dose-response relationship found that, the more tobacco smoke a child is exposed to, the worse he or she does on the test, according to the report in the January issue of Environmental Health Perspectives.
"We were looking for links between environmental tobacco smoke and performance on cognitive testing," said study author Kimberly Yolton, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the Children's Environmental Health Center at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.
Yolton and her colleagues collected data on 4,399 children, aged 6 to 16, who were part of the third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES-III). The study was conducted from 1988 to 1994 by the National Center for Health Statistics at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
To determine the amount of exposure to tobacco smoke, Yolton's team measured levels of cotinine in the children's bodies. Cotinine is a substance produced when nicotine is metabolized. Cognitive and academic ability were measured using parts of standardized intelligence and achievement tests.
"We found that there was a clear, strong association between exposure to tobacco smoke and declining scores in reading, math and problem-solving. Children who had more exposure had a greater detriment in their scores," Yolton said.
"This effect remained significant even at very low levels of exposure," Yolton added. In general, there was about a three-point drop in reading scores and about a two-point drop in math scores among those exposed to the highest levels of secondhand smoke, she noted.
"A lot of people would say, 'What's three points on a reading test that has a mean of 100?' For the individual child, it may not seem like it's a big effect that we need to be concerned about," Yolton said. "But if you think about it, we estimated that somewhere around 33 million children are exposed to tobacco smoke. So if you think about 33 million children across the country losing three points, then it has a greater societal impact."
Whether these effects of secondhand smoke on cognitive skills remain throughout the child's lifetime is not clear. Yolton is not sure if passive smoke causes permanent changes in mental function by altering brain development, or if the changes are temporary.
"Children are getting exposed to tobacco smoke in places other than in their homes," Yolton said. "Parents need to pay attention to where their children are, and what they are surrounded by." While only 43 percent of the children reported being exposed to smoking at home, 84 percent had some level of exposure, she noted.
"The study does suffer from one serious limitation: There was no measure of parental intelligence," said Dr. David L. Katz, director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine.
It is well-established that, other things being equal, more intelligent parents tend to have more intelligent children, and vice versa, Katz said.
"It may just be that somewhat less intelligent parents are the ones who expose their children to tobacco smoke; after all, based on evidence available long before this study, doing so simply isn't very bright. If that is the case, serum cotinine in children might simply be a surrogate marker for less intelligence in the parents."
While this possibility should be considered and studied further, the facts of the study are simple, Katz noted.
"As if we didn't already know this, children should not be exposed to tobacco smoke, period," he said. "To expose children to tobacco smoke is, for all intents and purposes, to poison them." The study has "simply clarified another of this insidious poison's likely consequences."
More information
The U.S. National Cancer Institute explains secondhand smoke and its dangers.
Wed Jan 5, 2005
Whole milk is five times more likely to give you cancer than secondhand smoke
Health district board wants bars exempted - Corpus Christi, TX
Congratulations to Chery Bratcher, Forces and "The ABCs of ETS (environmental tobacco smoke)" !!
______________________________
Garnet Dawn - The Smoker's Club, Inc. - Midwest Regional Director
The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter - http://www.smokersclubinc.com
Illinois Smokers Group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/illinoissmokers/
mailto:garnetdawn@comcast.net - Respect Freedom of Choice!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.caller.com/ccct/local_news/article/0,1641,CCCT_811_3446678,00.html
Smoke ban gets approval of panel
Health district board wants bars exempted
By Leanne Libby Caller-Times - Corpus Christi, TX
January 5, 2005
The city-county health district's food service advisory committee voted Tuesday to support the city's proposed ban on smoking, provided the final version of that ban includes an exemption for restaurant bars that are closed-off from the dining area and have separate ventilation systems.
Committee member Suzanne Gilliam said amending the ordinance to exempt enclosed restaurant bars would be a fair balance between public health and business.
"I think a compromise was well made today," she said of the group's endorsement, which will be forwarded to the City Council.
The ordinance that received initial approval by the City Council Dec. 14 bans smoking in all restaurants, but exempts bars making more than 75 percent of their money from alcohol sales. Restaurants with bars inside would be treated as one business and would be required to adhere to the same smoke-free standard unless they qualify for the exemption.
City rules require the council to pass the ban a second time before it becomes effective. The City Council meets again Jan. 11, and City Manager Skip Noe confirmed Tuesday that the smoking ordinance would be on the agenda. If approved, the ban is scheduled to take effect Feb. 1.
Less than 24 hours before the Dec. 21 council meeting that could have approved the measure, Mayor Loyd Neal pulled it from the agenda, citing the desire to have the entire council present. Councilman Rex Kinnison was on vacation.
Kinnison had given his support to the Dec. 14 ordinance but Neal said he wanted everyone present to discuss the Coastal Bend Restaurant Association's submission of an amendment that would allow smoking in restaurants that have separate, sealed-off areas with separate ventilation systems.
When members of the food service committee opened the meeting to public comment, Cheryl Bratcher, a local waitress who opposes the ban, presented the group with a photocopy of a book called "The ABCs of ETS (environmental tobacco smoke)" she said provided evidence the risks of smoking have been exaggerated. The book is produced by a group called Forces International, an organization opposed to smoking bans.
"If you look in here, you see that whole milk is five times more likely to give you cancer than secondhand smoke," she said, opening the packet and pointing a passage out to committee chairman William Schroeder.
Bratcher, who said a smoking ban would affect her livelihood, said bans are less about public health than currying favor with non-smokers.
"It's trendy," she said of smoking bans.
Dee Haven, spokesman for the Coastal Bend Restaurant Association and member of the advisory committee, agreed with Bratcher's assessment of smoking bans as being trendy.
"Just because it's sweeping the country doesn't mean it's right," he said.
Haven said the restaurant association was continuing to lobby the City Council to amend the ordinance so fully enclosed restaurant bars with separate ventilation systems could allow smoking.
"The sale of alcoholic beverages is substantially more profitable than the sale of food," Haven said. "They would be competing with bars that have the exemption, and that would be unfair. It's an issue of fair competition between businesses."
Contact Leanne Libby at 886-3618 or libbyl@caller.com
Whole milk is five times more likely to give you cancer than secondhand smoke
Health district board wants bars exempted - Corpus Christi, TX
Congratulations to Chery Bratcher, Forces and "The ABCs of ETS (environmental tobacco smoke)" !!
______________________________
Garnet Dawn - The Smoker's Club, Inc. - Midwest Regional Director
The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter - http://www.smokersclubinc.com
Illinois Smokers Group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/illinoissmokers/
mailto:garnetdawn@comcast.net - Respect Freedom of Choice!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.caller.com/ccct/local_news/article/0,1641,CCCT_811_3446678,00.html
Smoke ban gets approval of panel
Health district board wants bars exempted
By Leanne Libby Caller-Times - Corpus Christi, TX
January 5, 2005
The city-county health district's food service advisory committee voted Tuesday to support the city's proposed ban on smoking, provided the final version of that ban includes an exemption for restaurant bars that are closed-off from the dining area and have separate ventilation systems.
Committee member Suzanne Gilliam said amending the ordinance to exempt enclosed restaurant bars would be a fair balance between public health and business.
"I think a compromise was well made today," she said of the group's endorsement, which will be forwarded to the City Council.
The ordinance that received initial approval by the City Council Dec. 14 bans smoking in all restaurants, but exempts bars making more than 75 percent of their money from alcohol sales. Restaurants with bars inside would be treated as one business and would be required to adhere to the same smoke-free standard unless they qualify for the exemption.
City rules require the council to pass the ban a second time before it becomes effective. The City Council meets again Jan. 11, and City Manager Skip Noe confirmed Tuesday that the smoking ordinance would be on the agenda. If approved, the ban is scheduled to take effect Feb. 1.
Less than 24 hours before the Dec. 21 council meeting that could have approved the measure, Mayor Loyd Neal pulled it from the agenda, citing the desire to have the entire council present. Councilman Rex Kinnison was on vacation.
Kinnison had given his support to the Dec. 14 ordinance but Neal said he wanted everyone present to discuss the Coastal Bend Restaurant Association's submission of an amendment that would allow smoking in restaurants that have separate, sealed-off areas with separate ventilation systems.
When members of the food service committee opened the meeting to public comment, Cheryl Bratcher, a local waitress who opposes the ban, presented the group with a photocopy of a book called "The ABCs of ETS (environmental tobacco smoke)" she said provided evidence the risks of smoking have been exaggerated. The book is produced by a group called Forces International, an organization opposed to smoking bans.
"If you look in here, you see that whole milk is five times more likely to give you cancer than secondhand smoke," she said, opening the packet and pointing a passage out to committee chairman William Schroeder.
Bratcher, who said a smoking ban would affect her livelihood, said bans are less about public health than currying favor with non-smokers.
"It's trendy," she said of smoking bans.
Dee Haven, spokesman for the Coastal Bend Restaurant Association and member of the advisory committee, agreed with Bratcher's assessment of smoking bans as being trendy.
"Just because it's sweeping the country doesn't mean it's right," he said.
Haven said the restaurant association was continuing to lobby the City Council to amend the ordinance so fully enclosed restaurant bars with separate ventilation systems could allow smoking.
"The sale of alcoholic beverages is substantially more profitable than the sale of food," Haven said. "They would be competing with bars that have the exemption, and that would be unfair. It's an issue of fair competition between businesses."
Contact Leanne Libby at 886-3618 or libbyl@caller.com
Tue Jan 4, 2005
Milan, Italy - 4,000 NEW MEMBERS IN 1 MONTH FOR THE SMOKERS' ASSOCIATION
Article of interest. Smokers in Italy are fighting back.
______________________________
Garnet Dawn - The Smoker's Club, Inc. - Midwest Regional Director
The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter - http://www.smokersclubinc.com
Illinois Smokers Group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/illinoissmokers/
mailto:garnetdawn@comcast.net - Respect Freedom of Choice!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.agi.it/english/news.pl?doc=200501031918-1192-RT1-CRO-0-NF82&page=0&id=agionline-eng.italyonline
Tuesday January 4, 2005 Italy On Line
Special service by AGI on behalf of the Italian Prime Minister's office
4,000 NEW MEMBERS IN 1 MONTH FOR THE SMOKERS' ASSOCIATION
(AGI) - Milan, Jan. 3 - While waiting for the new smoking ban in public premises to enter into force on January 10, smokers are taking actions. In the last month, 4,000 new members have joined the 'Association of kind smokers and tolerant non-smokers' (200,000 members officially registered) and is now preparing to launch its attack starting with "a party which will mark the beginning of the prohibitionism in Italy", President Giuliano Bianucci said. On January 9, a collective smoking event will be organized in a club in Milan but the exact place will be made public on the web site of the association only next Thursday or next Friday. At midnight, a fake police raid followed by the arrest of all the participants will be staged. The association can boast among its members actors, such as Giorgio Albertazzi and Dario Fo, sportsmen such as Loris Capirossi and Dino Zoff, singers Vecchioni and Venditti and some politicians such as Francesco Storace and Franco Marini. The event will be attended by "a MP belonging to the majority coalition, who will present an amendment to the law proposed by Sirchia so as to make it more acceptable".
031918 GEN 05
COPYRIGHTS 2002-2003 AGI S.p.A.
Milan, Italy - 4,000 NEW MEMBERS IN 1 MONTH FOR THE SMOKERS' ASSOCIATION
Article of interest. Smokers in Italy are fighting back.
______________________________
Garnet Dawn - The Smoker's Club, Inc. - Midwest Regional Director
The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter - http://www.smokersclubinc.com
Illinois Smokers Group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/illinoissmokers/
mailto:garnetdawn@comcast.net - Respect Freedom of Choice!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.agi.it/english/news.pl?doc=200501031918-1192-RT1-CRO-0-NF82&page=0&id=agionline-eng.italyonline
Tuesday January 4, 2005 Italy On Line
Special service by AGI on behalf of the Italian Prime Minister's office
4,000 NEW MEMBERS IN 1 MONTH FOR THE SMOKERS' ASSOCIATION
(AGI) - Milan, Jan. 3 - While waiting for the new smoking ban in public premises to enter into force on January 10, smokers are taking actions. In the last month, 4,000 new members have joined the 'Association of kind smokers and tolerant non-smokers' (200,000 members officially registered) and is now preparing to launch its attack starting with "a party which will mark the beginning of the prohibitionism in Italy", President Giuliano Bianucci said. On January 9, a collective smoking event will be organized in a club in Milan but the exact place will be made public on the web site of the association only next Thursday or next Friday. At midnight, a fake police raid followed by the arrest of all the participants will be staged. The association can boast among its members actors, such as Giorgio Albertazzi and Dario Fo, sportsmen such as Loris Capirossi and Dino Zoff, singers Vecchioni and Venditti and some politicians such as Francesco Storace and Franco Marini. The event will be attended by "a MP belonging to the majority coalition, who will present an amendment to the law proposed by Sirchia so as to make it more acceptable".
031918 GEN 05
COPYRIGHTS 2002-2003 AGI S.p.A.
01/03/2005
Subject: Airports to ban lighters beyond checkpoints
My letter to the Indianapolis Star. Garnet
------------------------------------------------------------
Letters to the Editor
The Indianapolis Star
P.O. Box 145, Indianapolis
IN 46206-0145
Thank you for an excellent and unbiased story (copy below).
However, I completely disagree with our Homeland Security Department's banned-items list for national air travel security. The Intelligence Reform Bill that President Bush signed Dec. 17, 2004, "Airports to ban lighters beyond checkpoints", reveals our country's current mentality on prevention from terrorist attacks.
Take away matches and lighters!!! Fire was discovered eons before our current methods of creating fire were developed. I am beyond all patience with this type of protection Locks/current security measures only keep honest people honest. Thieves/terrorists will always find a way to circumvent these checks and measures. I don't like flying with my luggage unlocked and at the mercy of any airline employee who wants to open it.
What about passengers who are wearing or carrying barrettes, hair pins, bobby pins, wig pins, safety pins, mending kits (needles), rubberbands, belts (a potential garroting weapon), and who knows how many other "dangerous" items on their person? Pillows should no longer be offered by airlines, as they can be a potential threat for smothering. The list of potential weapons is endless.
Soon airports will not allow people wearing clothing with metal zippers to travel by air, as striking a flint against the zipper can create a spark. Eventually, following this thought train, air travelers will be forced to travel in pajama type garments and slippers to avoid any threats. All the ridiculous security measures that have been taken since 9/11 are not addressing our real security threats.
Prevention and intelligent screening....I emphasize "intelligent"...are the only ways to reduce air travel threats. Massive lines and degrading policies by security checks are only reassuring to passengers who prefer to trust minimum wage airport security personnel to ensure their safety.
I would like to see the United States study and apply the same principles the Israelis use to screen passengers boarding and departing airlines in their country. Airports in our country have become a joke in the rest of the world, due to the inefficiency of our methods.
I swear that I will never take another plane till some sanity has returned to the U.S. air travel industry.
______________________________
Garnet Dawn - The Smoker's Club, Inc. - Midwest Regional Director
The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter - http://www.smokersclubinc.com
Illinois Smokers Group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/illinoissmokers/
mailto:garnetdawn@comcast.net - Respect Freedom of Choice!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.indystar.com/articles/4/206264-3664-010.html
Airports to ban lighters beyond checkpoints
Knight Ridder Newspapers
January 1, 2005
FORT WORTH, Texas -- In what could become a major hassle for air travelers who smoke, the Homeland Security Department will ban all cigarette lighters beyond airport checkpoints beginning Feb. 15.
The Intelligence Reform Bill that President Bush signed Dec. 17 orders the Transportation Security Administration to review its banned-items list and to prohibit passengers from carrying butane lighters aboard planes. Legislation stipulates that the ban must be in place in 60 days.
"We are reviewing the necessary changes that the Transportation Security Administration will need to make based on the new intelligence legislation," agency spokeswoman Andrea McCauley said.
The security agency might also expand the banned-items list to include matches, aviation industry sources have said.
But if a ban is enacted, it isn't clear how screeners would detect matches, short of a time-consuming physical search.
In 2003, James Loy, a former head of the transportation security agency, determined that two lighters and four books of matches were "an acceptable level of risk" to balance security and customer service. But during the next year, Loy's decision was criticized as too lax.
After all, two U.S. senators argued last year, would-be terrorist Richard Reid was one match strike away from igniting explosives in the heel of his shoe aboard a Paris-to-Miami flight.
Other industry observers have said it is disheartening that the agency and Congress still must tinker with a security problem brought to light in December 2001, rather than focusing on larger issues, such as air cargo security or general aviation security.
"You can point to bureaucracy, point to what you like," said David Forbes, president of aviation logistics at the BoydForbes aviation security firm in Colorado. "Once you learn a lesson, you apply it. After three years and a huge taxpayers' investment, we have gained virtually zero."
And some question how effectively a ban on lighters, and particularly on matches, could be implemented.
"In some cases it may be difficult to enforce," said David Stempler, president of the Air Travelers Association in Washington. "Many won't show up on X-rays."
Some airports -- Atlanta and Denver, for example -- have smoking lounges or areas that could be equipped with lighters similar to car lighters, Stempler said.
But more likely is that airport areas beyond the security checkpoints will become de facto nonsmoking zones, officials said. Some airports, including Dallas/Fort Worth, ban smoking everywhere inside the terminals.
Subject: Airports to ban lighters beyond checkpoints
My letter to the Indianapolis Star. Garnet
------------------------------------------------------------
Letters to the Editor
The Indianapolis Star
P.O. Box 145, Indianapolis
IN 46206-0145
Thank you for an excellent and unbiased story (copy below).
However, I completely disagree with our Homeland Security Department's banned-items list for national air travel security. The Intelligence Reform Bill that President Bush signed Dec. 17, 2004, "Airports to ban lighters beyond checkpoints", reveals our country's current mentality on prevention from terrorist attacks.
Take away matches and lighters!!! Fire was discovered eons before our current methods of creating fire were developed. I am beyond all patience with this type of protection Locks/current security measures only keep honest people honest. Thieves/terrorists will always find a way to circumvent these checks and measures. I don't like flying with my luggage unlocked and at the mercy of any airline employee who wants to open it.
What about passengers who are wearing or carrying barrettes, hair pins, bobby pins, wig pins, safety pins, mending kits (needles), rubberbands, belts (a potential garroting weapon), and who knows how many other "dangerous" items on their person? Pillows should no longer be offered by airlines, as they can be a potential threat for smothering. The list of potential weapons is endless.
Soon airports will not allow people wearing clothing with metal zippers to travel by air, as striking a flint against the zipper can create a spark. Eventually, following this thought train, air travelers will be forced to travel in pajama type garments and slippers to avoid any threats. All the ridiculous security measures that have been taken since 9/11 are not addressing our real security threats.
Prevention and intelligent screening....I emphasize "intelligent"...are the only ways to reduce air travel threats. Massive lines and degrading policies by security checks are only reassuring to passengers who prefer to trust minimum wage airport security personnel to ensure their safety.
I would like to see the United States study and apply the same principles the Israelis use to screen passengers boarding and departing airlines in their country. Airports in our country have become a joke in the rest of the world, due to the inefficiency of our methods.
I swear that I will never take another plane till some sanity has returned to the U.S. air travel industry.
______________________________
Garnet Dawn - The Smoker's Club, Inc. - Midwest Regional Director
The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter - http://www.smokersclubinc.com
Illinois Smokers Group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/illinoissmokers/
mailto:garnetdawn@comcast.net - Respect Freedom of Choice!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.indystar.com/articles/4/206264-3664-010.html
Airports to ban lighters beyond checkpoints
Knight Ridder Newspapers
January 1, 2005
FORT WORTH, Texas -- In what could become a major hassle for air travelers who smoke, the Homeland Security Department will ban all cigarette lighters beyond airport checkpoints beginning Feb. 15.
The Intelligence Reform Bill that President Bush signed Dec. 17 orders the Transportation Security Administration to review its banned-items list and to prohibit passengers from carrying butane lighters aboard planes. Legislation stipulates that the ban must be in place in 60 days.
"We are reviewing the necessary changes that the Transportation Security Administration will need to make based on the new intelligence legislation," agency spokeswoman Andrea McCauley said.
The security agency might also expand the banned-items list to include matches, aviation industry sources have said.
But if a ban is enacted, it isn't clear how screeners would detect matches, short of a time-consuming physical search.
In 2003, James Loy, a former head of the transportation security agency, determined that two lighters and four books of matches were "an acceptable level of risk" to balance security and customer service. But during the next year, Loy's decision was criticized as too lax.
After all, two U.S. senators argued last year, would-be terrorist Richard Reid was one match strike away from igniting explosives in the heel of his shoe aboard a Paris-to-Miami flight.
Other industry observers have said it is disheartening that the agency and Congress still must tinker with a security problem brought to light in December 2001, rather than focusing on larger issues, such as air cargo security or general aviation security.
"You can point to bureaucracy, point to what you like," said David Forbes, president of aviation logistics at the BoydForbes aviation security firm in Colorado. "Once you learn a lesson, you apply it. After three years and a huge taxpayers' investment, we have gained virtually zero."
And some question how effectively a ban on lighters, and particularly on matches, could be implemented.
"In some cases it may be difficult to enforce," said David Stempler, president of the Air Travelers Association in Washington. "Many won't show up on X-rays."
Some airports -- Atlanta and Denver, for example -- have smoking lounges or areas that could be equipped with lighters similar to car lighters, Stempler said.
But more likely is that airport areas beyond the security checkpoints will become de facto nonsmoking zones, officials said. Some airports, including Dallas/Fort Worth, ban smoking everywhere inside the terminals.
Friday, December 31, 2004
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Say "good bye" to consideration and empathy for the individual at Gottlieb Memorial Hospital!
Here is another hospital to completely avoid in the Chicagoland area, Gottlieb Memorial Hospital in Melrose Park.
If you smoke, don't check in or visit here! Gottlieb has joined ranks with "Loyola University Medical Center, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Northwest Community Healthcare, St. Francis in Blue Island and four Advocate hospitals: Christ Medical Center, Good Samaritan Hospital, Good Shepherd Hospital and Lutheran General Hospital".
"Patients' families and visitors, especially, are at the hospital under stressful circumstances and may question a total smoking ban, but we hope everyone will cooperate, realizing that this is a place of healing and promoting good health."
Say "good bye" to consideration and empathy for the individual at Gottlieb Memorial Hospital!
______________________________
Garnet Dawn - The Smoker's Club, Inc. - Midwest Regional Director
The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter - http://www.smokersclubinc.com
Illinois Smokers Group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/illinoissmokers/
mailto:garnetdawn@comcast.net - Respect Freedom of Choice!
-----------------------------------------------
http://www.pioneerlocal.com/cgi-bin/ppo-story/localnews/current/me/12-29-04-463367.html
Gottlieb plans smoking ban
Gottlieb Memorial Hospital will ban smoking on its entire Melrose Park campus, effective June 1, 2005.
"Smoking has been prohibited inside all campus buildings for many years now," said hospital President John Morgan. "But the time has come to make a strong statement against the No. 1 cause of preventable illness and early death. It's time to provide clean, safe air outside as well as inside for all our patients, visitors, volunteers and physicians. As a hospital, we should be modeling healthy behaviors for the rest of our community."
Among area hospitals that already prohibit smoking on their campuses are Loyola University Medical Center, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Northwest Community Healthcare, St. Francis in Blue Island and four Advocate hospitals: Christ Medical Center, Good Samaritan Hospital, Good Shepherd Hospital and Lutheran General Hospital.
For the past four months, a Gottlieb task force has been planning and implementing a gradual transition to a smoke-free campus to help smokers acclimate to the change.
The hospital will not require that employees quit smoking, but for those who want to kick the habit there are: Discounts in the Professional Building Pharmacy on smoking cessation aids; a free stop smoking course, and lots of resource information, including the best Web sites and toll-free phone numbers to help them quit.
The task force will be working on other forms of assistance in the New Year as well.
Currently there are three designated outdoor smoking areas -- away from building entrances.
These will be eliminated one at a time starting April 1.
"We're very much aware of the potential for resistance as we phase out these areas and finally go smoke-free on June 1," said Jack Weinberg, chairman of the hospital's board of directors.
"Patients' families and visitors, especially, are at the hospital under stressful circumstances and may question a total smoking ban, but we hope everyone will cooperate, realizing that this is a place of healing and promoting good health."
Anyone found smoking on campus after May 31 will be asked politely, respectfully, but firmly, to comply with Gottlieb's policy.
Thursday, December 30, 2004
SMOKE-FREE
Hi Thomas,
I agree!! The non-smoking policies (especially in hospitals) are inhuman and purely a matter of dictatorial policies innovated by those in control. Stress, anger and frustration created by unreasonable rules do not contribute to an individual's health and recovery. (Can you visualize the arguments that must take place among smokers about the length and frequency of visits to loved ones and friends recovering in these smoke free campus hospitals? To me, a smoke break was always a welcome respite from the oppresive hosipal atmosphere.)
Hospitals are already competing with each other on the advertising mediums here. What if smokers begin to boycott hospitals that are so concerned with non-smoking politically correct campuses? What if patients begin requesting/demanding health care that respects the individual preferences of the "inmates"/patients and their visitors? Hospice and home care are becoming more popular.
Regarding smoking in your own car on hospital property, I would start up my car and leave if someone bothered me--of course I would return--once I had finished my cigarette. I get so furious! When we allowed seat belt laws to be passed, we gave up our rights for our automobiles to be respected as our private property.
I think I mentioned once before, in an earlier post, that even our legal system still makes certain concessions to smokers. Illinois has had a "clean air" law in effect for years that forbids smoking in public buildings. When I had to do my jury duty last year (2003), it was in Waukegan, Illinois. I was surprised to find that the court house provided one smoking room in the entire building--and it was for jurors only.
For the long, boring days that about 80 other unfortunates and myself were the property of the Lake County court system as potential jurors, we were not supposed to leave the courthouse all day. I'm sure the court system knew that smokers would go outside if not provided with an area to smoke. Our legal system considered our sequestering more important than all the non-smoking laws. Exceptions can be made anywhere!
______________________________
Garnet Dawn - The Smoker's Club, Inc. - Midwest Regional Director
The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter - http://www.smokersclubinc.com
Illinois Smokers Group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/illinoissmokers/
mailto:garnetdawn@comcast.net - Respect Freedom of Choice!
--------------------------------------------------------------
Thomas Laprade wrote:
Thunder Bay Regional Hospital has no smoking on the grounds and not even in your own car (that's the hospitals rules)
Can you see a security guard knocking on your car window and saying put that smoke out..This is unbelievable
Doesn't "Compassion" enter into the equation."promoting good health'??
They kicked the paraplegic out of the hospital and closed the smoking 'room', even though the hospital is his 'home' (he has to smoke outside and somebody has to hold his cigarette).
There is one hospital in Thunder Bay that has a smoking room, and yet they still advertise.."A smoke-free hospital, can't have all theses nurses standing outside smoking, now can you? Especially there is a nurse shortage in Canada
What the hell is wrong with 'Live and let live?'
Thursday, December 30, 2004
Tillery's firm sues big tobacco again - Madison County, IL
Letter to:
The Madison County Record
301 N. Main Street
Edwardsville, IL 62025
Attn: Brian Timpone, Publisher brian@madisonrecord.net
Steve Gonzalez, Courts Reporter steve@madisonrecord.net
Ann Knef, Editor ann@madisonrecord.net
RE: Tillery's firm sues big tobacco again - Opinion
Dear Madison Record:
First, thank you for your excellent, informative and unbiased news articles.
However, why am I not surprised that the infamous Madison County, IL is in the news again? This new lawsuit is obscene and would be an insult to any court system in our country. I wonder if the Kruegers and their attorneys can be sued for filing a frivolous lawsuit a second time, after requesting the case be dismissed "without prejudice" the first time? I wonder how Rebekah Krueger can live with herself, knowing that she is using her husband's illness in such a despicable manner?
Consumers (to the best of my knowledge) still voluntarily make their own choices when they make retail purchases. I have not learned of any lawsuits against the FDA, food manufacturers and retailers for selling "low fat" products under false pretenses for over twenty years.
Were these small convenience store chains even in business 24 years prior to 2000? Did Salem Lights exist in 1976? I am also curious as to what brand of cigarettes Gerald Krueger now smokes and where his cigarettes are now purchased. I doubt if he has quit smoking voluntarily after so many years.
Sincerely,
____________________________________
Garnet Dawn - The Smoker's Club, Inc. - Midwest Regional Director
The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter - http://www.smokersclubinc.com
Illinois Smokers Group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/illinoissmokers/
mailto:garnetdawn@comcast.net - Respect Freedom of Choice!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.madisonrecord.com/news/newsview.asp?c=137478
Tillery's firm sues big tobacco again
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
By Steve Gonzalez - Edwardsville Bureau
Represented by trial attorney giants Korein Tillery of Belleville and SimmonsCooper of East Alton, a Nashville, Ill. couple filed a 12-count lawsuit against R.J. Reynolds (RJR) and Huck's Convenience Store in Madison County Circuit Court Dec. 28 for misrepresenting the amount of tar and nicotine contained in his smokes.
Gerald Krueger was diagnosed with lung cancer on Dec. 6, 2000, which he claims was caused by smoking 20-30 Salem Lights a day for more than 24 years.
He didn't know that he was receiving higher levels of tar and nicotine than RJR represented or that the smoke produced by Salem Lights is more mutagenic than regular cigarettes, Krueger claims.
Gerald’s wife, Rebekah Krueger, is also seeking damages alleging she has suffered “loss of the consortium, society, companionship, fellowship and other valuable services of her husband” since he has been diagnosed with cancer.
The Kruegers are seeking at least $600,000 in damages caused by RJR's and Huck’s alleged violation of the Illinois Consumer Fraud Act, the Uniform Commercial Code, product liability and negligence.
According to the complaint, the first day Huck’s placed Salem Lights cigarettes into the stream of commerce, Hucks individually and jointly engaged in misrepresentations, unlawful schemes and courses of conduct that induced Krueger to purchase Salem Lights trough unfair and deceptive acts.
“Krueger would not have purchased Salem Lights but for defendant’s unfair and deceptive acts and practices,” the complaint states.
As a result of the alleged unfair practices and acts, Krueger alleges he did not receive lower tar and nicotine cigarettes when he purchased Salem Lights and the defendants allegedly violated the Illinois Consumer Fraud Act, which Krueger claims led to his lung cancer.
Krueger claims he relied upon the implied warranty that Salem Lights were merchantable; however Huck’s allegedly breached the implied warranty in that they were not merchantable.
Rebekah Krueger also claims she is informed and believes that she is entitled to actual damages against Huck’s by reason of loss of consortium and society.
Gerald Krueger filed a lawsuit against RJR, Huck’s, Park N Shop supermarkets and Hit & Run in December 2003, but asked for the case to be dismissed without prejudice.
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Court: State law doesn't prohibit local smoking ban
Hi Samantha and whaleyman999,
You know it's funny, because I sent this article to myself last night when I saw the Google alert. I was not sure how I felt about this mess in Montana, initially.
For what it's worth, I think our government officials and the courts are only beginning to comprehend what they have initiated by creating dictatorial smoking ban laws. They are creating their own "can of worms" by attempting to tack on more legislation to amend legislation that never should have been instituted in the first place. The elected officials in Montana seem to be getting a taste of the same tactics that are being inflicted upon private citizens and businesses all over the world.
What a massive misuse of government authority and our court systems. This seems to be a case of "poetic justice". It's a shame for the casinos, and I hope they sue. I will definitely sign the petitions.
"In December 2002, City Judge Myron Pitch ruled the ban was unenforceable because it did not allow someone charged with violating it to seek a jury trial. That decision was appealed by the city of Helena and is expected to be heard by a District Court judge."
The perfect outcome would be if the District Court judge completely overturns the Helena ban. It would set a precedent for ALL the other smoking bans!
______________________________
Garnet Dawn - The Smoker's Club, Inc. - Midwest Regional Director
The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter - http://www.smokersclubinc.com
Illinois Smokers Group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/illinoissmokers/
mailto:garnetdawn@comcast.net - Respect Freedom of Choice!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2004/12/28/build/state/20-supco-smokingban.inc
December 28, 2004
Last modified December 28, 2004 - 3:00 pm
Court: State law doesn't prohibit local smoking ban
By JOHN MacDONALD
Associated Press
HELENA -- A state law intended to prohibit local governments from imposing smoking bans in gambling establishments has no force, the Montana Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.
In a 5-2 decision, the justices said the law the 2003 Legislature passed failed to "expressly" prohibit such bans, and therefore has no effect on any local ordinance that bans smoking in all public buildings, including bars and casinos.
"The state argues that although the Legislature did not use the word 'prohibited,' the exemption created by the statute is tantamount to a prohibition. We disagree," Justice William Leaphart wrote for the majority. "To exempt is not to prohibit."
The case was brought over a bill lawmakers passed in response to a 2002 voter-approved smoking ban in Helena. That ban prohibited smoking in all public buildings, but has been on hold while several legal challenges were mounted.
The Legislature responded by passing House Bill 758, which exempts businesses with gambling machines from the ordinance and any other local laws stricter than the state's indoor-air laws.
Backers of the smoking ban, including 11 state and national health organizations, sued to overturn the law excluding casinos. Rather than go through the usual process of a District Court trial, they asked the Supreme Court to take the case.
They argued the Legislature overstepped its constitutional bounds in passing the law exempting casinos from local smoking restrictions.
The majority of the justices concluded that lawmakers do have authority to prohibit such a ban from being enacted. However, they said that HB758 did not do that. Instead, the bill only "exempted" certain businesses from the ban.
"The Legislature did not effect an express prohibition of self-governing powers," Leaphart wrote.
He was joined in the majority by Justices James Nelson, Patricia Cotter, Jim Regnier and Chief Justice Karla Gray. Gray, however, filed her own opinion, in which she also dissented with a portion of the court's ruling on the validity of local indoor smoking ordinances.
Cotter, in her own concurring opinion, wrote that HB758 likely violated the Montana Constitution because it attempted to grant a "special privilege to the video gaming industry."
"Nothing in the constitution or the laws of this state gives the Legislature the authority to at once allow the exercise of power by a self-governing city, while declaring that certain entities or establishments shall be exempt" from self-government authority, Cotter wrote.
In a dissenting opinion, Justice John Warner, who was joined by Justice Jim Rice, wrote that the state's power to regulate gambling "includes the power to regulate the premises wherein it is conducted."
"The decision whether to allow smoking where gambling is allowed is within the power of the state," he argued.
Mark Staples, an attorney and lobbyist for the Montana Tavern Association, was out of his office Tuesday and did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment.
Rich Miller, executive director of the Montana Gaming Industry Association in Helena, said he had not read the opinion and couldn't comment.
Jim Reynolds, an attorney for supporters of the Helena ban, said he was "obviously very pleased" with the court's ruling.
Dr. Bob Shepard of Helena, one of the chief backers of the Helena smoking ban, said he was relieved by the court's decision, which will allow other pending litigation over the ban to now move forward.
"It means we're now going back to the public health aspect," he said, "which is what the real issue here should be, protecting the health of Helena residents who voted for this smoking ban."
Tuesday's ruling had nothing to do with the constitutionality of Helena's ban itself. That issue still is expected to come before a District Court judge.
In December 2002, City Judge Myron Pitch ruled the ban was unenforceable because it did not allow someone charged with violating it to seek a jury trial. That decision was appealed by the city of Helena and is expected to be heard by a District Court judge.
Copyright © 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Copyright © The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises.
______________________________
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
PUSH ON FOR SMOKE-FREE FLICKS
Hi,
Looks like the New York Dept of Health, hiding behind a group called Reality Check, has messed with the wrong people this time.
...the group actually wants the smoking scenes removed from classics like "Casablanca," "Rebel Without a Cause" and "Breakfast at Tiffany's."
______________________________
Garnet Dawn - The Smoker's Club, Inc. - Midwest Regional Director
The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter - http://www.smokersclubinc.com
Illinois Smokers Group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/illinoissmokers/
mailto:garnetdawn@comcast.net - Respect Freedom of Choice!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.nypost.com/gossip/37202.htm
PAGE SIX: PUSH ON FOR SMOKE-FREE FLICKS
New York Post, 2004-12-27
Richard Johnson with Paula Froelich and Chris Wilson
December 27, 2004 --
NOT content with trampling smokers' rights, the New York State Dept. of Health has launched an insidious campaign to erase all traces of tobacco from the movies.
The department's tobacco control program was behind the formation of Reality Check, a well-funded group supposedly started by and for teens against smoking. One of R.C.'s missions is to eradicate smoking from the movies, and their methods have put some noses out of joint.
In fact, it's causing conflict between state agencies, since R.C.'s programs are clashing with the artistic freedom espoused by the New York State Council on the Arts. In particular, R.C.'s operation to sponsor independent film festivals and then demand that no smoking be shown has caused some hard feelings.
The Arts Council helps fund the Woodstock Film Festival, based in the arty upstate burg bearing its name. Reality Check sponsored this year's festival as well, which was attended by the likes of Peter Gabriel, Laura Linney, Sam Rockwell, Fisher Stevens and Matt Dillon.
A couple of months ago, filmmaker Ford Crull was planning to make a promotional trailer for this year's Woodstock festival, done as a spoof on film noir and naturally containing a smoking scene. But he was told to scrap it because of R.C., which demanded an on-screen smoking ban.
Crull informed Karen Helmerson, director of electronic media and film at the state arts council, of the censorship. Helmerson has now blasted R.C.'s "subversive repres- sion of creative interpretation and creative speech."
"I will certainly bring this to the attention of our chairman to learn what, if anything, we can do as a state agency and arts funder," Helmerson wrote to Crull. "This is atrocious, of course. Made worse by the bogus claim that this is a youth-initiated movement."
Insiders say Reality Check plans an even more outrageous campaign, however. In addition to pressuring studios to keep smoking and cigarettes out of new movies — beginning with all films rated G, PG and PG-13 — the group actually wants the smoking scenes removed from classics like "Casablanca," "Rebel Without a Cause" and "Breakfast at Tiffany's."
Dept. of Health spokesperson Claire Pospisil promised to look into the issue.
Thursday, December 30, 2004
Of Smoking and Despots
Below is a very quotable excerpt from an editorial by Rudy Takala, found in the Smokers Club Newsletter, Issue #309.
Garnet
-------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.opinioneditorials.com/freedomwriters/rtakala_20040920.html
September 20, 2004
Of Smoking and Despots
Rudy Takala
".......If in a thousand years someone wonders how America fell, there will be no mistake: it was because America’s government collapsed under the weight of its responsibilities. Its subjects were too stupid to walk out of a bar filled with smoke; so they made government rectify the problem. They were too forgetful to use suggested safety precautions; and because they were too apathetic to dispose of their own money as a reminder when they forgot to use them, they made government dispose of it for everyone. They were easily influenced by the power of suggestion; so they made government outlaw things they saw advertised to keep from buying them. And finally, someone noticed that they didn’t know how, when or where elections were held because government had exiled the former rappers who used to explain it to them; therefore, elections were discontinued in the name of voting equality.
Smoking isn’t special; it’s just another excuse for government to become despotic. The road to hell may be paved with good intentions, but at least it’ll be smoke-free."
Thursday, December 23, 2004 11:49 AM
Smoking ban will crimp charitable gambling - Bloomington, MN
Ironically, it is the insatiable progressive do-gooders so infatuated with creating "pseudo-communities" who cannot recognize that authentic community is inevitable collateral damage in their misguided war on secondhand smoke.
http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/editorial/10416311.htm?1c
Wednesday, Dec. 15, 2004
Smoking ban will crimp charitable gambling
CRAIG WESTOVER
'Civil society" is the free and voluntary association of individuals in families, churches, schools, clubs, fraternal societies, veteran's organizations and the like. "Civil society" may be broadly defined in the single word "community."
Community is the natural way for society to take care its own. People in trouble first turn to family, then friends, then charitable organizations within their community. However, for a community to take care of its own, it must have funds to do so.
Ironically, it is the insatiable progressive do-gooders so infatuated with creating "pseudo-communities" who cannot recognize that authentic community is inevitable collateral damage in their misguided war on secondhand smoke.
Last week at VFW Post 1296 in Bloomington, in a conference room with ashtrays on the table, representatives from Bloomington veterans' organizations and service clubs talked about their charitable contribution to the community and how it might be affected by that city's smoking ban. Much of it will go up in non-existent smoke.
Organizations sponsoring charitable gambling donate almost $900,000 annually to Bloomington and contiguous cities. Most revenue comes from charitable gambling — pull tabs and raffles — and revenue associated with bingo. Once the smoking ban goes into effect, organization officers predict a sharp decline in charitable funds. Bloomington Eagles Club Trustee James Crary estimates revenue will decrease 70 percent.
As documented where smoking bans are in place, from the province of New Brunswick, Canada, to the states of New York and California, neighborhood bars and restaurants have seen significant declines in customers and in the time customers spend eating and drinking.
For example, a survey by the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association during the first month of the province's ban that took effect Oct. 1, found New Brunswick's smoking ban was having a negative impact on establishments with bars, pubs, taverns, legions and night clubs. In this survey, 71 percent of respondents reported sharp declines in liquor sales. In small businesses the effect was pronounced, with pubs, taverns and bars reporting that liquor sales fell almost 14 percent from the same time a year earlier. At legion clubs, the survey found, the decline was almost 19 percent.
For the Bloomington organizations, such an effect would translate into fewer pull tabs and fewer raffle tickets.
Plus, added service club member Jim Algeo, studies have documented a connection between gambling and smoking. Smokers gamble more, a connection that has an even greater impact on bingo halls.
Estimates range as high as 60 percent for the number of bingo players who smoke. Crary and Jim Newcomer, commander of VFW Post 1296 predict that once the smoking ban goes into effect, bingo will die as a source of charitable funds in Bloomington and player will migrate to the Indian casino at Mystic Lake. For the VFW, which rents the attached space next to its club for use as a bingo hall, that could mean as much as $182,000 in lost revenue.
What do losses like that mean to the community? Steve Enebo, a VFW trustee, and Patty Gustner, club manager for American Legion Post 550, rattled off a number of contributions to veterans organizations and to active service men and women and their families — everything from washers, dryers and television sets for the VA medical center to "care packages" for military personnel to Cub Foods certificates for military families to honor guards for funerals to a hospice suite at the VA medical center.
Along with the Eagles and other service organizations, the VFW and American Legion contributed to the Bloomington fire department for the purchase of thermal imaging equipment, technology that enables firefighters to quickly locate an unconscious person in a smoke-filled room — three units at $17,000 each.
Groups benefiting from Eagles Club contributions include Creekside, a community center for senior citizens, the city's police department Canine Corps and Cornerstone Advocacy Services, a shelter for victims of domestic abuse.
Algeo cited a pair of full tuition scholarships to Bloomington Kennedy and Jefferson students attending the University of Minnesota. Gustner noted that the Legion Post provides funds to purchase books for Kennedy High School. All the organizations make contributions to Bloomington youth athletic teams, scouting organizations and other youth activities. The list goes on.
Many, if not all of these community-inspired charitable contributions may well be wiped out by the smoking ban. Some will be replaced by tax dollars. Some, the most personal and most appreciated, will prove too trivial for the bureaucracy to bother with and simply cease to be.
But then the self-righteous will be able to drink and dine without the annoyance of other people's bad habits. What is value of an American flag on the coffin of a war veteran compared to a benefit like that?
Westover is an Afton writer who blogs at www.craigwestover. blogspot.com .
E-mail him at westover4@yahoo.com .
Wednesday, December 22, 2004 - Madison, IL
First Smokers – Now Eaters; What Next?
I wanted to share this excellent Letter to the Editor from Madison, Illinois.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.madisonrecord.com/arguments/argumentsview.asp?c=135134
www.madisonrecord.com
Madison County's Legal Journal
First Smokers – Now Eaters; What Next?
Sunday, December 19, 2004
To the editor:
Phew!!! I now enjoy a relatively risk-free life from dying from lung cancer, thanks to the stop-smoking busy bodies who saved me from second-hand smoke.
I can’t express enough gratitude for the way they forced otherwise good, hardworking, God-fearing citizens to retire to the middle of a hay field to enjoy the full-tilt flavor of a Merit® Ultra Lights 100®. Now I have to write a bunch of thank you notes to the Centers for Disease Control for their attempts to save me from second-hand flab!
Even though the science behind the ill-effects of second-hand flab is no better than that for second-hand smoke, the CDC is going out of their way to force those same good, hardworking, God-fearing citizens to have to run back and forth from their jobs to the middle of the same hay field to ward off the ill-effects from enjoying the full-tilt flavor of a McDonalds® Happy Meal®.
Doctor Julie Gerberding of the CDC, in spite of mathematical errors that made a recent study absolutely worthless, explains that 400,000 of 2.4 million fat people who died in the year 2000 may have caught their condition via second-hand flab.
Second-hand flab is what you risk when you stand behind a fat person while in line at the grocery store. Unhealthy food may get mixed up on the unsanitary food conveyor at the checkout counter. You risk it when sitting next to a fat person at a lunch counter. Shared gravy is a common source of contamination from second-hand flab. “It ought to be against the law!” says Doctor Julie.
Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, who himself is recovering from second-hand flab, sites the mathematically-challenged CDC study when addressing members of Congress and third-grade classrooms. He urges the Food and Drug Administration to more rapidly to approve drugs designed to ward off or prevent second-hand flab and encourages the children to line up for anti-flab vaccinations.
Dixie Snider, who is the Chief of Science of the CDC (the job comes with an Indian headdress much like the one worn by Chief Screaming Eagle in the F-Troop TV Series; which is weird because he was a peace pipe smoker!), admits that the CDC study isn’t worth the paper is written on, but nevertheless knows in her cholesterol-laden heart that the ill-effects of second-hand flab can not be overstated.
“Congress must do something about this!” she stresses.
Senator Ted Kennedy, himself a reformed flabber (though he relapses from time to time; heck, who doesn’t?), is not surprisingly proposing a flab tax to put an end to second-hand flab. Of course, this tax will be levied by the pound.
Andrew P. Palmer
Steven V. Dubin
PR Works has recently moved Corporate Offices to -
51 Lot Phillips Road
Kingston, MA 02364
(Direct line) 781-582-1061
(Cellular) 781-864-1837
(Email) SDubin@PRWorkZone.com
(Website) www.PRWorkZone.com
Say "good bye" to consideration and empathy for the individual at Gottlieb Memorial Hospital!
Here is another hospital to completely avoid in the Chicagoland area, Gottlieb Memorial Hospital in Melrose Park.
If you smoke, don't check in or visit here! Gottlieb has joined ranks with "Loyola University Medical Center, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Northwest Community Healthcare, St. Francis in Blue Island and four Advocate hospitals: Christ Medical Center, Good Samaritan Hospital, Good Shepherd Hospital and Lutheran General Hospital".
"Patients' families and visitors, especially, are at the hospital under stressful circumstances and may question a total smoking ban, but we hope everyone will cooperate, realizing that this is a place of healing and promoting good health."
Say "good bye" to consideration and empathy for the individual at Gottlieb Memorial Hospital!
______________________________
Garnet Dawn - The Smoker's Club, Inc. - Midwest Regional Director
The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter - http://www.smokersclubinc.com
Illinois Smokers Group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/illinoissmokers/
mailto:garnetdawn@comcast.net - Respect Freedom of Choice!
-----------------------------------------------
http://www.pioneerlocal.com/cgi-bin/ppo-story/localnews/current/me/12-29-04-463367.html
Gottlieb plans smoking ban
Gottlieb Memorial Hospital will ban smoking on its entire Melrose Park campus, effective June 1, 2005.
"Smoking has been prohibited inside all campus buildings for many years now," said hospital President John Morgan. "But the time has come to make a strong statement against the No. 1 cause of preventable illness and early death. It's time to provide clean, safe air outside as well as inside for all our patients, visitors, volunteers and physicians. As a hospital, we should be modeling healthy behaviors for the rest of our community."
Among area hospitals that already prohibit smoking on their campuses are Loyola University Medical Center, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Northwest Community Healthcare, St. Francis in Blue Island and four Advocate hospitals: Christ Medical Center, Good Samaritan Hospital, Good Shepherd Hospital and Lutheran General Hospital.
For the past four months, a Gottlieb task force has been planning and implementing a gradual transition to a smoke-free campus to help smokers acclimate to the change.
The hospital will not require that employees quit smoking, but for those who want to kick the habit there are: Discounts in the Professional Building Pharmacy on smoking cessation aids; a free stop smoking course, and lots of resource information, including the best Web sites and toll-free phone numbers to help them quit.
The task force will be working on other forms of assistance in the New Year as well.
Currently there are three designated outdoor smoking areas -- away from building entrances.
These will be eliminated one at a time starting April 1.
"We're very much aware of the potential for resistance as we phase out these areas and finally go smoke-free on June 1," said Jack Weinberg, chairman of the hospital's board of directors.
"Patients' families and visitors, especially, are at the hospital under stressful circumstances and may question a total smoking ban, but we hope everyone will cooperate, realizing that this is a place of healing and promoting good health."
Anyone found smoking on campus after May 31 will be asked politely, respectfully, but firmly, to comply with Gottlieb's policy.
Thursday, December 30, 2004
SMOKE-FREE
Hi Thomas,
I agree!! The non-smoking policies (especially in hospitals) are inhuman and purely a matter of dictatorial policies innovated by those in control. Stress, anger and frustration created by unreasonable rules do not contribute to an individual's health and recovery. (Can you visualize the arguments that must take place among smokers about the length and frequency of visits to loved ones and friends recovering in these smoke free campus hospitals? To me, a smoke break was always a welcome respite from the oppresive hosipal atmosphere.)
Hospitals are already competing with each other on the advertising mediums here. What if smokers begin to boycott hospitals that are so concerned with non-smoking politically correct campuses? What if patients begin requesting/demanding health care that respects the individual preferences of the "inmates"/patients and their visitors? Hospice and home care are becoming more popular.
Regarding smoking in your own car on hospital property, I would start up my car and leave if someone bothered me--of course I would return--once I had finished my cigarette. I get so furious! When we allowed seat belt laws to be passed, we gave up our rights for our automobiles to be respected as our private property.
I think I mentioned once before, in an earlier post, that even our legal system still makes certain concessions to smokers. Illinois has had a "clean air" law in effect for years that forbids smoking in public buildings. When I had to do my jury duty last year (2003), it was in Waukegan, Illinois. I was surprised to find that the court house provided one smoking room in the entire building--and it was for jurors only.
For the long, boring days that about 80 other unfortunates and myself were the property of the Lake County court system as potential jurors, we were not supposed to leave the courthouse all day. I'm sure the court system knew that smokers would go outside if not provided with an area to smoke. Our legal system considered our sequestering more important than all the non-smoking laws. Exceptions can be made anywhere!
______________________________
Garnet Dawn - The Smoker's Club, Inc. - Midwest Regional Director
The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter - http://www.smokersclubinc.com
Illinois Smokers Group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/illinoissmokers/
mailto:garnetdawn@comcast.net - Respect Freedom of Choice!
--------------------------------------------------------------
Thomas Laprade wrote:
Thunder Bay Regional Hospital has no smoking on the grounds and not even in your own car (that's the hospitals rules)
Can you see a security guard knocking on your car window and saying put that smoke out..This is unbelievable
Doesn't "Compassion" enter into the equation."promoting good health'??
They kicked the paraplegic out of the hospital and closed the smoking 'room', even though the hospital is his 'home' (he has to smoke outside and somebody has to hold his cigarette).
There is one hospital in Thunder Bay that has a smoking room, and yet they still advertise.."A smoke-free hospital, can't have all theses nurses standing outside smoking, now can you? Especially there is a nurse shortage in Canada
What the hell is wrong with 'Live and let live?'
Thursday, December 30, 2004
Tillery's firm sues big tobacco again - Madison County, IL
Letter to:
The Madison County Record
301 N. Main Street
Edwardsville, IL 62025
Attn: Brian Timpone, Publisher brian@madisonrecord.net
Steve Gonzalez, Courts Reporter steve@madisonrecord.net
Ann Knef, Editor ann@madisonrecord.net
RE: Tillery's firm sues big tobacco again - Opinion
Dear Madison Record:
First, thank you for your excellent, informative and unbiased news articles.
However, why am I not surprised that the infamous Madison County, IL is in the news again? This new lawsuit is obscene and would be an insult to any court system in our country. I wonder if the Kruegers and their attorneys can be sued for filing a frivolous lawsuit a second time, after requesting the case be dismissed "without prejudice" the first time? I wonder how Rebekah Krueger can live with herself, knowing that she is using her husband's illness in such a despicable manner?
Consumers (to the best of my knowledge) still voluntarily make their own choices when they make retail purchases. I have not learned of any lawsuits against the FDA, food manufacturers and retailers for selling "low fat" products under false pretenses for over twenty years.
Were these small convenience store chains even in business 24 years prior to 2000? Did Salem Lights exist in 1976? I am also curious as to what brand of cigarettes Gerald Krueger now smokes and where his cigarettes are now purchased. I doubt if he has quit smoking voluntarily after so many years.
Sincerely,
____________________________________
Garnet Dawn - The Smoker's Club, Inc. - Midwest Regional Director
The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter - http://www.smokersclubinc.com
Illinois Smokers Group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/illinoissmokers/
mailto:garnetdawn@comcast.net - Respect Freedom of Choice!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.madisonrecord.com/news/newsview.asp?c=137478
Tillery's firm sues big tobacco again
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
By Steve Gonzalez - Edwardsville Bureau
Represented by trial attorney giants Korein Tillery of Belleville and SimmonsCooper of East Alton, a Nashville, Ill. couple filed a 12-count lawsuit against R.J. Reynolds (RJR) and Huck's Convenience Store in Madison County Circuit Court Dec. 28 for misrepresenting the amount of tar and nicotine contained in his smokes.
Gerald Krueger was diagnosed with lung cancer on Dec. 6, 2000, which he claims was caused by smoking 20-30 Salem Lights a day for more than 24 years.
He didn't know that he was receiving higher levels of tar and nicotine than RJR represented or that the smoke produced by Salem Lights is more mutagenic than regular cigarettes, Krueger claims.
Gerald’s wife, Rebekah Krueger, is also seeking damages alleging she has suffered “loss of the consortium, society, companionship, fellowship and other valuable services of her husband” since he has been diagnosed with cancer.
The Kruegers are seeking at least $600,000 in damages caused by RJR's and Huck’s alleged violation of the Illinois Consumer Fraud Act, the Uniform Commercial Code, product liability and negligence.
According to the complaint, the first day Huck’s placed Salem Lights cigarettes into the stream of commerce, Hucks individually and jointly engaged in misrepresentations, unlawful schemes and courses of conduct that induced Krueger to purchase Salem Lights trough unfair and deceptive acts.
“Krueger would not have purchased Salem Lights but for defendant’s unfair and deceptive acts and practices,” the complaint states.
As a result of the alleged unfair practices and acts, Krueger alleges he did not receive lower tar and nicotine cigarettes when he purchased Salem Lights and the defendants allegedly violated the Illinois Consumer Fraud Act, which Krueger claims led to his lung cancer.
Krueger claims he relied upon the implied warranty that Salem Lights were merchantable; however Huck’s allegedly breached the implied warranty in that they were not merchantable.
Rebekah Krueger also claims she is informed and believes that she is entitled to actual damages against Huck’s by reason of loss of consortium and society.
Gerald Krueger filed a lawsuit against RJR, Huck’s, Park N Shop supermarkets and Hit & Run in December 2003, but asked for the case to be dismissed without prejudice.
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Court: State law doesn't prohibit local smoking ban
Hi Samantha and whaleyman999,
You know it's funny, because I sent this article to myself last night when I saw the Google alert. I was not sure how I felt about this mess in Montana, initially.
For what it's worth, I think our government officials and the courts are only beginning to comprehend what they have initiated by creating dictatorial smoking ban laws. They are creating their own "can of worms" by attempting to tack on more legislation to amend legislation that never should have been instituted in the first place. The elected officials in Montana seem to be getting a taste of the same tactics that are being inflicted upon private citizens and businesses all over the world.
What a massive misuse of government authority and our court systems. This seems to be a case of "poetic justice". It's a shame for the casinos, and I hope they sue. I will definitely sign the petitions.
"In December 2002, City Judge Myron Pitch ruled the ban was unenforceable because it did not allow someone charged with violating it to seek a jury trial. That decision was appealed by the city of Helena and is expected to be heard by a District Court judge."
The perfect outcome would be if the District Court judge completely overturns the Helena ban. It would set a precedent for ALL the other smoking bans!
______________________________
Garnet Dawn - The Smoker's Club, Inc. - Midwest Regional Director
The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter - http://www.smokersclubinc.com
Illinois Smokers Group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/illinoissmokers/
mailto:garnetdawn@comcast.net - Respect Freedom of Choice!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2004/12/28/build/state/20-supco-smokingban.inc
December 28, 2004
Last modified December 28, 2004 - 3:00 pm
Court: State law doesn't prohibit local smoking ban
By JOHN MacDONALD
Associated Press
HELENA -- A state law intended to prohibit local governments from imposing smoking bans in gambling establishments has no force, the Montana Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.
In a 5-2 decision, the justices said the law the 2003 Legislature passed failed to "expressly" prohibit such bans, and therefore has no effect on any local ordinance that bans smoking in all public buildings, including bars and casinos.
"The state argues that although the Legislature did not use the word 'prohibited,' the exemption created by the statute is tantamount to a prohibition. We disagree," Justice William Leaphart wrote for the majority. "To exempt is not to prohibit."
The case was brought over a bill lawmakers passed in response to a 2002 voter-approved smoking ban in Helena. That ban prohibited smoking in all public buildings, but has been on hold while several legal challenges were mounted.
The Legislature responded by passing House Bill 758, which exempts businesses with gambling machines from the ordinance and any other local laws stricter than the state's indoor-air laws.
Backers of the smoking ban, including 11 state and national health organizations, sued to overturn the law excluding casinos. Rather than go through the usual process of a District Court trial, they asked the Supreme Court to take the case.
They argued the Legislature overstepped its constitutional bounds in passing the law exempting casinos from local smoking restrictions.
The majority of the justices concluded that lawmakers do have authority to prohibit such a ban from being enacted. However, they said that HB758 did not do that. Instead, the bill only "exempted" certain businesses from the ban.
"The Legislature did not effect an express prohibition of self-governing powers," Leaphart wrote.
He was joined in the majority by Justices James Nelson, Patricia Cotter, Jim Regnier and Chief Justice Karla Gray. Gray, however, filed her own opinion, in which she also dissented with a portion of the court's ruling on the validity of local indoor smoking ordinances.
Cotter, in her own concurring opinion, wrote that HB758 likely violated the Montana Constitution because it attempted to grant a "special privilege to the video gaming industry."
"Nothing in the constitution or the laws of this state gives the Legislature the authority to at once allow the exercise of power by a self-governing city, while declaring that certain entities or establishments shall be exempt" from self-government authority, Cotter wrote.
In a dissenting opinion, Justice John Warner, who was joined by Justice Jim Rice, wrote that the state's power to regulate gambling "includes the power to regulate the premises wherein it is conducted."
"The decision whether to allow smoking where gambling is allowed is within the power of the state," he argued.
Mark Staples, an attorney and lobbyist for the Montana Tavern Association, was out of his office Tuesday and did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment.
Rich Miller, executive director of the Montana Gaming Industry Association in Helena, said he had not read the opinion and couldn't comment.
Jim Reynolds, an attorney for supporters of the Helena ban, said he was "obviously very pleased" with the court's ruling.
Dr. Bob Shepard of Helena, one of the chief backers of the Helena smoking ban, said he was relieved by the court's decision, which will allow other pending litigation over the ban to now move forward.
"It means we're now going back to the public health aspect," he said, "which is what the real issue here should be, protecting the health of Helena residents who voted for this smoking ban."
Tuesday's ruling had nothing to do with the constitutionality of Helena's ban itself. That issue still is expected to come before a District Court judge.
In December 2002, City Judge Myron Pitch ruled the ban was unenforceable because it did not allow someone charged with violating it to seek a jury trial. That decision was appealed by the city of Helena and is expected to be heard by a District Court judge.
Copyright © 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Copyright © The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises.
______________________________
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
PUSH ON FOR SMOKE-FREE FLICKS
Hi,
Looks like the New York Dept of Health, hiding behind a group called Reality Check, has messed with the wrong people this time.
...the group actually wants the smoking scenes removed from classics like "Casablanca," "Rebel Without a Cause" and "Breakfast at Tiffany's."
______________________________
Garnet Dawn - The Smoker's Club, Inc. - Midwest Regional Director
The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter - http://www.smokersclubinc.com
Illinois Smokers Group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/illinoissmokers/
mailto:garnetdawn@comcast.net - Respect Freedom of Choice!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.nypost.com/gossip/37202.htm
PAGE SIX: PUSH ON FOR SMOKE-FREE FLICKS
New York Post, 2004-12-27
Richard Johnson with Paula Froelich and Chris Wilson
December 27, 2004 --
NOT content with trampling smokers' rights, the New York State Dept. of Health has launched an insidious campaign to erase all traces of tobacco from the movies.
The department's tobacco control program was behind the formation of Reality Check, a well-funded group supposedly started by and for teens against smoking. One of R.C.'s missions is to eradicate smoking from the movies, and their methods have put some noses out of joint.
In fact, it's causing conflict between state agencies, since R.C.'s programs are clashing with the artistic freedom espoused by the New York State Council on the Arts. In particular, R.C.'s operation to sponsor independent film festivals and then demand that no smoking be shown has caused some hard feelings.
The Arts Council helps fund the Woodstock Film Festival, based in the arty upstate burg bearing its name. Reality Check sponsored this year's festival as well, which was attended by the likes of Peter Gabriel, Laura Linney, Sam Rockwell, Fisher Stevens and Matt Dillon.
A couple of months ago, filmmaker Ford Crull was planning to make a promotional trailer for this year's Woodstock festival, done as a spoof on film noir and naturally containing a smoking scene. But he was told to scrap it because of R.C., which demanded an on-screen smoking ban.
Crull informed Karen Helmerson, director of electronic media and film at the state arts council, of the censorship. Helmerson has now blasted R.C.'s "subversive repres- sion of creative interpretation and creative speech."
"I will certainly bring this to the attention of our chairman to learn what, if anything, we can do as a state agency and arts funder," Helmerson wrote to Crull. "This is atrocious, of course. Made worse by the bogus claim that this is a youth-initiated movement."
Insiders say Reality Check plans an even more outrageous campaign, however. In addition to pressuring studios to keep smoking and cigarettes out of new movies — beginning with all films rated G, PG and PG-13 — the group actually wants the smoking scenes removed from classics like "Casablanca," "Rebel Without a Cause" and "Breakfast at Tiffany's."
Dept. of Health spokesperson Claire Pospisil promised to look into the issue.
Thursday, December 30, 2004
Of Smoking and Despots
Below is a very quotable excerpt from an editorial by Rudy Takala, found in the Smokers Club Newsletter, Issue #309.
Garnet
-------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.opinioneditorials.com/freedomwriters/rtakala_20040920.html
September 20, 2004
Of Smoking and Despots
Rudy Takala
".......If in a thousand years someone wonders how America fell, there will be no mistake: it was because America’s government collapsed under the weight of its responsibilities. Its subjects were too stupid to walk out of a bar filled with smoke; so they made government rectify the problem. They were too forgetful to use suggested safety precautions; and because they were too apathetic to dispose of their own money as a reminder when they forgot to use them, they made government dispose of it for everyone. They were easily influenced by the power of suggestion; so they made government outlaw things they saw advertised to keep from buying them. And finally, someone noticed that they didn’t know how, when or where elections were held because government had exiled the former rappers who used to explain it to them; therefore, elections were discontinued in the name of voting equality.
Smoking isn’t special; it’s just another excuse for government to become despotic. The road to hell may be paved with good intentions, but at least it’ll be smoke-free."
Thursday, December 23, 2004 11:49 AM
Smoking ban will crimp charitable gambling - Bloomington, MN
Ironically, it is the insatiable progressive do-gooders so infatuated with creating "pseudo-communities" who cannot recognize that authentic community is inevitable collateral damage in their misguided war on secondhand smoke.
.......But then the self-righteous will be able to drink and dine without the annoyance of other people's bad habits. What is value of an American flag on the coffin of a war veteran compared to a benefit like that?
-----------------------------------------http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/news/editorial/10416311.htm?1c
Wednesday, Dec. 15, 2004
Smoking ban will crimp charitable gambling
CRAIG WESTOVER
'Civil society" is the free and voluntary association of individuals in families, churches, schools, clubs, fraternal societies, veteran's organizations and the like. "Civil society" may be broadly defined in the single word "community."
Community is the natural way for society to take care its own. People in trouble first turn to family, then friends, then charitable organizations within their community. However, for a community to take care of its own, it must have funds to do so.
Ironically, it is the insatiable progressive do-gooders so infatuated with creating "pseudo-communities" who cannot recognize that authentic community is inevitable collateral damage in their misguided war on secondhand smoke.
Last week at VFW Post 1296 in Bloomington, in a conference room with ashtrays on the table, representatives from Bloomington veterans' organizations and service clubs talked about their charitable contribution to the community and how it might be affected by that city's smoking ban. Much of it will go up in non-existent smoke.
Organizations sponsoring charitable gambling donate almost $900,000 annually to Bloomington and contiguous cities. Most revenue comes from charitable gambling — pull tabs and raffles — and revenue associated with bingo. Once the smoking ban goes into effect, organization officers predict a sharp decline in charitable funds. Bloomington Eagles Club Trustee James Crary estimates revenue will decrease 70 percent.
As documented where smoking bans are in place, from the province of New Brunswick, Canada, to the states of New York and California, neighborhood bars and restaurants have seen significant declines in customers and in the time customers spend eating and drinking.
For example, a survey by the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association during the first month of the province's ban that took effect Oct. 1, found New Brunswick's smoking ban was having a negative impact on establishments with bars, pubs, taverns, legions and night clubs. In this survey, 71 percent of respondents reported sharp declines in liquor sales. In small businesses the effect was pronounced, with pubs, taverns and bars reporting that liquor sales fell almost 14 percent from the same time a year earlier. At legion clubs, the survey found, the decline was almost 19 percent.
For the Bloomington organizations, such an effect would translate into fewer pull tabs and fewer raffle tickets.
Plus, added service club member Jim Algeo, studies have documented a connection between gambling and smoking. Smokers gamble more, a connection that has an even greater impact on bingo halls.
Estimates range as high as 60 percent for the number of bingo players who smoke. Crary and Jim Newcomer, commander of VFW Post 1296 predict that once the smoking ban goes into effect, bingo will die as a source of charitable funds in Bloomington and player will migrate to the Indian casino at Mystic Lake. For the VFW, which rents the attached space next to its club for use as a bingo hall, that could mean as much as $182,000 in lost revenue.
What do losses like that mean to the community? Steve Enebo, a VFW trustee, and Patty Gustner, club manager for American Legion Post 550, rattled off a number of contributions to veterans organizations and to active service men and women and their families — everything from washers, dryers and television sets for the VA medical center to "care packages" for military personnel to Cub Foods certificates for military families to honor guards for funerals to a hospice suite at the VA medical center.
Along with the Eagles and other service organizations, the VFW and American Legion contributed to the Bloomington fire department for the purchase of thermal imaging equipment, technology that enables firefighters to quickly locate an unconscious person in a smoke-filled room — three units at $17,000 each.
Groups benefiting from Eagles Club contributions include Creekside, a community center for senior citizens, the city's police department Canine Corps and Cornerstone Advocacy Services, a shelter for victims of domestic abuse.
Algeo cited a pair of full tuition scholarships to Bloomington Kennedy and Jefferson students attending the University of Minnesota. Gustner noted that the Legion Post provides funds to purchase books for Kennedy High School. All the organizations make contributions to Bloomington youth athletic teams, scouting organizations and other youth activities. The list goes on.
Many, if not all of these community-inspired charitable contributions may well be wiped out by the smoking ban. Some will be replaced by tax dollars. Some, the most personal and most appreciated, will prove too trivial for the bureaucracy to bother with and simply cease to be.
But then the self-righteous will be able to drink and dine without the annoyance of other people's bad habits. What is value of an American flag on the coffin of a war veteran compared to a benefit like that?
Westover is an Afton writer who blogs at www.craigwestover. blogspot.com .
E-mail him at westover4@yahoo.com .
Wednesday, December 22, 2004 - Madison, IL
First Smokers – Now Eaters; What Next?
I wanted to share this excellent Letter to the Editor from Madison, Illinois.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.madisonrecord.com/arguments/argumentsview.asp?c=135134
www.madisonrecord.com
Madison County's Legal Journal
First Smokers – Now Eaters; What Next?
Sunday, December 19, 2004
To the editor:
Phew!!! I now enjoy a relatively risk-free life from dying from lung cancer, thanks to the stop-smoking busy bodies who saved me from second-hand smoke.
I can’t express enough gratitude for the way they forced otherwise good, hardworking, God-fearing citizens to retire to the middle of a hay field to enjoy the full-tilt flavor of a Merit® Ultra Lights 100®. Now I have to write a bunch of thank you notes to the Centers for Disease Control for their attempts to save me from second-hand flab!
Even though the science behind the ill-effects of second-hand flab is no better than that for second-hand smoke, the CDC is going out of their way to force those same good, hardworking, God-fearing citizens to have to run back and forth from their jobs to the middle of the same hay field to ward off the ill-effects from enjoying the full-tilt flavor of a McDonalds® Happy Meal®.
Doctor Julie Gerberding of the CDC, in spite of mathematical errors that made a recent study absolutely worthless, explains that 400,000 of 2.4 million fat people who died in the year 2000 may have caught their condition via second-hand flab.
Second-hand flab is what you risk when you stand behind a fat person while in line at the grocery store. Unhealthy food may get mixed up on the unsanitary food conveyor at the checkout counter. You risk it when sitting next to a fat person at a lunch counter. Shared gravy is a common source of contamination from second-hand flab. “It ought to be against the law!” says Doctor Julie.
Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, who himself is recovering from second-hand flab, sites the mathematically-challenged CDC study when addressing members of Congress and third-grade classrooms. He urges the Food and Drug Administration to more rapidly to approve drugs designed to ward off or prevent second-hand flab and encourages the children to line up for anti-flab vaccinations.
Dixie Snider, who is the Chief of Science of the CDC (the job comes with an Indian headdress much like the one worn by Chief Screaming Eagle in the F-Troop TV Series; which is weird because he was a peace pipe smoker!), admits that the CDC study isn’t worth the paper is written on, but nevertheless knows in her cholesterol-laden heart that the ill-effects of second-hand flab can not be overstated.
“Congress must do something about this!” she stresses.
Senator Ted Kennedy, himself a reformed flabber (though he relapses from time to time; heck, who doesn’t?), is not surprisingly proposing a flab tax to put an end to second-hand flab. Of course, this tax will be levied by the pound.
Andrew P. Palmer
Steven V. Dubin
PR Works has recently moved Corporate Offices to -
51 Lot Phillips Road
Kingston, MA 02364
(Direct line) 781-582-1061
(Cellular) 781-864-1837
(Email) SDubin@PRWorkZone.com
(Website) www.PRWorkZone.com
December 2004
States With Laws That Prohibit Employers From Discriminating Against Smokers
As of 1997, 28 states had passed laws forbidding employer discrimination based on smoking status. These states are: Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, North Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and Oregon.
--------------------------------------------
Following are copies of my letters to the ACLU and WSJ, though I received no response from either one....
12/22/04
Attn: American Civil Liberties Union action@dcaclu.org
RE: Twenty-nine states, including Illinois, have laws that prohibit employers from discriminating against smokers
Dear Sir/Madam:
The following story from The Wall Street Journal states "Such antismoking policies are problematic for companies with employees in states with smokers' rights laws. Twenty-nine states, including Illinois, have laws that prohibit employers from discriminating against smokers. As a result, Weyco will continue to employ one smoker in Illinois, even after its policy in Michigan goes into effect, Mr. Climes says."
I would like to know if corporations in the states with laws prohibiting employers from discriminating against smokers (Illinois in this case) are employing one "token" smoking employee in the same manner that employers kept one "token" racial minority employee on their payrolls in past years.
What measures is the ACLU taking currently to fight this kind of discrimination? I am a member of the ACLU and would like to know if my membership is still worthwhile.
Sincerely,
______________________________
Garnet Dawn - The Smoker's Club, Inc. - Midwest Regional Director
The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter - http://www.smokersclubinc.com
Illinois Smokers Group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/illinoissmokers/
mailto:garnetdawn@comcast.net - Respect Freedom of Choice!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
American Civil Liberties Union
125 Broad Street, 18th Floor
New York, NY 10004
action@dcaclu.org
Wall Street Journal
200 Liberty Street
New York, NY 10281
Attention:
Danforth Austin, General Manager wsj.ltrs@wsj.com
Robert Bartley, Vice President; Editor bartley@wsj.com
Marcus Brauchli, National News Senior Editor marcus.brauchli@dowjones.com
Paul Steiger, Managing Editor paul.steiger@wsj.com
Laurie McGinley , Health Pod Leader laurie.mcginley@wsj.com
KRIS MAHER / WSJ Staff Reporter
RE: Companies Are Closing Door On Job Applicants Who Smoke ($$)
Dear Sirs/Madam:
Mr. Kris Maher stated in The Wall Street Journal story referenced below, "Twenty-nine states, including Illinois, have laws that prohibit employers from discriminating against smokers."
I live in Illinois. I would like to know the names of the other twenty-eight states that have laws prohibiting employers from discriminating against smokers. Your assistance will be most appreciated.
Sincerely,
______________________________
Garnet Dawn - The Smoker's Club, Inc. - Midwest Regional Director
The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter - http://www.smokersclubinc.com
Illinois Smokers Group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/illinoissmokers/
mailto:garnetdawn@comcast.net - Respect Freedom of Choice!
----------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.tobacco.org/news/185044.html
Companies Are Closing Door On Job Applicants Who Smoke ($$)
The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition
2004-12-21
KRIS MAHER / Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Intro:
Kick the habit -- or don't bother applying for the job.
That is the dictum at a growing number of companies that are adopting tough measures to eliminate smokers from their ranks in an effort to rein in health-care costs. Some are requiring job applicants to undergo nicotine testing or respond to questions about their smoking habits. Others are forcing current employees who won't quit smoking to give up their jobs.
On Jan. 1, Weyco Inc., a small medical-benefits administrator, no longer will employ people who smoke at its Okemos, Mich., headquarters . . .
Such antismoking policies are problematic for companies with employees in states with smokers' rights laws. Twenty-nine states, including Illinois, have laws that prohibit employers from discriminating against smokers. As a result, Weyco will continue to employ one smoker in Illinois, even after its policy in Michigan goes into effect, Mr. Climes says.
Nevertheless, smokers increasingly face hiring hurdles even at companies that don't have formal antismoking policies. "There is discrimination at many companies -- and maybe even most companies -- against people who smoke,"
12/22/04
RE: Smoking Foes' Survey Finds Ban Backing
Attn: Chris LaFortune
Pioneer Press - Oak Park, IL
Dear Mr. LaFortune:
Thank you for an excellent and unbiased article. It appears that Oak Park does not have much of a majority among residents to propose a village ordinance to ban smoking in restaurants, bars and other public places. In addition, 70% of Oak Park restaurants already are voluntarily smoke free.
Downtown Oak Park's board of directors, Executive Director, Donna Ogdon Chen "said that the campaign's results were different than the village's own resident satisfaction survey earlier this year. That reported 85 percent of those polled said second-hand smoke in public places was either not a problem or a minor problem."
This is just one more case of the local health department and the American Lung Association refusing to respect individual rights or opinions on smoking ban issues in a community, and using misleading questions on a survey to obtain the distorted results they so relentlessly pursue to retain their funding dollars.
______________________________
Garnet Dawn - The Smoker's Club, Inc. - Midwest Regional Director
The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter - http://www.smokersclubinc.com
Illinois Smokers Group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/illinoissmokers/
mailto:garnetdawn@comcast.net - Respect Freedom of Choice!
-------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.pioneerlocal.com/cgi-bin/ppo-story/localnews/current/op/12-15-04-460135.html
Smoking foes' survey finds ban backing
BY CHRIS LAFORTUNE
STAFF WRITER
Survey results released Thursday by the Campaign for a Smoke-Free Oak Park found that 66 percent of respondents support a proposed village ordinance to ban smoking in restaurants, bars and other public places.
The survey polled 301 Oak Park residents and 300 others from Forest Park, River Forest, Berwyn, Cicero and Elmwood Park. The telephone survey was conducted at random and has a margin of error of 4 percent, said Mark Peysakhovich of the Campaign for a Smoke-Free Oak Park.
Forty-four percent of Oak Park residents said they would be more likely to vote for a mayoral or village trustee candidate who supported a smoke-free ordinance, the survey found.
Oak Park's Health Department has proposed the ban based on the established hazards of exposure to second-hand smoke for both workers and customers of public places. The Village Board is expected to consider the proposed ordinance next month.
Peysakhovich, an American Lung Association spokesman and village resident, said most Oak Parkers want the Village Board to protect restaurant patrons and workers from the health dangers of second-hand smoke.
"It's simply unconscionable if the Village Board devotes hundreds of hours of attention to whether you can have two dogs or three, and meanwhile, people are being gassed to death when they work or eat in dangerous environments," he said.
Downtown Oak Park's board of directors decided Thursday to oppose the proposed ban, before it saw results of the survey, Executive Director Donna Ogdon Chen said.
"There is a concern for our members who feel that there would be a potential negative impact . . . if this ban were to take place," she said.
Ogdon Chen said that the campaign's results were different than the village's own resident satisfaction survey earlier this year. That reported 85 percent of those polled said second-hand smoke in public places was either not a problem or a minor problem.
"I think different ways you ask different questions can produce different results," Ogdon Chen said.
The campaign's survey also found that 53 percent of respondents are more likely to go to a smoke-free restaurant, and that 61 percent think non-smoking sections don't provide enough protection from second-hand smoke.
Twenty percent of Oak Park respondents at least occasionally leave the village to find smoke-free restaurant options, the survey found. Seventy-six percent said it made no difference.
"That fully a fifth of the customers leave Oak Park has got to be a scary statistic for our village leaders and the village business community," Peysakhovich said. "It means losing lots of revenue and tax dollars."
Fifty-three percent of residents said they would be either more likely or much more likely to go to a restaurant if they knew it was smoke-free, according to the survey. Six percent said they would be somewhat or less likely to go to such a restaurant.
"Most sit-down restaurants in Oak Park allow smoking," he said. "This is a huge problem.
But 70 percent of Oak Park restaurants already are smoke free, Illinois Restaurant Association President Colleen McShane, and Oak Park resident, said Monday. That figure includes institutional dining spots including school and hospital cafeterias.
Businesses need the flexibility to be able to serve all customers, McShane said, smokers and non-smokers.
"I think this is a perfect situation where we have a solution looking for a problem," she said.
Chris LaFortune can be reached at clafortune@pioneerlocal.com.
12/22/04
Tobacco suit bond to pay off debt on Criminal Courts Building
How enlightening to learn that Madison County is spending bond funds provided by their court system, nicknamed a "judicial hellhole" in some legal circles", to benefit themselves.
Garmet
-------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.belleville.com/mld/belleville/news/10420298.htm
Posted on Wed, Dec. 15, 2004
Tobacco suit bond to pay off debt on Criminal Courts Building
BY JAYNE MATTHEWS
jmatthews@bnd.com
Madison County will smoke the mortgage on its new Criminal Courts Building because of a $10.1 billion tobacco lawsuit verdict that brought criticism to its court system.
The county plans to pay off the $1.7 million mortgage with about $2 million it has received for holding bond money for parties in the Phillip Morris light cigarette lawsuit.
Paying off the 10-year loan will save the county $200,000 a year in interest, County Board Chairman Alan Dunstan said Tuesday.
"It's a windfall," Dunstan said. "The ideal place for it to be used is to pay for the Criminal Courts Building."
The county has spent another $2 million renovating the former Florist Mutual insurance office building in downtown Edwardsville. The remodeled building on St. Louis Street is scheduled to open next month.
he renovation has been financed with part of $6.5 million the county received from the sale of prime commercial land it once owned on Troy Road, off Illinois 159 in Edwardsville.
Phillip Morris last year lost a class-action lawsuit that claimed it deceived smokers into believing its light cigarette has less nicotine than its regular.
The cigarette maker has appealed the $10.1 billion judgment.
The county got its windfall because both sides agreed to give the county 20 percent interest for holding bond money until a ruling on the appeal is handed down, Dunstan said.
Dunstan said he doesn't expect the county to collect much more money because a court ruling is expected soon.
The Phillip Morris case is one of several high-money, class-action lawsuits that have brought allegations that Madison County courts favor civil injury lawyers. The national reputation earned it the nickname "judicial hellhole" in some legal circles.
The courts were not directly involved in the holding of the bond money.
The decision to spend the bond interest money on the Criminal Courts Building was made by the County Board.
12/22/04
Here, in the ALA's own words, is what they have doing this year. Know your enemies!
______________________________
Garnet Dawn - The Smoker's Club, Inc. - Midwest Regional Director
The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter - http://www.smokersclubinc.com
Illinois Smokers Group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/illinoissmokers/
mailto:garnetdawn@comcast.net - Respect Freedom of Choice!
-------------------------------------------------------------------
From: American Lung Association Action Network
Wednesday, December 22, 2004 10:49 AM
Year End Update from American Lung Association Action Network
Dear GARNET,
Thanks to the hard work – and quick response – of American Lung Association Action Network activists, progress was made on several federal issues during 2004.
Your calls, letters and other contacts with federal policymakers are clearly having an impact. We look forward to working with you in 2005!
TOBACCO
We had some success on tobacco this year but, unfortunately, we still fell short.
For the first time ever, the full Senate approved legislation to give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the authority to regulate the contents and advertising of tobacco products. On two occasions, the Senate passed FDA legislation first as part of a larger corporate tax bill then as a stand-alone FDA regulation bill (S. 2974), introduced by Sens. Mike DeWine (R-OH) and Edward Kennedy (D-MA). The House of Representatives blocked the FDA provision added to the corporate tax bill and declined to consider S. 2974. The Lung Association is meeting with our champions in Congress to ensure that FDA regulation legislation is re-introduced early in the new 109th Congress in 2005.
During House consideration of appropriations for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, we prevented the use of taxpayer funds to pay for the $10 billion buyout of tobacco grower’s quotas. That successful measure was drafted by Reps. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD).
On a global note, on May 10, 2004, at the urging of Lung Association advocates, the Bush Administration signed the first-ever international public health treaty, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), aimed at curbing tobacco use around the world. Now we are urging President Bush to send the treaty to the U.S. Senate for ratification. Meanwhile, Peru became the 40th nation to ratify the pact. (Click here to see our press release.) The American Lung Association Action Network will continue to press the president to send the treaty to the Senate for ratification so that it can take effect in this country.
In other tobacco-related issues, American Lung Association Action Network advocates continued to push for an increase in the federal cigarette excise tax by $1.00 to fund public health programs (defeated in the Senate) and supported legislation to limit youth access to tobacco products via the Internet. The Internet legislation passed the full U.S. Senate and a House of Representatives Judiciary Committee but Congress adjourned before further action was taken. We will continue to work on these issues during the 109th Congress.
AIR QUALITY
On the air quality front, American Lung Association Action Network advocates fought to protect public health by defending the Clean Air Act.
Network members urged Congress to oppose legislation (H.R. 999/S. 485), the Administration’s so-called “Clear Skies” bill. That measure would repeal key Clean Air Act enforcement programs, limit the ability of states to protect their citizens from air pollution and sentence another generation of Americans to breathing dirty air by delaying needed pollution reductions for decades. Lung Association advocates let Congress know that simply enforcing the current Clean Air Act would provide greater pollution reductions sooner than the Administration plan. Thanks to your opposition the 108th Congress ended without taking action on H.R. 999/S. 485.
Network participants also pushed the EPA to require steep, nationwide cuts in emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from fossil-fueled power plant smokestacks and large industrial facilities by 2009. The EPA had proposed a weaker approach that would allow the plants to pollute until 2015.
On December 11, 2004, EPA announced it was delaying action on the power plant clean up to allow consideration of the so-called "Clear Skies bill". The Lung Association remains opposed to that approach and will be calling on Congress to oppose this bill and urge EPA to adopt the nearly complete power plant clean up regulations as soon as possible. Look for action alerts in January 2005.
On May 10, 2004 EPA finalized the rules to clean up heavy equipment and other nonroad engines and diesel fuel. This action was a big victory for public health. In 2003, network members had sent thousands of comments urging EPA to adopt these rules that are estimated to save 12,000 lives a year when fully implemented. In the summer, the Lung Association asked EPA for a tough new rule to clean up the last remaining underregulated dirty diesel engines – locomotive and marine engines. The Lung Association asked Leavitt for tough new standards as soon as possible and no later than 2011. We are waiting for EPA to take the next step on these regulations.
EPA continues its review of National Ambient Quality Standards (NAAQS) for particle pollution (soot). The Lung Association supports stronger long- and short-term standards for fine particles in order to protect the people most sensitive to particle air pollution – infants and children, especially those with asthma, the elderly, and people with pre-existing lung disease, heart disease and diabetes.
LUNG DISEASE
American Lung Association Action Network advocates joined forces to support legislative and regulatory action on influenza, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma and tuberculosis.
Thousands of advocates sent comments to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to support a proposed rule that would make air travel easier for oxygen-dependent people, including those who suffer from COPD. The FAA rule would permit the use of certain portable oxygen concentrator devices on aircraft. The Lung Association considers the rule a step in the right direction for passengers with lung disease who require supplementary oxygen. The FAA has yet to take final action on the proposal. We will contact you with the results.
As the 2004 influenza vaccine shortage was making headlines, Network participants began contacting Congress to urge passage of the Flu Protection Act (S. 2038/H.R. 3758). Among other things, that measure requires the CDC to contract with vaccine makers to ensure an adequate supply in coming years, expand public education and public availability of influenza shots, and invest in faster research for alternative vaccines. Although this comprehensive legislation did not pass before Congress adjourned for the year, we did succeed in getting an allocation of $100 million for the secretary of health and human services to purchase influenza vaccine to ensure a year-round supply and to develop and implement rapidly expandable influenza vaccine production technologies. We will be meeting with key congressional leaders to plan next steps to address the influenza vaccine issue.
Network participants throughout the country signed the American Lung Association Asthma Bill of Rights, a petition promoting a series of rights to help children with asthma better manage their illness. Those rights include access to regular medical care and affordable medicine; a cleaner environment at home, at school and in their communities; a better understanding of their asthma and development of an action plan to help manage it; and a safe, supportive asthma-friendly school. There is still time to sign onto the petition, which will be presented to President Bush in 2005. (To sign the petition, click here.)
Network advocates joined the American Lung Association’s World TB Day 2004 efforts on March 24 by urging their Members of Congress to cosponsor the Comprehensive TB Elimination Act (S. 1559/H.R. 2068), introduced by Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) and Reps. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Heather Wilson (R-NM). The bill would increase funds for TB training, treatment and education programs, and authorizes $240 million for TB vaccine development. No action was taken on the bill before Congress adjourned. We will continue to work with our champions on the Hill to see funding increased for domestic and global TB programs.
Tuesday, Dec 21, 2004
Smoking bans test families, but experts point out benefits
Attention: Virginia Anderson
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
landerson@ajc.com
Dear Ms. Anderson:
I hope the Antis and Health Experts, who are lining their pockets with smokers' tax dollars, are pleased with themselves. They will not be satisfied until smoking is completely eradicated! I wonder where they will find their endless funding grants if they should succeed?
Now, they are polarizing families through their Junk Science studies and the false unsubstantiated beliefs they have propagated. Just why is it that Asthma cases continue to increase in our population as people have been exposed less and less to smokers? Perhaps the "health experts" should do still another study to find out.
This whole smoking issue is going to come down to a world wide domestic civil war at the rate we are progressing!
______________________________
Garnet Dawn - The Smoker's Club, Inc. - Midwest Regional Director
The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter - http://www.smokersclubinc.com
Illinois Smokers Group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/illinoissmokers/
mailto:garnetdawn@comcast.net - Respect Freedom of Choice!
---------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.ajc.com/living/content/living/holidayguide03/entertain04/21smoke.html
Smoking bans test families, but experts point out benefits
By VIRGINIA ANDERSON
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 12/21/04
Tessie Marks loves going home for the holidays.
The 33-year-old Atlanta mother of four can lie on her mother's bed and relax, letting the stresses of raising four children, going to school and working melt away.
"Mom's house is always cozy and warm and inviting," said Marks, a dialysis technician who is studying to become a nurse. "Going home feels like a big hug."
This year, however, Marks may not be going home for the holidays. Her mother, Marie Sanders, is drawing a line in the smoke: No one, not even her children, can smoke in her Atlanta apartment.
That means that Marks, who is trying to quit smoking but has been unsuccessful, may skip the Christmas get-together. She isn't sure she can go all day without a cigarette. She also is a little thrown off by the boundary her mother has drawn.
Her mother said she is doing it to protect her 18-year-old son Jonathan's health.
"I started getting more stern because my baby boy is asthmatic," Sanders said of Jonathan, who lives at home. "So I drew the line. I started putting up the tree last night, and Jonathan said, 'Why are you doing that?' No one's coming.'"
The line may be hard, but many doctors cheer it.
Evidence grows each year that secondhand smoke not only greatly increases a person's risk of lung cancer but also contributes to asthma, middle ear infections, sinus infections and chronic lung disease. A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released last spring suggested that secondhand smoke can even trigger a heart attack.
The observational study in Helena, Mont., showed that hospital admissions for heart attack declined by about 40 percent during the six months in which a smoking ban in public places was in effect. The number of admissions rebounded after the ordinance was suspended.
As a result, advocacy groups like the American Lung Association and many doctors who treat people with asthma and other chronic lung diseases recommend banning indoor smoke and its residue altogether.
That means no smoking in garages, basements or sun porches, and it means declining an invitation to take children to the home of smoking adults.
Doctors who treat patients with lung diseases insist that there's no room for negotiation because no room is safe when cigarette smoke is around.
"Smoke doesn't have barriers," said Dr. Kelvin Holloway, associate professor of medicine at Morehouse School of Medicine and a board member of the American Lung Association. "It clings to drapes, carpet, clothes, everything."
Sanders decided she reached her limit this year after Marks was diagnosed with sarcoidosis, a disease that causes inflammation in the body's tissues.
Marks said she desperately wants to quit but has struggled because of the stressors in her life. She's recently divorced, a single mother of four, a dialysis technician and a student. She also struggles financially.
Experts suggest that smokers discuss their smoking and the family's reaction to it before the holiday.
Nonsmokers should be supportive of efforts by smokers to stop smoking. Nonsmokers should try to limit guilt trips and self-righteousness but be firm that smoking is a no-no.
That's a delicate balance, doctors say. "It's so dependent on the family dynamic," Holloway said.
He recommends that all parties stay as calm as possible and keep focused on the health issue, not shame and guilt. "And if you cannot press upon them that they need to cease for health's sake, then you may need to look for other options," he said.
As Sanders and Marks have pondered their choice of a Christmas without each other, they feel unhappy.
Marks said she may soften by Christmas, as the thought of her mother's apartment beckons.
"My mother is a wonderful person," Marks said. "I want to make her proud. I really, really, really want to stop."
TIPS FOR A HEALTHY LUNG HOLIDAY
If smokers visit you:
• Ban all indoor smoke; do not allow smoking in separate rooms of the house or garage.
• Allow smoking only outdoors. Going into another room or even the garage does not keep the cigarette poisons out of the air.
• Tell smokers the nonsmoking rules in advance.
• Ask what you can do to support their cessation efforts.
• Provide a "smoking jacket" for the smoker to use outside, and then remove before coming back indoors. The jacket could be an old bathrobe or shirt.
• Make sure they know you are banning smoke because you love them and value good health.
If you plan to visit a smoker:
• Renegotiate, particularly if you have young children. If you or a child have a chronic lung condition such as asthma, doctors suggest having the family gathering at a nonsmoking location. Nonsmokers are well within their rights to decline an invitation to a smoker's house, but be prepared for some hurt feelings.
• Educate the smoker that drapes and furnishings will still contain smoke that could trigger an attack even if they don't smoke during a visit. Explain your position gently and stress health rather than point fingers of blame.
For example, you could say, "I've read that cigarette smoking contains as many as 200 toxins. Doctors now link it to several cancers, not only lung cancer. It can trigger asthma and a heart attack. I want to keep my family, including you, healthy. So I'd like you to consider coming to my house for the holidays." That could be more productive, experts said, than something like this: "I've really had it with your disgusting habit. It stinks. I don't know why you can't quit. We're staying home this year."
• Educate smokers about the dangers of second-hand smoke and its devastating effect on children.
• Make sure they know you are banning smoke because you love them and value good health.
• Ask the smoker if he or she would like to stop. If so, pledge your support and give him or her the number for the Georgia Quit Line.
Tuesday, Dec 21, 2004
Congratulations to the movie industry for "stonewalling the states Attorney General, sandbagging leading health organizations" and refusing to be intimidated by the Antis. Also, nice to know that "SmokeFreeMovies.ucsf.edu" has the funds to advertise in major publications....
______________________________
Garnet Dawn - The Smoker's Club, Inc. - Midwest Regional Director
The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter - http://www.smokersclubinc.com
Illinois Smokers Group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/illinoissmokers/
mailto:garnetdawn@comcast.net - Respect Freedom of Choice!
-------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.smokefreemovies.ucsf.edu/ourads/wellsville24_lg.html
Smoke Free Movies has launched a series of print advertisements in the Variety and other publications. Their advertisement first ran on December 20, 2004:
http://www.tobacco.org/news/184984.html
• AD: It wasn't from a lawyer, Mr. Farrell, just a hopeful kid in Wellsville.
Source: Smokefree Movies.com, 2004-12-20
Intro:
Envelope and glimpse of actual letter signed with first name only. How much effort did it take for kids to send 100,000 letters to the likes of Colin Farrel, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Cameron Diaz? Less than it takes for each letter to be refused and returned unopened. For the second year in a row, your biggest fans have told you that they don't want their sisters and brothers manipulated into smoking by youth-rated movies. What would it cost your industry to agree with them? Nothing. Because smoking doesn't sell movie tickets. But movies keep on selling smoking. Even shareholders are growing concerned.
Meanwhile, the studios are still stonewalling the state attorneys general and sandbagging leading health organizations. But just in case liability catches up, the studios are also busy drawing a distinction between themselves, as mere distributors with no input into films, and all those willful producers, directors and actors they can't control.
Fact: No PG-13 movie would show teens playing Russian roulette, putting even one life at risk. Yet 80% of PG-13 movies show smoking larger than life, helping to replace every smoker who dies with 390,000 new young smokers a year.
Why doesn't anyone answer the kids?
Tuesday, Dec 21, 2004
BROSNAN ATTACKS IRELAND'S SMOKING BAN
Alright! Way to go! Pierce Brosnan joins in objecting to smoking bans along with Keanu Reeves and Brad Pitt.
Suave actor PIERCE BROSNAN has attacked his native Ireland for its recent ban on smoking in public places.
The 51-year-old complains he has to travel to London to enjoy cigarettes and alcohol with friends, because the new law has destroyed pub culture in his homeland.
He says, "I can only enjoy the boozer in London. In Ireland you can't smoke, so that's slowly changing pub culture. It's a shame. The old cigarettes are good.
"When you are with a bunch of mates at 3am and the ciggies are flying around and you're shooting the breeze, owning the world, ruling the universe and having the best ideas, ciggies are great."
16/12/2004
Mon Dec 20, 2004
FDA Regulations on Dangerous and Misrepresented Pharmaceutical Products
Hi,
Although the American Progress Report is a political newsletter, the excerpt below on currently dangerous and misrepresented pharmaceutical products is relevant to Smokers Rights. The pharmaceutical industry seems to be given free reign, while tobacco products are focused upon as being dangerous. Current federal regulations can only be justified by legislators living in an "Alice in Wonderland" fantasy. If our health experts are so concerned about national health, they need to devote more attention to the major drug companies.
To access most the links supplied below, you will need to go to the original American Progress URL and register with the various linked news agencies--well worth your time.
______________________________
Garnet Dawn - The Smoker's Club, Inc. - Midwest Regional Director
The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter - http://www.smokersclubinc.com
Illinois Smokers Group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/illinoissmokers/
mailto:garnetdawn@comcast.net - Respect Freedom of Choice!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/pp.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=274344
HEALTH CARE
Another Painful Case
The drug maker Pfizer "reaffirmed its commitment" over the weekend to keep its prescription painkiller, Celebrex, on the market, despite a disclosure last week that the drug more than tripled the risk of heart attacks, strokes and death among those taking high doses in a national trial. That level of risk is even greater than the one found in patients taking the similar painkiller, Vioxx, in a similar trial that led Merck to withdraw Vioxx in September. The results have "raised new questions about how well federal drug regulators protect the public and worsened drug makers' already dismal image." Indeed, reports following the discovery have shown Celebrex, "fast-tracked" by the agency and never even proved it protected the stomach from gastrointestinal problems associated with aspirin and ibuprofen – its primary advantage over existing pain relievers.
MARKETING TO MIDDLE AGE: Celebrex and Vioxx were designed for senior citizens, who have the highest risk of stomach bleeding – "principally people over 65 years who have suffered from gastrointestinal problems," – but marketed aggressively to middle-aged Americans, who could have benefited just as well from traditional painkillers like aspirin. Dorothy Hamill, the 1976 Olympic figure skating gold medalist, "was the middle-aged celebrity face of Vioxx," while commercials for Celebrex targeted "baby boomers beginning to suffer from arthritis." Many medical experts "now say that Celebrex and Vioxx, selling for $2 or $3 a pill, have been too widely prescribed to patients who could safely obtain the same pain benefits from over-the-counter drugs costing pennies apiece." Under pressure from the FDA, Pfizer now says it will halt advertising to consumers, but not to doctors.
THE PASSING LANE: Celebrex, like Vioxx, was "fast-tracked" by the FDA, because it was suggested the drug would help cut the rate of gastrointestinal bleeding associated with older painkillers. That meant the FDA took only six months to approve the drug, even though scientists concluded it had not "sufficiently demonstrated" it reduced the rate of the gastrointestinal problems compared with existing painkillers. Later studies by Pfizer "were never convincing enough for the agency to remove the warning from Celebrex's labeling." In other words, Celebrex "has never been proven to the FDA's satisfaction to have the stomach-protecting benefits that originally were supposed to be the point of that category of drugs."
THE 'SPECTACULAR' FDA: Celebrex and Vioxx are not the only drugs to come under scrutiny lately. On the same day the Celebrex study broke, "in less than 12 hours," AstraZeneca reported that a trial of Iressa, a lung cancer drug approved in the United States last year, showed that the drug did not prolong lives. Eli Lilly warned doctors that Strattera, its drug to treat attention deficit disorder had caused severe liver injury in at least two patients. And doctors writing in a prominent medical journal recommended that physicians stop prescribing Pfizer's Bextra painkiller. So what was the White House's reaction to the finding that several FDA approved drugs are ineffective or dangerous? White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card said the agency was doing a "spectacular job."
SPECTACULAR NEGLIGENCE:
The Washington Post reports the FDA, "which regulates almost one-quarter of the U.S. economy, has been without a permanent chief for almost two-thirds of the time that President Bush has been in office." The agency also has had a "high number of temporary appointees administering its centers, offices and divisions, including the key positions running the offices that evaluate new drugs and monitor the safety record of approved medications." The White House's negligence plays right into the hands of major drug companies, which would rather "have no one there than someone who favors a proactive stance that might slow down the industry or raise hard questions about profitable drugs." Observers say the agency's lack of leadership has made it "less able to respond quickly and effectively to emerging problems."
Sun Dec 19, 2004
Pharmaceutical Company STILL funding smoking bans in West Virginia and other states
The following is from http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mainerights/ and http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WestVirginians4personalfreedoms .
This is how the RJW, also the manufacturer of nicotine patches and gum operates.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Darlene"
Friday, Dec 17, 2004
Back in April 7, 2002, the RWJ Foundation had 47 states in their pockets.
The more restrictions, control and bans on smoking a state did, the more the grant money they would receive from the RWJ Foundation.
So, when your hospital and/or health care facility goes smoke-free, it's because they cut off the head of the smokers for blood money.
Also, when a hospital goes smoke-free, think about all that money they are getting for kicking us out.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Friday, December 17, 2004
Pharmaceutical Company STILL funding smoking bans in West Virginia and other states
From: Maryetta Ables
http://www.jointogether.org/sa/news/funding/reader/0,1854,575431,00.html
RWJF Awards 25 Tobacco Policy Change Grants
12/17/2004
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) has awarded 25 grants totaling
$2.2 million for nationwide tobacco-prevention and cessation initiatives
under its Tobacco Policy Change program.
Grants will fund local, regional, and national organizations pursuing
policy change to increase local or state tobacco taxes, comprehensive
clean indoor air laws, public funding for prevention and cessation
programs, restrictions on advertising and product placement, as well as
other initiatives.
Award values range from $50,000 to $100,000. This round is the first
under the foundation's Tobacco Policy Change program, which looks to
award $12 million over the next three years.
For a complete list of grantees and their organizations, visit the
foundation online.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.rwjf.org/news/special/granteeList121604.jhtml
Alaska Native Health Board
Anchorage, AK
Annette Marley, 907-743-6110
amarley@anmc.org
American Cancer Society Inc., Hawaii Pacific, Inc. / Mauli Ola (Breath
of Life)
Honolulu, HI
Deborah Zysman, 808-595-7500
dsysman@cancer.org
American Cancer Society Inc., Ohio Division, Inc.
Dublin, OH
Tracy Sabetta, 614-889-9565
tsabetta@cancer.org
American Lung Association of Georgia
Smyrna, GA
June Deen, 770-434-5864
June@alaga.org
American Lung Association of Illinois-Iowa
Des Moines, IA
Katherine Drea, 515-278-5864
kdrea@lungil.org
American Lung Association of New Hampshire
Bedford, NH
Mindy Sweeney, 603-669-2411
mindy@nhlung.org
Black Health Coalition of Wisconsin
Milwaukee, WI
Patricia McManus, 414-933-0064
bhcpmc@aol.com
Boys & Girls Club of Northern Arapaho Tribe
Riverton, WY
Glenda Trosper, 307-856-2637
blowingsmoke@wyoming.com
California Tobacco Control Alliance
Sacramento, CA
Kristen Hansen, 916-554-0390
kirsten.hansen@tobaccofreealliance.org
Center for MultiCultural Health
Seattle, WA
Shelley Cooper-Ashford, 206-461-6910
shelleyc@cschc.org
Colorado Tobacco Education and Prevention Alliance
Denver, CO
Chris Sherwin, 303-756-6163
chris@ctepa.org
Families Under Urban and Social Attack Inc.
Houston, TX
Helen Stagg, 713-651-1470
hstagg@fuusa.org
Greater Cleveland Health Education and Service Council
Cleveland, OH
Joyce Lee, 216-851-2171
joycelee@gchesc.org
Kentucky ACTION, Inc.
Louisville, KY
Stephanie Uliana, 512-587-8641
sjoesandfur@aol.com (invalid e-mail) 12/20/04
MedChi Foundation Inc.
Baltimore, MD
Kari Appler, 410-539-0872
kappler@medchi.org
Medical Foundation Inc.
Boston, MA
James White, 617-451-0049
jwhite@tmfnet.org
Mille Lacs Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe
Onamia, MN
Peggy Frisch, 320-384-0149
pegannfrisch@hotmail.com
Mission City Community Network Inc.
North Hills, CA
Nik Gupta, 818-895-3100
Nikgupta@aol.com
North Carolina Pediatric Society Foundation / NC Alliance for Health
Raleigh, NC
Pamela Seamans, 919-839-1156
pamseamans@nc.rr.com
Partnership of African American Churches Inc.
Institute, WV
James Patterson, 304-768-7688
patterson@paa2.org
Public Health Foundation Enterprises Inc. / California Youth Advocacy
Network
City of Industry, CA
Gordon Sloss, 310-699-7320
gordon@cynanonline.org
Sociedad Latina Inc.
Roxbury, MA
Melissa Luna, 617-442-4299
Melissa@sociedadlatina.org
The Institute of Medicine and Public Health of New Jersey, Inc. / New
Jersey Breathes
Lawrenceville, NJ
Larry Downs, 609-896-1766
ldowns@msnj.org
University of Kentucky Research Foundation / Kentucky Center for Clean
Indoor Air Policy
Lexington, KY
Ellen Hahn, 859-257-2358
Ejhahn00@email.uky.edu
Whitman-Walker Clinic Inc.
Washington, DC
Donald Hitchcock, 202-797-3516
coalition@lgbthealth.net
Wednesday, Dec 15, 2004
http://www.pioneerlocal.com/cgi-bin/ppo-story/localnews/current/lf/12-09-04-455280.html
Highland Park considers idea of a smoking ban
BY KENNETH L R. PATCHEN
STAFF WRITER
The Highland Park City Council is edging closer to a decision about whether to ban smoking in business establishments.
"We're concerned about patrons of restaurants, but also the health of employees," said council member Michael Brenner. "I honestly feel the majority of the council, if we voted on it, would support this."
Proposed regulation of smoking in the city so far has yet to cause a major public discussion beyond the council's deliberations. Brenner said as few as four restaurants in town may be the only locations where patrons may smoke, usually in bar or lounge areas.
At a Nov. 22 committee-of-the-whole meeting, council members referred the issue to both the Business and Economic Development Commission and Healthy Highland Park for their recommendations after hearing from two local restaurant owners and the Highland Park Chamber of Commerce and
Public comment at a council meeting may be taken in January if a recommendation to consider an ordinance is received from the Commission.
The Chamber of Commerce has supported the right of business owners to decide individually whether to ban smoking. Chamber Executive Director Ginny Anzelmo Glasner said the board unanimously voted in August to recommend the council leave a smoking policy decision to individual business owners. One board member abstained from the vote.
Business decision
Glasner said that although the Chamber itself does not condone smoking, its members recognize the rights of business owners to make their own decisions about smoking policies in their establishments.
The results of the Chamber vote were conveyed to the council in early November. At the presession meeting, two restaurant owners affirmed their support for allowing local businesses to make a decision about whether to ban smoking.
Bluegrass Restaurant owner Jim Lederer operates his no-smoking restaurant on Old Deerfield Road, and he argued in favor of business owners being allowed to make their own decisions about patron smoking. He opposes the idea of a local no-smoking ordinance.
He said if business were to permit him to remain open in the late evening hours, he would want the option to allow his customers to smoke.
"That's what happens late in the evening," he said. "It's part of the mix, good or bad."
Bluegrass has a patio area where customers can step outside for a smoke, and Lederer said he would want ventilation technology inside the restaurant if he allowed smoking there.
The Business and Economic Development Commission is expected to discuss the issue during January. Its agenda is posted on the city Web site www.cityhpil.com often by the Friday before any meeting, said Chairman Rick Nelson.
Assistant City Manager Will Jones said the Commission members will want to hear testimony from restaurant and business owners before voting on a recommendation for or against a smoking ban. He said the public also can comment at Commission meetings, and another opportunity will occur if and when the council considers a recommendation to pass a no-smoking ordinance at a regularly scheduled council meeting, sometime after mid-January.
"The people who are most susceptible to smoking are the young and elderly," said Brenner.
As a result, some places in Highland Park only permit smoking in their establishments after 8:30 p.m., a time when families and the elderly may not be dining.
"That is one of the options we would look at," Brenner said.
Contact Kenneth L R. Patchen at patchen@pioneerlocal.com
Wednesday, Dec 15, 2004
Smokers Misinformed About Light Cigarettes
To Whom It May Concern:
Oh come on now, smokers know what they are doing when they smoke a cigarette. We enjoy it!! We are aware of our choice. No wonder the individual citizen is be treated like livestock by governments in our current time. Smoking is a life style choice, the kind we all make every day. It is an individual choice....stop whining! This is just like the "low fat" craze that lasted for twenty-plus years. People knew better than to believe that they could eat what ever they wanted just because some label told them it was "low fat". If a consumer wants to smoke a "low tar, nicotine, etc." cigarette, that is their choice. They spent their money for it....if they were stupid, they can only blame themselves. Believing everything one reads is simply wishful thinking. We pay for our life choices.....that's the way it is. No one can claim to be so stupid as to not understand marketing concepts in this day and age. The anti-smokers are using them every day. They call them national programs for the "denormalization" of smoking.
If we are going to prosecute those creating advertisements for "light" cigarettes, we should prosecute all those responsible for the low fat claims by food manufacturers who were also trying to give consumers an excuse to do what they wanted to do in the first place, along with all the anti-smoking organizations that are trying to lie to us and distort/magnify the dangers of smoking and second-hand smoke with endless questionable studies. What about the pharmaceutical companies who are turning our world population into drug addicts? If the funds being directed against smoking were being used in constructive programs to help world-wide epidemics, we would be able to eliminate some of the real global health threats.
Come on consumers, get real! You can't have your cake and eat it too. You are capable of making intelligent choices. Stop going against your better judgment and blaming everyone else for your problems. Enough of treating a legal product like it's a mass murderer! Enough of cop-outs and blaming everyone else for our personal choices! It's time we took responsibility for our lives and defended our right-to-choice.
To quote Denis Leary: "Smoking takes 10 years off your life. Well, it's the 10 worst years, isn't it, folks? It's the ones at the end! It's the wheelchair-kidney-dialysis-fucking years. You can have those years! We don't want 'em, all right!?" And with that in mind, light up, everyone, and have a good day".
______________________________
Garnet Dawn - The Smoker's Club, Inc. - Midwest Regional Director
The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter - http://www.smokersclubinc.com
Illinois Smokers Group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/illinoissmokers/
mailto:garnetdawn@comcast.net - Respect Freedom of Choice!
Note: Letter was sent to over 80 media e-mail contacts
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.jointogether.org/sa/news/summaries/reader/0,1854,575404,00.html
Smokers Misinformed About Light Cigarettes
12/14/2004
A new survey finds that the majority of smokers are still misinformed about the health risks of light and ultra-light cigarettes, according to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF).
The Light Cigarette Survey included 1,046 adult smokers nationwide, particularly those who smoke Marlboro Lights, the leading light-cigarette brand. Researchers with the Division of Cancer Prevention and Population Sciences at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, N.Y., looked at how much participants knew about the health effects of smoking, the ingredients in cigarettes and cigarette smoke, and the differences among regular, light, and ultra-light cigarettes.
The survey found that nine out of 10 Marlboro Lights smokers were not aware that light cigarettes deliver about as much tar as regular cigarettes. Furthermore, only one-third of Marlboro Lights smokers knew that the filters on their cigarettes have ventilation holes designed to reduce the amount of tar and nicotine contained in smoke. Smokers who are unaware of the holes often block the vents with their fingers, thus reducing or eliminating any benefits gained by ventilation.
According to the Federal Trade Commission, light and ultra-light cigarettes accounted for 85 percent of all cigarettes sold in the United States in 2002.
Based on the survey's results, the researchers recommended that cigarette makers discontinue using the terms light, ultra-light, and mild on labels of cigarette packs and in marketing efforts. The researchers also called on cigarette companies to fund a public-education campaign that would provide information to smokers about filter vents, tar levels, and cigarette additives.
The survey's findings are published in the December 2004 supplemental issue of the journal Nicotine and Tobacco Research.
States With Laws That Prohibit Employers From Discriminating Against Smokers
As of 1997, 28 states had passed laws forbidding employer discrimination based on smoking status. These states are: Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, North Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and Oregon.
--------------------------------------------
Following are copies of my letters to the ACLU and WSJ, though I received no response from either one....
12/22/04
Attn: American Civil Liberties Union action@dcaclu.org
RE: Twenty-nine states, including Illinois, have laws that prohibit employers from discriminating against smokers
Dear Sir/Madam:
The following story from The Wall Street Journal states "Such antismoking policies are problematic for companies with employees in states with smokers' rights laws. Twenty-nine states, including Illinois, have laws that prohibit employers from discriminating against smokers. As a result, Weyco will continue to employ one smoker in Illinois, even after its policy in Michigan goes into effect, Mr. Climes says."
I would like to know if corporations in the states with laws prohibiting employers from discriminating against smokers (Illinois in this case) are employing one "token" smoking employee in the same manner that employers kept one "token" racial minority employee on their payrolls in past years.
What measures is the ACLU taking currently to fight this kind of discrimination? I am a member of the ACLU and would like to know if my membership is still worthwhile.
Sincerely,
______________________________
Garnet Dawn - The Smoker's Club, Inc. - Midwest Regional Director
The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter - http://www.smokersclubinc.com
Illinois Smokers Group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/illinoissmokers/
mailto:garnetdawn@comcast.net - Respect Freedom of Choice!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
American Civil Liberties Union
125 Broad Street, 18th Floor
New York, NY 10004
action@dcaclu.org
Wall Street Journal
200 Liberty Street
New York, NY 10281
Attention:
Danforth Austin, General Manager wsj.ltrs@wsj.com
Robert Bartley, Vice President; Editor bartley@wsj.com
Marcus Brauchli, National News Senior Editor marcus.brauchli@dowjones.com
Paul Steiger, Managing Editor paul.steiger@wsj.com
Laurie McGinley , Health Pod Leader laurie.mcginley@wsj.com
KRIS MAHER / WSJ Staff Reporter
RE: Companies Are Closing Door On Job Applicants Who Smoke ($$)
Dear Sirs/Madam:
Mr. Kris Maher stated in The Wall Street Journal story referenced below, "Twenty-nine states, including Illinois, have laws that prohibit employers from discriminating against smokers."
I live in Illinois. I would like to know the names of the other twenty-eight states that have laws prohibiting employers from discriminating against smokers. Your assistance will be most appreciated.
Sincerely,
______________________________
Garnet Dawn - The Smoker's Club, Inc. - Midwest Regional Director
The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter - http://www.smokersclubinc.com
Illinois Smokers Group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/illinoissmokers/
mailto:garnetdawn@comcast.net - Respect Freedom of Choice!
----------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.tobacco.org/news/185044.html
Companies Are Closing Door On Job Applicants Who Smoke ($$)
The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition
2004-12-21
KRIS MAHER / Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Intro:
Kick the habit -- or don't bother applying for the job.
That is the dictum at a growing number of companies that are adopting tough measures to eliminate smokers from their ranks in an effort to rein in health-care costs. Some are requiring job applicants to undergo nicotine testing or respond to questions about their smoking habits. Others are forcing current employees who won't quit smoking to give up their jobs.
On Jan. 1, Weyco Inc., a small medical-benefits administrator, no longer will employ people who smoke at its Okemos, Mich., headquarters . . .
Such antismoking policies are problematic for companies with employees in states with smokers' rights laws. Twenty-nine states, including Illinois, have laws that prohibit employers from discriminating against smokers. As a result, Weyco will continue to employ one smoker in Illinois, even after its policy in Michigan goes into effect, Mr. Climes says.
Nevertheless, smokers increasingly face hiring hurdles even at companies that don't have formal antismoking policies. "There is discrimination at many companies -- and maybe even most companies -- against people who smoke,"
12/22/04
RE: Smoking Foes' Survey Finds Ban Backing
Attn: Chris LaFortune
Pioneer Press - Oak Park, IL
Dear Mr. LaFortune:
Thank you for an excellent and unbiased article. It appears that Oak Park does not have much of a majority among residents to propose a village ordinance to ban smoking in restaurants, bars and other public places. In addition, 70% of Oak Park restaurants already are voluntarily smoke free.
Downtown Oak Park's board of directors, Executive Director, Donna Ogdon Chen "said that the campaign's results were different than the village's own resident satisfaction survey earlier this year. That reported 85 percent of those polled said second-hand smoke in public places was either not a problem or a minor problem."
This is just one more case of the local health department and the American Lung Association refusing to respect individual rights or opinions on smoking ban issues in a community, and using misleading questions on a survey to obtain the distorted results they so relentlessly pursue to retain their funding dollars.
______________________________
Garnet Dawn - The Smoker's Club, Inc. - Midwest Regional Director
The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter - http://www.smokersclubinc.com
Illinois Smokers Group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/illinoissmokers/
mailto:garnetdawn@comcast.net - Respect Freedom of Choice!
-------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.pioneerlocal.com/cgi-bin/ppo-story/localnews/current/op/12-15-04-460135.html
Smoking foes' survey finds ban backing
BY CHRIS LAFORTUNE
STAFF WRITER
Survey results released Thursday by the Campaign for a Smoke-Free Oak Park found that 66 percent of respondents support a proposed village ordinance to ban smoking in restaurants, bars and other public places.
The survey polled 301 Oak Park residents and 300 others from Forest Park, River Forest, Berwyn, Cicero and Elmwood Park. The telephone survey was conducted at random and has a margin of error of 4 percent, said Mark Peysakhovich of the Campaign for a Smoke-Free Oak Park.
Forty-four percent of Oak Park residents said they would be more likely to vote for a mayoral or village trustee candidate who supported a smoke-free ordinance, the survey found.
Oak Park's Health Department has proposed the ban based on the established hazards of exposure to second-hand smoke for both workers and customers of public places. The Village Board is expected to consider the proposed ordinance next month.
Peysakhovich, an American Lung Association spokesman and village resident, said most Oak Parkers want the Village Board to protect restaurant patrons and workers from the health dangers of second-hand smoke.
"It's simply unconscionable if the Village Board devotes hundreds of hours of attention to whether you can have two dogs or three, and meanwhile, people are being gassed to death when they work or eat in dangerous environments," he said.
Downtown Oak Park's board of directors decided Thursday to oppose the proposed ban, before it saw results of the survey, Executive Director Donna Ogdon Chen said.
"There is a concern for our members who feel that there would be a potential negative impact . . . if this ban were to take place," she said.
Ogdon Chen said that the campaign's results were different than the village's own resident satisfaction survey earlier this year. That reported 85 percent of those polled said second-hand smoke in public places was either not a problem or a minor problem.
"I think different ways you ask different questions can produce different results," Ogdon Chen said.
The campaign's survey also found that 53 percent of respondents are more likely to go to a smoke-free restaurant, and that 61 percent think non-smoking sections don't provide enough protection from second-hand smoke.
Twenty percent of Oak Park respondents at least occasionally leave the village to find smoke-free restaurant options, the survey found. Seventy-six percent said it made no difference.
"That fully a fifth of the customers leave Oak Park has got to be a scary statistic for our village leaders and the village business community," Peysakhovich said. "It means losing lots of revenue and tax dollars."
Fifty-three percent of residents said they would be either more likely or much more likely to go to a restaurant if they knew it was smoke-free, according to the survey. Six percent said they would be somewhat or less likely to go to such a restaurant.
"Most sit-down restaurants in Oak Park allow smoking," he said. "This is a huge problem.
But 70 percent of Oak Park restaurants already are smoke free, Illinois Restaurant Association President Colleen McShane, and Oak Park resident, said Monday. That figure includes institutional dining spots including school and hospital cafeterias.
Businesses need the flexibility to be able to serve all customers, McShane said, smokers and non-smokers.
"I think this is a perfect situation where we have a solution looking for a problem," she said.
Chris LaFortune can be reached at clafortune@pioneerlocal.com.
12/22/04
Tobacco suit bond to pay off debt on Criminal Courts Building
How enlightening to learn that Madison County is spending bond funds provided by their court system, nicknamed a "judicial hellhole" in some legal circles", to benefit themselves.
Garmet
-------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.belleville.com/mld/belleville/news/10420298.htm
Posted on Wed, Dec. 15, 2004
Tobacco suit bond to pay off debt on Criminal Courts Building
BY JAYNE MATTHEWS
jmatthews@bnd.com
Madison County will smoke the mortgage on its new Criminal Courts Building because of a $10.1 billion tobacco lawsuit verdict that brought criticism to its court system.
The county plans to pay off the $1.7 million mortgage with about $2 million it has received for holding bond money for parties in the Phillip Morris light cigarette lawsuit.
Paying off the 10-year loan will save the county $200,000 a year in interest, County Board Chairman Alan Dunstan said Tuesday.
"It's a windfall," Dunstan said. "The ideal place for it to be used is to pay for the Criminal Courts Building."
The county has spent another $2 million renovating the former Florist Mutual insurance office building in downtown Edwardsville. The remodeled building on St. Louis Street is scheduled to open next month.
he renovation has been financed with part of $6.5 million the county received from the sale of prime commercial land it once owned on Troy Road, off Illinois 159 in Edwardsville.
Phillip Morris last year lost a class-action lawsuit that claimed it deceived smokers into believing its light cigarette has less nicotine than its regular.
The cigarette maker has appealed the $10.1 billion judgment.
The county got its windfall because both sides agreed to give the county 20 percent interest for holding bond money until a ruling on the appeal is handed down, Dunstan said.
Dunstan said he doesn't expect the county to collect much more money because a court ruling is expected soon.
The Phillip Morris case is one of several high-money, class-action lawsuits that have brought allegations that Madison County courts favor civil injury lawyers. The national reputation earned it the nickname "judicial hellhole" in some legal circles.
The courts were not directly involved in the holding of the bond money.
The decision to spend the bond interest money on the Criminal Courts Building was made by the County Board.
12/22/04
Here, in the ALA's own words, is what they have doing this year. Know your enemies!
______________________________
Garnet Dawn - The Smoker's Club, Inc. - Midwest Regional Director
The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter - http://www.smokersclubinc.com
Illinois Smokers Group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/illinoissmokers/
mailto:garnetdawn@comcast.net - Respect Freedom of Choice!
-------------------------------------------------------------------
From: American Lung Association Action Network
Wednesday, December 22, 2004 10:49 AM
Year End Update from American Lung Association Action Network
Dear GARNET,
Thanks to the hard work – and quick response – of American Lung Association Action Network activists, progress was made on several federal issues during 2004.
Your calls, letters and other contacts with federal policymakers are clearly having an impact. We look forward to working with you in 2005!
TOBACCO
We had some success on tobacco this year but, unfortunately, we still fell short.
For the first time ever, the full Senate approved legislation to give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the authority to regulate the contents and advertising of tobacco products. On two occasions, the Senate passed FDA legislation first as part of a larger corporate tax bill then as a stand-alone FDA regulation bill (S. 2974), introduced by Sens. Mike DeWine (R-OH) and Edward Kennedy (D-MA). The House of Representatives blocked the FDA provision added to the corporate tax bill and declined to consider S. 2974. The Lung Association is meeting with our champions in Congress to ensure that FDA regulation legislation is re-introduced early in the new 109th Congress in 2005.
During House consideration of appropriations for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, we prevented the use of taxpayer funds to pay for the $10 billion buyout of tobacco grower’s quotas. That successful measure was drafted by Reps. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD).
On a global note, on May 10, 2004, at the urging of Lung Association advocates, the Bush Administration signed the first-ever international public health treaty, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), aimed at curbing tobacco use around the world. Now we are urging President Bush to send the treaty to the U.S. Senate for ratification. Meanwhile, Peru became the 40th nation to ratify the pact. (Click here to see our press release.) The American Lung Association Action Network will continue to press the president to send the treaty to the Senate for ratification so that it can take effect in this country.
In other tobacco-related issues, American Lung Association Action Network advocates continued to push for an increase in the federal cigarette excise tax by $1.00 to fund public health programs (defeated in the Senate) and supported legislation to limit youth access to tobacco products via the Internet. The Internet legislation passed the full U.S. Senate and a House of Representatives Judiciary Committee but Congress adjourned before further action was taken. We will continue to work on these issues during the 109th Congress.
AIR QUALITY
On the air quality front, American Lung Association Action Network advocates fought to protect public health by defending the Clean Air Act.
Network members urged Congress to oppose legislation (H.R. 999/S. 485), the Administration’s so-called “Clear Skies” bill. That measure would repeal key Clean Air Act enforcement programs, limit the ability of states to protect their citizens from air pollution and sentence another generation of Americans to breathing dirty air by delaying needed pollution reductions for decades. Lung Association advocates let Congress know that simply enforcing the current Clean Air Act would provide greater pollution reductions sooner than the Administration plan. Thanks to your opposition the 108th Congress ended without taking action on H.R. 999/S. 485.
Network participants also pushed the EPA to require steep, nationwide cuts in emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from fossil-fueled power plant smokestacks and large industrial facilities by 2009. The EPA had proposed a weaker approach that would allow the plants to pollute until 2015.
On December 11, 2004, EPA announced it was delaying action on the power plant clean up to allow consideration of the so-called "Clear Skies bill". The Lung Association remains opposed to that approach and will be calling on Congress to oppose this bill and urge EPA to adopt the nearly complete power plant clean up regulations as soon as possible. Look for action alerts in January 2005.
On May 10, 2004 EPA finalized the rules to clean up heavy equipment and other nonroad engines and diesel fuel. This action was a big victory for public health. In 2003, network members had sent thousands of comments urging EPA to adopt these rules that are estimated to save 12,000 lives a year when fully implemented. In the summer, the Lung Association asked EPA for a tough new rule to clean up the last remaining underregulated dirty diesel engines – locomotive and marine engines. The Lung Association asked Leavitt for tough new standards as soon as possible and no later than 2011. We are waiting for EPA to take the next step on these regulations.
EPA continues its review of National Ambient Quality Standards (NAAQS) for particle pollution (soot). The Lung Association supports stronger long- and short-term standards for fine particles in order to protect the people most sensitive to particle air pollution – infants and children, especially those with asthma, the elderly, and people with pre-existing lung disease, heart disease and diabetes.
LUNG DISEASE
American Lung Association Action Network advocates joined forces to support legislative and regulatory action on influenza, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma and tuberculosis.
Thousands of advocates sent comments to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to support a proposed rule that would make air travel easier for oxygen-dependent people, including those who suffer from COPD. The FAA rule would permit the use of certain portable oxygen concentrator devices on aircraft. The Lung Association considers the rule a step in the right direction for passengers with lung disease who require supplementary oxygen. The FAA has yet to take final action on the proposal. We will contact you with the results.
As the 2004 influenza vaccine shortage was making headlines, Network participants began contacting Congress to urge passage of the Flu Protection Act (S. 2038/H.R. 3758). Among other things, that measure requires the CDC to contract with vaccine makers to ensure an adequate supply in coming years, expand public education and public availability of influenza shots, and invest in faster research for alternative vaccines. Although this comprehensive legislation did not pass before Congress adjourned for the year, we did succeed in getting an allocation of $100 million for the secretary of health and human services to purchase influenza vaccine to ensure a year-round supply and to develop and implement rapidly expandable influenza vaccine production technologies. We will be meeting with key congressional leaders to plan next steps to address the influenza vaccine issue.
Network participants throughout the country signed the American Lung Association Asthma Bill of Rights, a petition promoting a series of rights to help children with asthma better manage their illness. Those rights include access to regular medical care and affordable medicine; a cleaner environment at home, at school and in their communities; a better understanding of their asthma and development of an action plan to help manage it; and a safe, supportive asthma-friendly school. There is still time to sign onto the petition, which will be presented to President Bush in 2005. (To sign the petition, click here.)
Network advocates joined the American Lung Association’s World TB Day 2004 efforts on March 24 by urging their Members of Congress to cosponsor the Comprehensive TB Elimination Act (S. 1559/H.R. 2068), introduced by Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) and Reps. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Heather Wilson (R-NM). The bill would increase funds for TB training, treatment and education programs, and authorizes $240 million for TB vaccine development. No action was taken on the bill before Congress adjourned. We will continue to work with our champions on the Hill to see funding increased for domestic and global TB programs.
Tuesday, Dec 21, 2004
Smoking bans test families, but experts point out benefits
Attention: Virginia Anderson
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
landerson@ajc.com
Dear Ms. Anderson:
I hope the Antis and Health Experts, who are lining their pockets with smokers' tax dollars, are pleased with themselves. They will not be satisfied until smoking is completely eradicated! I wonder where they will find their endless funding grants if they should succeed?
Now, they are polarizing families through their Junk Science studies and the false unsubstantiated beliefs they have propagated. Just why is it that Asthma cases continue to increase in our population as people have been exposed less and less to smokers? Perhaps the "health experts" should do still another study to find out.
This whole smoking issue is going to come down to a world wide domestic civil war at the rate we are progressing!
______________________________
Garnet Dawn - The Smoker's Club, Inc. - Midwest Regional Director
The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter - http://www.smokersclubinc.com
Illinois Smokers Group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/illinoissmokers/
mailto:garnetdawn@comcast.net - Respect Freedom of Choice!
---------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.ajc.com/living/content/living/holidayguide03/entertain04/21smoke.html
Smoking bans test families, but experts point out benefits
By VIRGINIA ANDERSON
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 12/21/04
Tessie Marks loves going home for the holidays.
The 33-year-old Atlanta mother of four can lie on her mother's bed and relax, letting the stresses of raising four children, going to school and working melt away.
"Mom's house is always cozy and warm and inviting," said Marks, a dialysis technician who is studying to become a nurse. "Going home feels like a big hug."
This year, however, Marks may not be going home for the holidays. Her mother, Marie Sanders, is drawing a line in the smoke: No one, not even her children, can smoke in her Atlanta apartment.
That means that Marks, who is trying to quit smoking but has been unsuccessful, may skip the Christmas get-together. She isn't sure she can go all day without a cigarette. She also is a little thrown off by the boundary her mother has drawn.
Her mother said she is doing it to protect her 18-year-old son Jonathan's health.
"I started getting more stern because my baby boy is asthmatic," Sanders said of Jonathan, who lives at home. "So I drew the line. I started putting up the tree last night, and Jonathan said, 'Why are you doing that?' No one's coming.'"
The line may be hard, but many doctors cheer it.
Evidence grows each year that secondhand smoke not only greatly increases a person's risk of lung cancer but also contributes to asthma, middle ear infections, sinus infections and chronic lung disease. A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released last spring suggested that secondhand smoke can even trigger a heart attack.
The observational study in Helena, Mont., showed that hospital admissions for heart attack declined by about 40 percent during the six months in which a smoking ban in public places was in effect. The number of admissions rebounded after the ordinance was suspended.
As a result, advocacy groups like the American Lung Association and many doctors who treat people with asthma and other chronic lung diseases recommend banning indoor smoke and its residue altogether.
That means no smoking in garages, basements or sun porches, and it means declining an invitation to take children to the home of smoking adults.
Doctors who treat patients with lung diseases insist that there's no room for negotiation because no room is safe when cigarette smoke is around.
"Smoke doesn't have barriers," said Dr. Kelvin Holloway, associate professor of medicine at Morehouse School of Medicine and a board member of the American Lung Association. "It clings to drapes, carpet, clothes, everything."
Sanders decided she reached her limit this year after Marks was diagnosed with sarcoidosis, a disease that causes inflammation in the body's tissues.
Marks said she desperately wants to quit but has struggled because of the stressors in her life. She's recently divorced, a single mother of four, a dialysis technician and a student. She also struggles financially.
Experts suggest that smokers discuss their smoking and the family's reaction to it before the holiday.
Nonsmokers should be supportive of efforts by smokers to stop smoking. Nonsmokers should try to limit guilt trips and self-righteousness but be firm that smoking is a no-no.
That's a delicate balance, doctors say. "It's so dependent on the family dynamic," Holloway said.
He recommends that all parties stay as calm as possible and keep focused on the health issue, not shame and guilt. "And if you cannot press upon them that they need to cease for health's sake, then you may need to look for other options," he said.
As Sanders and Marks have pondered their choice of a Christmas without each other, they feel unhappy.
Marks said she may soften by Christmas, as the thought of her mother's apartment beckons.
"My mother is a wonderful person," Marks said. "I want to make her proud. I really, really, really want to stop."
TIPS FOR A HEALTHY LUNG HOLIDAY
If smokers visit you:
• Ban all indoor smoke; do not allow smoking in separate rooms of the house or garage.
• Allow smoking only outdoors. Going into another room or even the garage does not keep the cigarette poisons out of the air.
• Tell smokers the nonsmoking rules in advance.
• Ask what you can do to support their cessation efforts.
• Provide a "smoking jacket" for the smoker to use outside, and then remove before coming back indoors. The jacket could be an old bathrobe or shirt.
• Make sure they know you are banning smoke because you love them and value good health.
If you plan to visit a smoker:
• Renegotiate, particularly if you have young children. If you or a child have a chronic lung condition such as asthma, doctors suggest having the family gathering at a nonsmoking location. Nonsmokers are well within their rights to decline an invitation to a smoker's house, but be prepared for some hurt feelings.
• Educate the smoker that drapes and furnishings will still contain smoke that could trigger an attack even if they don't smoke during a visit. Explain your position gently and stress health rather than point fingers of blame.
For example, you could say, "I've read that cigarette smoking contains as many as 200 toxins. Doctors now link it to several cancers, not only lung cancer. It can trigger asthma and a heart attack. I want to keep my family, including you, healthy. So I'd like you to consider coming to my house for the holidays." That could be more productive, experts said, than something like this: "I've really had it with your disgusting habit. It stinks. I don't know why you can't quit. We're staying home this year."
• Educate smokers about the dangers of second-hand smoke and its devastating effect on children.
• Make sure they know you are banning smoke because you love them and value good health.
• Ask the smoker if he or she would like to stop. If so, pledge your support and give him or her the number for the Georgia Quit Line.
Tuesday, Dec 21, 2004
Congratulations to the movie industry for "stonewalling the states Attorney General, sandbagging leading health organizations" and refusing to be intimidated by the Antis. Also, nice to know that "SmokeFreeMovies.ucsf.edu" has the funds to advertise in major publications....
______________________________
Garnet Dawn - The Smoker's Club, Inc. - Midwest Regional Director
The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter - http://www.smokersclubinc.com
Illinois Smokers Group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/illinoissmokers/
mailto:garnetdawn@comcast.net - Respect Freedom of Choice!
-------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.smokefreemovies.ucsf.edu/ourads/wellsville24_lg.html
Smoke Free Movies has launched a series of print advertisements in the Variety and other publications. Their advertisement first ran on December 20, 2004:
http://www.tobacco.org/news/184984.html
• AD: It wasn't from a lawyer, Mr. Farrell, just a hopeful kid in Wellsville.
Source: Smokefree Movies.com, 2004-12-20
Intro:
Envelope and glimpse of actual letter signed with first name only. How much effort did it take for kids to send 100,000 letters to the likes of Colin Farrel, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Cameron Diaz? Less than it takes for each letter to be refused and returned unopened. For the second year in a row, your biggest fans have told you that they don't want their sisters and brothers manipulated into smoking by youth-rated movies. What would it cost your industry to agree with them? Nothing. Because smoking doesn't sell movie tickets. But movies keep on selling smoking. Even shareholders are growing concerned.
Meanwhile, the studios are still stonewalling the state attorneys general and sandbagging leading health organizations. But just in case liability catches up, the studios are also busy drawing a distinction between themselves, as mere distributors with no input into films, and all those willful producers, directors and actors they can't control.
Fact: No PG-13 movie would show teens playing Russian roulette, putting even one life at risk. Yet 80% of PG-13 movies show smoking larger than life, helping to replace every smoker who dies with 390,000 new young smokers a year.
Why doesn't anyone answer the kids?
Tuesday, Dec 21, 2004
BROSNAN ATTACKS IRELAND'S SMOKING BAN
Alright! Way to go! Pierce Brosnan joins in objecting to smoking bans along with Keanu Reeves and Brad Pitt.
Suave actor PIERCE BROSNAN has attacked his native Ireland for its recent ban on smoking in public places.
The 51-year-old complains he has to travel to London to enjoy cigarettes and alcohol with friends, because the new law has destroyed pub culture in his homeland.
He says, "I can only enjoy the boozer in London. In Ireland you can't smoke, so that's slowly changing pub culture. It's a shame. The old cigarettes are good.
"When you are with a bunch of mates at 3am and the ciggies are flying around and you're shooting the breeze, owning the world, ruling the universe and having the best ideas, ciggies are great."
16/12/2004
Mon Dec 20, 2004
FDA Regulations on Dangerous and Misrepresented Pharmaceutical Products
Hi,
Although the American Progress Report is a political newsletter, the excerpt below on currently dangerous and misrepresented pharmaceutical products is relevant to Smokers Rights. The pharmaceutical industry seems to be given free reign, while tobacco products are focused upon as being dangerous. Current federal regulations can only be justified by legislators living in an "Alice in Wonderland" fantasy. If our health experts are so concerned about national health, they need to devote more attention to the major drug companies.
To access most the links supplied below, you will need to go to the original American Progress URL and register with the various linked news agencies--well worth your time.
______________________________
Garnet Dawn - The Smoker's Club, Inc. - Midwest Regional Director
The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter - http://www.smokersclubinc.com
Illinois Smokers Group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/illinoissmokers/
mailto:garnetdawn@comcast.net - Respect Freedom of Choice!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/pp.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=274344
HEALTH CARE
Another Painful Case
The drug maker Pfizer "reaffirmed its commitment" over the weekend to keep its prescription painkiller, Celebrex, on the market, despite a disclosure last week that the drug more than tripled the risk of heart attacks, strokes and death among those taking high doses in a national trial. That level of risk is even greater than the one found in patients taking the similar painkiller, Vioxx, in a similar trial that led Merck to withdraw Vioxx in September. The results have "raised new questions about how well federal drug regulators protect the public and worsened drug makers' already dismal image." Indeed, reports following the discovery have shown Celebrex, "fast-tracked" by the agency and never even proved it protected the stomach from gastrointestinal problems associated with aspirin and ibuprofen – its primary advantage over existing pain relievers.
MARKETING TO MIDDLE AGE: Celebrex and Vioxx were designed for senior citizens, who have the highest risk of stomach bleeding – "principally people over 65 years who have suffered from gastrointestinal problems," – but marketed aggressively to middle-aged Americans, who could have benefited just as well from traditional painkillers like aspirin. Dorothy Hamill, the 1976 Olympic figure skating gold medalist, "was the middle-aged celebrity face of Vioxx," while commercials for Celebrex targeted "baby boomers beginning to suffer from arthritis." Many medical experts "now say that Celebrex and Vioxx, selling for $2 or $3 a pill, have been too widely prescribed to patients who could safely obtain the same pain benefits from over-the-counter drugs costing pennies apiece." Under pressure from the FDA, Pfizer now says it will halt advertising to consumers, but not to doctors.
THE PASSING LANE: Celebrex, like Vioxx, was "fast-tracked" by the FDA, because it was suggested the drug would help cut the rate of gastrointestinal bleeding associated with older painkillers. That meant the FDA took only six months to approve the drug, even though scientists concluded it had not "sufficiently demonstrated" it reduced the rate of the gastrointestinal problems compared with existing painkillers. Later studies by Pfizer "were never convincing enough for the agency to remove the warning from Celebrex's labeling." In other words, Celebrex "has never been proven to the FDA's satisfaction to have the stomach-protecting benefits that originally were supposed to be the point of that category of drugs."
THE 'SPECTACULAR' FDA: Celebrex and Vioxx are not the only drugs to come under scrutiny lately. On the same day the Celebrex study broke, "in less than 12 hours," AstraZeneca reported that a trial of Iressa, a lung cancer drug approved in the United States last year, showed that the drug did not prolong lives. Eli Lilly warned doctors that Strattera, its drug to treat attention deficit disorder had caused severe liver injury in at least two patients. And doctors writing in a prominent medical journal recommended that physicians stop prescribing Pfizer's Bextra painkiller. So what was the White House's reaction to the finding that several FDA approved drugs are ineffective or dangerous? White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card said the agency was doing a "spectacular job."
SPECTACULAR NEGLIGENCE:
The Washington Post reports the FDA, "which regulates almost one-quarter of the U.S. economy, has been without a permanent chief for almost two-thirds of the time that President Bush has been in office." The agency also has had a "high number of temporary appointees administering its centers, offices and divisions, including the key positions running the offices that evaluate new drugs and monitor the safety record of approved medications." The White House's negligence plays right into the hands of major drug companies, which would rather "have no one there than someone who favors a proactive stance that might slow down the industry or raise hard questions about profitable drugs." Observers say the agency's lack of leadership has made it "less able to respond quickly and effectively to emerging problems."
Sun Dec 19, 2004
Pharmaceutical Company STILL funding smoking bans in West Virginia and other states
The following is from http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mainerights/ and http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WestVirginians4personalfreedoms .
This is how the RJW, also the manufacturer of nicotine patches and gum operates.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Darlene"
Friday, Dec 17, 2004
Back in April 7, 2002, the RWJ Foundation had 47 states in their pockets.
The more restrictions, control and bans on smoking a state did, the more the grant money they would receive from the RWJ Foundation.
So, when your hospital and/or health care facility goes smoke-free, it's because they cut off the head of the smokers for blood money.
Also, when a hospital goes smoke-free, think about all that money they are getting for kicking us out.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Friday, December 17, 2004
Pharmaceutical Company STILL funding smoking bans in West Virginia and other states
From: Maryetta Ables
http://www.jointogether.org/sa/news/funding/reader/0,1854,575431,00.html
RWJF Awards 25 Tobacco Policy Change Grants
12/17/2004
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) has awarded 25 grants totaling
$2.2 million for nationwide tobacco-prevention and cessation initiatives
under its Tobacco Policy Change program.
Grants will fund local, regional, and national organizations pursuing
policy change to increase local or state tobacco taxes, comprehensive
clean indoor air laws, public funding for prevention and cessation
programs, restrictions on advertising and product placement, as well as
other initiatives.
Award values range from $50,000 to $100,000. This round is the first
under the foundation's Tobacco Policy Change program, which looks to
award $12 million over the next three years.
For a complete list of grantees and their organizations, visit the
foundation online.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.rwjf.org/news/special/granteeList121604.jhtml
Alaska Native Health Board
Anchorage, AK
Annette Marley, 907-743-6110
amarley@anmc.org
American Cancer Society Inc., Hawaii Pacific, Inc. / Mauli Ola (Breath
of Life)
Honolulu, HI
Deborah Zysman, 808-595-7500
dsysman@cancer.org
American Cancer Society Inc., Ohio Division, Inc.
Dublin, OH
Tracy Sabetta, 614-889-9565
tsabetta@cancer.org
American Lung Association of Georgia
Smyrna, GA
June Deen, 770-434-5864
June@alaga.org
American Lung Association of Illinois-Iowa
Des Moines, IA
Katherine Drea, 515-278-5864
kdrea@lungil.org
American Lung Association of New Hampshire
Bedford, NH
Mindy Sweeney, 603-669-2411
mindy@nhlung.org
Black Health Coalition of Wisconsin
Milwaukee, WI
Patricia McManus, 414-933-0064
bhcpmc@aol.com
Boys & Girls Club of Northern Arapaho Tribe
Riverton, WY
Glenda Trosper, 307-856-2637
blowingsmoke@wyoming.com
California Tobacco Control Alliance
Sacramento, CA
Kristen Hansen, 916-554-0390
kirsten.hansen@tobaccofreealliance.org
Center for MultiCultural Health
Seattle, WA
Shelley Cooper-Ashford, 206-461-6910
shelleyc@cschc.org
Colorado Tobacco Education and Prevention Alliance
Denver, CO
Chris Sherwin, 303-756-6163
chris@ctepa.org
Families Under Urban and Social Attack Inc.
Houston, TX
Helen Stagg, 713-651-1470
hstagg@fuusa.org
Greater Cleveland Health Education and Service Council
Cleveland, OH
Joyce Lee, 216-851-2171
joycelee@gchesc.org
Kentucky ACTION, Inc.
Louisville, KY
Stephanie Uliana, 512-587-8641
sjoesandfur@aol.com (invalid e-mail) 12/20/04
MedChi Foundation Inc.
Baltimore, MD
Kari Appler, 410-539-0872
kappler@medchi.org
Medical Foundation Inc.
Boston, MA
James White, 617-451-0049
jwhite@tmfnet.org
Mille Lacs Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe
Onamia, MN
Peggy Frisch, 320-384-0149
pegannfrisch@hotmail.com
Mission City Community Network Inc.
North Hills, CA
Nik Gupta, 818-895-3100
Nikgupta@aol.com
North Carolina Pediatric Society Foundation / NC Alliance for Health
Raleigh, NC
Pamela Seamans, 919-839-1156
pamseamans@nc.rr.com
Partnership of African American Churches Inc.
Institute, WV
James Patterson, 304-768-7688
patterson@paa2.org
Public Health Foundation Enterprises Inc. / California Youth Advocacy
Network
City of Industry, CA
Gordon Sloss, 310-699-7320
gordon@cynanonline.org
Sociedad Latina Inc.
Roxbury, MA
Melissa Luna, 617-442-4299
Melissa@sociedadlatina.org
The Institute of Medicine and Public Health of New Jersey, Inc. / New
Jersey Breathes
Lawrenceville, NJ
Larry Downs, 609-896-1766
ldowns@msnj.org
University of Kentucky Research Foundation / Kentucky Center for Clean
Indoor Air Policy
Lexington, KY
Ellen Hahn, 859-257-2358
Ejhahn00@email.uky.edu
Whitman-Walker Clinic Inc.
Washington, DC
Donald Hitchcock, 202-797-3516
coalition@lgbthealth.net
Wednesday, Dec 15, 2004
http://www.pioneerlocal.com/cgi-bin/ppo-story/localnews/current/lf/12-09-04-455280.html
Highland Park considers idea of a smoking ban
BY KENNETH L R. PATCHEN
STAFF WRITER
The Highland Park City Council is edging closer to a decision about whether to ban smoking in business establishments.
"We're concerned about patrons of restaurants, but also the health of employees," said council member Michael Brenner. "I honestly feel the majority of the council, if we voted on it, would support this."
Proposed regulation of smoking in the city so far has yet to cause a major public discussion beyond the council's deliberations. Brenner said as few as four restaurants in town may be the only locations where patrons may smoke, usually in bar or lounge areas.
At a Nov. 22 committee-of-the-whole meeting, council members referred the issue to both the Business and Economic Development Commission and Healthy Highland Park for their recommendations after hearing from two local restaurant owners and the Highland Park Chamber of Commerce and
Public comment at a council meeting may be taken in January if a recommendation to consider an ordinance is received from the Commission.
The Chamber of Commerce has supported the right of business owners to decide individually whether to ban smoking. Chamber Executive Director Ginny Anzelmo Glasner said the board unanimously voted in August to recommend the council leave a smoking policy decision to individual business owners. One board member abstained from the vote.
Business decision
Glasner said that although the Chamber itself does not condone smoking, its members recognize the rights of business owners to make their own decisions about smoking policies in their establishments.
The results of the Chamber vote were conveyed to the council in early November. At the presession meeting, two restaurant owners affirmed their support for allowing local businesses to make a decision about whether to ban smoking.
Bluegrass Restaurant owner Jim Lederer operates his no-smoking restaurant on Old Deerfield Road, and he argued in favor of business owners being allowed to make their own decisions about patron smoking. He opposes the idea of a local no-smoking ordinance.
He said if business were to permit him to remain open in the late evening hours, he would want the option to allow his customers to smoke.
"That's what happens late in the evening," he said. "It's part of the mix, good or bad."
Bluegrass has a patio area where customers can step outside for a smoke, and Lederer said he would want ventilation technology inside the restaurant if he allowed smoking there.
The Business and Economic Development Commission is expected to discuss the issue during January. Its agenda is posted on the city Web site www.cityhpil.com often by the Friday before any meeting, said Chairman Rick Nelson.
Assistant City Manager Will Jones said the Commission members will want to hear testimony from restaurant and business owners before voting on a recommendation for or against a smoking ban. He said the public also can comment at Commission meetings, and another opportunity will occur if and when the council considers a recommendation to pass a no-smoking ordinance at a regularly scheduled council meeting, sometime after mid-January.
"The people who are most susceptible to smoking are the young and elderly," said Brenner.
As a result, some places in Highland Park only permit smoking in their establishments after 8:30 p.m., a time when families and the elderly may not be dining.
"That is one of the options we would look at," Brenner said.
Contact Kenneth L R. Patchen at patchen@pioneerlocal.com
Wednesday, Dec 15, 2004
Smokers Misinformed About Light Cigarettes
To Whom It May Concern:
Oh come on now, smokers know what they are doing when they smoke a cigarette. We enjoy it!! We are aware of our choice. No wonder the individual citizen is be treated like livestock by governments in our current time. Smoking is a life style choice, the kind we all make every day. It is an individual choice....stop whining! This is just like the "low fat" craze that lasted for twenty-plus years. People knew better than to believe that they could eat what ever they wanted just because some label told them it was "low fat". If a consumer wants to smoke a "low tar, nicotine, etc." cigarette, that is their choice. They spent their money for it....if they were stupid, they can only blame themselves. Believing everything one reads is simply wishful thinking. We pay for our life choices.....that's the way it is. No one can claim to be so stupid as to not understand marketing concepts in this day and age. The anti-smokers are using them every day. They call them national programs for the "denormalization" of smoking.
If we are going to prosecute those creating advertisements for "light" cigarettes, we should prosecute all those responsible for the low fat claims by food manufacturers who were also trying to give consumers an excuse to do what they wanted to do in the first place, along with all the anti-smoking organizations that are trying to lie to us and distort/magnify the dangers of smoking and second-hand smoke with endless questionable studies. What about the pharmaceutical companies who are turning our world population into drug addicts? If the funds being directed against smoking were being used in constructive programs to help world-wide epidemics, we would be able to eliminate some of the real global health threats.
Come on consumers, get real! You can't have your cake and eat it too. You are capable of making intelligent choices. Stop going against your better judgment and blaming everyone else for your problems. Enough of treating a legal product like it's a mass murderer! Enough of cop-outs and blaming everyone else for our personal choices! It's time we took responsibility for our lives and defended our right-to-choice.
To quote Denis Leary: "Smoking takes 10 years off your life. Well, it's the 10 worst years, isn't it, folks? It's the ones at the end! It's the wheelchair-kidney-dialysis-fucking years. You can have those years! We don't want 'em, all right!?" And with that in mind, light up, everyone, and have a good day".
______________________________
Garnet Dawn - The Smoker's Club, Inc. - Midwest Regional Director
The United Pro Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter - http://www.smokersclubinc.com
Illinois Smokers Group - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/illinoissmokers/
mailto:garnetdawn@comcast.net - Respect Freedom of Choice!
Note: Letter was sent to over 80 media e-mail contacts
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.jointogether.org/sa/news/summaries/reader/0,1854,575404,00.html
Smokers Misinformed About Light Cigarettes
12/14/2004
A new survey finds that the majority of smokers are still misinformed about the health risks of light and ultra-light cigarettes, according to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF).
The Light Cigarette Survey included 1,046 adult smokers nationwide, particularly those who smoke Marlboro Lights, the leading light-cigarette brand. Researchers with the Division of Cancer Prevention and Population Sciences at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, N.Y., looked at how much participants knew about the health effects of smoking, the ingredients in cigarettes and cigarette smoke, and the differences among regular, light, and ultra-light cigarettes.
The survey found that nine out of 10 Marlboro Lights smokers were not aware that light cigarettes deliver about as much tar as regular cigarettes. Furthermore, only one-third of Marlboro Lights smokers knew that the filters on their cigarettes have ventilation holes designed to reduce the amount of tar and nicotine contained in smoke. Smokers who are unaware of the holes often block the vents with their fingers, thus reducing or eliminating any benefits gained by ventilation.
According to the Federal Trade Commission, light and ultra-light cigarettes accounted for 85 percent of all cigarettes sold in the United States in 2002.
Based on the survey's results, the researchers recommended that cigarette makers discontinue using the terms light, ultra-light, and mild on labels of cigarette packs and in marketing efforts. The researchers also called on cigarette companies to fund a public-education campaign that would provide information to smokers about filter vents, tar levels, and cigarette additives.
The survey's findings are published in the December 2004 supplemental issue of the journal Nicotine and Tobacco Research.
