MPs campaign to relax smoking ban in pubs

Conservative Greg Knight, Lib Dem John Hemming and Labour's Roger Godsiff argue that the ban has had a devastating impact on the industry.

They want the law to be changed to allow pubs to create a separate room for smokers if they choose.

Thousands of UK pubs have closed in recent years and many have blamed the ban for the loss of business.

The smoking ban was introduced in England in July 2007. Scotland's ban was introduced in March 2006, followed by Wales and Northern Ireland in April 2007.

Ventilation
The Save Our Pubs and Clubs campaign says that after three years, Scotland had lost 467 pubs (7.1% of the total estate), Wales 274 (7.3%) and England 4,148 (7.6%).

Campaigners also say working-men's clubs have been hit hard and many have closed or are struggling to survive.

They are arguing that the existing law is excessive and should be reviewed and relaxed to allow proprietors more choice about how they manage smoking at their premises.

Mick McGlasham, general secretary of the Clubs and Institute Union, which represents more than 2,000 working-men's clubs, said: "The ban was passed because politicians wanted to protect staff and non-smokers, but there is no reason why we cannot have a separate smoking room in what are private premises, especially with modern ventilation."

An event promoting the campaign will be held at the Houses of Parliament on Wednesday with the aim of winning support from more MPs and peers.

Mr Knight, MP for East Yorkshire, said: "This is a unique opportunity for people to show how strongly they feel on this important issue.

"A modest change in the law, not a repeal of the smoking ban, is all we seek."

MPs are banned from smoking anywhere inside the House of Commons apart from on the terrace.

Obese, non-smoking women likely to die early

While established research has shown clearly that smoking is linked to premature death and health inequalities, it was not known which causes of death are related to the social position of women who have never smoked, said the paper.

To investigate this area further, the authors, led by Dr Laurence Gruer from NHS Health Scotland, reviewed the cases of 3,613 women who had never smoked.

The results showed that the women in the lower occupational groups were more likely to die of diseases of the heart and circulation, but not cancer. They were also more likely to be severely obese and those who were severely obese had the highest death rates.

The authors also found that, compared with the smokers in the overall study, the women who never smoked were much more likely to be overweight or obese.

This suggested that high smoking rates 35 years ago probably concealed the true extent of obesity in non-smoking women and that the decline in smoking rates in recent decades may have contributed to the increase in overweight and obesity, said the authors.

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Winning anti-smoking designs put on display

McHenry County College student Jim Anderson’s winning media design can be seen at local gas stations, drive-ins and restrooms.

Chosen as one of the winners of the McHenry County Department of Health’s annual billboard design contest, Anderson’s design was titled “Smoking in your car is hazardous to your friends and family.” It depicts the damaging effects of second-hand smoke, Community Information Coordinator Debra Quackenbush said in a news release.

Other contest winners were seniors Megan Teresi, Woodstock High School, and Nate Prosser, Johnsburg High School.

The contest sought to highlight local talent while educating the community of the unhealthy effects of smoking. Open to all McHenry County teens, designs were received under the following categories: tobacco prevention, secondhand smoke and quit smoking.

Entries were judged on originality, peer appeal, and simple, colorful design. Making the final selection were teens from Reality Illinois Anti-Tobacco Advocacy groups, members of the McHenry County “Tobacco Free” Coalition, and the McHenry County Department of Health’s Health Promotion staff.

Is smoking the new gay marriage? The new intolerance

I was always taught that when you saw one of those people in the street, you were to cough pointedly and cross to the other side. Get them away from our children!

I’d vote for one for president, but only if he promised to stop it. I don’t think they should be allowed in public places. Sure, freedom of choice, and all that jazz, but really, this is a bit much. What if they get it on me?

When I learned that Oscar Wilde was one, I solemnly burned all his books.

They’re smokers, of course. Sometimes I see them in restaurants and pass them pamphlets with a disapproving stare. It is my duty. They are corrupting the youth.

“I can remember when the air was clean and sex was dirty,” George Burns once quipped.

A mere 40 years ago, you could smoke anywhere and marry your same-sex partner nowhere at all.

Now the tide is turning. Last week, New York state legalized gay marriage. And smoking? In May, Mayor Bloomberg banned it outdoors in New York City’s parks, beaches and public plazas.

These days, if you want to smoke in New York City, you can only do it in a 6-inch-square enclosure somewhere underground. It is dank and malarial and can only be found by people who already know where it is, or if you pay $8 in unmarked bills to a man in Times Square who asks to be addressed as Pumpkin the Rat.

And nationwide, the noose is tightening. The FDA has just emerged with new labels for cigarette packages that are harrowing to behold, with depictions of smoke-damaged children and smoking through tracheotomy holes.

Could it be any more official?

Gay marriage is the new smoking. You can do it anywhere in New York City you would like, and people won’t cough and indignantly cross the road.

And this is emblematic of a larger trend. We don’t care what you do in the bedroom so long as you don’t do it in the street and frighten the horses, as Mrs. Patrick Campbell once quipped — or on Twitter, where the photographic evidence can be saved and used to frighten horses later. We understand that you have little choice in the matter.

Sex is decreasingly immoral. There are entire magazines devoted to it, and to the proposition that “whatever you are doing, trying adding ice cubes.”

Smoking — that’s another story. Cigar enthusiasts get slurs like “cancer-monger” and “death eater” yelled at them as they walk through the street. Smoking, somehow, is too vile to be advertised on television or depicted in films. Since the MPAA adjusted its ratings system in 2007, smoking is more wrong, more perverse and more likely to garner an R-rating than murdering someone very sexily while you curse at him. I recently rewatched for the sixth time a movie set in the ’60s. And nobody smoked. Nobody!

Public morality has taken a turn. We are living in the bizarro ’60s, where you can get married to your same-sex partner while wearing mod-inspired suits but cannot celebrate with cigars.

I am not saying that smoking does not kill people. It does.

I understand that all this harassment of smokers is for our own good. Smoking is wrong and bad and et cetera, and if you steadily blow smoke at your child, it will damage him or her or “Storm.” But so many things are wrong. Driving, for instance. Talking on a cell phone while driving. Eating food. Drinking. Bear-hunting. Hunting bears while drunk. Climbing mountains. Rappelling. Being Grover Cleveland.

But it’s amazing how much vitriol we level against those who indulge in smoking.

Maybe we are delighted to be able to judge someone, for once. In general, we are tolerant of everything all the time. It’s something of a national hobby.

But that doesn’t diminish our fundamental, burning desire to leap to judgment. And we can no longer judge people for who they are. We can only judge them for what they do. Are you overweight? That’s okay. Eat unhealthily? Shame!

The category of Things We All Agree To Be Wrong is so small these days. Smoking has always been a vice. Before, it was a social vice. Now it’s limited to barely 20 percent of the population. They are a hard-bitten crew, sneaking around furtively and paying exorbitant taxes “It will kill you!” we shout. “You pervert! You need help!”

“Ah, but is not all of life a long and lovely suicide?” the smokers say wistfully.

“No!” we shout, delighted to be right. Health is the new standard. You are supposed to jog and abstain and inhale thick lungfuls of pure oxygen. Say what you will about people’s sexual habits, some of them might have health benefits. But smoking? Forget it.

By and large, it’s a good shift. Tolerance! Enlightenment! Onward! But sometimes we need to let our judgment leak out. And increasingly, it’s against those smokers. From here, one can almost glimpse a future where society encourages you to do anything you want in the bedroom or at the courthouse.

Virginia tobacco commission sending director, two state lawmakers to France

Days after an audit criticized Virginia’s tobacco commission for its spending priorities, the state is paying more than $20,000 to send its executive director and two state lawmakers to France to recruit businesses to Virginia.

Del. Daniel W. Marshall III (R-Danville) and Sen. Frank M. Ruff Jr. (R-Mecklenburg) arrived in Paris on Monday and will leave Friday. Executive director Neal Noyes arrived Sunday and will depart June 28 for Cologne, Germany, where he will meet with company executives in town for an automotive convention until July 1.
The estimated cost for airfare, hotel and food is expected to be $21,123, according to the Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission.

It is at least the second overseas trip by members of the commission since 2001, according to the Virginia Public Access Project, which tracks money in politics. Last year, two members and Noyes spent more than $8,000 on a trip to England.

Marshall, reached by phone before he left for France, first questioned how The Washington Post heard about the trip. He then explained that the goal was to recruit companies to Virginia’s most economically depressed areas in Southside and southwest — regions the tobacco commission tries to boost with $1 billion from a legal settlement with the nation’s largest tobacco companies.

“It’s all about jobs, jobs, jobs,” Marshall said.

The three men will join Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) on Wednesday; he will be in France for the Paris Air Show, an international trade fair for the aerospace business held every other year.

They will spend much of Wednesday in meetings with executives of companies they hope to lure to Virginia, visit the state’s booth at the show and attend a reception and dinner McDonnell is hosting at the Cercle de l’Union social club. On Thursday, they will fly to Toulouse in southwest France to meet with company executives.

Noyes will then travel to Germany to attend the Automotive News Europe Congress.

Noyes’s trip is estimated to cost $10,489, including $1,800 for registration to attend the convention in Germany. Marshall’s expenses are $5,364, and Ruff’s are $5,270.

House Minority Leader Ward L. Armstrong (D-Henry), whose district benefits from the tobacco settlement but has been critical of the commission’s past spending, said he will not know if the money for the trip is being well spent until he sees whether it results in any jobs, but he said it may look inappropriate.

“At this time, when you have double digit unemployment . . . it certainly has the appearance of being extravagant,” Armstrong said. “On the heels of this scathing report, it sends a bad message.”

Last week, the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission said the commission spent too much money on projects that did not generate jobs or boost salaries. In the past decade, 1,368 grants worth $756 million have been awarded for a variety of projects, including high-speed Internet access in rural areas, walking trails and improvements to the Martinsville Speedway. About $606 million is available for future grants.

Last weekend, after The Post reported that more than a dozen legislators were flying to France on unrelated trips paid by a company lobbying them to lift a ban on uranium mining in Virginia, Marshall criticized the lawmakers for taking “vacations” in his hometown newspaper, neglecting to say that he was going to the same country the same week.

Ruff did not return a phone call. Noyes defended the trip, saying he was flying coach and going to France because “that’s where the meetings are held.”

Last year, the chairman of the tobacco commission, Del. Terry G. Kilgore (R-Scott), Ruff and Noyes went to England in July at the same time McDonnell went on a trade mission to Europe. The trip cost $8,291.

Both trips were built around luring suppliers for aircraft-engine maker Rolls-Royce, which opened a manufacturing and research facility in Prince George County in May, and companies to the Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing, a research center set to open nearby next year.

McDonnell announced one deal after the Europe trip, according to his office. The Hornschuch Group, a producer and marketer of highly technical films, said it would invest $28.3 million to expand its O’Sullivan Films operation, creating 174 jobs, in Winchester, which is not in the tobacco commission’s region.

The cost of the trip for McDonnell; Jim Cheng, Virginia secretary of commerce and trade; and Vince Barnett, director of communications and promotions for the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, is $42,454, said McDonnell spokesman Jeff Caldwell.

Mandatory Graphic Cigarette Labels Visualize Dangers of Tobacco Use

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has rolled out a new campaign to stop people from smoking. Instead of buying ad space and putting up billboards, the FDA is changing the packaging of cigarettes.

The standard pack of cigarettes has the Surgeon General warning on one side stating, "cigarettes cause cancer." Beginning on October 22, 2012 every pack will have graphic pictures covering a significant portion.

25 percent of those living in the Ozarks smoke. Smokers and non-smokers alike have opinions about the makeover.

"I know the pictures are a little grotesque, but it's not going to affect me in any way," shrugged Michael Winters, a smoker.
"I think it is a little too dramatic for people," said Abigail Bookout, a non-smoker. "We don't need a picture that's going to gross us out everytime we look at it."

If a picture is worth a thousand words, than the FDA is hoping the graphic warnings may influence people to kick the habit.

"There's been some strong market research that shows that this type of packaging can make a difference," said Carrie Reynolds, regional director of communications with the American Cancer Society. "So we are excited to see that start happening in the United States."

Although the United States was the first to detail the dangers of smoking on the package, America is now behind more than 30 countries who already display graphic warnings.

The American Cancer Society spent the last 10 years working on the legislation behind the new labels. Yet some experts say the fear tactic is not effective.

"Smoking cessation is very difficult, it's a very hard thing to do," said Ann Rost, health psychologist with Missouri State University. "The fear message in of itself tends to not really be that successful by itself to create change, but it does help in prevention."

Although it may not deter smokers, the grotesque pictures may scare kids.

"It definitely has an effect in deterring people who are considering taking up the habit," explained Reynolds. "And the largest age demographic that considers that habit is in the teenage years."

However some feel the campaign is a targeted attack for a legal substance.

"I think they are trying to discriminate against us," explained Antonetta Stoops, a smoker. "it's just, the rules are ridiculous."

Stoops referenced rules like the recently passed indoor smoking ban in Springfield requiring those who light up to go outside.

"The cigar bar, gone. Most bars, especially those owned by smaller businesses, gone," she said, shaking her head. "I mean, this is the perfect way to destroy the economy."

Yet representatives with the American Cancer Society say a third of all cancers are caused by tobacco use. For them, the campaign is another way to get people to say no.

"When you talk to smokers, about 70 percent of them want to quit, they want to stop the habit, " said Reynolds. "If it's being eliminated from happening inside their workplace and the packaging is coming along at the same time, it's...wonderful for this community."

For Winters, the graphics don't do much now, but they may have influenced him to avoid the smokes.

"It probably would have helped a lot, probably would have never started," he said.

Still, many feel smoking cessation education and a written warning are enough.

"You learn about all the hazards about smoking, how it causes cancer," said Bookout. "I don't think you need a picture to remind you of that."

Pre-emptive tobacco prevention

New smokeless tobacco products are flashy, somewhat disguised, and may appeal to young people, but tobacco prevention specialists in Montana are hoping to bring awareness before the products are readily available here.
Some tobacco products are becoming available in forms that mimic tea bags, breath mints and toothpicks, but they are not yet regulated the same as cigarettes. The products are dissolvable and, according to a “new products” document from the Montana Tobacco Use Prevention Program, “are made from finely milled tobacco and are held together by food-grade binders. They do not produce smoke, and they do not require spitting.”
The nicotine level in these dissolvable products is “unregulated and unpredictable,” the document states.
Katie Martin, tobacco prevention specialist with the City-County Health Department, made a presentation at the Youth Connections Coalition meeting Tuesday morning, sharing information about these new products that could soon hit the shelves in local stores.
Martin just returned from a national conference armed with information to share.
“The conference made it apparent to me how big of a problem this could be for our youth,” she said.
The new products are packaged to appeal to young people, Martin said.
“These products provide an opportunity for tobacco companies to get around policies,” she said. “They may seem less harmful, but they aren’t.”
Drenda Niemann, director of Youth Connections, says the health department has been a great partner in preventing substance abuse and this is another example.
Last year, 23.6 percent of eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders surveyed in the Montana Prevention Needs Assessment reported using smokeless tobacco.
Niemann says the presentation was the first step in building awareness around these products.
“Smokeless tobacco is increasing and we want to be ahead of the game as much as possible,” she said.
More often than not, tobacco companies have already launched extensive marketing campaigns before the awareness is out there, but Niemann is hoping this time it’s a little different.
“We are hoping we are ahead of the game this time around,” she said.
Martin said it’s unclear when Montanans should expect to see these products.