Merry Christmas *sigh*

Health And Safety Gone Mad

Bans on yo-yos in playgrounds, knives in kitchens and kettles in offices have all been wrongly blamed on workplace safety laws this year, a new report has revealed.

A health and safety "myth-buster" panel set up to expose mis-uses of the law - or just silly decisions - has received scores of complaints from members of the public in 2012.

The panel has now responded to its 100th case, with 38 put down to jobsworths making an excuse for an unpopular decision or simply poor customer service.

Truckers 'should keep a tax toilet log book'

Tax expert Rauhöft suggested that for the system to work, drivers should file what part of a private-company charge was not used on food. But this would mean drivers keeping a "schnitzel book" alongside their toilet log. 

Canada Creates Black Market For E Cigs

Users seek each other out online and arrange discreet meetings to discuss distribution channels. Vendors won’t speak to reporters on the record because they are afraid the government will shut them down. Until recently, it was not unusual for transactions to take place in back alleys; a plastic bag handed over in exchange for a fistful of cash.

The product is not cocaine or marijuana. It is nicotine delivered via electronic cigarettes, which cannot be legally imported or sold in this country, but are widely available south of the border. 

Happy Christmas: Santa censored and exploited as a smoking cessation aid

According to the author, Pamela McColl:

“I edited this poem as studies out of the United States in the 1990s showed that the depiction of cartoon characters smoking influences young children ages 3-7 towards tobacco products,” she said.

Really? I would love to know how many children have started to smoke as a consequence of reading (or being read) a poem about Santa written in 1823.

CANADIAN HORROR FILMMAKER ON TRIAL FOR CORRUPTING MORALS

Filmmaker Frederick Maheux claims Canada's indie horror industry is already feeling the impact of the court case. Maheux made a documentary on Couture in 2009 called ART/CRIME. Since the trial began, the doc has been pulled from distribution on the basis it features clips from Couture's allegedly obscene videos. Maheux called the act "catastrophic" for his own filmmaking livelihood. He also claims, if Couture is found guilty, it could have a similar effect on the country's horror industry at large.

Label alcohol like cigarettes

Given the Government's inability to create sensible laws regarding alcohol advertising and labelling, is it not time to shame individuals in the alcohol industry to make real moves to ensure all alcohol and all advertisements contain clear warnings about drinking during pregnancy and the risks of cancer?

Cartoon face of fatty foods draws call for federal ban

Cartoon characters like the Paddle Pop Lion and Freddo Frog are being used increasingly across media platforms to lure children to unhealthy foods and should be banned, a health organisation has said.

While falling short of calling for ''plain packaging'' on sugary and fatty foods, the Obesity Policy Coalition said the federal government should ban marketers from using cartoon characters and giveaway toys to promote junk and unhealthy foods.

Good grief.

I hope this upcoming year is better than last year but it sure doesn't look like it will be.

Truth And Lies Tid Bits

City moves to restore local rights on tobacco

TAHLEQUAH — Tahlequah city councilors voted unanimously Monday to adopt a resolution restoring local rights when governing tobacco-related laws.

City Attorney Park Medearis said the resolution is non-binding. He and Mayor Jason Nichols said the document has no enforcement powers, but will let the Oklahoma Legislature know the city council supports local rights on tobacco issues.

Val Dobbins, a local advocate, said local rights were lost by cities on this issue in the 1980s. The resolution is standardized, and cities across Oklahoma are being asked to adopt the document.


Cigarette danger ‘exaggerated'

The report, based on surveys conducted annually from 2003 to 2011, shows one in eight of all Victorians in 2011 believed the ill-health effects related to smoking had been overstated.

However, one in four current smokers said they believed the effects were exaggerated.

Teen Hidden Tobacco Study Has Not-So-Hidden Flaw

"The computer simulation the study used does not relate to any real-life scenario because in real life, youth who are interested in smoking will go into a store with the intent to purchase cigarettes," Boston University Department of Community Health Science professor Dr. Michael Siegel told Tobacco E-News. "I don't think there are too many situations where a teen is hanging out in a store sees a display, and suddenly decides to try cigarettes."

Tid Bits

County needs to butt out when it comes to smokers

“I think it’s time for us to get serious about this,” he declared recently.

Well, I think it’s time we got serious about power-drunk politicians who believe they can tell the little people how to live.

Someone ought to remind Supervisor Hyland that there are still a few Americans left who cling to quaint notions about personal freedom. That includes the freedom to engage in stupid, self-destructive acts as long as they are legal.

Last time I checked, we could roller skate down a flight of stairs if we wanted a thrill. We could ingest nothing but Girl Scout cookies until we slipped into a diabetic coma. And we can curl up on the couch every night to watch the latest installment of “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo” instead of heading to the gym.

None of these dopey activities are any of the government’s business.

If a private employer wants to hire only nonsmokers, vegetarians or teetotalers, fine. The U.S. Constitution was designed to restrain government – not private entities – from stomping all over our rights.

And Here It Comes

Determining the best strategy to reduce the health risks associated with secondhand smoke at home raises complex issues. What should be the government’s role in reducing smoking in private homes or cars, especially when children’s health is at stake? Increasingly, evidence shows a health threat from smoking in an adjacent housing unit, like an apartment, where toxins from secondhand smoke seep through walls, ductwork, windows, and ventilation systems. Should smoke-free laws be extended to include multiunit private housing? Should smoking in a car be banned when children are present?

 

Alternatively, what kind of encouragement would help people voluntarily ban smoking on their own? Given the challenges of adopting a smoke-free home, is there value in supporting families who take a gradual, more incremental approach – starting small, say, by not smoking in front of children or establishing a single smoke-free room – as worthwhile steps on the path to going entirely smoke-free? Or does this confuse the message because only a total ban on secondhand smoke will protect children’s health?

Fewer Smokers Means Higher Taxpayer Costs, Study Finds

A study detailed in the most recent New England Journal of Medicine confirms what opponents of tobacco litigation said all along — the government makes money off of smokers, and could spend more if enough of them quit.

The argument was dismissed as ghoulish at the time, and it still is. But a Congressional Budget Office analysis of the financial impact of a 50-cent-per-pack increase in cigarette taxes shows that while cutting the number of smokers trims government outlays over the short run, the increased longevity and higher end-of-life expenses of non-smokers eventually would cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars more from Medicare and Social Security.

Germany's most populous state toughens smoking ban

 It shuts loopholes that allowed customers to light up in establishments that designated themselves smoking bars, in special rooms set aside for smokers or in beer tents, among other things. The center-left state government said the original ban had so many loopholes it didn’t effectively protect nonsmokers.

In future, exceptions will be allowed only for private parties.

Tobacco Tid Bits

Time left to submit views on smoking legislation

A consultation aiming to safeguard children against the exposure to second hand smoke has two weeks left to run.

Hammond and Thornberry on NHS charging smokers and drinkers

A former TV Apprentice contestant found little support for her plan for those said to drink, smoke and eat too much to pay some of their own health care costs.

Conservative Philip Hammond said the NHS being free a the point of need was a "cornerstone" and there was no review planned. He asked: "Where would it stop?"

No Smokers, Please: Should Firms Ban Staff From Smoking?

While the firm’s policy has been in place since 2002, it has recently sparked an intense debate on social media sites about the pros and cons of restrictions on smokers in Japan. Does such an absolute ban infringe excessively on the rights of smokers or is this a progressive approach indicating a future workplace model for corporate Japan?

Do smoking signs make us want to smoke?

NO smoking signs may unconsciously trigger a desire to smoke, new research has found.

Tobacco News Potpurri

Smoking bans pick up momentum on college campuses, despite protests

George Washington University officials decided to announce the coming of an on-campus smoking ban during the American Cancer Society’s Great American Smokeout on Nov. 15. Before they could do so, dozens of students and staff members were lighting up in protest.

The protestors chain-smoked for hours in a campus plaza on Nov. 13. They say the ban, set to start next school year, will push smokers into unsafe areas or public streets. Organizers wrote in an open letter that kicking “smokers out of outside — the absurdity here should be noted — destroys the basic freedom of everyone; from the student, to the worker, to the faculty, to the woman walking by, to the man working in a food truck.”

Cigarette firms must run ads saying they lied

The three cigarette giants -- Philip Morris, Reynolds and Lorillard -- must also state that smoking is responsible for 1,200 deaths every day and that secondhand smoke kills more than 3,000 Americans a year, the Associated Press says.

U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler's ruling finalizes wording for the ads, which she ordered in 2006 after finding that the cigarette giants violated racketeering laws. She ordered "corrective statements" on five topics

Smokers may face new bans

THE Victorian government is facing renewed pressure to introduce statewide bans on smoking in outdoor dining areas with the Greens set to introduce a private members bill in Parliament this week.

Greens MP Colleen Hartland said the government was taking too long to introduce bans that were now in place or under way in every other Australian state and territory.

Fairfax official targets smoking in the county workforce

The first time Gerald W. Hyland of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors tried to cut smokers from the county’s payroll, more than a decade ago, it didn’t exactly go over well. His suggestion that the county stop hiring smokers brought him nothing but angry criticism.

His latest idea — forcing county employees who smoke to take classes to help them quit — isn’t gaining much support, either. This is, after all, Virginia, a state built on tobacco and the Jeffersonian ideals of limited government. Few have accused the commonwealth of being a nanny state.

Do anti-smokers feel shame when a child is killed?

Hideous human being

A mother who killed her nine-year-old son by setting him on fire as punishment for smoking has been sentenced to 11 years in prison.

Noluthando Nomavayi , 37, from Delft in Cape Town drenched her two sons with paraffin and set them alight when she discovered them smoking cigarettes in May 2011.

The older son survived the vicious attack but the younger one suffered 90 per cent burns and died at the Red Cross Hospital in Cape Town six weeks later, Sowetan Live reported.

I don't care what happened to her as a child.

As an adult you have to move on to do what's best for your child no matter what you yourself may have experienced.

I'm sure I can lie this at the feet of the antismokers,it's not hard to do.

Their prejudice and scare tactics have lead to many innocent people either killing themselves or being murdered for smoking.

I wish they could see the monument of names and dates that are built,human lives all ended because of their disgusting campaign.

They want to stop smoking to save lives.

Their words not mine

Do anti-smokers feel shame when a child is killed?

How about when an old woman loses her fingers or toes?

Maybe they feel shame when people leap out of windows..........or maybe not.

FUCK

WHY?

Twenty year-old student jumps to death over a cigarette

This message has got 80 reactions from grieving friends since then. The reason for such a drastic step was a cigarette, which his teacher found with Mangtani and notified the issue to his father.



I don't have anything as nice as this here but I keep stumbling onto your stories,the young people who die,the women who try to kill themselves with fire,the old people who freeze to death.

I have no nice place to inter your memories or your names,but all of your stories break my heart,they make me cry and they make me furious.

The make me determined to keep on doing what I can to fight the prejudice caused by men of "science".

One day I hope we can get back to a society where people  are once again people and not treated as criminals  and lowlives for a choice they made.

I'm sorry Mangtani and I'll remember your story.