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.

Outstanding

They Hate Poor People

 Progressive elites like to run things. They’d run the government, the media, and the entire U.S. economy if they could. Failing that, public housing authorities will do. The Detroit, San Antonio, and Portland, Oregon, housing authorities already ban smoking. Boston’s housing authority will do so in September. Los Angeles is expected to follow. And it’s no mystery what that highest-minded, most right-thinking, way-progressive elitist Mayor Bloomberg has in mind for New Yorkers.

Smoking is wrong. Progressive elites may be confused about the existence of right and wrong when it comes to wars against genocidal fanatics, market freedom, and the death penalty for mass murderers. But not when it comes to smoking.

I love PJ O'Rourke

I thought it just .belonged here so that's where I put it.

Tid Bits Tobacco,studies,trials and prohibitions

PROJECTING THE EFFECT OF CHANGES IN SMOKING AND OBESITY ON FUTURE LIFE EXPECTANCY IN THE UNITED STATES

We find that both changes in smoking and in obesity are expected to
have large effects on mortality. For males, the reductions in smoking have larger effects than the rise in obesity throughout the projection period. 
By 2040, male life expectancy at age 40 is expected to have gained 0.92 years from the combined effects. 
Among women, however, the two sets of effects largely offset one another throughout the projection period , with a small gain of 0.26 years expected by 2040



Was tobacco jury right to award West Palm widow nothing?

Mrs. Baker’s attorneys argued that even though Mr. Baker was aware of the risks, the tobacco company is responsible because cigarettes are addictive and tobacco companies for years lied about the dangers and continued enticing people to smoke.

“This is a case about greed, about money, about how the defendant R.J. Reynolds put sales over safety and profit over people attorney, Harry Shevin, told the jury.

Although the jury in this case awarded nothing, Florida juries have sided with the plaintiffs in many other cases.

Fukushima tobacco farmers prepare to ship

Farmers in Fukushima Prefecture have harvested leaf tobacco for the first time since cultivation was temporarily stopped due to the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, and are making preparations to ship the product around December.

This year, leaf tobacco farmers enthusiastic about reviving the product took measures to reduce the effects of radioactive substances. Currently, the farmers are awaiting the results of radiation tests on harvested tobacco leaves, and are pinning their hopes on making shipments this year.

Smoking and cycling to be banned at Limerick playgrounds

But in the long list of things “not to do”, it was the smoking ban which caught the attention of Rathkeale area councillors last week.

“I can see people in my mind’s eye, walking the riverbank in Askeaton and smoking their pipe. What harm are they doing?” asked Askeaton’s Cllr Kevin Sheahan. “I am totally in favour of no-smoking in enclosed areas” he added, but argued there was a “limit to the type of regulations we bring in”.

“The law says you can smoke in the open air,” declared Cllr David Naughton, who was opposed to a generalised ban on smoking within parks.

“Is it enforceable? If there is somebody caught is there anything can be done about it?” he demanded before adding: “I think it is getting to a stage where we are not living in a democracy.”

Director of services for community, Josephine Cotter-Coughlan said, however, that the smoking ban would apply only to the county’s seven playgrounds and five multi-purpose pitches.

The last story was by far the most shocking.

I don't believe I have ever seen such a list of prohibited activities in my life.

Democracy my ass,ASH asks for something and everyone runs to comply.

What a world........