Cars, patios and pharmacies are all in the Saskatchewan Party government sights as they plan “quite encompassing” new anti-tobacco legislation expected to be introduced later this fall, Health Minister Don McMorris said Monday.

The government promised new anti-tobacco measures in the throne speech starting the legislative session last week.

Among the measures being contemplated are banning smoking on restaurant and bar patios and in vehicles carrying minors, setting new limits on how close people smoking can be to public buildings and curtailing tobacco sales in pharmacies.

“Allowing pharmacies, especially the big box store pharmacies, to be selling tobacco products, it’s a little counterintuitive to be passing out (smoking) cessation … medicine, for example, as well as selling tobacco at the same time,” McMorris told reporters at the legislature.

He noted some provinces have banned stores with pharmacies from selling cigarettes or have required groceries and big box retailers to keep tobacco products separated from the pharmacy in an area with a distinct entrance.

McMorris said that details of the province’s legislation still need to be worked out but Saskatchewan must take steps to deal with smoking rates that are among the highest in Canada.

“All provinces are looking at the whole piece of trying to drive down the use of tobacco, denormalize it and more importantly, protect the people around a smoker from second-hand smoke,” he said.

Under the NDP, the provincial government instituted a province-wide smoking ban in enclosed public places at the start of 2005. Outdoor patios in bars and restaurants were exempt although some communities, such as Saskatoon, instituted local restrictions on smoking on decks.

A number of jurisdictions meanwhile, including Ontario, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Yukon have already implemented bans on smoking in vehicles carrying minors, with the cut-off point ranging from 16 to 19 years of age.

“Children in particular are especially susceptible to the poison in second-hand smoke, particularly in an enclosed, confined space like a car,” said Donna Pasiechnik, tobacco control co-ordinator of the Canadian Cancer Society’s Saskatchewan division.

In response to concerns about infringing on a drivers’ rights, Pasiechnik notes that cars are already regulated spaces, pointing to seatbelt laws, mandatory children’s seats and drunk-driving restrictions.

As well, the Sask. Party government intends to introduce legislation banning hand-held cellphone use while driving during this legislative session.

As for restaurant and bar patios, Peter Van Loon, an educator with the Lung Association in Saskatchewan, said smoking should not be allowed in spaces where people are gathered together.

“Usually in a patio situation you’re clumped quite closely together, and frequently there’s not actually good wind flow because there can be partial roofing and that kind of stuff around there. And frequently the servers are very close, so it’s a concern for the people working there,” he said.

Van Loon said another benefit of a province-wide ban on smoking on patios is that it would level the playing field between restaurants that are able to have decks and those that can’t and between communities.

But Tom Mullin, president of the Saskatchewan Hotel and Hospitality Association, said the move will be a blow to rural hoteliers who were hard-hit by the smoking ban four years ago.

Many businesses sunk a considerable investment into building patios precisely because of the smoking law, he said.

However, the association won’t be “duking it out” with the government this time because public opinion is likely on its side, said Mullin. Instead, the hospitality industry will press for a better deal with the province on liquor sales.

Ray Joubert, registrar of the Saskatchewan College of Pharmacists, said pharmacists would welcome a move to ban tobacco sales from pharmacies, noting that many already don’t sell cigarettes.

“Generally, it’s a product that’s not compatible with good health and pharmacies are places where one goes for good health, health care,” said Joubert, adding that such legislation would level the playing field between small players and large retailers.

By JAMES WOOD, 27/10/09 Paherald

Cigarette maker Lorillard Inc.’s largest competitors — Altria Group Inc. and Reynolds American Inc. — are ramping up efforts to grab some of the menthol market from Lorillard’s leading Newport brand.

Altria, parent company of the nation’s largest cigarette maker, Philip Morris USA, offers menthol versions of its market-leading Marlboro brand, including a new extension called Marlboro Blend 54. It also has a new L&M Bold product. Reynolds hopes to strengthen Camel’s position in the growing category with products such as Camel Crush, which gives smokers the option of giving each cigarette menthol flavor by crushing a capsule in the filter.

The moves come as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee plans to consider claims that products like menthol cigarettes have greater public health impacts, including among children and specific racial and ethnic groups.

In a conference call with analysts Monday regarding his company’s third-quarter earnings, Lorillard CEO Martin Orlowsky downplayed the importance of growing competition in the menthol segment.

QUESTION: Have products from Altria and Reynolds like Marlboro Blend 54 and Camel Crush made any real difference to the menthol category as a whole?

RESPONSE: No, and I will say that I don’t think Camel Crush is a menthol product to begin with. So I wouldn’t attribute any impact or effect from the Camel side. 54, well, obviously is a pure menthol product. As I said earlier, I don’t think that it had an appreciable impact in the marketplace.

A proposal that would ban smoking on the outdoor patios of bars and restaurants is under fire from Saskatchewan’s hospitality industry.

The Saskatchewan government is looking at updating its no-smoking law, and one of the changes would be a ban on patio smoking. While Saskatoon already has such a ban, Regina and other cities don’t.

Health Minister Don McMorris told CBC News a proposal for a provincewide ban may be coming soon.

Tom Mullin, president of the Hotels Association of Saskatchewan, calls the plan unfair. The industry is still reeling from anti-smoking legislation brought in several years ago, which banned smoking in bars, he said.

Business dropped 25 per cent and has never fully recovered, he said.

Since hotel owners built outdoor patios as a response to that law, they should be allowed to continue to permit smoking there, he said.
Built for smokers

“We made the investment to cover off the smoking issue by building decks and having them outdoors and having our patrons having to go outside, so that should be enough,” he said.

Meanwhile, anti-smoking advocates were hailing the proposed change, as well as a proposal to ban smoking in vehicles when there are children present.

Banning smoking on patios provincewide is a great idea, said Donna Pasiechnik, a spokeswoman with the Saskatchewan branch of the Canadian Cancer Society.

“Our concern, of course, is for the workers, working those patios and for the patrons who want to enjoy those patios just as much as smokers during the summer,” Pasiechnik said. “I’m hearing more and more about people complaining that patios are not smoke-free.”

The cancer society also wants pharmacies to stop selling cigarettes, she said.

The proposed new smoking law is expected to be introduced during the fall sitting of the legislature, which started last week and runs to early December.

October 26, 2009 CBC

Whether it be TCU, Fort Worth or the state of Texas, I generally enjoy living in a clearly conservative atmosphere. The drawback, however, is that the most conservative individuals often fail to keep up with the times.

I was very disappointed to see a prominent Texas politician, Representative Lamar Smith, speak out against the U.S. Department of Justice’s directive to federal prosecutors regarding medicinal marijuana use in a Tuesday New York Times article. Smith, the senior U.S. House of Representatives House Judiciary Committee member, criticized a Justice Department document recommending that prosecutors – only in states whose laws permit medical marijuana distribution and consumption – not waste their time on dispensaries or individuals who appear to be complying with the state laws that apply to them, whom sometimes prosecutors still go after anyway.

It’s about time we re-evaluate federal tactics in the “war on drugs,” because our government is losing to the unprecedented sophistication and relentless desire of Mexican and South American drug cartels. A zero-tolerance policy on drugs such as cocaine, which the medical and scientific communities conclusively agree to be extremely dangerous and detrimental to an individual’s health, is certainly worth spending tax dollars to enforce. On the contrary, there is much debate as to the medical value of marijuana, as well as the relative mildness of adverse health impacts to casual users, compared to smoking tobacco.

I find the issues of medical and casual marijuana use similar to the issue of underage drinking among college-age students. When outdated laws prevent people from doing something completely reasonable, as well as safe enough for an adult to decide whether or not to do, those laws need to change.

Every state has separate alcohol laws because of differing moral values regarding alcohol consumption. Marijuana is very similar to alcohol in this sense, yet even more stigmatized and taboo. Therefore, as states decide to decriminalize and completely legalize marijuana if they choose, the federal government shouldn’t make negative light of those differing state laws.

Regardless of the unique laws each state decides to make about marijuana use, it should certainly carry a special tax similar to alcohol and tobacco. This would not only discourage abuse of marijuana, but would also produce a significant amount of government revenue, which could be used to enforce and prosecute arrests made with more dangerous drugs.

While our government needs to continue to re-evaluate the laws in effect, the Justice Department’s newest directive is an understandably cautious, yet appropriately progressive, step in the right direction in Federal drug policy.

By John Andrew Willis, 10/27/09

WASHINGTON, – Connecticut and other states are taking aim at electronic cigarettes, a battery-powered device with vaporized nicotine, officials said.

“We’re actively investigating these companies and their products,” Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal told USA Today in a story published Monday.

Public health officials in California, Oregon, New Hampshire and New Jersey said the smokeless devices are the latest thing in the tobacco wars and could be used to circumvent smoking bans.

E-cigarettes, as they are commonly called, are used by at least a half-million U.S. residents, said Matt Salmon, who heads the Electronic Cigarette Association.

“People who smoke ought to have better alternatives, because some can’t quit,” said Salmon, whose father, a longtime smoker, recently died of cancer and emphysema.

E-cigarette distributors filed lawsuit against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration after the agency said e-cigarettes it tested contained carcinogens.

“It’s a new frontier. We don’t know what the dangers are,” said John Banzhaf, a spokesman for Action on Smoking and Health, an anti-smoking group.

Oct. 26, 2009 UPI

Tobacco company Swedish Match has been accused of adding a substance to moist snuff or ‘snus’ to purposely increase user dependency and, in turn, boosts sales of their products.

* Sweden wants EU ‘snus’ tobacco ban to go up in smoke (15 Sep 09)
* Profits on the march at Swedish Match (17 Jul 09)
* Regular tobacco use falling in Sweden: study (16 Mar 09)

Since 2005, the company has introduced eight new snus products with higher than average nicotine levels.

The usual level for snus is eight milligrams per gram. In one product, levels have almost doubled that figure.

”Certain consumer groups have shown demand for a high nicotine content,” the company’s production director Torbjörn Åkeson explains.

Allegations that the company adds a substance, known as E500, to purposely increase the amount of so-called ‘free’ nicotine – which increases dependency – are presented in a new report by investigative news programme Kalla Fakta.

Swedish Match deny the use of the substance for such purposes.

”We use it to stabilise the pH value in snus and have done so for 200 years,” information director Henrik Brehmer told the programme.

”There is no secret substance in snus.”

Yet, Professor Greg Connolly at the Harvard School of Public Health believes that Swedish Match is consciously using the substance to increase addiction and their profits.

”In a study in 2008 he concluded that we are manipulating the pH value, something that we consider hugely speculative,” Brehmer adds.

”It never led to demands from any authority that we need to change something.”

There are around one million snus users in Sweden. Last year Swedish Match sold products amounting to four billion kronor.

The Local (news@thelocal.se/08 656 6518), 25 Oct 09

STOCKHOLM, – A Swedish tobacco company adds a substance to snuff products to heighten dependency, an investigative report concluded.

The usual level for snuff or ‘snus’ is eight milligrams per gram but double that amount was found in one product produced by Swedish Match, the news program Kalla Fakta reported.

The report alleges that Swedish Match added a substance known as E500 which raises “free” nicotine to increase craving. The tobacco company denies any wrongdoing.

“There is no secret substance in snus,” spokesman Henrik Brehmer said regarding the use of E500. “We use it to stabilize the pH value in snus and have done so for 200 years.”

Brehmer rejected an assertion by Harvard School of Public Health Professor Greg Connolly Swedish Match is deliberately using the substance to addict consumers.

“In a study in 2008 he concluded that we are manipulating the pH value, something that we consider hugely speculative,” Brehmer said.

Oct. 25, 2009

Beware of nicotine posing as candy and alcohol that tastes like punch.

That’s the combined heads-up given this week by the state Department of Health and a grass-roots parents group trying to quell underage drinking and tobacco use.

Smoking and other uses of tobacco products continue to decline, but nicotine is coming at children in breath mints, candy and toothpicks, said Amy Sands, program manager for the health department’s Tobacco Prevention and Control Program.

“The products are designed to make tobacco addiction more accessible as well as to promote the dual use of cigarettes and smokeless products, creating an even stronger addiction,” she said.

ParentsEmpowered.org kicked off the fourth year of its ongoing public awareness campaign against underage drinking Thursday with some good news.

Statewide averages for underage drinking are down across all grade levels for lifetime use, including use within a 30-day time frame and binge drinking in general, according to the Student Health and Risk Prevention survey.

The survey also found that teens cited parents’ disapproval of alcohol in general as the main reason they don’t drink.

The survey, conducted by Dan Jones & Associates, also found an average 4 percent reduction in drinking among teens over the past two years and across every high school grade. That means about:

11,260 fewer Utah children reporting ever trying alcohol in their lifetimes.

5,520 fewer have used alcohol in the past 30 days in the last two years.

2,600 fewer underage binge/heavy drinkers in Utah than two years ago.

While most Utah parents don’t drink, 65 percent of them generally agree their child could be exposed to alcohol.

“This is significant since many Utah parents often erroneously believe their children are insulated from the dangers of underage drinking because of their upbringing and their children don’t need parents’ help to stay alcohol-free,” said Parents Empowered spokeswoman Sherri Clark.

Parents should continue to be vigilant about tobacco products as well, said Sands, adding “there is no safe tobacco product,” and in any ingested form tobacco causes heart and other organ diseases, cancer and death.

Sands specifically outed Camel Snus, a smokeless — and with the added attraction of being spitless — tobacco in tea bag-type pouches touting refreshing flavors such as “frost,” now available in convenience stores.

With its “pleasure for whatever” slogan and concealable size, kids can easily take it into the classroom, she said. It also comes in a container shaped like a cell phone.

There’s something particularly insidious about hiding the most addictive element in tobacco in candy, said Dr. Ellie Brownstein, a University of Utah Health Care pediatrician.

Because the products have arrived so quickly, not much is know about them, she said. But so-called “dissolvables” have three times the nicotine, and contain cinnamaldehyde, a toxic insecticide, fungicide, corrosion inhibitor and severe skin irritant. Coumarin, a food additive the U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned in 1978 and was removed from cigarettes in 1997, also has been found in the product.

Losing 400,000 smokers a year, the tobacco industry is busy figuring out ways to promote products to have an ever-young market, Sands said, noting that adults trying to quit shouldn’t be fooled into thinking they can be used to help them get off nicotine.

“Ironically, the cake mix in your cupboard is more regulated than these new smokeless products, which are known to be addictive and destructive,” she said. “We, and our children, are to be human guinea pigs in the tobacco industry’s pursuit of profits. The only way to eliminate risk is to quit or never start.”

Oct. 25, 2009 Deseretnews

Lily Allen showed her rebellious side last night as she flouted France’s smoking ban on stage in Paris.

In between verses, Lily puffed away on a cigarette as she performed in a skimpy leotard at the City of Light’s Le Zenith venue.

But the 24-year-old singer provided a distraction from her smoking with her slashed-to-the-navel leotard.

In keeping with her increasingly scantily-clad outfits over the summer, Lily was again flashing the flesh in a humbug-inspired white halterneck one piece with black sequinned strips of material hanging off the bottom.

She completed her raunchy look with a pair of over-the-knee boots.

France outlawed smoking in public places, including bar, cafes and concert venues in 2008.

Anyone caught flouting the ban could be find up to 450 euros (£411), while proprietors who turn a blind eye to smoking on their premiere could be fined up to 750 euros (£685).

Lily has publicly declared her love of smoking, so it’s unlikely she’ll be quitting any time soon.

She said: ‘I love smoking… I don’t really want to say it, but I do.’

Lily started off her concert last night in a black and white patterned T-shirt and heels, before changing into the leotard with the plunging neckline.

While Lily doesn’t appear to be too worried about the health affects of smoking, she admitted she suffers from mild arthritis.

She told GQ magazine: ‘I’ve already got mild arthritis in my hands and my knees so it wouldn’t be a good idea. It runs in my family. My bones break very easily.’
Lily Allen performs at

Scantily-clad: Lily’s leotard barely covered her modest cleavage

Despite launching her career through MySpace, Lily has now turned her back on the internet.

As well as shutting down her blog after receiving abuse over her outspoken views on illegal downloading, she has also stopped writing her musings on micro-blogging site Twitter.

Lily used to frequently update her Twitter page several times a day, but hasn’t written anything in September 28 after her new boyfriend Sam Cooper complained it was taking too much of her time.

She said: ‘My boyfriend gets really angry. He’s like: “I want to spend some time with you, do we have to have one and a half million people in the room with us?”‘

Her last Twitter entry reads: ‘I’m a neo-Luddite… goodbye.’