Vancouver parks officials will look at ways to get butts off our beaches.

The Vancouver park board is set to discuss the issue of banning cigarette smoking on Vancouver beaches and in parks at a meeting Feb. 1.

Staff will then prepare a report with a recommendation on which way to proceed.

“During the summer period there was the forest fire at Stanley Park and there was some concern,” said park board commissioner Raj Hundal. “I approached staff to look into the matter and that led to a staff briefing sometime in November to look into the issue.”

Hundal said a public survey accompanied the briefing and an overwhelming majority (about 85 to 90 per cent) said they were in favour of some kind of regulation of smoking on beaches.

There are several options on the table, including partial bans with smoke-free zones, said Hundal, a non-smoker.

Another option is to have a trial period.

“Anything is possible at this moment. I personally have not made a decision one way or the other,” he said. “I am a non-smoker and would rather be in an environment where people don’t smoke.”

Advocates of a ban also argue that all the cigarette butts left on the beach cause environmental damage. Machines used to clean the beaches don’t pick up the butts.

“People have to pick those up by hand,” Hundal said. “And they wash up on our shores.”

The move toward prohibiting people from having a puff on the beach isn’t new. White Rock, West Vancouver and the District of North Vancouver have implemented smoking restrictions.

Those against the move say a law preventing someone from lighting up outdoors is “too heavy-handed,” said Hundal.

MyChoice.ca, a Quebec-based association which advocates for smokers to have a say in the debate, is concerned that liberties are be taken away. On its website, the organization claims such political decisions are biased because governments legalize and heavily tax tobacco and then punish customers by “not giving them any real say in how they are treated as citizens.”

Hundal said no decision has been made. “We want to listen to everyone,” he said.

ticrawford@vancouversun.com
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Tobacco, once a multi-million dollar crop in Richmond County, is on a serious decline based on participation in a referendum taken earlier this month.

“We actually did not have any participants in the program,” said Paige Burns, interim county extension director. “Did that surprise me?”

Taylor Williams, agricultural extension agent from Moore County and former director of the Richmond County extension office, said that a little over 10 years ago Richmond County had more than 50 tobacco farmers.

“As recently as 1997, tobacco was a $6 million or $7 million crop in Richmond County,” Williams said. “It’s still raised, but by very, very few people.”

“There’s less than a handful for sure (tobacco farmers),” Burns said. “Definitely a decline from when I started.”

According to Burns, the issue isn’t that tobacco farms across the state are on the decline, but rather that farmers have moved from out of the county.

Tobacco production in North Carolina has actually risen over the past five years, although the majority is grown east of I-95, Williams said.

Since the tobacco buyouts this past decade, producers began selling product through larger companies which in turn devalued the tobacco from $1.93 a pound, to $1.50. Likewise, on average it costs a farmer approximately $3,600 to care for and farm an acre of tobacco, according to Williams.

The return for the farmer is around $3,700.

Farming tobacco in Richmond County is not as cheap as it once was and nearby counties can farm the same crop, but for much less because aquifers are closer to the surface and there is a better market.

Flue-cured tobacco is traditionally what local farmers grew.

With the rate of tobacco exports on the rise, the referendum put to a vote the continuation of an assessment of one-fifth of one cent per pound to pay for export promotion programs.

“This is a way to provide funding historically to help Tobacco Associates move product in a foreign market,” Burns said. “There’s a higher exportation outside the United States (than domestically).”

Two-thirds of the eligible voters participating in the referendum needed to mark their ballot in favor of the program to continue.

The statewide numbers were not available.

Flue-cured tobacco is what sells overseas, primarily in a Japanese market, Williams said, but flue-curing is what makes it so expensive for Richmond County farmers.

Burley tobacco has been toyed with locally. It is cheaper and easier to grow, but the burley market is still small.

“It’s every bit as traumatic to tell a tobacco farmer to start a new crop,” Williams said about farmers turning to alternative crops like soybeans or peaches.

For a farmer to begin a new crop, it generally takes three years to turn around a profit after supplies are purchased and the plants are grown.

A press release from Tobacco Associates, Inc. says the reason for the referendum is that U.S. domestic consumption continues to decline so the future of tobacco production in the country will depend on growth opportunities in the export market.

By Bryan Stewart

Gov. Mark Parkinson called on his fellow Wichita State University alumni Wednesday to support his call for increases to sales and tobacco taxes to preserve the university’s programs through the recession.

Parkinson said he is confident that the recession will end, and when it does, Wichita in particular will be poised for a comeback because of pent-up demand for aircraft.

But he said he’ll need lobbying help in Topeka from WSU alumni to preserve what the university has built over the years.

The state is facing about a $400 million shortfall; Parkinson has proposed a three-year, 1 percentage-point sales tax increase, a 55-cents-a-pack tax increase on cigarettes and quadrupling the tax on other tobacco products.

The state has cut roughly $1 billion from what was about a $6 billion budget and any further cuts will do long-lasting damage to colleges and universities throughout the state, the governor said.

Compounding the problem for Wichita is that the other state universities are the dominant political and economic interests in the relatively small cities where they are based, he said.

“In every other community in this state that has a major university — K-State, KU, Hays, Pittsburgh, Emporia — probably because of the size of those communities, their legislators are committed every session to doing everything they can for that university,” Parkinson said. “They view that as their job.

“Probably because Wichita is a much larger city and has a lot of other interests, we don’t have that same kind of undying loyalty from every member of the Wichita delegation.”

Parkinson lauded the school’s commitment to teaching aerospace engineering and entrepreneurship, which is difficult for other universities to match because of Wichita’s historic roots in those fields. And he encouraged university officials to continue working to expand the university’s fledgling dental education program into a full dental school, something Kansas does not now have.

With general state support flagging, universities like WSU will need to build endowments to eventually take up the slack in their budgets, he said.

Programs like dentistry that lead to high-income careers will be increasingly important because “it’s hard for an endowment association to raise money if you don’t have rich alumni,” Parkinson said.

For now, WSU will have to work hard at the Statehouse to protect its share of revenue, he said.

He acknowledged that the Legislature hasn’t warmed to his tax plan — it didn’t get even a courtesy introduction in the Senate last week — but he said he thinks lawmakers will eventually come around when they see the impact of further cuts.

“I’m encouraging you to contact your legislator and say… we love you coming to our basketball games and our plays and our music events, but what we would really love is if you would help us out on our budget, because we’re going to need some help from Topeka,” he said.

In agreement was Jim Rhatigan, namesake of the Rhatigan Student Center where Parkinson spoke.

Now retired, Rhatigan was a dean and vice president of the university, where he worked from 1965 to 2002.

“People don’t realize when you cut something, it doesn’t show up the next year,” he said. “It’s much later when you see it happen.

“When you lose your top people, who are mobile, and your infrastructure starts to crumble, you’ll know.”

Patricia Rhea said she isn’t looking forward to paying more taxes, especially since she was cut from full- to part-time after nine years at the Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum.

She said she thinks a tax increase of some kind is necessary, although she’d like to see property or income tax increases considered along with the sales tax Parkinson proposes.

But, she added, “the way he has laid it out for us, it seems to me that (sales tax) may be our only option.”

Lafayette-area smokers, bar owners and anti-tobacco advocates have heard it before.

The American Red Cross

Proposed statewide smoking restrictions, advanced Wednesday by an Indiana House committee, have become a familiar story, they say.

But a smoking ban bill’s author, state Rep. Charlie Brown, a Gary Democrat, said this third attempt to stop smoking in many public places has more bite than before. And Brown said the time has come for statewide smoking restrictions.

If passed in its current form, the statewide measure would push aside smoking ordinances in place in Lafayette and West Lafayette. Stricter in scope, the bill would ban cigarette, pipe, cigar and other tobacco puffing just about everywhere, including bars, restaurants, private clubs, hotel rooms and tobacco stores.

No one at Lafayette’s Ben Hur Tavern Wednesday afternoon was buying into his plan.

“Oh, Brown is trying again?” asked Steve Bolin, of Lafayette, as he finished a cigarette. “I am not saying that smoking has never hurt anyone, but we should be able to smoke if we want.”

The South Fourth Street bar is one of 41 businesses in Lafayette with an exemption allowed under Lafayette’s citywide smoking ban.

As part of Lafayette’s ordinance, passed in 2008, bars, restaurants and other businesses that only employ and serve those 21 years and older are eligible for the exemption.

If Brown has his way, House Bill 1131 will not make exceptions for private clubs or bars. It does allow an exemption for casinos and parimutuel horse racing venues.

“Last year, they hired everyone who was available to lobby against the legislation,” Brown said of the gaming industry. “I am wholeheartedly in favor of a smoking ban in all places. But I have to crawl before I walk.”

He said a ban that included casinos could hurt their business and reduce tax revenue to the state at a time when Indiana’s tax collections are falling far short of previous expectations.

Smoke-free workplace laws have been implemented in eight counties and 31 cities in Indiana, according to the Indiana Tobacco Prevention and Cessation agency. But the rules vary, and many communities have no regulations at all.
Brown said he wants a uniform state code.

The Indiana House passed a similar bill last year. But the measure failed in the Senate and died during late-session negotiations.

Stan Balser, owner of the Ben Hur, said he is opposed to any bill that would wipe away his business’ exemption. He favors Lafayette’s current ordinance and wants it to stick.

“You have a choice of where you can go,” Balser said. “I don’t smoke — haven’t for 15 years. But people should have the choice. If you want to smoke, you can come here. If you don’t want to be around it, you can go to West Lafayette.”

In 2007, West Lafayette banned smoking at all bars and restaurants and many other workplaces. Lighting up is allowed only at tobacco shops and designated hotel rooms.
Tristan Kirby of the Tobacco Free Partnership of Tippecanoe County said a blanket ban would offer the most protection to employees from secondhand smoke. That’s the major push behind Brown’s legislation.

“There is no safe level of secondhand smoking,” Kirby said. “Any level can be detrimental to an employee. The only way to be truly free of secondhand smoke, 100 percent, is to not allow smoking inside a facility.”

Kirby said there are worries about the health of casino workers. But she said the Tobacco Free Partnership would support House Bill 1131.

Lafayette City Council member Steve Meyer, D-at large, called the bill a double-edged sword.

Meyer pushed for the amendment in the Lafayette smoking ban to exempt businesses serving and employing those over 21.

“I think it is good to be uniform across the state, but I think our way is better because it allows business owners to make a decision,” Meyer said. “Those type of business owners should retain that decision.”

Contributing: The Associated Press

The Obama administration may have eased federal policy on marijuana enforcement, but the experts are still debating whether the drug has all the medical properties that proponents claim.

Two new stories in the NYT and the WSJ lay out the basics:

In a nutshell, there’s not enough scientific evidence that pot’s medical uses are valid. Studies show that smoking marijuana can improve nausea in cancer patients and others suggest that it help patients with neurological problems such as multiple sclerosis, the NYT reports. However, the story goes on to say:

But there is no good evidence that legalizing the smoking of marijuana is needed to provide these effects. The Food and Drug Administration in 1985 approved Marinol, a prescription pill of marijuana’s active ingredient, T.H.C. Although a few small-scale studies done decades ago suggest that smoked marijuana may prove effective when Marinol does not, no conclusive research has confirmed this finding.

Access to marijuana is increasing nationwide. New Jersey’s governor just signed a medical marijuana bill into law on Monday, adding that state to 13 others with similar laws and down the road in Washington, there’s a bill to allow some dispensaries in the district.

Maryland has a strange setup with a little-known law that while forbids medical use, could open the door for it one day, advocates hope.

A dispute has broken out over whether tobacco companies should be forced to pay a ‘clean-up charge’ for cigarette butts.

The environment, food and rural affairs committee’s report into waste strategy, published earlier this week, called on the government to evaluate the practicalities of imposing a small ‘clean-up’ levy on the products most commonly littered.

“Revenues could be distributed to local authorities to help clean up their neighbourhoods,” the report suggested.

The Tobacco Manufacturers’ Association reacted strongly against the proposal.

It argued its support of personal ashtrays and other initiatives which encourage consumers to “properly dispose” of “each and every butt” meant it should not have to be penalised.

“Across the UK, especially since the implementation of the smoking ban, our member companies have been working with the licensed trade to encourage them to provide ashtrays and cigarette disposal facilities in outdoor areas,” a spokesman said.

“The best way to prevent smoking related litter is through changing people’s behaviour by encouraging personal responsibility, providing solutions and enforcing existing anti-litter laws.”

In addition to litter from containers used to drink retail drinks and confectionery packaging, ‘smoking materials’ constitutes the most prevalent type of litter, according to Keep Britain Tidy’s 2008 survey.

According to anti-smoking charity Ash’s Amanda Sandford around 200 million cigarette butts are dropped on Britain’s streets every day.

“An extra levy on tobacco products may make smokers think twice about dropping cigarette ends and tobacco packaging, and would go someway towards meeting the huge clean up cost,” she commented.

Women have more trouble quitting cigarettes because – more than men – they tend to take up smoking to relieve emotional problems, according to a leading medic.

The claim comes after a survey of women smokers by the University of Hong Kong’s school of public health.

Since 2006, the school has offered gender- specific counseling under a “Smoking Cessation Service for Female Smokers.”

A survey of 332 women smokers, with an average age of 35, over six months until October 31 last year found that 26.5 percent quit after going through the program. The figure was slightly higher than previous studies, in which 21.9 percent of females said they had quit smoking after non-gender-specific counseling.

Males chalked up a figure of 28.4 percent.

Professor Sophia Chan Siu-chee, head of the department of nursing studies at the university’s Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, said the increase in the success rate may not be very significant.

But she added: “We must still emphasize the importance of the gender-specific nature of this program.

“The craving is a big problem for women because, when they are not happy, they tend to smoke.

“If emotional problems such as with relationships or families do not go away, it will be difficult to quit.”

Although the majority did not quit smoking entirely, 56 percent of the women managed to reduce their consumption, while 12 percent returned to their original consumption levels.

Chan said that, even for those who continued smoking, average daily cigarette consumption decreased from 15.2 to 9.4 and they were better able to resist smoking.

The study also found that the tobacco tax increase last year led to a surge in the number of women who enrolled in the program.

Professor Lam Tai-hing, director of the school of public health, said: “The financial secretary should think about increasing the tax again this coming budget, hopefully by another 10 percent at least.”

He added that pictorial warnings on cigarette packs are too mild and should be revamped to create more impact.

The placing of cigarettes in prominent places to attract buyers in shops should also be banned.

The cessation service will start to explore different methods of counseling, Chan said.

Electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes, were first made in China and are sold mostly on the Internet.
They are battery-powered devices which emit a “puff” or fine mist of nicotine into the lungs and are intended to replace normal cigarettes and help smokers quit.

The products are at the center of a legal battle in the United States between manufacturers and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which regulates drugs and which wants to stop e-cigarettes from being imported into the U.S.

The FDA, which conducted research into e-cigarettes, has expressed concerns about their safety, and teams from Greece and New Zealand have also carried out studies into them.

But interpretations of the three reports vary, with the New Zealand study saying e-cigarettes should be recommended because they are safer than tobacco cigarettes, and the Greek study taking a broadly neutral stance.

“The limited information given in these three reports represents all the knowledge we currently have about e-cigarettes,” Andreas Flouris and Dimitris Oikonomou, of the Institute of Human Performance and Rehabilitation in Greece, wrote in the British Medical Journal.

“This may be one reason why the battle…between the FDA and e-cigarette manufacturers has been so heated.”

A U.S. judge last week granted an injunction barring the Obama administration from trying to ban imports of e-cigarettes, saying the move was part of “aggressive efforts” by the FDA to regulate “recreational tobacco products.”

Tobacco is the leading preventable cause of death in the world, killing more than 5 million people a year. A report by the World Lung Foundation last August said smoking could kill a billion people this century if trends hold.

Flouris and Oikonomou said that while “alternative smoking strategies are always welcome in an effort to reduce the threat to public health” caused by tobacco, safety was also vital.

“More rigorous chemical analyses are needed, followed by extensive research involving animal studies and, finally, clinical trials in humans,” they wrote.

BRAVEHEART star Mel Gibson has given up smoking so he will be around to watch his new baby daughter grow up.
The 54-year old actor and director was already a dad of seven kids he had with first wife Robyn, ranging in age from oldest daughter Hannah, who is 29 and married, to 10-year-old Thomas.

His Russian musician girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva, 39, gave birth to baby Lucia in October last year.

She already had a son with former boyfriend ex-Bond star Timothy Dalton.

Now Gibson, who has had some high-profile, well-documented problems with drink in the last few years, is determined to be around when Lucia grows up.

He said: “I want to play tennis with this kid, that’s it. I just want to run around and breathe, you know?

“I don’t want to be in an iron lung somewhere.

“It’s a blessing. My God, a new little life is always like, it’s just astounding to me. There’s nothing more gob-smacking or mysterious, it’s just like you look and you go oh my God, and she’s an angel, she’s innocent, she looks right through you.”

Fatherhood in his 50s is bound to be very different experience for the actor than it was the first time around but Gibson is hoping his experience will make him a better daddy to Lucia.

Mel said: “It is different because I’m different but the thing that isn’t different is that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get over the fact that there is a little life there in front of me staring at you with complete innocence and a total angelic blamelessness.

“It’s phenomenal. It kills me. So we’ll work with that and see if I can do it better this time. You should get better with practice.”

By the time Lucia is 20, Mel will be 73. It was this realisation that helped him make the decision to quit the cigarettes he had enjoyed so much for 45 years.

As he did interviews to publicise his latest film – an update of classic 80s BBC drama Edge Of Darkness – he revealed he has been smoke-free for nine days.

He said: “It was torture. The first three days, I was like an axe murderer. Day four, I’d come at you with a bat. Day five, I was dangerous with a lawn mower. It is a hellish habit to break.”

Smoking has not been Mel’s only vice. He was famously arrested for drink driving in 2006.

The storm was made worse when he made anti-Semitic remarks to the arresting police officers.

He ranted at the Jewish policeman: “Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world. Are you a Jew?”

Gibson has apologised three times for his outburst but it seems he will suffer the consequences of his actions for a while yet.

He has now been teetotal for three and a half years and when asked about that night, Gibson, fumes: ” I was loaded. I was drunk. Alright?

“Israel walked into Lebanon that day. And it was like, it came out and the guy reported it to the police officer and he ran to the newspaper – and it just turned into this whole big thing.

“Ok, I get sober and I’m like, ‘Oh f***, what did I say? I’m sorry’.

“I apologised profusely – not once but three times.

“So, what’s the problem? It’s four years ago. Do I need to apologise again? Do I? For you? Do I need to apologise again?

“Because I will if you require it. And I always take the opportunity to say: That was a bunch of s**t; that was bulls**t. “And if I scared anyone, or if I offended anyone, I’m sorry.

“It’s the truth. I don’t want to be the monster.”

He may not be a monster but he is certainly still the butt of jokes. Most recently, he was the target of Golden Globes host Ricky Gervais during Sunday night’s ceremony.

The comic, holding a glass of beer, told the audience of Hollywood A-listers: “I like a drink as much as the next man… unless the next man is Mel Gibson.”

He then introduced Gibson, who jokingly slurred his words before handing out the best director gong to James Cameron.

Perhaps acting again, in his first film role since The Singing Detective in 2003, will win back fans who flocked to see his films in the 80s and 90s in films such as the Lethal Weapon and Mad Max franchises.

And, of course, 1995′s Braveheart, for which he won best picture and best director Oscars.

Since 2000, Gibson has remained behind the camera, directing raw and controversial films like The Passion Of The Christ and Apocalypto.

But now he’s back in front of the camera in the Hollywood remake of the 1985 BBC nuclear thriller Edge Of Darkness.

He stars as Craven, the role played by the late Bob Peck in the original, a widower cop who witnesses the murder of his daughter and embarks on a mission to discover her killer.

Gibson admits that the good looks that made him a pin-up in the 80s are now gone. He laughs: “I look like, ‘Eww!’ – all drawn-out and leathered out and I have aged.

“It’s just a natural part of the holy human condition. What am I going to do? Surgery or something? That just looks weird. Besides, that must hurt.”

Mel, who was born in New York but raised in Australia after his family emigrated in 1968, claimed he hasn’t missed acting, describing directing as “a big one. It’s a ball.”

But he added: “Acting is more lucrative. It’s easier and it’s my first love. I took some time away. I felt that I was stale and I came back and I feel like some kind of maturation happened where the choices I make now are quite different from the choices I would have made eight years ago.

“It’s good to get back on the bike and go for it again and it wasn’t necessarily the material that brought me back, it was just time to come back. And it was just the best thing that was there. It was a good vehicle, a good story.”

After Edge of Darkness, which also stars Ray Winstone, we’ll se Gibson in comedy The Beaver and Mexican prison thriller How I Spent My Summer Vacation.

Being back on the big screen may bring Mel renewed fan interest but he refuses to have bodyguards – though he does admits to keeping a gun near his bed.

“In this day and age, you’ve got to be tooled up. If they walk in on you, I’m not going to let them whip me. If your number’s up, its up, you know?

“I’ve had the weird stuff and its like, ‘OK, so what, I’m not dead yet’.

“If I’m lying in bed and somebody comes into my room, I’ll either wake up or I won’t. And I’ll either hit them with my big stick that I’ve got or my gun that I’ve got.”

So now the star of Lethal Weapon has his own lethal weapon? He admits: “It is a bad way to live. But that’s what you’ve gotta do.”

Edge Of Darkness is released on Friday, January 29