The push to make Horry County smoke free continues along the Grand Strand. On Monday the anti-smoking group, Smoke Free Horry took its message to the county seat. The organization pitched its presentation to encourage a smoking ban to the Conway city council. The group said it wanted to let council members know the results of a recent survey about smoking inside public areas like bars and restaurants.

George Durant, spokesman for Smoke Free Horry, said the organization conducted a countywide survey. Questions examined demographic information such as age and income and asked voters if they feel strongly about a smoking ban in public places or not.

“Town by town, municipality by municipality we found lots of differences but some of the things we found in common were that people definitely wanted a smoke free environment” said Durant.

Durant said of the nearly 400 Conway residents surveyed, nearly 90 percent supported a smoking ban which was a surprising figure considering what Councilmember Vivian Chestnut observed.

“I’ve had so many people tell me not to take my freedom away with a smoking ban” said Chestnut.

Bar owners and managers were mixed on the impact of a potential smoking ban.

“We’d be for it since we are already a smoke free bar,” said Sean Kobos, Craft Rooster. “Sometimes a little of our business goes away because we don’t allow smoking. So a ban would level the playing field.

“Most of my customers like to come in here and smoke and sit around and talk,” said John Cherry, Kimberly’s Bar and Grill. “If I were to take that away then they won’t come back.”

Durant said that next week Smoke Free Horry plans to release countywide results of its survey.

For anti-smoking advocates the 1998 tobacco settlement was a major step forward that brought industry money to their side of the cause and would ultimately reduce the number of people in America who smoke. Now, thanks to the efforts of a pro-free market organization called the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the agreement may be headed to the United States Supreme Court because, the groups argues, it violates the Compact Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

In a nutshell, the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement, as it is formally known, resulted from an agreement between the nation’s four largest tobacco companies and the attorneys general of 46 states that let the industry get out from under a series of lawsuits, some of which were intended to force the tobacco companies to help states recoup the costs to Medicaid of smoking-related illnesses as well as exempt the industry from what one expert called “private tort liability regarding harm caused by tobacco use.”

For their part, the industry “agreed to curtail or cease certain tobacco marketing practices” as well as pay, in perpetuity, money to the states to compensate them for healthcare related smoking costs and to help pay for anti-smoking advocacy campaigns, although that section of the deal has come under criticism for not being aggressive enough.

In a December 2009 report the anti-smoking Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids charged that “states are collecting record amounts of tobacco revenue–$25.1 billion this year alone–but are spending less of it on programs to prevent kids from smoking and help smokers quit.” According to the Campaign, states have “cut funding for tobacco prevention programs by more than 15 percent in the past year.”

Like it or not tobacco products are still a cash-cow for states and for the federal government. Even President Barack Obama, a smoker himself, is on board, having early in his administration signed into a law an increase in the federal excise tax on cigarettes, violating his campaign pledge not to raise taxes on anyone making less that $250,000 a year. In this economy, with government revenues down almost across the board, the urge to tax is apparently almost a strong as the urge to smoke.
In its petition for Supreme Court review, CEI alleges the tobacco agreement “violates the constitutional provision against multi-state agreements that have not been approved by Congress.”

In a release announcing the petition for cert had been filed, CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman called the settlement agreement a deal “hatched in a smoke-free backroom between tobacco companies and state attorneys general.”

“The state AGs imposed a massive national sales tax on cigarettes, without a single elected legislator at any level of government voting for it,” Kazman went on to say, adding it “was a major power grab by state attorneys general at the expense of citizens.”

It’s a complicated issue, but one that runs to the core of many of the constitutional issues currently being argued in federal courts, like the lawsuit challenging the requirement in Obamacare that individuals must purchase some form of health insurance or face a penalty.
“The Compact Clause was specifically aimed at preventing states from collectively encroaching on federal power or from ganging up on the citizens of other states,” CEI says, arguing the way the tobacco settlement was reached “plainly violates that provision” while setting “a dangerous precedent in disregarding constitutional protections against government power.”

Whether the court agrees to hear the case or not, it poses some interesting questions about whether the limits on governmental power the Constitution imposed more than 200 years ago still stand.

Many cash-strapped U.S. states are slashing budgets for tobacco-prevention programs, raising alarms among public-health groups as the nation’s progress toward getting adult smokers to quit has stalled. The adult smoking rate was 20.6% in 2009, the same as a year earlier and largely unchanged since 2004, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That amounted to 46.6 million adult smokers in 2009.

States have cut their combined funding for smoking prevention in the current fiscal year to the lowest level since 1999, according to data gathered by a coalition of antismoking groups for a report that will be released later this month.
The $517 million allocated by states for tobacco prevention and cessation in fiscal-year 2011 is down 9.2% from $569 million a year earlier and 28% less than states spent in 2008, according to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, a Washington advocacy group preparing the report, along with the American Lung Association and others.

The latest amount still exceeds the $300 million spent by states in fiscal 1999, when many programs were getting under way or accelerating their efforts following the landmark Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement in 1998 between 46 states and cigarette companies that was designed to help states recoup the cost of treating sick smokers. Under the agreement, the tobacco companies were to pay an estimated $246 billion over 25 years to the states, though states are allowed to spend their settlement dollars on needs other than tobacco prevention.

In fiscal 2010, tobacco-settlement revenue amounted to an estimated $8.1 billion for all states.

Public-health experts and tobacco-control groups worry that states’ recent spending reductions could further undermine efforts to counter tobacco-industry marketing, persuade smokers to quit and to deter young people from starting.

Tobacco use is linked to an estimated 443,000 deaths a year in the U.S., making it the nation’s leading cause of preventable death, according to the CDC. A decline in youth smoking rates has also slowed since 2003.

“There’s a risk of a setback,” CDC Director Thomas Frieden said of the funding cutbacks. “The data are very clear. The more we invest in tobacco control, the fewer people smoke, and that prevents illness, disability, deaths and healthcare costs.”
He cited California as an example. The state has run a comprehensive tobacco-control program since 1989 that includes anti-smoking advertising campaigns, toll-free “quit lines” that people use to talk to cessation counselors, and other measures. California’s adult smoking rate fell to 12.9% in 2009—the second-lowest in the nation after Utah—from 22.8% in 1988. Several other states reduced their smoking rates by a third or more since the late 1990s after implementing similar programs, Mr. Frieden said.

The spending cutbacks come as the federal government has increased spending on tobacco prevention, with more than $191 million of short-term grants to states and communities in recent months from the stimulus bill and the national health-care overhaul. The Food and Drug Administration also has new authority to regulate tobacco, including restricting advertising and putting new warning labels on tobacco products.

Smoking-rate declines have stalled in several states that have cut prevention dollars. Ohio trimmed its smoking rate by five percentage points between 2001 and 2005, when it was allocating as much as $60 million a year to tobacco prevention. In the next four-year span, when its funding dropped to as low as $6 million a year, its smoking rate fell by two points—to 20.3% in 2009.

In its current fiscal year, Ohio has $2.3 million of state funds—money unspent from previous master-settlement revenue—allocated to prevention. It has about another $3 million from federal funds, some of which are temporary.

Mari-jean Siehl, chief of Ohio’s tobacco-use prevention and cessation program, said she doesn’t have money to continue the state’s tobacco quit-line program in fiscal 2012. “With little to no marketing or educational budget, it’s really tough to get the word out about the quit line and some of the other resources we have,” Ms. Siehl said.

Shelly Kiser, an Ohio-based antismoking advocate for the American Lung Association, said “the funding we have right now [in Ohio] is like putting a drop of water on a burning fire. It doesn’t have a lot of impact.”

Washington state slashed its smoking rate 34% over a decade, seeing it drop to 14.8% in 2009, following consistent funding of media campaigns targeting low-income people and other high-risk groups, a quit line that has fielded 150,000 callers since 2000, school programs, and other efforts. State spending on the program reached $27.2 million in 2007.

Now, with the state facing a projected $4.8 billion budget deficit for the next two fiscal years, it is redistributing funding for the state tobacco-control program to local health departments for their general use. The program will be left with about $1.4 million of federal funding for fiscal 2012, said Mary Selecky, the state’s secretary of health.

Her team will pursue “very, very targeted work” to reduce smoking among low-income groups, she said, adding, “We’re going to do the best with what we have.”

(CBS) Times are tough all over, but one Russian government official thinks he has the perfect medicine to cure his country’s economic ills – more smoking and drinking. “If you smoke a pack of cigarettes, that means you are giving more to help solve social problems such as boosting demographics, developing other social services and upholding birth rates,” Russian finance minister Alexei Kudrin said, according to the Interfax news agency.

“People should understand: Those who drink, those who smoke are doing more to help the state,” he said.

Interesting advice.

The health impacts of smoking are well known – lung cancer, emphysema, heart disease and early death. And alcohol kills around half a million Russians each year, according to AFP.

Still Russians like to indulge. According to the news service, 65 percent of men smoke and the average Russian drinks 18 liters of booze each year, mostly vodka.

But Kudrin’s advice is fundamentally about money. His ministry plans to double the currently low tax on cigarettes, reports AFP. Cigarettes now sell for around $1.30 a pack in Russia. By comparison, New Yorkers can pay up to $11 for a pack of smokes, with $5.85 going to government coffers.

In America, smoking taxes are often seen as a way to curb smoking, not just raise money.

A “15 percent decrease in teen smoking will result as initiation of this tax,” Scott Santarella, CEO of the American Lung Association New York, said of a recent tax hike on cigarettes. “and a 5 percent adult smoking decrease from the tax itself.”

WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Is it smart business for Russia to urge people to smoke to raise money for the government or just really irresponsible?

Once again, the top brass at NASCAR have taken a stand against marijuana users. Yesterday, officials for the racing organization suspended crewmember and former driver Randy LaJoie indefinitely after he tested positive for marijuana. The test was not to make sure that he could be a driver, but that he could be a spotter. For those of you not familiar with racing, the spotter sits in the stands and relays car positions to his or her driver through a headset. Please forgive my ignorance of the details of racing, but it seems as if this is basically a professional spectator, with the enviable bonus of getting to yell at the driver.

Seriously, a drug test is required for this job.

LaJolie now joins the massive ranks of athletes and celebrities forced to apologize for using a substance safer than alcohol.

“I screwed up,” LaJolie said in an interview the day he was suspended.

NASCAR’s behavior is not that surprising. Back in March, officials waited until the last minute to deny Cannabis Planet TV the opportunity to sponsor, and place advertisements on, one of the cars. The car was allowed to race, but with different sponsors.

It seems like the world of racing is lining up against marijuana. In a recent press release, the Office of National Drug Control Policy announced the start of a new campaign with Indy 500 racer Sarah Fisher to combat drugged driving.

This is all well and good. MPP does not advocate driving under the influence of any substance, including marijuana. It just seems strange that ONDCP and the racing community would spend valuable resources targeting marijuana in light of a recent study that shows marijuana use has very little impact on driving ability.

To date, NASCAR is still on very good terms with its alcohol sponsors.

From opposingviews.com, by Marijuana Policy Project, June 24, 2010

MONTREAL – Police say they’ve taken down a contraband cigarillo ring that defrauded the federal government out of $5.2 million in taxes each year. Montreal police allege that two cells linked to the ring were pulling in as much as $100,000 and $15,000 a week respectively, from the sales of primarily cigarillos, but also cigars and cigarettes.

Police conducted seizures at 22 convenience stores, 16 homes and 13 vehcles, seizing more than $100,000 in cash and stockpiles of allegedly illegal tobacco products.
Some 16 people face charges of fraud, conspiracy and trafficking in stolen goods.
Some convenience store owners are also facing charges under the provincial tobacco tax laws.
Police say convenience store clients who purchased the products at convenience store at regular prices had no idea the products were illegal.

From winnipegfreepress.com, June 17, 2010, By: The Canadian Press

A new city policy will try to save money by raising health-insurance premiums for municipal employees who use tobacco products, a change that has some workers upset. Starting in January, health-insurance premiums will go up by an undetermined amount for city employees unless they take a test to prove they are tobacco-free, defined as having no nicotine in their body. In addition, for the first time, people who smoke or use other tobacco products will be eligible only for the city’s basic health-coverage plan. They will not qualify for the city’s Basic Plus health plan, in which the city covers more costs.

Martha Wheelock, an assistant city manager, said that health-care costs are still being analyzed and the exact amount of the premium increase is not yet clear, although a preliminary figure of $20 per month was given in the city’s proposed 2010-11 budget.

Wheelock said that having tobacco users pay more for health insurance continues a trend of trying to keep down costs overall.

“We as a city have talked about smoking in particular for a number of years, at least internally, and I think we’re ultra-sensitive to the topic given where we live and the roots of our city,” she said.

The city’s projected health-care costs for 2010 are $20.9 million — up 10 percent. Winston-Salem is self-insured; BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina administers the city’s plan.

Last year, all premiums went up 25 percent, but those who joined an expanded wellness program and took biometric tests were eligible to pay the old amount. About 80 percent to 90 percent of employees took the screening.

Wheelock said it is too early to know how much the changes planned for January will save the city. She said the city doesn’t break down its health-care costs by source, so there are no exact figures for how much smoking costs the city. But she said studies suggest that curbing smoking would be fruitful.

“The trend data shows that over time, this will save us and the employees themselves money,” she said.

Testing has found that 500, or 14 percent, of the 3,600 covered city employees and retirees use tobacco products. But because not everyone took the tests, the percentage likely is higher, Wheelock said.

With the program, Winston-Salem joins a growing number of government employers, including the state of North Carolina, in attempting to cut costs by improving employees’ health.

Under the state health plan, which also covers teachers, smokers are limited to a plan in which they pay 30 percent of medical costs, while nonsmokers or those in programs to quit pay only 20 percent of medical c osts. The plan’s smoking component is projected to save the state $13 million for the 2010-11 fiscal year.

Of North Carolina’s major cities, Winston-Salem is the only one adopting such a change, although Charlotte is considering restricting smokers to a higher-deductible plan next year.

The nicotine tests will likely be given yearly, Wheelock said, but other than that, the city hasn’t yet decided how to enforce the new policy. There are no plans for random testing for compliance, an idea considered for the state plan but discarded last month.

The city’s plan was announced in May, although rumors had gone around for months. Normally, the city makes health-coverage announcements in the fall, but Wheelock said the statement was moved up because it was likely to affect employees more than usual.

“I think we’re going to work extra hard to explain it to our employees,” Wheelock said.

The plan already has some smokers concerned. The city banned employees from smoking in city buildings two years ago, and some people said they thought the continued restrictions were unfair to smokers.

“It’s a little harder to quit than they think,” said Mickey Ferguson, a heavy-equipment operator for the streets department. Ferguson, a smoker, was among several employees who expressed reservations with the plan.

The city will again offer smoking-cessation classes to employees, and it started paying for anti-smoking aids last year.

About 50 employees took the smoking-cessation classes last year. City officials expect as many as 175 to take the classes during the 2010-11 fiscal year. Workers said that the classes have helped some people quit — but some stopped attending or saw few results.

Jeff Goins, a technician in the city’s parts department, has smoked for years, although he’s tried to quit several times. He was in the first round of classes, and they helped him kick the habit — but only for 4½ months. He said he didn’t plan on taking the classes again.

“It’s a waste of time. I know I have a problem,” he said. “I have to go with their policy, but I don’t think it’s a fair decision.”

June 15, 2010, journalnow.com, by Sarah Morayati

West Virginia University Health Sciences Campus is now tobacco free, marking the first of WVU’s campuses to join tobacco-free efforts.
The decision came after the University’s Board of Governors approved a policy banning smoking on the Health Science Center Campus Friday at its meeting in Charleston.
The approval came because of “widespread” support from employees and students, according to a WVU press release.
No tobacco in any form will permitted in any areas, specifically sidewalks, roads, parking areas and green spaces, inside or outside the Health Sciences Campus.

Signs will be installed to alert visitors to the change, and the Wellness program at the HSC will provide nicotine replacement therapy and counseling to to WVU employees and spouses who are West Virginia residents.
The policy change was presented to the BOG by Health Sciences Center Chancellor Christopher Colenda in February.
“We are obligated, as West Virginia’s leading institution for health, to set an example for others,” Colenda said, in a press release. “Eliminating the use of tobacco and the exposure of our employees, students and visitors to second-hand smoke isn’t just the popular thing to do – it’s the right thing to do.”
University Health Associates and WVU Hospitals adopted anti-smoking policies in November, aligning with existing regulations at the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health.
University President James P. Clements appointed a task force in December to update the previous campus-wide smoking policy, established in 1990. The issue was brought up after the Student Government Association passed a resolution supporting a change of policy in February 2009.
Task force member Abby Sobonya lobbied to implement a state-wide smoking ban at all hospitals and health sciences campuses.
She said evidence indicated a campus-wide smoking ban would not be feasible but believed cessation programs would increase any smoking ban’s chance of success. She used the shortcomings of the Pennsylvania state-wide smoking ban as an example.
“It didn’t work out,” Sobonya said. “It was due to, if you don’t have a way to stop, how can you stop cold turkey.”
The organization Students for Sensible Drug Policy opposes the passage of such a ban.
“The basic question I would ask is ‘What right does the University have to do this,’” said Daniel Shapirio, associate professor of philosophy and the faculty adviser for the SSDP. “It’s an infringement on individual rights to tell adults they have no right to smoke outdoors.”

June 9, 2010, By Devon Unger, thedaonline.com

New York is experiencing budget shortages, but gutting tobacco prevention funding is not the way to solve the state’s problems. Over the last two years, the program has already been cut by 38 percent, resulting in a 7 percent increase in the number of smokers. Smoking in New York already costs us over $8 billion a year in direct health care costs. Anything that would result in more people smoking would place a huge financial burden on us all. Saving a very small amount of money by cutting these programs would cost us billions in the future.

The public health effects of smoking are immense, not to mention the devastation that smoking brings to the lives and health of family members. The program is working well and creating cost savings for us by reducing smoking rates. The program also provides jobs to New Yorkers, jobs that improve the health of the state and its citizens.

Call your state senator and assemblyman today and ask them to not cut tobacco prevention and control funding!

By Betsy Dahlgren, June 9 2010, post-journal.com