The most dangerous hazard aboard any sea-going vessel is fire. On March 23, 2006, Princess Cruises’ Star Princess made headlines as a result of a fire and caustic smoke which spread to over 250 cabins and the death of one passenger. The apparent cause was an unattended cigarette on one of the balconies. Out of the ashes, so to speak, rose new safety initiatives. North American cruise lines created non-smoking policies to implement on all of their ships.

As a result, most cruise lines now have fairly restrictive non-smoking plans in place. However, there are a handful of North American ships whose onboard employees seem to look the other way if someone is reported smoking in their stateroom. Clearly, some passengers refuse to abide by the rules, not totally convinced that their smoking can endanger the lives of everyone on the ship.

In 1998, clearly ahead of its time, Carnival Cruise Lines brought out a new totally non-smoking cruise ship, the Carnival Paradise. Constructed by only non-smokers and endorsed by many anti-smoking and cancer prevention groups, the non-smoking Paradise was a momentary hero. In 2003, her no smoking signs were painted over and a new smoking policy was created. One theory for the drastic change was that non-smokers don’t gamble and/or drink as much as smokers resulting in less onboard spending.

Today, in what appears to be an very bold and conscientious move rule, Princess Cruises issued a change to their existing onboard smoking policy. Beginning January 15, 2012, smoking will be prohibited in passenger staterooms and balconies for all voyages. This is in an effort to ensure that every passenger has a “comfortable onboard experience,” says Princess Cruises’ Exercutive Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Jan Swarz.

A consumer study was recently completed by Princess Cruises which revealed that smokers make up only a small portion of their passengers. With balconies being a “hallmark” of Princess Cruises, Swarz states that, “it is important to keep this peaceful space clear of smoke.” I agree. It’s no fun to be relaxing on your balcony only to smell someone’s cigar smoke wafting up to you.

What happens if you should light up in your cabin or balcony? Princess Cruises states that there will be a $250 fine for each occurance, which will be charged to the passenger’s onboard account. While smokers are still welcome aboard any of the Princess Cruises ships, there will be designated and convenient smoking areas throughout every ship. This will include cigar lounges, a section of the nightclubs and casinos and a portion of the open decks.

it’s not easy to accomodate every passenger’s request. Princess Cruises is taking the lead with this new, stricter policy. Not only will it result in fresher smelling cabins and balconies, it is a much needed safetly feature that more cruise lines should adopt.

EMC News – “There are hundreds of reasons to quit…What’s yours?” This was the message delivered by Ottawa Public Health at the launch of National Non-Smoking Week at Ben Franklin Place on Jan. 17. For 30 years the annual campaign has highlighted the dangers of smoking and the many benefits that result from kicking the habit.

As times have changed, so too has the campaign. No longer purveyors of authoritative lectures or graphic guilt trips, organizers have decided that smokers themselves can come up with their best reason for quitting, hence this year’s tagline.

The key piece of information organizers want to get across is there are more resources than ever to help smokers quit, and even prizes to win for doing so.

Dr. Vera Etches, the city’s associate medical officer of health, lauded the success of stop-smoking initiatives among the Canadian populace.

“Smoking rates have decreased in Ottawa over the past 20 years, from 32 per cent in 1985 – almost one in three people – to 15 per cent in 2009,” she said.

“Quitting smoking can be one of the toughest things that people may do in their life, but it’s possible – we can help Ottawa residents achieve this lifestyle that is free from tobacco addiction.”

Around 15 per cent of Ottawa’s population smokes, which works out to 135,000 residents. However, when polled in 2008, 42 per cent of smokers in Ontario said they intended to quit in the coming month. And for each person, there is a different reason.

The resources available to these aspiring non-smokers is numerous, explained Etches. Among them are free eight-week group programs called A.C.E.S.S. (Accessible Chances for Everyone to Stop Smoking) offered through the Ottawa Public Library (OPL) and the city’s Community Health Centres, the Kick Butt for 2 program for pregnant teens and young single parents, the exposé program targeting youth in schools, the Canadian Cancer Society’s Quit Smoking Program and Smokers’ Helpline, and the STOP study (nicotine replacement therapy and counseling) offered by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

These programs have resulted in tangible benefits, said Etches.

“OPL’s exposé smoke-free youth project has been working with youth in high schools for the last nine years by offering a variety of stop-smoking tools to help them overcome their addiction,” said Etches.

“The results, since the inception of exposé, has been that the smoking rate among youth has decreased from 21 per cent to 14 per cent. It’s encouraging progress, but the rate is still very high, and we need to continue our work.”

In some cases, the possibility of winning a significant prize provides that extra bit of motivation to quit. Last year, 1,600 residents took on the Driven to Quit Challenge, offered by the Canadian Cancer Society, in which cars, vacations and prizes are available to be won.

“It was launched on Jan. 4, but people have up to Feb. 28 to register for it,” explained Barbara Hollander, senior coordinator for the Smokers’ Helpline.

“They’re eligible for great prizes, including the choice of two Honda hybrid cars and vacation getaways…There was a 25 per cent increase last year over the year before in terms of the number of registrants, so over the last six years we’re up to 130,000 people who have registered for the challenge, which is terrific.”

The challenge asks that registrants quit smoking for the entire month of March, as part of the challenge, the participant is required to have a ‘support buddy’ to help them stay strong.

Chris Styvers, one of last year’s Driven to Quit Challenge winners, walked away from the contest smoke-free and with a $5,000 vacation to anywhere he wanted.

“A friend of mine at work had told me about their website and I looked at it – obviously the prizes are a great incentive to join,” he said. “I haven’t smoked for a year, it’s awesome.”

Styvers, whose wife was his support buddy, said the challenge’s website has a calculator where one can figure out the amount of money they have saved over any given time by quitting smoking. The results were eye opening, he said.

This year’s Driven to Quit prizes include a choice of either a Honda CR-Z hybrid coupe or Honda Insight hybrid four-door, two $5,000 vacation getaways, and seven $2,000 MasterCard gift cards.

More information on all smoking support programs can be found at www.ottawa.ca/health.

It is only one place, a place called Jersey that is not quite part of the U.K. but almost, yet although it is only one place things start like this. Baby steps get you there and banning smoking in restaurants and in pubs started like this. Hey people once smoked in bank line-ups and theatres.

Those bans, too, started the same way. One place.

In the Bailiwick of Jersey, part of the Channel Islands and a Crown Dependency of the U.K. off the coast of Normandy, they are talking about reducing the harmful effects of cigarette smoking on the 90,000 or so Jersey citizens. On October 22, 2010, the Jersey Council of Ministers voted to implement a new Tobacco Control Strategy.
Jersey Rate of Cancers High
The strategy proposes three areas of action: 1) reducing the number of children and young people taking up smoking; 2) protecting families and communities from tobacco related harm and 3) motivating and helping smokers to quit. But it is the manner in which they propose to do it that is new.

Officials in Jersey, including medical officer Dr. Rosemary Geller, are considering new measures to reduce the number of Jersians dying from cancer (Jersey has a high rate of smoking -elated cancers) and one is banning smoking in cars and another is packaging with graphic photos showing smoking’s effects

Tobacco Control Strategy to Reduce Harmful Effects of Smoking
Dr. Geller said she was happy with the politicians’ actions. “I’m pleased the Council of Ministers has recognised the importance of tackling smoking in Jersey,” she said. “This Strategy is an important step towards achieving further reductions in premature smoking-related deaths.”

Dr. Geller told the BBC that banning smoking in cars could be one of the measures enacted to protect families and communities from “…tobacco related harm”. She points out smoking in cars is a manner in which non-smokers and children are exposed to second-hand smoke . The BBC also reports that Jersey may reduce the number of public places you can smoke.
Partial Car Smoking Ban in Canada
They are not the first place to consider some ban of smoking in cars. One other place is in the province of Saskatchewan in Canada where there is a smoking ban in cars that have children as passengers who are under the age of 16. That prohibition came into effect there on October 1.

“This law will go a very long way to making it very clear to everyone that second-hand smoke is so dangerous for your kids that it’s no longer allowed in a confined space like a car,” Donna Pasiechnik of the Saskatchewan Canadian Cancer Society told the CBC last month.

Jersey Health Team Considers Other Ways of Reducing Smoking
The Jersey public health team’s Andrew Heaven, meanwhile, told BBC Jersey that written warnings on cigarette packages wasn’t enough. Some of the graphic images they intend include a picture of a throat tumour, teeth rotting through smoking and an image of a child exhaling smoke.

“We think that these pictorial warnings will reinforce the written warnings that current exist on tobacco packaging,” Heaven said. “That, with all the other initiatives we have got around tobacco control will further reduce the prevalence of smoking.”

Banning Smoking in Cars
There is no word on when any ban on smoking in private cars will be made in Jersey, or if indeed it will occur. But the fact they are thinking of it gives rise to thoughts of such measures eventually becoming law somewhere. And then somewhere else and somewhere else.

Because once it happens in one place….

Cigarettes smoke is harmful even for non-smokers, a lot of studies found. “I know my cigarette smoke will affect people who don’t smoke around me but I didn’t know it was so serious,” declared Nguyen Van Dung from northern Hai Duong Province, who is being treated for lung cancer at Hospital K in Ha Noi. Diep claimed that he didn’t know how many people would be affected by his habit.

The 58-year-old man went to the hospital almost every week to have his health checked. He smoked over the past 30 years, burning one cigarette package per day and there were a lot of non-smokers that were around him while he smoked.

“Fortunately my two daughters don’t smoke, but maybe there are people who suffered from my cigarette smoke. I tried to stop smoking many times but I was not successful,” said Diep.

Do Dinh Khoa, 50, who began smoking in 1966 is being treated at the same hospital as Diep. He has quit smoking after being diagnosed with cancer.

Another patient, Hoang Trong Tai, began smoking in 1978 during his time in the military. Tai claimed to have never gotten sick before, but discovered he had cancer after he started coughing up blood.

Tran Van Thuan, director of Hospital K (cancer), said that more than 80 per cent of patients of the hospital suffered lung cancer.

“Right now the hospital is overloaded. Every day we receive more than 1,000 cancer patients who want to be treated at the hospital. Many cancer patients at the hospital are secondhand smokers,” Thuan said.

Every year, 150,000 people are diagnosed with cancer and 80,000 people die from cancer in the country.

According to Dr. Luong Ngoc Khue, Director of the Medical Services Administration and Standing Office for Viet Nam Steering Committee on Smoking & Health, 50 per cent of adults in the country are smokers, which means that there are approximately 17 million smokers in the country.

“It is obvious that the number of smokers is lower than that of non-smokers. We should not let more than 60 million people be exposed to second hand smoke,” Khue said.

A recent survey conducted in Viet Nam shows that more than 40,000 people die of diseases related to smoking every year. That means every day more than 100 people die from tobacco-related illnesses.

The hospital along with the Ministry of Health is dedicated to building a smoke free environment at the hospital. Several courses on preventing smoking have been organised to educate the hospital’s staff members and patients’ relatives.

A recent project by the Centre for Research and Community Development Services (CDS) in northern Ha Long City received strong support from tourists and the community.

“We intend to turn HaLong City into a smoke free city. Although there are manys challenges that have arisen during the pilot project, we have seen encouraging results,” Tran Quoc Binh, director of the centre said.

The project has received strong support from tourists and local hotels. The project was followed by Government Decree No 1315. Many training courses were organised for the directors of hotels and restaurants in the city.

“Restaurants’ owners were afraid they would lose business from guests who smoke, but finally every thing is ok because they may lose one smoking guest but they get five non-smoking customners,” Binh said.

The pilot project was carried out by the WHO and CDS and will be expanded to other provinces.

Diep said he regreted the habit while he limped home. “If there was more information about the harm that smoking brings to myself and other smokers, I would quit.”

“If a few people die in a traffic accident, the media will cause an uproar, but thousands of people die from smoking and not many articles have been published about that,”Diep said.

DANA POINT Want to take a drag at a city park? You might want to reconsider.
On the heels of the results of a community opinion survey in which nearly two-thirds of respondents wanted smoking prohibited in all areas of local parks, a divided City Council on Monday gave initial approval to a new law banning the activity there.

The no-smoking ordinance will go into effect 30 days after the panel votes again in two weeks to give a final approval to the prohibition. Violations are a misdemeanor, the city said, punishable by a fine of up to $500 and six month in county jail.

Dana Point is set to join several other cities in Orange County, including Laguna Beach and Irvine, which have already banned smoking in their city parks.

Speaking before the council’s 3-2 vote to outlaw smoking in parks, Gwen Drenick, vice chair of the Orange County Tobacco Education Coalition, said 87 percent of the county’s population does not smoke and that’s a large percentage affected by those who do.

“I am proud of my city for proactively promoting a healthy environment,” said Drenick, who also lives in Dana Point.

Council members Joel Bishop and Lisa Bartlett voted against the majority, saying that the proposed ordinance was overreaching.

“I hate smoking. I am not a proponent of smoking in any way,” said Bishop. But he added that he had not observed smoking to be an issue in the city.

“Are we creating a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist?” he asked. “Are we adding legislation that really doesn’t need to be there?”

Bishop suggested modifying the ordinance to limit it to what he said other cities had done, suggesting that smoking be restricted at public parks during sporting events, concerts and other group activities.

Bartlett chimed in her support saying she thought the pendulum swing from allowing smoking to a ban was too wide.

Without much comment, Mayor Steven Weinberg and council members Scott Schoeffel and Lara Anderson voted in favor of the ban.

“I can’t think of a compelling reason why you would need to smoke at the park,” Anderson had said before Monday’s meeting. “You go to the park for healthful reasons.”

She had wanted the city to look into a prohibition, both from a health and litter standpoint.

“I think we have an overwhelming number of people who are very receptive to banning smoking in the parks,” she said, following the release of the community opinion survey results last month. “Cigarette butts are just insidious and everywhere.”

The last question in the poll of 400 randomly selected registered voters in the city had dealt with whether smoking should be banned in parks.

Sixty-one percent said they want a ban in all areas of public parks; 20 percent preferred that smoking be allowed only in designated smoking areas; and 17 percent favored allowing people to light up in all areas of public parks.

Based on the results and the “health and environmental risks the act of smoking cause,” city staff in a report recommended instituting a “smoke-free” law for public parks.

“Enforcement of the proposed prohibition on smoking in City parks would begin after staff initiates a public education campaign about the newly adopted regulations,” the report said. “Enforcement would include park signage with a posted telephone number that residents could call for information and/or make a complaint.”

Secondhand smoke causes an estimated 46,000 heart disease deaths and about 3,000 lung cancer deaths among nonsmokers each year, according to statistics cited by the CDC.

As smokers increasingly become social pariahs, the success of proposals to ban smoking in public places has usually been a foregone conclusion, but anti-smoking efforts have occasionally encountered setbacks in recent years.

California lawmakers have repeatedly balked at legislation to make state beaches smoke-free, and Orange County supervisors shot down a county beach smoking ban in 2006, citing concerns of excessive government regulation.

Smokers’ rights groups have also pushed back against the notion that brief exposure to secondhand smoke is harmful.

Robert Best, western regional director for The Citizens Freedom Alliance, Inc./The Smoker’s Club, said in an interview last week that the group holds the view that people don’t get cancer walking by a person smoking outside and banning it sends the message that smokers are not welcome at parks.

“We create entire parks for dogs and skateboarders, but we’re throwing people out of the parks,” he said. “The city is just basically jumping on a bandwagon to attack a minority. If I am getting my history right, it’s something our country doesn’t want you to do.”

The Smoker’s Club is a non-profit organization that educates people about smoker’s rights and property rights in general, Best said.

Cities already have anti-littering laws and “if the city can’t enforce the one law, how can they enforce the second law?” he asked.

The city staff report says that, “As a result of its 2008 Annual International Coastal Clean-Up, the Ocean Conservancy announced that six million pounds of trash was collected in just one day on beaches worldwide and that one-third of the items came from smokers.”

Since 2003, California has prohibited smoking within 25 feet of a playground or tot lot sandbox and as of Jan. 1, 2009, more than 169 cities and counties have adopted policies restricting or eliminating tobacco use in public places, the city said.

BY VIK JOLLY, Ocregister

Smokers’ rights groups and civil liberties advocates say the trend toward not hiring smokers in Ohio is discriminatory and could lead to bans against hiring others at risk of missing work.

“What about women of childbearing age? Will they be next?” said Pam Parker, co-founder of Opponents of Ohio Bans. “If tobacco were illegal, I would be totally behind what these companies are doing, but it’s not.”

Parker’s group and others are backing a bill to be introduced soon into the Ohio legislature by State Rep. Stephen Dyer, D-Green, that would make it illegal to refuse to hire people who use tobacco products outside the workplace.

“While I applaud the idea of a drug-free workplace, a ban on tobacco redefines the concept,” Dyer said.

Thirty states and the District of Columbia have made it illegal for employers to make employment decisions based on off-duty smoking. Two states — California and Connecticut — prohibit discrimination on the basis of all legal behavior.

While the American Civil Liberties Union is opposed to nicotine-free hiring policies, Ohio’s “employment at will” laws prevent the organization from doing anything about it, said Mike Brickner, a spokesman for the ACLU in Ohio.

“We have always taken the position that employers should not have the right to regulate outside-employment activities, but Ohio employers have such huge leeway under the law” it’s no use fighting it in court, he said.

Premier Health Partners, the parent of Miami Valley and Good Samaritan Hospitals, has taken the toughest stand against tobacco thus far in the Dayton area. This year, it began assessing an annual $520 surcharge on health care benefits for employees who admit to smoking or chewing tobacco, lighting up cigars, or living in a household where others smoke.

Premier does not test employees for tobacco use.

At Kettering Health Network facilities, including Kettering and Grandview medical centers, employees are not permitted to smoke during breaks, even if they’re off campus, because they’ll return to work smelling of tobacco, said Leslie Grooms, Kettering’s network director of compensation and benefits.

The no-smoking, no-smell policy is for the safety and comfort of their patients, she said. Just the smell of cigarette smoke “could cause a negative reaction in asthma patients” and others with lung conditions, she said. “And, certainly, it’s not something you want around newborns.”

Smoking has been on the decline in Ohio since 1995, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Back then, about one in four Ohio adults were smokers (26 percent). Today, the proportion is fewer than one in five (18 percent).

With health insurance costs continuing to climb when employers are also being squeezed by a recession, smokers may be just the first targets of insurance-driven hiring policies, said Mary White, a professor of ethics at Wright State’s Boonshoft School of Medicine.

Similar policies based “on aging, on weight, on whatever criteria they choose (to lower their insurance costs) might be considered,” she said.

“If we’re content to deny health care coverage to one of every six people in this country, we’ll just let it keep going” to ever larger categories of people, she said.

By Jim DeBrosse, Daytondailynews

Smoking has been banned in restaurants, bars, taxis, office buildings, but what if you were told you couldn’t even smoke your own home? That’s just the case in Manhattan where “No Smoking” signs are going up in numerous apartment buildings.

For the 1 million New York City residents who smoke, doing so in their own home has been an unwritten privilege. The problem with smoking in an apartment, however, is you can’t keep that smoke from going into other parts of the building. In fact, a recent study by the New York City Department of Health says 57 percent of non-smokers have had substantial exposure to cigarette smoke.

So some apartment buildings are now banning smoking for new tenants. Existing tenants who smoke will be allowed to continue to puff away.

That’s not the case with the new East Harlem building at 1510 Lexington Avenue, which will be the city’s first completely non-smoking residence, where tenants won’t even be allowed to walk outside and light up in the immediate perimeter of the building. Even the construction workers can’t light up.

“We feel that you’re impacting, in a rental, so many people around you that we would like to offer the public an opportunity to live in a smoke-free environment,” said Kinne Yon of Kenbar Management, which runs the building that will house 298 units.

The family-owned company gave CBS 2 a tour of the building, still under construction. The East Harlem development features upscale apartments, with concierge service, a large gym, and gardens.

Smoking will not be allowed anywhere on the property.

“The tenant will sign a rider to their lease that says that both they and all visitors they bring into the building will abide by the non-smoking rule,” said Neil Sigety of Kenbar.

If they break that promise, the company can take them to court. Opinions on the street were mixed.

“It’s the policy of the people that own the building, they can make that policy if they want,” said one Queens resident, who declined to give his name.

But Kathy Irizarry of the Bronx disagreed.

“You’re paying rent so they should let you do whatever you want in your household,” she said.

Said Yon: “If you’re a smoker, there are many building in New York City where you can live. But just not this one.”

And even with a surplus of apartments on the market, Kenbar feels theirs will be in demand. Backing that up was a Zogby poll in July, which found that 58 percent of New Yorkers would be willing to pay more for a smoke-free home.

The East Harlem building will open around the first of the new year.

By Don Dahler, Nov 17, 2009 Wcbstv

The world’s biggest tobacco-consuming countries, including Greece, Russia and Austria, are also among the top travel spots, but the opposite isn’t quite the case.

Countries with the lowest reported adult smokers, as you’ll notice in the list below, don’t all provide dream vacations. But there are some nice hangouts not far beyond the top 10.

The percentage of adult tobacco smokers in Barbados, the homeland of pop singer Rihanna, is 10.8%, according to a 2005 World Health Organization report. At No. 12, the island is the first on the list that is not on the African continent. We’ve listed some others at the end.

The WHO data that I used, covering 129 countries, were incomplete for several countries. Many of those are smaller or impoverished nations where tobacco may not be in widespread use.

Sure, none of the top five nonsmokers’ paradises have Disneyland or, in some cases, the ubiquity of running water. But if you can’t stand the stench of cigarette smoke, it’s one thing you mostly won’t have to worry about at these locales.

1. Ethiopia: This very well might be the first time that this landlocked African country was listed at the top of a travel guide. Just 4.3% of Ethiopians are tobacco users.

That could have something to do with the estimated 85 million inhabitants of this poverty-stricken country being more concerned with securing reliable food and water sources than with hourly cigarette breaks.

What Ethiopia does have are interesting archeological sites and a storied history.

2. Ghana: Adult tobacco use in this African country is at 5.5%. Like Ethiopia, Ghana is also fairly low on the international economic index, but at least it has a beach.

3. Republic of Congo: Half of the Republic of Congo’s population makes less than $1.25 a day, according to a United Nations report last year. Is it surprising then that only 6.6% can afford to smoke? But if you do decide to make the trip, you’ll want to stay away from the schools. Almost 24% of adolescents aged 13 to 15 smoke.

4. Nigeria: This West African country is not only the most populous on the continent, but it also has one of the fastest-growing economies. Nigerians haven’t begun blowing their cash en masse on cigarettes yet, though–only 7.1% of adults are smokers.

5. Cameroon: Nigeria’s neighbor to the east has a similar proportion of smokers, at 7.4%.

If you’d prefer a trip outside of Africa, the United Arab Emirates is at No. 22 and Fiji is at No. 23 on the list.. Further down the list, Ecuador is at No. 28, Egypt at No. 33 and the Dominican Republic at No. 35.

Between Egypt and Ecuador is Jamaica, with 15% of the population smoking. Maybe that low number is because some residents are too busy smoking something else.

For the record, the United States is near the middle of the pack at No. 56, with 23.9%. We’re six spots below our neighbors to the north and five spots above our friends in Mexico.

Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times