Christopher Skorus has bad dreams about pavements covered in cigarettes. The Polish street cleaner who patrols the streets of the City of London spends his days clearing up the discarded butts of workers and pub-goers.

“Offices are a problem,” he says, pausing to sweep up a small mountain of used cigarettes outside the front door of a five-storey office block. “I clean the street and half-an-hour later it’s full of cigarettes.”

In his native Poland the police are watching – you get a £10 fine for dropping one on the street. Perhaps the same should happen here, he suggests. “People have no respect, it’s a mentality. In the morning the street is white with cigarettes.”

Workers puffing away nearby argue that since the smoking ban in England was introduced in July 2007, they have little choice but to huddle conspiratorially in doorways. The ban meant the end of office smoking rooms and the death of ash trays in the pub, forcing workers and drinkers on to the pavement to get their tobacco fix.

Now to their horror the government looks to be going further still.

Announcing a review of smoking legislation in England, Health Secretary Andy Burnham said the public ban could be extended to places such as the entrances of buildings to prevent the risk of second-hand smoke.

The effect would be to disperse those huddles of smokers who have become a common sight in recent years.

Britain would not be the first to try to control clouds of smoke near entrances to buildings. The US state of Illinois bans smokers from standing within 15ft of the entrance to a public building while in Moscow the limit is 20ft.

“Define entrance? It’s ridiculous,” says Ollie Barrett, an insurance broker outside his office, grinding a cigarette under the sole of his shoe.

His colleague and fellow smoker Richard Hancock puts it more vehemently.

“Whether it’s outside the office or the pub or restaurant we’re all lepers and persona non grata now. Where I live you have all the undesirables standing outside a Wetherspoons pub, smoking and drinking. It’s not something you want your kids to have to walk past. They’d be better off inside but that’s the smoking ban for you.”

But just a few feet away, another smoker is remarkably receptive – believing the ban could work where his willpower has failed.

“It’s a good idea,” says Tony Dempsey, who runs a building services company. “It’s not pleasant to see people outside entrance smoking. They should have a total ban – it might help me give up!”
Smoking graph

Eric Rams, an employee smoking outside his bank branch on Oxford Street, was initially outraged.

“Next they’ll stop us breathing!” before conceding that it was “disgusting” for non-smokers to have to walk through a haze of smoke to get into a building.

But he feared the practical impact of the crackdown would be be detrimental to staff relations.

“Where will we go to? We’ll have to walk further down the street and there are more doorways. And we only get five minutes for a cigarette so it may not be popular with the bosses upstairs.”

Act of naughtiness

Outside the Bank of England, a gaggle of colleagues stand, like bedraggled sentries, chatting and exhaling plumes of tobacco smoke. But none of them seem much concerned by the impending ban – they will just wander further away.

Although, it does help when you are working in a building as wide as a football pitch.

But if breaking up clusters of doorway smokers has a public health pay off, it could also spell the end of a particular camaraderie that has developed in the wake of the smoking backlash.

Judi James, a behavioural and workplace expert, believes there is more at stake for smokers than just a nicotine top up.

“Smokers’ workplace bonding has always given them a very unfair advantage,” she says.

“There’s something about the act of rebellion, it breaks down the hierarchy between people who wouldn’t normally speak to each other. It’s a shared act of naughtiness and when people have got a fag on, the normal rules of communication don’t apply.”

The default body language of smokers is gossipy and conspiratorial – even if they’re not gossiping she says – and this can create suspicion amongst non-smokers.

So would a mass dispersal bring a swift end to this ad hoc bonding? It could go one of two ways.

Ms James thinks if it leads to smokers taking a walk then this networking opportunity will be lost as humans don’t move in groups, especially across different social groups.

But if it forces smokers to gather in designated areas it could actually ramp up the bonding.

Rebel children

“If they congregate together it will make the relationship more bonded because now they’re going to feel alienated and rejected. It’s the rebel child syndrome.”

The only workplace space with a similar dynamic is the ladies’ toilet, Ms James says.

While smoking bans have made offices a cleaner place to work, they’ve also helped develop the bravado of the hardy smoker standing outside the office in shirtsleeves, she says.

The sight of a huddle of workers blocking a doorway as they suck on a nicotine stick and struggle to keep warm is one that many employers, at least, will be pleased to see the back of.

To Jeremy Baker, professor at the ESCP Europe Business School, it is “a very unsightly and low status start to how an organisation is viewed.

“Companies have spent their money making the entrance hall the nicest place in the building but the whole effect is disfigured by these people standing outside trying to get cancer as quickly as possible – it’s ugly.”

It’s got to the stage where smoking at work is becoming as socially unacceptable as office drunkenness he believes.

“It looks poor – the staff are not focusing on the work they’ve got to do. It’s like arriving and finding people lolling around half drunk. Companies need to look attractive and alert but smoking is stupid and spoils the image you’re trying to project.”
NewsBBC
2 February 2010

In “Avatar,” scientist Sigourney Weaver climbs out of a suspended-animation pod and demands a cigarette – which has enflamed an anti-tobacco faction led by Stan Glantz of the UC San Francisco School of Medicine.

Their problem is the film is rated PG-13, and kids are buying tickets by the millions.

Glantz and others are using “Avatar” to renew their call for movies with smoking to get an automatic “R.”

Now, you might be thinking, “These health fascists: What are they trying to do to our pop culture?” Movies and vices, especially tobacco, have a stellar history.

Bogie and Bacall in “To Have and Have Not”: That’s foreplay!

Bette Davis and Paul Henreid in “Now, Voyager”: Smooth!

A kneejerk “R” for cigarettes would be a threat to artistic freedom, a restraint on capitalism. It would be Puritanism! Censorship!

Right? Well, no. I think it’s a good idea.

Now, let’s be clear from the get-go. There should be one culture for all ages, and one for grown-ups. In an R-rated movie, I don’t care if people do things too vile to say on TV. I don’t care if they eat cigarettes. With kids, it’s a different ballgame.

We know from a Dartmouth Medical School study that there’s a strong association between adolescent smoking and watching smoking in movies.

Tobacco companies have always understood that influence. There was a time when they even made deals to put their products onscreen. It wasn’t disclosed publicly, of course . . . it comes out in court when files get subpoenaed.

In the ’80s, we learned Phillip Morris paid the makers of “Superman 2″ thousands to put its name behind the Man of Steel. Superman is Marlboro Man! Artistic freedom!

In the ’90s, companies agreed to stop paying, but there’s no way of keeping tabs.

Libertarians make the slippery-slope argument: Next you’ll ban alcohol! Car chases!

Well, no. No one’s banning anything, just saying, “Kids shouldn’t be able to see it so easily.”

The MPAA already restricts the language in PG-13 movies and there’s no wiggle room: You can shoot someone, but can’t use a naughty word for having sex with them. Frankly, I’d rather my kids hear bad words than see their favorite actors bleep their bleeping lungs with bleeping cigarettes.

There should be some wiggle room. No retroactive editing: Bogie keeps his smokes. Films about real figures like Edward R. Murrow might be special cases, although I wish there were a title saying Murrow died of cancer. So did Bogie at 57. So did the actor who played that beloved archetype, the Marlboro Man.

There’s no word on Joe Camel, but I heard off the record he’s very sick.

A Joe Camel biopic that ends in the ICU? PG-13.

January 24, 2010

Buenos Aires, – Argentina tops the list of countries that smoke the most in Latin America, consuming 1,014 cigarettes annually for every inhabitant over age 15, media reports said Sunday, citing a World Lung Foundation study.
Argentina is followed on the list by Paraguay, with annual consumption of 968 cigarettes, and Chile, with 909, while Peru has the lowest cigarette consumption in the region at 129 annually per inhabitant.

European countries, however, are the leaders in cigarette consumption, with Greece consuming 3,017 cigarettes annually for every inhabitant over age 15, followed by Slovenia, with 2,537, and Ukraine, with 2,526.

Argentina is the only Latin American country that did not sign the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control launched by the World Health Organization at the start of this decade, an agreement signed by only 16 countries around the world.

Signatories agreed to ban tobacco advertising, increase taxes on tobacco products and promote smoke-free environments.

Some 33 percent of the adult population, according to the health ministry study, smokes in Argentina, where 40,000 people die each year from smoking-related diseases.

In 2006, the U.S. Surgeon General reported that any exposure to secondhand smoke increases an individual’s risk of developing heart disease and lung cancer. As a result, 19 states have banned smoking in workplaces, bars, and restaurants. Now, some communities want to take the bans a step further, banning smoking in public parks and beaches—even in private homes.

Condominium owners in New York City and Dallas filed lawsuits recently to prevent smokers from lighting up in their own apartments, claiming that smoke seeps through shared walls and ceilings. New Jersey State Sen. Barbara Buono introduced a bill this month to ban smoking at outdoor parks and beaches. “People have a right to smoke,” Buono says, “but they shouldn’t have a right to impose on others the health risks caused by smoking.”

One recent study found that heart attacks dropped by up to 26% within three years in communities with smoking bans, though the communities may have taken other measures to improve residents’ health as well. A report by the Institute of Medicine showed that smoking bans can decrease heart attacks by as much as 47%.

But as public support for the bans continues to grow, some people are questioning how far the government should go to protect nonsmokers. “The general public should have the right to decide what they’re going to do on private property,” says Gary Nolan, regional director of Citizens Freedom Alliance, a group that opposes smoking bans. He believes it’s reasonable for the government to ban smoking in government buildings but not at parks or privately owned businesses. Adds Nolan: “We’re giving away the right to self-determination.”

By Brooke Lea Foster, Parade

It makes no sense. Cigarette smoking is the leading preventable cause of death and illness in the United States. It also causes cancer, heart disease and other fatal conditions.

Yet, just when federal officials were hoping for further reductions in the number of adults who smoke, the figures go up slightly.

That was the report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta last week. According to the most recent survey taken in 2008, a little less than 21 percent of U.S. adults said they smoked. That’s up slightly from the year before when 19.8 percent said they smoked cigarettes.

More importantly, it was the first time in almost 15 years the survey showed an increase in smokers. Health officials had hoped the U.S. smoking rate had moved permanently below 20 percent.

“Clearly, we’ve hit a wall in reducing adult smoking,” said Vince Willmore, spokesman for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, a Washington, D.C.-based research and advocacy organization.

There’s a general perception related to indoor smoking laws and higher cigarette taxes that smoking is a fading public health danger. But health officials believe that those gains have been undermined by cuts in state tobacco control campaigns. In some or many of those campaigns, money designated for programs designed to discourage or prevent smoking has been diverted to economic development or other programs not at all related to anti-smoking efforts.

Willmore pointed out that the tobacco industry has been discounting cigarette prices to offset tax increases to keep smokes more affordable.

Dr. Clyde Yancey, president of the American Heart Association, said the tobacco industry had done little to discourage young smokers. He said cigarette marketing has persisted and is effectively reaching children and minorities with messages about flavored or menthol products.

Once youngsters are addicted to cigarettes, it is easy for them to carry the habit into adulthood.

So is smoking harmful and are the medical treatments to repair the damage expensive for the public sector? When the House of Representatives approved landmark legislation last spring giving the Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate tobacco products, members described huge health care costs associated with smoking.

Supporters of the FDA bill cited figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that smokers cost the country $96 billion a year in direct health care costs. They also cost an additional $97 billion a year in lost productivity. That includes the days they were not able to work because of illness caused by smoking.

The adult smoking rate has been dropping since the mid-1960s when roughly 2 out of 5 U.S. adults smoked. Now it’s 1 in 5. But federal health goals for 2010 had hoped to bring to bring the rate down to close to 1 in 10, cutting it in half again.

The health problems caused by smoking are clear and undeniable. Smokers also inflict many of those same problems on those around them who do not smoke, according to the American Lung Association, among other organizations.

If potentially new smokers would only take a look at the statistics, they would know how harmful — and how addictive — smoking is to their health. The most sensible course — for children and adults — is to avoid that first cigarette.

Rocker John Mayer has defended his decision to sing about smoking marijuana on his new single.
The singer is releasing Who Says as the first song from his new album Battle Studies, which boldly begins with the question, “Who says I can’t get stoned?”

And Mayer hopes his controversial lyrics will spark debate among listeners as to why the drug has yet to be legalized in the U.S.

He tells PopEater.com, “It’s not a dirty word. It’s not a curse word. It’s a presentation of an idea that makes people think a little harder about what they’re listening to, which I don’t think is the worst thing in the world.”

CNN is reporting that tobacco companies are trying to get around new laws banning the use of terms such as “Light”, “Mild”, and “Low Tar”, by color codling packaging.

CNN did an informal survey and people tended to rate Pall Mall Blue as having lower tar and being milder than Pall Mall Red.

RJ Reynolds argued that people have a right to be able to choose the brand and style of cigarette they are wanting to purchase.

Further, big tobacco has filed suit against the government to nullify the ban on labels such as low tar and light. So it appears the fight may go on a while.

At issue, is the government’s perspective that suggesting that one cigarette is “lighter” may suggest that it is healthier when there is no evidence that that is the case.

Certainly, people should have a right to choose, but misleading marketing is potentially very harmful to consumers. Perhaps a way to distinguish more accurately might be to go with Cancer Accelerator Version 1, and Cancer Accelerator Version 2.

Famed cigarmaker Ernesto Perez-Carrillo is still a few months away from debuting the inaugural cigar from his newly formed company, but the legendary cigarmaker is providing a taste of his unique approach with the launch of an innovative “Coming Soon” website that mashes up Google Maps with real-time short messaging service Twitter.

The new site (www.epcarrillo.com) offers the first look at his new company, E.P. Carrillo, and is constructed in such a way as to celebrate and propagate the passion that people all over the world have for cigars. The temporary website, which acts as placeholder until the full website launches late next month, “scrapes” Twitter to capture and display any “Tweets” that mention the word “cigar” or its euphemisms in real-time anywhere in the world. By using Google Maps, the site then layers the Twitter information over a map to show exactly where that person is located.

Considered one the world’s premier cigarmakers, based mainly on his success in creating the famed La Gloria Cubana cigar, Perez-Carrillo announced recently that he would forego retirement to start his own boutique brand of cigars under his newly formed company. His limited-edition inaugural cigar is expected to be available for sale in December.

Until then, his newly unveiled website will serve to inform, update and engage cigar lovers while they await the introduction of E.P. Carrillo Edicion Inaugural 2009.

“The making of cigars is still rooted in old-school techniques, but the marketing of a cigar brand has evolved tremendously to the point where our creativity and communications are not constrained by any means,” said Perez-Carrillo. “We wanted to launch this brand with a website that was truly unique — one that not only would capture the essence of this brand, but to somehow capture the passion that cigar smokers have for cigars.”

The main website which launches in October will be the first brand site to be entirely built using the Google Maps interface. Ernesto and DeVito Verdi felt an interactive map would be a great way to share the story behind this new brand. The Google Maps API also lets us include some interactive features that support the larger cigar community. One example is a “Places To Smoke” this page allows cigar fans to upload their favorite spots for enjoying cigars.

Fans can also partake in a geographic journey, as they follow the path from the tobacco farms in the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Honduras and Ecuador (where the E.P. Carrillo tobacco is grown), to the factory in the Dominican Republic where the cigars are rolled. Cigar retailers also benefit from this format because the platform pulls in live data from Google, keeping the information current and correct.

“Cigar smokers have such a strong connection to Ernesto that we felt it necessary to create a site that strengthened that passionate bond,” said Tyler DeAngelo, digital creative director at DeVito/Verdi, the agency that created the site. “This is not your typical site to support a cigar brand — or any brand — but then again, this not a typical cigarmaker, or cigar.”

Source: DeVito/Verdi

Relatively new, legal and easily accessible, hookah has become a popular pastime for college students around the United States, Texas Tech being no exception.

From fuzzy navel to citrus mint, hookah is available in several flavors of shisha, which is the mixture of tobacco cured in flavored molasses.

“My favorite flavor is social smoker,” said Mike Hayford, a junior psychology major from Flower Mound, “which is a mix of blueberry and blue mist. It has a citrus taste.”

And a social smoker he is. Hayford said he is attracted to hookah because it is a great opportunity to sit around and socialize with friends.

It is largely perceived to be harmless because warnings against the practice are not as prevalent as they are with other tobacco products and hookah is legal. However, new studies have produced statistics that counter this nonchalant view.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web site, hookah smokers may absorb higher concentrations of the toxins found in cigarette smoke because of factors such as length of the smoking session and depth of inhalation.

Hookah affects the body negatively just like anything else a person can smoke, Hayford said. He continues to smoke it because of the relaxed atmosphere it creates.

“I notice it when I go running,” he said. “It decreases lung capacity, but I don’t go hookah crazy. I do it because it makes me feel good, we call it the pleasure principle in psychology.”

Hayford said he never craves a chance to smoke hookah, and only has urges if he has had a tough day.

“I do not feel addicted at all,” he said.

George Camiskey, associate director of the Center for the Study of Addiction and Recovery, said because the substance is fairly new, not many long-term studies have been conducted on its effects.

“Anything that someone ingests in his or her system can become physically addictive,” he said. “(Hookah) creates a similar experience to hallucinogen like LSD, a minor form of LSD, so there is a psychoactive response in the system.

“They can have flashbacks, there is some depression, especially if people have a history of mental health issues, and some of those can be triggered by the use of hookah or salvia.”
A few factors play a part in hookah’s popularity particularly among college students, Camiskey said. It is new, and that alone draws people in.

“I think it’s been in the Lubbock market for about five years or so,” he said, “people are always looking for something new.”

The lack of research also contributes, he said, because it is not controlled by the FDA, making it available to anyone of age and at public places like hookah lounges. Its availability “increases the acceptance level of it because the FDA hasn’t come out on a stance on it one way or another.”

“People are really excited about it,” Camiskey said. “They can get it easily, have fun, and it changes how they feel.”

Hayford’s roommate, Jack Delaney, a senior economics major from Flower Mound, bought a hookah that he and his roommates share.

“It was about $100, which is a little expensive,” he said. “They are really expensive in Texas, especially college towns because everyone wants one.”

A hookah is comprised of several parts, the central ones being its vase that contains the water, which connects to the pipe, the tray containing the shisha and the bowl supporting the coal. Finally, multiple hoses branch out allowing hookah users to smoke.

“The taller the pipe, the better the draws,” Delaney said. “It makes the buzz better. Also, the more hoses the better because it makes it so everyone can enjoy it without having to wait.”

Several stores in Lubbock sell hookah-related products, including SmokeHead Hookah and Coffee Shop on University.

Alyssa Warren, an employee of the shop for nine months, said the majority of the store’s customers are students who come in groups or bring their parents.

“A lot of students come in here in study groups to work,” she said. “Coffee places are sometimes overdone and loud, here its quiet and they can relax.”

Warren’s suspicions about hookah’s popularity are similar to other responses: It is new, legal and seemingly healthier than cigarettes.

Weeknights bring in large crowds of students who want to smoke before they go out to parties, she said. Hookah cultivates a relaxed, social atmosphere that students enjoy.
Recently, hookah sales have risen, she said, most likely because students find it cheaper to purchase one of their own instead of spending $10 a week at the shop.

“Prices range, the ones I recommend cost around $60,” Warren said. “It depends on the size of the base, which determines how much smoke you get, and the quality of he hoses.”
Students’ fascination will not disappear anytime soon, she said.

“Our parents smoked weed when they were younger,” Warren said. “Our generation seems to not be as crazy as our parents’. People can post pictures of them smoking hookah on Facebook because it is legal. Plus, it tastes really good.”

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