The NPHS Health Improvement and Health Inequalities Teams have produced a response to the Department of Transport proposal to ban smoking on ships.

The NPHS fully supports the position that people working and travelling on ships should be protected from other peoples’ second-hand tobacco smoke.

At present, the bans on smoking in public places in Great Britain and Northern Ireland do not cover ships. This is because ships fall under the regulation of the Merchant Shipping Act 1995. The Department of Transport are proposing some new legislation “Merchant Shipping (Prohibition of Smoking on Ships) Regulations” which aims to ban smoking in all areas on-board ships operating in the UK.

People will only be allowed to smoke in specific zones approved by the ship’s Captain.

Smoking is the most common preventable cause of ill health and premature death in Wales. A quarter of Welsh adults currently smoke, and two-thirds of non-smokers in Wales are exposed to other people’s tobacco smoke. Environmental tobacco smoke (also known as second hand smoke or passive smoking) can cause heart disease, lung cancer, asthma and stroke in adult non-smokers. It can also be responsible for sudden infant death syndrome, middle ear infections and asthma attacks in children.

Smoking bans encourage people to reduce their smoking and quit altogether, decreasing the amount of tobacco smoke in the environment, therefore helping to improve the health of current smokers and non-smokers.

In general tobacco use was banned in many prisons. For example, in 1995, was banned the use inside buildings and that led to a plenty by state prisoners in Lee County.

The state prison method is following the lead of facilities like the Dougherty County Jail that has been tobacco free for 15 years and Lee County Jail that went tobacco free nine months ago. Prison leaders said that it’s counter productive for inhabitants to give up smoking in jail only to start lighting up again in a state opportunity.

Such legislation will be introduced in Georgia too. Scientists reported that by the end of 2010 Georgia’s state prisons will be tobacco free. The Georgia Department of Corrections explained that this is a move that will ameliorate the health of inmates and save tax money by cutting health care costs.

Michael Nail, Deputy Director of the Corrections Division, said: “With tobacco use contributing greatly to health issues and health problems, that’s something that we are always aware of when it come to the budget, is making sure we hold our health costs this is one of the ways to help do that as well.”

For example the Dougherty County Jail banned all smoking products in 1995 when the new jail opened. But unfortunately was created a new problem, because it has become the largest items of contraband in the jail.

The Department of Corrections declared also that while tobacco may be the new contraband it may cut back on other dangerous substances.

Col. Doug McGinley, the Dougherty County Jail Administrator, reported: “What is increased in contraband is tobacco, ironically the possession of drugs as contraband actually goes down, so in one sense of it while you still have some contraband by way of tobacco you’re minimizing the drug contraband.”

Dougherty Jail Officials said that it’s been a while since they’ve had dissatisfaction.

The state’s ban of the substance will also mean a loss in the revenue, right now they can sell cigarettes in the commissary, but that will end when the ban takes affect.

The Department of Corrections explained that the ban will start January first when tobacco use will be prohibited at two diagnostic facilities where inmates are evaluated before being conveyed into the state system.

The next prison which will introduced smoking ban will be the Augusta State Medical Prison.

DECATUR Ala. – In an unexpected turn, the Decatur City Council discussed Monday lifting portions of the city’s controversial ban on smoking in public places.

Council President Greg Reeves says the governing body will consider the change during its next meeting at 10 a.m. Monday.

Proposed by District 3 Councilman Gary Hammon, the amendments would lift the ban on smoking for bars and restaurants and remove a rule that hotels cannot designate more than 25 percent of their rooms as smoking rooms.

It would require businesses that allow smoking to post signs saying so that are visible from the road.

Hammon says the changes, if approved, will bring Decatur’s smoking ordinance in line with those of Huntsville, Madison and Florence, which allow smoking in some circumstances. “I am content with it like it is, but when I saw Florence just passed one and they did not even look at Decatur’s — they went straight to the Huntsville-Madison law — I thought, well, everybody around us has the same ordinance except us, and it has hurt businesses in Decatur,” he said.

He added that he expects most Decatur businesses that do not allow smoking under the current ordinance will maintain the status quo. But he said the amendments would allow business owners to choose.

“Anybody who goes smoking, they’re going to lose business from their non-smoking customers,” he said. “Let the people vote with their wallets.”

Council reaction to the proposal was mixed.

Reeves said he was content to leave the ordinance the way it is, but he added, “I think philosophically I would support the business owner’s right to choose.”

District 2 Councilman Roger Anders said he, too, has no problem with the current ordinance, but he said he is willing to consider anything that will help small-business owners in Decatur. District 4 Councilman Ronny Russell, who proposed the city’s current smoking ban last term, opposed the changes, saying it would erase the “incredibly progressive” move the city made last term.

“There’s no reason to do this. What we have is working, and it’s worked well,” he said. “There is no reason to go backward, and I truly don’t understand why Mr. Hammon is making this proposal.”

District 1 Councilman Billy Jackson declined to comment. Decatur’s current smoking ordinance has been in effect since October 2007. It bans smoking in all public places.

The previous council approved the current ordinance in a 3-2 vote. Hammon was among the dissenting votes in that decision. Hammon’s proposed amendments were not part of the council’s regular agenda since he did not request their inclusion until after the deadline Friday.

Because of that, City Attorney Herman Marks said the amendments will require the council to vote unanimously for immediate consideration if they hope to vote on them Monday.

© The Decatur Daily, Ala.; distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services, 2009

RICHMOND, Va. – The new federal ban on flavored cigarettes took effect last week, marking one of the first visible signs of the Food and Drug Administration’s new authority to regulate tobacco.

The ban on manufacturing, importing, marketing and distribution includes candy-, fruit- and clove-flavored cigarettes, which health and federal authorities say are more appealing to youths. It does not include a ban on menthol or other flavored tobacco products such as cigars – which the FDA is studying.

“Candy- and fruit-flavored cigarettes are a gateway for many children and young adults to become regular tobacco users,” said Dr. Law-rence R. Deyton, director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products.

Citing research studies, Dey-ton said 17-year-old smokers are three times as likely to use flavored cigarettes as smokers older than 25. FDA officials also said almost 90 percent of adult smokers start smoking as teenagers and the ban will help stop more than 3,600 young people who start smoking daily.

The FDA sent a letter to the industry last week discussing the ban and its plans for enforcement, including the definition of a cigarette under the ban. Officials are encouraging consumers to notify authorities of any potential violations of the ban.

Executives from leading health groups urged the FDA last month to take a closer look at attempts to sidestep the ban by making superficial changes that turn a cigarette into a small cigar in order to keep selling flavored products.

The move came after word that the nation’s top distributor of clove cigarettes – California-based Kretek International Inc. – began offering small, filtered, spice-flavored cigars that are close to the size of a cigarette but are wrapped in tobacco rather than paper.

Officials did not address any specific products in a conference call with reporters.

In June, President Barack Obama signed the law that allows the FDA to regulate the industry. Its authority includes the ability to ban certain products, reduce nicotine in tobacco products and block labels such as “low tar” and “light.” Tobacco companies also will be required to cover their cartons with large, graphic warnings.

The law won’t let the FDA ban nicotine or tobacco outright, but the agency will be able to regulate what goes into tobacco products, make public the ingredients and prohibit marketing campaigns, especially those geared toward children.

The Food and Drug Administration banned the sale of cigarettes with candy, fruit or clove flavors this week in an effort to stop the industry’s long-running tactic of using flavors to attract youngsters and addict them as lifelong customers. The ban, required under a law enacted in June that gave the F.D.A. the power to regulate tobacco products, is a welcome first step to rein in this rogue industry.

Disturbingly, there are signs that some manufacturers, distributors and retailers may try to circumvent the ban by shifting young smokers to other flavored tobacco products, such as small cigars that may not quite fit legal definitions of a cigarette but can be made every bit as attractive to young smokers with a dash of chocolate, vanilla or fruit flavoring. In anticipation of the ban, domestic manufacturers had already largely stopped production of flavored cigarettes.

The problem with the law is that it did not clearly define what a cigarette is. Traditional definitions revolve around the wrapping. Cigarettes are wrapped in paper; cigars are wrapped in tobacco leaves or paper constituted from tobacco. That seems like a trivial basis for deciding which products may be flavored and which may not.

So far, F.D.A. officials have been deliberately vague in stating whether the ban applies to flavored small cigars that seem comparable to cigarettes and to so-called cigarillos, which are slightly larger but still smaller than traditional cigars.

The agency wisely warned manufacturers that it was examining options to regulate both menthol cigarettes and flavored tobacco products other than cigarettes. It makes no sense to ban flavors in cigarettes and then allow the industry to addict young people to flavored cigars.

© September 23, 2009 Nytimes

A Bill banning smoking in cars carrying children has passed the upper house of the West Australian parliament.

The Bill was introduced earlier this year by the Independent Mp Janet Woollard.

It will also ban retailers from being able to display tobacco products and prohibits people from smoking in certain parts of alfresco dining areas.

Because several amendments were made to the Bill in the upper house it will have to go back to the lower house before it can become law.

The laws will be the toughest anti-smoking laws in Australia.

Copyright © 2009 Abc.net

The Conroe City Council has adopted a comprehensive smoking ban in nearly all enclosed, public places in the city, including bars, restaurants and parks.

Next month, the council will consider extending the ban to private businesses. It also will discuss whether smoking should be allowed on outdoor patios at restaurants, which is prohibited under the new ordinance passed by the council Wednesday.

“Personally, I would have liked to see a complete smoking ban,” said Councilman Jim Gentry. “I really believe in limited government, but I have to do what the people want me to do. I received a lot of correspondence on the issue, and that’s what people want me to do.”

The council has been studying the issue for the last month and was considering two ordinances, a comprehensive model proposed by Breathe Free Conroe and a previous draft that would allow smoking in bars and in restaurants if a separate room and ventilation system were allowed. The new ordinance is even stricter than one imposed in Houston, adding the city parks to the list of venues where people may not smoke.

The new ordinance was praised by Breathe Free Conroe, who spearheaded the effort to get a smoking ban for the city. The city initially considered an ordinance in 2007, but failed to pass one.

“We’re very pleased,” said Chrissie West, the chair of Breath Free Conroe. “We appreciate the council’s effort. We are pleased that they will consider prohibiting smoking in private business as well as public places.”

But one bar owner in Conroe said the ban will drive business out of the city and into unincorporated areas.

“At night, 100 percent of my bar is a smoking facility,” said Jim Hallers of Tailgates Pub & Grill on Texas 242. “Fifty percent of my customers smoke. This will push them right back into The Woodlands.”

The council will consider an amendment in September that would allow restaurants to allow smoking outside on patios at least 20 feet from the front door, operable window or ventilation system. Hallers said the proposal also would not work, since many bars don’t have the space to accommodate a 20 feet no-smoking zone outside.

The new smoking ban lists the types of business where smoking would be prohibited, but it is not comprehensive and would include any enclosed area where the public is invited or permitted. Among the examples cited are banks, bars, bowling alleys, day care facilities, convention facilities, public and private schools, health care facilities, hotels and motels, commons areas in multi=family housing or public office building, restaurants, theaters and retail stores.

The only exceptions to the new law are retail tobacco shops, private clubs, theatrical performance or bingo halls that offer separate rooms for non-smokers. Hotels and motels are permitted to designate up to 20 percent of their rooms for smoking, but once that percentage has been set, it may not be increased.

Councilman Jay Ross Martin said he supports the ordinance because it levels the playing field among all businesses. He was concerned that any variations in the law would put small businesses at a disadvantage because they couldn’t afford the ventilation system to address the issue.

“Our goals shouldn’t be to put anybody out of business,” Martin said. “We are trying to protect the people that use the business.”

The law also bans smoking in city parks as well as within 20 feet of any door, operable window or ventilation system near a public facility. The council rejected a provision which would have allowed smoking in designated areas in its parks.

The new law will take effect in 10 days, but enforcement will not begin until January. Violators will be subject to fines of up to $500, said Marcus Winberry, city attorney.

Councilman Jerry Streater believes the new law does not go far enough to protect workers from second-hand smoke. The council will consider a ban at private businesses operating in Conroe at its meeting in September.

“I don’t think it’s fair that a person who is trying to earn a living has to breathe second-hand smoke,” Streater said.

Sales of duty-free cigarettes should be banned for people entering New Zealand, say public health researchers, who calculate more than $36 million in potential tax revenue is going up in smoke each year.

In a study published in the international journal Tobacco Control, Wellington public health researchers from Otago University estimated the percentage of foreign cigarettes smoked in New Zealand by collecting discarded cigarette packets from streets in four cities and six towns nationwide.

Lead investigator Nick Wilson said 3.2 per cent of the 1310 packets collected were from outside New Zealand, which meant a significant revenue loss for the country. “The $36m of missed revenue from tobacco tax and GST, if the cigarettes were bought in New Zealand, are funds that could be used for quitting campaigns.”

The true amount of missing tax was probably much higher as it was impossible to determine which New Zealand-branded cigarettes had been bought duty-free when travellers entered the country, he said.

One of the three big tobacco companies active in New Zealand stated in 2008 that duty-free sales accounted for 7 per cent.

“The scale of this revenue loss and the health implications are a strong argument for the Government to consider ending the sale of duty-free tobacco on entry to New Zealand, and to remove any duty-free allowance for incoming passengers, as in Singapore,” Dr Wilson said.

“A further possibility is to ban the carrying in of any amount of tobacco altogether.”

Australia was the most frequent source of foreign packets (45 per cent), followed by China (16.7 per cent).

Dr Wilson said the team had given up their free time in summer to collect litter for the study, part of the International Tobacco Control Project and funded by the Health Research Council.

“This kind of research is important because there is no easy way to find out the movement of foreign tobacco products.”

Every packet was analysed and entered into a database.

“There was the occasional scream from our colleague next door doing the data entry whenever a cockroach crawled out of a packet,” Dr Wilson said.

The analysis did not indicate significant smuggling activity into New Zealand though the researchers admitted that some counterfeit activities were “quite sophisticated” and difficult to spot.

Co-author George Thomson said New Zealand should be lending its support for better international “coding and tracking” systems to support other countries in their efforts to curb smuggling.

Rather than a total ban on imported tobacco for personal use, New Zealand could push for an international agreement on duty-free tobacco as part of the 2003 Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which 100 countries had signed.


© Stuff

MIAMI — On a typically hot afternoon in his South Florida office, Jorge Padron casually puffs on a cigar that bears his family’s name. The company has been growing steadily for decades, ever since his father, Jose Padron, founded it in Little Havana in 1964.

Padron and other cigar companies say their legacy of good jobs for unskilled workers and fine smokes for aficionados is imperiled not just by the recession. The rise in smoking bans across the country and a unprecedented hike in taxes on tobacco are proving to be crippling.

“The industry is suffering. A lot,” Jorge Padron said.

The biggest casualty so far has been the Hav-a-Tampa plant in Tampa, which will shut down in the coming months and began laying off its nearly 500 employees last week. Norman Sharp, president of the Cigar Association of America, said other companies are laying off workers and cutting back.

“I can’t even use the word cautiously optimistic,” Sharp said. “These are dark, dark days.”

Sales decline

Cigars have long held a sacred place in American history. They’re handed out when babies are born and at wedding receptions. They helped shape the identity of American legends such as Groucho Marx and George Burns, American allies such as Winston Churchill and even American foes such as Fidel Castro. Hall of Fame basketball coach Red Auerbach would pull one out as a victory was nearing, turning them into the ultimate sign of achievement.

Now, smoking is banned in workplaces, restaurants or bars in more than 17,000 cities across the country, according to the American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation. Meanwhile, about 100 bills have been filed this year in at least 34 state capitals that could increase tobacco taxes even more, according to Dan Carr, chief operating officer of General Cigar.

That’s not necessarily bad news to some. Thomas Glynn, director of cancer science and trends for the American Cancer Society, said cigars don’t cause as much lung cancer as cigarettes since they’re usually not inhaled. But cigar smokers are just as likely as cigarette smokers to develop cancers in the mouth, lip and upper digestive tract.

While there are no reliable data on cigars sold in the USA, Carr said their industrywide analysis shows that people are either buying fewer cigars or cutting them out entirely. An estimate by the company, which sells about 30% of the cigars consumed in the USA, found that sales are down between 10% to 15% in the past year.

One reason for that is taxes, some say, which have skyrocketed.

On April 1, the federal excise tax on cigars increased from 5 cents to about 40 cents on large cigars. At least 12 states have passed tobacco tax increases also, and 25 more states are considering them, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Rich Perelman, editor of Cigarcyclopedia.com, said small cigars have been hit hardest. They are made to sell cheap but got hit with a nearly $1-per-pack tax increase. Premium cigars that sell for $20, $30 aren’t affected nearly as much by the tax hike, he said.

At Flor de Gonzalez Cigars in Miami, their tax bill per shipment has gone from less than $5,000 per 100,000 cigars to more than $40,000.

Yadi Gonzalez, president of the family-owned operation that still rolls many of their specialty cigars by hand, said that has forced them to reduce some salaries. She worries about what will happen if governments continue using cigars as an easy source of income.

“They don’t realize that at the end of the day, if we start losing jobs, and imports begin to drop, they’re not going to accomplish their bottom line, which is to collect these taxes,” Gonzalez said.

The weight of those taxes is solely to blame for the closure of the Hav-a-Tampa plant, said Richard McKenzie, a senior vice president of human resources for Altadis USA, which owns Hav-a-Tampa.

On Friday, the plant began laying off nearly 500 people. McKenzie said most of the factory workers made between $8 and $12 an hour with health insurance, a pension plan and a 401(k), better than most jobs for unskilled labor.

Carr, whose General Cigar company employs more than 6,000 people around the world, said his company hasn’t had to fire anybody. Even so, he would not rule out the possibility of layoffs if their situation continues on its downward slide.

‘This is an art’

Carr said layoffs would be devastating not just to the industry, but to the unskilled workers who have benefited from the well-paying jobs for decades. Unlike workers who man machines in cigarette plants, crafting a cigar is a delicate process that has been passed down through generations.

“This is an art, what we do,” Carr said.

The industry will probably not see a slowing down of the movement to snip away at the places where people can puff, however. From Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., government agencies are banning smoking in restaurants, bars and even parks.

Anti-smoking advocates see little difference between cigarettes and cigars. Perelman does. People don’t rush outside to quickly inhale a cigar, he says.

“They’re consumed in a much different way,” he said. “I have never met a person who is addicted to cigars. Never. Cigars are a quiet, reliable place in their life where they can relax and think about the world as it goes by.”


Source: Usatoday