Free Republic

New York's proposal to ban purchases by those under 21 is off-base.As thoroughly awful as everyone knows cigarettes to be — still the No. 1 cause of premature death in this country — public officials walk a blurry line when they try to reduce smoking's terrible toll. As long as they lack the will to ban tobacco altogether, they face all sorts of ethical, legal and political problems in regulating a product that is, after all, perfectly legal. High tobacco taxes, critics say, unfairly punish smokers, who are disproportionately low income. Banning advertising of a legal product raises free-speech issues....

The District of Columbia’s Obamacare czars — the board that sets rules for the phony insurance marketplace, or “exchange,” that the law creates — have decided that henceforth insurers shall be forbidden by law to charge smokers higher rates than non-smokers. Smoking, as it turns out, “is a preexisting medical condition,” according to Dr. Mohammad Akhter, the chairman of the D.C. Health Exchange Board. Two liberal states, California and Connecticut, have decided likewise, while Colorado and Alaska have rejected the idea.

Companies aren't just singling out overweight employees. Staffers who smoke are under fire too. In small but growing numbers, employers in recent years have been refusing to hire smokers, arguing that coaxing tobacco users to quit with free cessation programs or cash incentives hasn't worked. Some medical experts back the bans, saying the end result of reducing smoking is worth it. But other health-care experts say the policy crosses an ethical line by singling out poorer and less educated groups who, federal data shows, smoke more often.

On HuffPost Live today, actor Jeremy Irons (Reversal Of Fortune, Die Hard With A Vengeance) blasted New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg over the proposed restrictions on soda, along with the smoking ban, describing himself as a "complete libertarian" and likening Bloomberg's policies to a "nanny state." JEREMY IRONS: I'm a complete libertarian. I think it's very, very dangerous. I really mean that. I think the smoking ban is a tip of an iceberg of society -- the leaders of society telling us how to be. I think it's not their business. I think it is their business to tell...

Millions of Californians would not be able to smoke tobacco inside their own homes under new legislation that would raise the bar nationwide for fighting secondhand smoke. No state ever has ventured into personal bedrooms and living rooms with its smoking restrictions, but California is going even further than that by targeting owner-occupied residences as well as rental units. Specifically, the measure would prohibit lighting up a cigarette, cigar or pipe in condominiums, duplexes and apartment units. The push would extend a lengthy list of places where smoking already is barred, including restaurants, workplaces, playgrounds, public buildings and cars containing...

Forward to the study: In his study, The Wages of Sin Taxes, Chris Snowdon reveals that these taxes not only do little to limit the use of “bad” products, they do nothing to reduce societal costs. Most remarkably, Snowdon demonstrates that those shockingly large estimates of the costs that the consumption of alcohol, tobacco, sugar, and fat supposedly impose on society have little basis in reality. As Snowdon shows, the myth that “sinners”—those who drink, smoke, and eat unhealthful foods—cost more to society than everyone else has been perpetuated in large part because “government has no incentive to tell the...

In a study published online on Feb. 8 by the journal Tobacco Control, researchers from the University of California at San Francisco—using taxpayer funding from the National Cancer Institute—argued that the tobacco industry helped create the Tea Party Movement through a process the researchers called “astroturfing.” “Rather than being purely a grassroots movement, the Tea Party has been influenced by decades of astroturfing by tobacco and other corporate interests to develop a grassroots network to support their corporate agendas, even though their members may not support those agendas,” said the researchers. … Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of Tea Party Patriots,...

Biases upfront: I'm a 46 year-old health nut obsessed with exercise and eating right. I don’t smoke or drink, and there are supermodels who worry less about their weight. However, I do admire those who don't live like that; who might not live as long as I do, but will probably enjoy their overall quality of life more than my somewhat Spartan one. Oh, and I also realize that this is America. And if people want to pursue happiness through a double cheeseburger and a pack of Newports, any joyless, left-wing bossy-pants who has a problem with that can go...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Faced with the high cost of caring for smokers and overeaters, experts say society must grapple with a blunt question: Instead of trying to penalize them and change their ways, why not just let these health sinners die?

Millions of smokers could be priced out of health insurance because of tobacco penalties in President Obama’s health-care law, according to experts who are teasing out the potential impact of a little-noted provision in the massive legislation. The Affordable Care Act — or “Obamacare” — allows health insurers to charge smokers buying individual policies up to 50 percent higher premiums starting next Jan. 1. For a 55-year-old smoker, the penalty could reach nearly $4,250 a year...

Candy, soda, tobacco, and bottles of water and sports drinks are all in Gov. Deval Patrick's crosshairs as he announced another $2 billion tax wish list in his $34.8 billion proposed fiscal 2014 budget at the State House this afternoon. Among the tax highlights: The cigarette excise tax would be hiked by $1 to $3.51 per pack. Taxes on cigars and smokeless tobacco would also increase. The state would essentially expand the bottle bill to include water bottles and sports drinks on deposits. Candy and soda would no longer be exempt from the state sales tax. Patrick last week proposed...

I've long been a decorative smoker. One daily roll-up hasn't imperilled my health much, and it's rescued me from the ranks of the self-righteous. I've relished the dash of badness, but my indulgence has come at a price: complicity. My more heavily addicted husband has smoked from the age of 19. So long as I join him in the odd postprandial drag, I'm a bad influence. Last month I switched to an e-cig. I'm a convert. Sleek, black, and easily confused with a fine-point felt-tip, this newfangled "nicotine delivery system" is dead cool. The gently warm vapour ingeniously replicates the...

OXFORD, Miss. (FOX13) - If you are looking for a place to smoke on the Ole Miss campus, good luck with that. The new "No Smoking" policy has it covered and is being strictly enforced. Basically the policy reads you can't smoke anywhere on the Ole Miss campus. That includes the interior of all University buildings. As for the property or the grounds, you can't smoke on the sidewalks, parking lots, recreational areas, partially enclosed or open areas such as walkways, breezeways, patios, porches, gazebos, tents and bus shelters. As for University vehicles, you can't smoke in them, you can't...

It’s fine to flash the neighbors — just don’t have the indecency to smoke. The condo board for one of Brooklyn’s most prestigious addresses has banned smoking throughout the glass-walled building — including in residents’ private apartments. Condo owners at tony 1 Grand Army Plaza — a k a 1 Prospect Park, where residents are famous for parading around in the buff, giving parkgoers an eyeful through their floor-to-ceiling windows — will now face fines if they dare to light up in their multimillion-dollar pads. The only area where residents can puff away is on their private terraces, which boast...

Jennifer Wederell, a 27-year-old British woman with cystic fibrosis, died of lung cancer after she received the lungs of a heavy smoker in an organ transplant.

They do it for coal-burning power plants. So how about something for what many consider to be a walking smokestack — the cigarette smoker? Yes, a license to smoke. Simon Chapman, a professor of public health at the University of Sydney in Australia, offers this radical proposal to help reduce the damaging health effects of tobacco, both for the user and the recipient of second-hand smoke.

Nobody lights up like Eastern Europe, where average annual consumption can exceed 2,000 cigarettes per person. The very highest rate is in Serbia (2,861 cigarettes per person per year), according to data from 71 countries compiled by the World Lung Foundation and American Cancer Society. Fourth-place Russia, not far behind at 2,786 cigarettes per person per year, is now finally dealing with its smoking problem.

It’s a holiday classic Mayor Bloomberg would love. A sanitized version of “A Visit from St. Nicholas” edits out all references to Santa Claus’ pipe habit — and critics say it’s yet another example of political correctness run amok. A one-woman vice squad — self-published Canadian author Pamela McColl — kicked St. Nick’s butt habit in a new version of the beloved poem about “the night before Christmas.” McColl deleted two verses — “The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth/and the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath”— and hired an illustrator to redraw Santa...

When the South Windsor town council meets on Monday night, they will consider an ordinance that would ban the sales of tobacco products at CVS. In July Town Councilor Dr. Anwar Saud, who specializes in lung diseases and critical care medicine, proposed banning the sales of tobacco in pharmacies. Nationally, there is a problem, he said in video posted on the town's Web site. Some large pharmacies, which run “minute clinics,” sell cigarettes, while smaller, community pharmacies do not allow cigarette sales, he said during a council meeting over the weekend. “So they are becoming healthcare facilities … but, as...

FRIDAY, Sept. 14 (HealthDay News) — Regular exposure to secondhand smoke has a negative effect on brain function, according to a new British study that found people who live with or spend a significant amount of time with a smoker are damaging their memories. “According to recent reports by the World Health Organization, exposure to secondhand smoke can have serious consequences on the health of people who have never smoked themselves, but who are exposed to other people’s tobacco smoke,” Dr. Tom Heffernan, a researcher at the Collaboration for Drug and Alcohol Research Group at Northumbria University, said in a...

A US court on Friday shot down orders to slap graphic anti-tobacco messages on cigarette packs, saying the government overstepped its authority by trying to "browbeat" smokers into quitting. In line with campaigns in several other nations, the United States planned from September 22 to require images on cigarette packs including a man smoking through a hole in his throat and a body with chest staples on an autopsy table. In a 2-1 decision, the US Court of Appeals in Washington said that the images planned on cigarette packs were not necessarily false but they went beyond "pure attempts to...

PRINCETON, N.J. — The number of Americans who smoke has fallen to 20 percent, tying the all-time low first recorded in 2009, according to a new poll by Gallup. The decline is sharpest among young adults, a signal the overall rate may continue to fall after years of plateauing. "This is all very good news," said Randall Burt, professor of medicine at the University of Utah and senior director of prevention and outreach and clinical services at the Huntsman Cancer Institute. "Ultimately, less smoking will result in fewer cancer deaths, as well as a lower risk of cardiovascular disease and...

While more Americans than ever before are quitting their cigarette habit, a growing number are also turning to large cigars and pipes, suggesting that gains in curbing tobacco consumption may be more elusive than previously thought. The findings were outlined in a report released on Thursday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Overall consumption of smoked tobacco products declined 27.5 percent between 2000 and 2011, but use of noncigarette smoked tobacco products increased by a whopping 123 percent in that same time. One major culprit for the trend is likely price, particularly in the latter part of...

A Fridley woman named Stephanie Cannon believes she's the victim of discrimination -- fired because she smelled like cigarette smoke. Cannon, a smoker for 18 years, says she smokes almost a pack a day of Camel Menthols. But when she landed a job in June as a medical receptionist at Park Nicollet Health Services, in the Frauenshuh Cancer Center, she says she followed the hospital's clearly-stated "no smoking" policy. (There is no smoking allowed at any time on the premises.) "There were never any performance issues at all," Cannon insists.

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) – Smoking anything other than medically-prescribed marijuana at San Francisco street fairs, festivals and other outdoor events held on city property would be banned under new legislation before the Board of Supervisors. Supervisor Eric Mar said he introduced the proposal because of the health impacts of secondhand smoke when people light up in public. “It’s widely known that secondhand smoke is responsible for as many as 73,000 deaths among non-smokers each year in the United States, and there is no safe level of exposure,” he said.

Tuesday night the city council sought to expand that prohibition and voted 4-2 to ban smoking for all new tenants of apartments and condos inside their residences - with one exception. "I really don't think they should be telling people what to do if they are paying for the place they're living in," Jones said. Other cities have taken similar measures. Pasadena will make all apartments, condos and townhouses smoke-free by 2013 - a move Santa Monica is also looking into.

SANTA MONICA (CBS) — Santa Monica smokers may be breaking the law if they light up in the privacy of their own homes, after the City Council approved a more restrictive anti-smoking law Tuesday night. The ordinance would prohibit smoking for new tenants in multi-unit housing and force existing residents to declare their apartments and condos as smoking or non-smoking units, according to the Santa Monica Daily Press. If smokers neglect to designate their units, they lose the right to light up at home. The City Council also asked for a drop dead date after which every unit in Santa...

Wisconsin's workplace smoking ban turned 2 years old Thursday, and despite critics' fears, overall sales in the hospitality industry are up slightly. The Wisconsin Restaurant Association's Pete Hanson said Wisconsin taverns and eateries followed national economic trends and largely were unaffected by the ban. ~snip Based on state tax collection data, Hanson said restaurant and tavern sales overall increased 1% in 2010 and 2% in 2011, mirroring national trends. Conversely, the subcategory of bars and taverns saw around a 4% decrease during that time, but Hanson notes that trend has been ongoing for many years. Overall, Hanson said the smoking...

Among the intended goals of higher taxes on cigarettes is that some smokers will quitrather than dealwith the increased cost. While this may happen, newly released numbers show that taxing cigarettes also drove up the sales of forms of tobacco that are taxed at lower rates. The Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (CHIPRA) of 2009 increased and equalized federal excise tax rates for cigarettes, roll-your-own tobacco, and small cigars. It also increased the tax rates on pipe tobacco and cigars, but not to the levelof theother items.

A majority of doctors in a United Kingdom survey supported measures to deny non-emergency medical services to smokers and the obese, The Observer newspaper reported Sunday. Although the survey by the networking website doctors.net.uk was a self-selecting poll, the site's chief executive called the response "a tectonic shift" for the profession. The results feed into a British debate about "lifestyle rationing" by the National Health Service, the Observer reported.

By now most have viewed at least one of the HHS anti-smoking commercials featuring victims of various cancers and other ailments caused - they say - by smoking and tobacco use. It's a cliche but still true: these are our tax dollars at work. Your government commissioned these ads and purchased the airtime with your cash. HHS Secretary Sebelius and her minions risk another sort of medical problem - namely, rotator cuff injuries from patting themselves on the back for foisting these grotesque, voyeuristic images on an unsuspecting, undeserving public. This isn't a tear in the eye of Iron Eyes...

Some folks just can’t take a hint. House leaders, insisting this is no time to raise taxes on anyone for any reason, made sure that the budget that will be debated next week includes none of the governor’s proposed $260 million in tax hikes, including a 50-cent a pack hike in the cigarette tax. But anti-smoking zealots have adopted a new strategy. According to interviews conducted by State House News Service, they will push for a $1.25 a pack hike not in the state budget (OK, let’s give them credit for knowing a non-starter when they see one), but in...

The government is considering plans to strip all branding from cigarette packs sold in England in a bid to make smoking appear less attractive. Health Secretary Andrew Lansley told The Times the government did not work with tobacco companies as it wanted them to have "no business" in the UK. snip ..... Mr Lansley said the tobacco companies used certain colours to trigger memories and their brands constituted a type of advertising. "We don't want to work in partnership with the tobacco companies because we are trying to arrive at a point where they have no business in this country,"...

ELK GROVE (CBS13) – You’ve heard the saying smoke ‘em if you got ‘em. But if you got ‘em and you live in an apartment complex in Elk Grove, the luxury of lighting up may soon go up in smoke. “i think it’s a pretty good idea,” one apartment resident said. He’s talking about the possibility of banning smoking in all apartment complexes in the city. A Sacramento-based trade association that works with landlords is against the idea, however. “We don’t think it’s necessary,” said Cory Koehler with the Rental Housing Association. We support an owner’s right to choose the...

The percentage of Californians who smoke has dropped to an all-time low of 11.9 percent, the second-lowest in the nation behind Utah's 9.1 percent. That's good news for the health of Californians, but bad news for the state's budget and First 5 program, which funds local services for children up to age 5. The decline in smoking was anticipated, but it has descended at a much sharper rate than predicted. As a result, California will face difficulty in funding $16 billion in bonds the state has issued since 2001. The bonds are supposed to be financed by payments from the...

A U.S. judge sided with tobacco companies on Wednesday, ruling that regulations requiring large graphic health warnings on cigarette packaging and advertising violate free-speech rights under the U.S. Constitution... "The government has failed to carry both its burden of demonstrating a compelling interest and its burden of demonstrating that the rule is narrowly tailored to achieve a constitutionally permissible form of compelled commercial speech," U.S. District Judge Richard Leon said in the ruling.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A federal mandate requiring tobacco companies to place graphic images on their products warning of the dangers of smoking was tossed out Wednesday by a judge in Washington, with the judge saying the requirements were a violation of free speech. "Unfortunately, because Congress did not consider the First Amendment implications of this legislation, it did not concern itself with how the regulations could be narrowly tailored to avoid unintentionally compelling commercial speech," said federal Judge Richard Leon in his 19-page ruling.

Foreign minister intervenes after Danish man loses appeal to have 137,000 kroner returned to him by the Americans Due to the trade embargo, the trade in Cuban cigars is illegal in the USA (Photo: Colourbox) Authorities in the US have refused to return 137,000 kroner that was confiscated from a Danish policeman who attempted to legally purchase Cuban cigars from Germany. Torben Nødskouv intended to resell the cigars through his small business Cigarhuset and made the transaction in dollars with a Hamburg-based distributor. But the transaction, which was automatically routed through the US, was picked up by American authorities who...

ROCKLIN (CBS13) – A Placer County town is considering a ban on smoking that some say goes way too far. The Rocklin City Council is considering making it against the law for smokers to smoke anywhere outside on their property.The city council is considering the ban after one home owner complained about smoke coming from their neighbors’ backyards saying it caused health problems for their kids.But before going to the city council, the family first asked their neighbors to stop smoking. One couple agreed, according to their son. “They felt that there wasn’t any reason to put the household in...

Fumes from the University’s tobacco policy have ignited conversation over the future of the substance on UT grounds. Because of a new provision from one of the University’s top research funders, UT will need to enact a tobacco-free policy or risk losing millions of research dollars. The Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas, a voter-mandated organization that awards millions of research dollars each year to entities pursuing cancer research, released a statement on Feb. 2 stating it will now require all current and future grantees to create tobacco-free workplaces as a condition for accepting the Institute’s funds. UT currently receives...

On January 1, 2012, Maine became the first state to ban smoking in all low-income public housing. Twelve thousand poor people faced their New Year’s Day hangover without the solace of a Marlboro to accompany their aspirin and coffee. This, of course, was good. Just ask the high-minded, right-thinking progressive elites who, it’s safe to say, run Maine’s public housing authority. Progressive elites like to run things. They’d run the government, the media, and the entire U.S. economy if they could. Failing that, public housing authorities will do. The Detroit, San Antonio, and Portland, Oregon, housing authorities already ban smoking....

ANNAPOLIS — Maryland health advocates are lauding Gov. Martin O'Malley’s proposal to increase the state’s cigar tax, but critics say such an increase would create another financial burden for consumers and business owners. Mr. O'Malley, a Democrat, proposed a state budget Wednesday that would raise the 15-percent excise tax on cigars, smokeless tobacco and other noncigarette tobacco items — a group collectively known as other tobacco products (OTP) — to 70 percent. The OTP tax has gone unchanged since 1999 while the cigarette tax has gone from 36 cents to $2 a pack during that period. Health advocates argue raising...

The University of California is banning cigarettes and all other tobacco products from its campuses over the next two years, in a move designed to both protect nonsmokers from secondhand smoke and prevent young people from developing the bad habit. Students and staff alike will be prohibited from smoking anywhere on a UC campus - including outdoor spaces, parking lots and private residences. There won't be any designated smoking areas. But a major benefit, they hope, will be an overall reduction in smoking among those who work or study on the campuses. "Our young students who come here as freshmen,...

A new study suggests cigarette smokers who quit after using over-the-counter medication such as nicotine patches are just as likely to relapse as smokers who go "cold turkey," casting fresh doubt on the effectiveness of such products. The finding, from a survey of several hundred smokers, could heighten U.S. smoking-policy debates at a time when the federal health-care overhaul is widening eligibility for cessation medication but states are slashing funding for public-service announcements and telephone quit lines. The study by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health and University of Massachusetts Boston also coincides with slowing progress to get...

MARIN COUNTY, Calif. (KGO) -- A Marin County smoking ban is on hold while lawmakers consider weeding out marijuana from the measure. The ordinance as written would outlaw smoking in unincorporated county apartments and included marijuana and other herbs as well as tobacco. It was abruptly sent back to committee Wednesday when Supervisor Kate Sears said only tobacco should be banned...

INDIANAPOLIS— Anti-smoking advocates are on the verge of success in the Indiana General Assembly but must wait out House Democrats' boycott of a divisive labor bill. A bipartisan group of lawmakers in both the Senate and House is pushing to ban smoking in most public places and workplaces, including bars. The only exemptions it includes are the gambling floors of casinos and pari-mutuel betting parlors, private clubs and cigar and hookah bars.

Netherlands backpedaling on anti-smoking campaignThe Associated Press December 15 AMSTERDAM - It's getting surprisingly easy to light up in the Netherlands these days - cigarettes, that is. **SNIP** "There's no other country that's taking these backward steps," said Lies Van Gennip, director of the national tobacco control center, slated to be closed in 2013. "I'm ashamed of what's happening here." At a press briefing on Wednesday, several Dutch politicians and experts blasted the government for backtracking on tobacco control policies. Opposition lawmaker Renske Leijten of the Socialist Party said Health Minister Edith Schippers was making the wrong decision to cut...

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels says he will push for a statewide smoking ban and mild local government reforms in the 2012 legislative session. Those are among the priorities Daniels, a Republican who will begin his last year in office in January, plans to outline in a noon speech Friday at the downtown Skyline Club for the Kiwanis Club of Indianapolis. In an interview Thursday, he also hinted that he would support a proposal seeking legislative approval to let voters decide whether to increase local income taxes to expand mass transit in Marion County and surrounding counties. “My attitude is the...

CINCINNATI, OH (FOX19) - A new poll shows that a majority of Kentucky residents favor a smoking ban in public places, a law which the Kentucky legislature is considering. According to the 2011 Kentucky Health Issues Poll (KHIP), 54 percent of Kentuckians say they would support such a law; 43 percent are opposed to this law; and 4 percent had no opinion. This is an increase from 2010, when Kentuckians were split about the law at 48 percent in favor and 48 percent opposed. "Secondhand smoke exposure poses significant health risks, and smoke-free environments are the only way to fully...

TOKYO — Anti-smoking campaigners in Japan are accusing one of the world’s leading tobacco companies of marketing products to teenage girls at World Cup volleyball events here. Japan Tobacco’s logo (JT) is on the national team uniforms, court-side digital billboards, TV ads and “gift” packages handed out to schoolgirls, mothers and children entering Yoyogi National Stadium and arenas across Japan during the World Cup, which runs until Dec. 4. While the United States, European Union and other industrialized countries have long banned tobacco companies from sponsoring sporting events, Japan Tobacco has been a major promoter of volleyball, helping to make...