Free Republic

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...