Free Republic

WALNUT CREEK -- Citing his oath to uphold the Constitution, Councilman Justin Wedel says Walnut Creek voters, not elected leaders, should decide where people can smoke and whether shoppers can choose paper or plastic. Wedel aims to get two initiatives on the June ballot -- one that would repeal a portion of the city's recently adopted secondhand-smoke ordinance and another to prevent a ban on plastic shopping bags in Walnut Creek. "This is not a smoking or plastic bag issue; this is a government-intrusion-into-our-daily-lives issue," said Wedel, elected to his first term in 2012. "I swore an oath to protect...

If Ohio voters are given the chance to vote on a proposed statewide smoking ban, let's hope our fellow citizens take the time to educate themselves on the big picture.The proposed ban, unlike the local ordinance, prohibits smoking in all public buildings. It allows exemptions for private clubs, but not bars, bingo halls and bowling centers, as Toledo's ban does.Smoking is not illegal. Unhealthy and expensive, but not illegal. If an American business owner wants to operate an establishment that allows smokers the freedom to smoke, why should their decision be overridden by people who aren't patronizing those places anyway?In...

Fifteen years after tobacco companies agreed to pay billions of dollars in fines in what is still the largest civil litigation settlement in U.S. history, it's unclear how state governments are using much of that money. So far tobacco companies have paid more than $100 billion to state governments as part of the 25-year, $246 billion settlement. Among many state governments receiving money, Orange County, Calif., is an outlier. Voters mandated that 80 percent of money from tobacco companies be spent on smoking-related programs, like a cessation class taught in the basement of Anaheim Regional Medical Center. "So go ahead...

President Obama was caught by an open mic saying he quit smoking six years ago because he is scared of first lady Michelle Obama. "I hope you've quit smoking," Obama said to the U.N.'s Maina Kiai. "No, no, I haven't had a cigarette in probably six years. That's because I'm scared of my wife."

<p>Terrie Hall, a cancer patient who made a bold appearance in a hard-hitting national anti-smoking ad campaign, has died at the age of 53.</p> <p>In a graphic public service announcement last year, Hall demonstrated her morning routine of putting on false teeth, a wig and a hands-free valve for her stoma, an opening in her throat. The spot was part the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) first-ever national tobacco education ad campaign, and was intended to show the disabling and disfiguring effects of smoking-related illness.</p>

First it was bars, restaurants and office buildings. Now the front lines of the "No Smoking" battle have moved outdoors. City parks, public beaches, college campuses and other outdoor venues across the country are putting up signs telling smokers they can't light up. Outdoor smoking bans have nearly doubled in the last five years, with the tally now at nearly 2,600 and more are in the works.

Cigarette taxes turn a frowned-upon habit into a popular revenue source. But a recent study found that cigarette taxes often lead to other tax hikes later. The National Taxpayers Union found a 70 percent chance that the so-called sin taxes will not produce the expected revenue, as people buy fewer packs. The taxpayer advocate organization reported that from 2007 to 2011, 25 of 37 cigarette tax increases were joined by other new tax hikes within two years.

Former smokers earn higher wages than smokers and people who have never smoked, according to new research. In a working paper published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, research economists Julie L. Hotchkiss and M. Melinda Pitts studied the relationship between smoking and wages. Using data from the Tobacco Use Supplement to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey over the period of 1992 to 2011, the economists found that people who had quit smoking for at least a year earned higher wages than smokers and people who had never smoked. The data shows that nonsmokers, which include never...

Summer has officially begun and for many, it's time for sun, sand and swimming. But don't count on lighting up a cigarette while you're at the beach. Over the last few years, you may have noticed more "no smoking" signs have cropped up on parks and beaches. They're part of a larger trend banning smoking at outside, public areas. In fact, smoking has been banned in 843 parks and more than 150 beaches in the last two decades. What beachgoers probably aren't thinking about is the ethics behind these bans, which began taking hold in the early 1990s. Public health...

The stress of the attacks on 9/11 caused an estimated one million former smokers to pick the habit up again, according to a Weill Cornell Medical College public health study. The research is the first to look at the net costs to society of terrorism-induced smoking in the United States after 9/11 and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. Though there is a general consensus that stress is a "very large motivator for individuals to use substances," the stress effects of large-scale events on substance use has not been widely studied. "This study provides the first unbiased estimate of the effect...

Enlarge image i Don't sit down here and have a smoke with your coffee, Starbucks says. Mark Memmott/NPR Don't sit down here and have a smoke with your coffee, Starbucks says.Mark Memmott/NPR Starbucks is moving its smoking ban outdoors.Starting Saturday, according to signs posted in its more than 7,000 shops across the U.S. and Canada, "the no-smoking policy ... will include outdoor areas.""Smoking will be restricted within 25 feet of the store and within outdoor seating areas," the notices read.AdWeek says that "since smoking bans have swept the nation in the last decade, it's doubtful there will be a...

<p>The City Council voted Tuesday to completely remove a proposed smoking ban from its agenda. After six months of debate, the issue appears to be snuffed, even after the City Council expressed its intent to take a comprehensive smoking ban to a vote of the people during the Nov. 5 election. The ordinance to place the issue on the ballot was up for first reading at the council’s regularly scheduled meeting Tuesday, which would have advanced it to a final vote at the June 10 meeting. Mayor Bill Falkner and council members Pat Jones, P.J. Kovac, Barbara LaBass, Jeff Penland and Joyce Starr voted on a motion to remove the item. Before the ordinance was read, Mr. Penland asked the rest of the council to consider leaving the decision to go smoke-free up to property owners. He said he believes the council needs to continue its discussion before making a decision, and perhaps provide incentives for bar owners to go smoke free. “I just can’t vote for an issue that treats the casino different,” he said, later adding that his decision was reinforced after hearing from casino manager Craig Travers, who spoke out against a ban because it would reduce gaming revenue for the city, county and state. Mr. Travers’ statement reinforced what many council members had questioned during the six-month process — whether a ban that excluded the gaming floor really was a matter of public health or of money. Mr. Travers warned the council that if the St. Jo Frontier Casino was forced to go smoke-free, the state would sell the parent company’s license to a community that had no ban in place. He also warned that a smoking ban would decrease revenues by at least 25 percent, and in turn would halt all discussions of moving Downtown. “The whole purpose of gaming is to provide tax revenue to the state,” he said. “ ... This is not a health issue when it comes to the casino. It’s a business issue.” Councilman Byron Myers presented the council with an alternative ordinance that would exclude the casino, but ban smoking in the rest of the community. It’s a compromise he said he is willing to do for the “financial health” of the city and the county. No motion was ever made to consider that ordinance, however. Proponents of a smoking ban said Tuesday the decision will not deter them from their fight for public health. Mary Attebury, a member of Clean Air St. Joe, said the council is damaging itself by flip-flopping on its decisions and not providing what the majority of the community wanted. “Certainly we’re disappointed that the council hasn’t taken and considered the feedback that they received over these past months and done what they should have done,” she said. “There will be a reaction from the community I’m sure. This is not over.” It’s unclear whether the council will take this issue under consideration again.</p>

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...