Free Republic

This will be one of those posts where my inner libertarian comes closer to the surface. When I see our governments, both local, state, and federal, begin to interject itself into an issue where it should be limited, I can't help but wonder why they are traveling this route. Case in point would be e-cigarettes. I venture into this arena with little or not technical or scientific expertise. I know nothing about e-cigarettes except what I have learned from my own research and from watching some of the people I am around during my daily work. At least two men...

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- Gov. Mary Fallin has issued an executive order that bans the use of electronic cigarettes and vapor devices on state property, saying the potential long-term health effects of the products are unknown. snip Fallin is an anti-smoking advocate and says that electronic cigarettes and similar products emit vapor that contains chemicals and can impact bystanders

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=6ea_1387991405

he New York City Council approved legislation Thursday to ban the use of electronic cigarettes from indoor public spaces where smoking is already prohibited. Because many of the e-cigarettes are designed to look like cigarettes and be used just like them, they can lead to confusion or confrontation,” Quinn said

The New York City Council voted Thursday to ban the use of e-cigarettes in public places where smoking is prohibited, including offices, restaurants, hospitals, parks and beaches. “Because many of the E-cigarettes are designed to look like cigarettes and be used just like them, they can lead to confusion or confrontation,” City Council Speaker Christine Quinn told CBS New York.

I'm sitting at my desk, looking at a photograph of a gangrenous foot. It is a bloated thing in hues of phlegmatic gray rot, sanguine inflammation, melancholic black bile, and choleric open sores​—​exhibiting all the humors of a meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council. Above the photograph, in bold white capitals on a dull, matte background are the words “smoking causes peripheral vascular disease.” The photograph is helpfully labeled “gangrene.” Below the photograph, in a bland sans-serif typeface with letters an eighth of an inch high, is “Marlboro Red.” This is a pack of Australian cigarettes, conforming to...

SAN RAFAEL, Calif., Nov. 22 (UPI) -- A California ordinance that prohibits smoking in residences with shared walls may be the strictest anti-smoking law in the United States, city officials say. The ban, passed by the city of San Rafael, applies to both owners and renters, ABC News reported Thursday. It covers any multi-family residence with three or more units, including condominiums, co-ops and apartments. The ban took effect Nov. 14.

Berkeley, Calif., City Councilman Jesse Arreguin has recommended that the city ban smoking in single-family homes. Councilwoman Susan Wengraf, who supports an ordinance to ban smoking in multiunit dwellings, is appalled. "The whole point is to protect people who live in multiunit buildings from secondhand smoke," Wengraf said. Locals have told her they find the notion of a ban in single-family homes scary. "I hope he wakes up and pulls it," she said. Actually, I think Wengraf should want Arreguin's recommendation to stick around. After all, his proposal makes the multiunit ordinance seem reasonable. Arreguin aide Anthony Sanchez tells me...

Lungs from pack-a-day smokers safe for transplant, study finds JoNel Aleccia, Staff Writer, NBC News Jan. 29, 2013 at 4:35 AM ET About 13 percent of double-lung transplants in the U.S. came from donors who were heavy smokers, a new study finds. Using lung transplants from heavy smokers may sound like a cruel joke, but a new study finds that organs taken from people who puffed a pack a day for more than 20 years are likely safe. What’s more, the analysis of lung transplant data from the U.S. between 2005 and 2011 confirms what transplant experts say they already...

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...