Free Republic

A new blog post written by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) may appear to be an attempt to align with Hillary Clinton, but it takes direct aim at multiple Clinton Foundation donors. Warren’s post, “I agree with Hillary Clinton,” details her concerns with a provision in the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement that she says “would let foreign companies challenge American laws outside of American courts.” “The Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provision isn’t a one-time, hypothetical problem—we’ve seen it in past trade agreements,” Warren wrote. Three of the five companies Warren uses as examples of companies that have abused similar...

A French Quarter cigar bar's battle over state and city liquor permits has struck a major chord among New Orleans policy makers and civic leaders. Councilwoman Nadine Ramsey wants to create a new category in the zoning code -- called a "tobacco retail business" -- to keep La Habana Hemingway Cigar Bar on Toulouse Street in operation. But critics say that doing so could undermine the impending citywide smoking ban by exempting more drinking establishments from it and also impact the Quarter's long-standing prohibition on new cocktail lounges in commercial zones.

Starting next year, Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis will require potential employees to pass a drug test–detecting nicotine. This so-called “job screening” will bar any applicants who smoke cigarettes, cigars, pipes, snuff, hookah, and even e-cigarettes from being eligible for employment. While the hospital already has a smoking ban on the premises and surrounding sidewalks, this policy forbids new employees from consuming tobacco anywhere, at any time.

Starting Jan. 1, Bert Fish Medical Center will no longer hire tobacco users, joining two other local hospitals in telling smokers not to apply. Applicants will be tested for a nicotine byproduct and sign an agreement to remain tobacco-free during their employment with the New Smyrna Beach public hospital. The prohibition doesn't apply to volunteers, medical staff or Bert Fish's roughly 700 employees who were hired before the implementation date... "Not all slopes are slippery but this one really is," said Lewis Maltby, president on the National Workrights Institute, a nonprofit offshoot of the American Civil Liberties Union based in...

LaPORTE - A Michigan City man caused a two-vehicle collision, but his actions could have led to a greater disaster by smoking a cigarette near the gasoline and oil spilled from the wreckage. Aaron Miller, 23, of 1210 W. Coolspring Ave., now finds himself facing possible jail time, accused of attacking a police officer who plucked the lit cigarette from his lips. Tuesday just before noon, LaPorte County police were called to U.S. 20 and Indiana 39 in Springfield Township for an accident with injuries. Miller immediately told police he ran a red light, causing the collision. While occupants in...

Money from the landmark settlement with Big Tobacco helped pay for a a golf course sprinkler system in New York State.  (ABC News) Money From Settlement With Big Tobacco Goes to Fund Auto Speedway, Golf Course Sprinklers Nov. 4, 2005 —  Less than three percent of the $250 billion settlement between the tobacco companies and the fifty states has been used to fund anti-smoking campaigns.When the tobacco industry settled out of court with the 50 states seven years ago this month, state officials said the money would be used to prevent kids from starting to smoke. Anti-Smoking Campaigns ForgottenYet, in...

More and more that cigarette, or drink at home, that political candidate you supported, even your eating habits, are coming under the scrutiny of your boss. If he doesn’t approve, it might even cost you your job, which is what happened to two Michigan women, Anita Epolito and Cara Stiffler. Anita and Cara were considered model employees at Weyco, an insurance consulting firm outside of Lansing, Mich., both having worked at the company for years. The women sat side-by-side, sharing workloads – and after work – sharing the occasional cigarette. But at a company benefits meeting two years ago, the...

Ditka tackles ban on smoking - Proposal's foes bring in Da CoachBy Delroy Alexander Tribune staff reporter Published July 13, 2005Former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka on Tuesday became the public face of the opposition to a sweeping new measure that would ban smoking inside almost all public places in Chicago, from bars and restaurants to train platforms....

Anti-smoking groups have charged that tobacco companies, particularly Reynolds American Inc., are luring teenagers into the smoking habit by offering flavored cigarettes and advertising them in magazines with heavy adolescent readership like Rolling Stone, Glamour and Elle.

HOW DOES freedom slip away? It doesn't happen one day, all of a sudden, without warning. It erodes in stages. One day you read that an employer has fired four employees because they refused to follow the company's no smoking policy -- including not smoking in their own homes on their own time -- and that's OK, because you don't smoke. A year or two later, employers go after your pet vice -- eating, tippling, maybe snowboarding -- and then such a policy is an outrage. So Americans should be wary of the news last month that a Michigan health-...

This morning on CNN Jack Cafferty was a bit exercised over reports that more and more companies are not only refusing to hire smokers, they're firing them. They're getting fired not for smoking on the job .. but for just being smokers. Bad? No ... Good! In Michigan Weyco, Inc. has a new policy. They won't hire smokers. They're also requiring all current employees undergo testing to see if they are currently smokers. Presumably this will be a step toward firing all smokers. Employment lawyers says this reeks of discrimination. Well, duh! Of course it's discrimination! It's discrimination against people...

LANSING, Mich.-Four employees of a health care company have been fired for refusing to take a test to determine whether they smoke cigarettes.Weyco Inc., a health benefits administrator based in Okemos, Mich., adopted a policy Jan. 1 that allows employees to be fired if they smoke, even if the smoking happens after business hours at home.

The New York Times was impressed by Bloomington’s overreaching ban on smoking in public places. Libertarians are not so dazzled. The last thing Indiana cities should do is to copy Bloomington’s lead. Karla Sneegas, the executive director of Indiana Tobacco Prevention and Cessation, told a New York Times reporter that “one way to start changing cultural norms on smoking is to institute new policies.” Only one problem. It’s not the government’s job to set cultural norms. Imagine if it were not something as maligned as smoking. Maybe these cities ought to ban coffee. It stains teeth a nasty shade, the...

US tightens ban on Cuban cigars WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush (news - web sites)'s administration has tightened a ban on Americans importing Cuban cigars. "There is now an across-the-board ban on the importation of Cuban-origin cigars," said a notice released this week by the Treasury Department (news - web sites)'s Office of Foreign Assets Control. Previously, the rules allowed Americans licensed to travel to Cuba to bring back to the United States up to 100 dollars' worth of Cuban goods, including cigars. That loophole was closed in the latest regulations. The anti-Cuban cigar rules were already...

Ramsey County board OKs smoking ban Jackie Crosby, Star Tribune September 15, 2004 STPONLINE Ramsey County Commissioners unanimously voted to approve a smoking ban in restaurants on Tuesday, saying it was a good compromise and a step in the right direction for public health. Establishments that make more than 50 percent of their sales from alcohol could apply for an exemption, which could cost $100 or $200.

<p>It's nice to be right every once in a while. Last year, for example, I went to New York City immediately after smoking was banned in bars. I found it an altogether pleasant experience to be able to enjoy a few pints of ale without coming home smelling like I'd just rolled around in a gutter filled with cigarette butts.</p>

Bans on smoking indoors have had an unintended consequence: more cigarette butts littering the outdoors. It is an issue some people are beginning to regard as a serious environmental problem. Across the nation, anti-litter activists are launching campaigns to get smokers to clean up after themselves. And anti-tobacco activists are using the concern to push for outdoor smoking bans, as happened last month in Solana Beach. The North County city became the first in the state to ban smoking at the beach when its new law took effect Thursday. The environmental message: Cigarette butts release contaminants into waterways, choke wildlife...

SMOKE-FILLED ROOMS BROOKLYN TOBACCO PARTY by Herb Allen Issue of 2002-07-29Posted 2002-07-22 CLASH, which stands for Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment, is the only organization dedicated exclusively to protecting the rights of New York City smokers. It was founded two years ago by Audrey Silk, a thirty-eight-year-old police officer in Brooklyn's Sixty-seventh Precinct, who smokes between one and two packs a day and was, she says, "sick and tired of the government telling me how to live my life." Under Silk's leadership, CLASH has opposed the ban on smoking in restaurants, fought proposals to raise the tax on cigarettes, and...