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Not many know Debi Austin by name. But it's hard to shake the image of her in the public service announcement where she takes a drag from a cigarette through a hole in her throat. The Stanislaus County Office of Education is counting on Austin, a longtime smoker who had her larynx removed because of cancer, to deter local students from using tobacco. "It's amazing how many of our young people are smoking," prevention director Vicki Bauman said. "They're resilient and they think they're untouchable. Sometimes you have to use the shock factor." Thursday, nearly $330,000 in tax money from...

Anti-smoking groups are planning to increase the pressure on the movie industry to get actors to quit lighting up on the silver screen. Anti-tobacco activists worldwide plan to march Thursday from the Washington Convention Center to Motion Picture Association of America headquarters and call on the MPAA to take action to reduce smoking in the movies, including requiring an R rating for any movies with a non-historical depiction of smoking. The march and protest by various anti-smoking groups convening here for the World Conference on Tobacco or Health will follow the release of a study by the nonprofit, anti-smoking group...

Down through the years, I've attempted to warn my fellow Americans about the tyrannical precedent and template for further tyranny set by anti-tobacco zealots. The point of this column is not to rekindle the smoking debate. That train has left the station. Instead, let's examine the template. In the early stages of the anti-tobacco campaign, there were calls for "reasonable" measures such as non-smoking sections on airplanes and health warnings on cigarette packs. In the 1970s, no one would have ever believed such measures would have evolved into today's level of attack on smokers, which includes confiscatory cigarette taxes and...

America's largest foodmaker and its biggest cigarette company for years have likened themselves to distant siblings, giants that just happened to be owned by the same parent company. In fact, Kraft Foods Inc. and Philip Morris USA have pooled expertise in search of making more-alluring foods and cigarettes since the dawn of their corporate pairing two decades ago, a Tribune examination of tobacco-lawsuit documents has found. Documents show Northfield-based Kraft collaborated on flavor issues with some of the same Philip Morris brain researchers who probed what gives cigarettes their kick. None of those scientists was more controversial than Frank Gullotta,...

A couple of weeks ago, I interviewed Roger Valdez, director of tobacco prevention for Public Health– Seattle & King County. He is in charge of Seattle-area enforcement of the statewide smoking ban approved by voters in November. I call him the tobacco czar. We were talking about how enforcement was working out, including the 25-foot rule. In the midst of our chat, Valdez said something remarkable. "Americans think they have a lot of rights they really don't have. Smoking is one of those things where people think they have the right to smoke, but you don't." He used "you" in...

Beginning in the new year, the 77 Westin hotels and resorts in Canada, the U.S. and the Caribbean are banning smoking in all of their guest rooms and public areas. Anyone caught smoking in their room will have $200 added to their bill as a cleaning fee. Westin said it will be the first upscale hotel chain to go completely smoke-free. Anyone who wants to light up will have to go to a designated smoking area outside. "Industry research, as well as our own research, confirmed a clear consumer demand for a clean, smoke-free hotel environment," Westin Hotels senior vice...

The Weyco Inc. executive who gained global attention earlier this year for his tough anti-tobacco workplace policy is under fire again. Howard Weyers, founder of the Okemos-based benefits administrator, has been accused of sexual harassment. Weyco Inc. also is named as a defendant in the lawsuit filed Oct. 19 in the Ingham County Circuit Court by former employee Christine Ramon. A response to the lawsuit hasn't been filed, but attorney Erin Gravelyn of the Dickinson Wright law firm said she will "defend the claims vigorously" for Weyco and Weyers. Ramon said she was advised to not talk about the case...

ASSOCIATED PRESS LOS ANGELES -- Los Angeles County health officials are focusing a new anti-smoking program at gays and lesbians, who they say are nearly twice as likely to smoke as the general population. The "Last Drag" campaign aims to reach gays and lesbians through print ads and efforts in bars and clubs - where health officials say many smokers picked up the habit to begin with. "When a lot of gay men and women come out, they come out in the bar culture, and the bar and club culture has really established a culture where it's OK to smoke,"...

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) -- The city's highly publicized court case that grew out of a voter-approved smoking ban has gone up in smoke. Lincoln voters approved a smoking ban that went into effect in January. It prohibits smoking in all buildings accessible to the public, including bars that do not sell food. But the smoking ban does not apply to private vehicles. [oas:siouxcityjournal.com/news/nebraska:Middle1] So soon after it went on the books, Gary Walker parked his motor home -- which he dubbed "The Freedom Flyer" and decorated with American flags -- outside of his son's Hi-Way Diner and allowed patrons to...

With smokers being increasingly shunned in public places, Japan's largest cigarette maker is offering a rare treat -- tickets to a film preview where they can smoke all they want. Japan Tobacco, which sells nearly two-thirds of the nation's cigarette products, will invite 150 lucky smokers who won a lottery to a private showing of the film-noir thriller "Sin City" next Monday, said company spokesman Tsuyoshi Miyashita. Anyone over 20 years of age could apply, but there was one condition attached -- they had to pledge that they smoke. "The event is to provide a rare opportunity for smokers to...

Maori have every right to enjoy smoking, gambling and eating fatty foods if they want to - and Maori health workers who say otherwise are just brainwashed "house niggers". That's according to the authors of a controversial new book on Maori health published by one of South Auckland's largest Maori health providers. The Kotahitanga Community Trust, a taxpayer-funded charitable organisation in Counties Manukau, provides health care for more than 5000 patients - 4000 of whom are Maori. The book, Maori Health, was co-authored by trust chairman Peter Caccioppoli and Rhys Cullen, a GP at the trust's Papakura practice and published...

The city’s smoking ban never sleeps. Tiffany Hurter, a bartender at Conroy’s, found that out the hard way this week. Hurter became the city’s first nonbusiness owner or manager cited under the city’s workplace smoking ban early Wednesday. Police officers received a tip that the bar was serving drinks after the legal cut-off time of 2 a.m. on Wednesday. A police officer went to the bar, 3115 W. Sixth St., and found no drinking but discovered Hurter smoking a cigarette while talking with a fellow employee and a couple of other friends Hurter had agreed to give a ride. Hurter...

Last night I saw a new anti-smoking commercial. The narrator was comparing smoking to drowning, while the visual showed water filling a house, complete with a drowning a person. The last image showed a submerged body suspended in water inside a home. My sister and I just exchanged glances as in "How poor in taste is that?" especially with regard to all those who drowned as a result of Katrina and the aftermath. It reminded me of the Koolaid commercial that played during a newscast reporting the Jonestown massacre. I just wondered if others saw it and what their thoughts...

A classified ad from automobile firm Toyota in Asker and Bærum specifying that smokers will not be employed has sparked controversy. "This is lifestyle fascism. You have to ask, what next? Will it be the fat, the ugly, those with heart trouble or smelly feet?" said social medicine professor Per Fugelli. A full-page ad in local newspaper Budstikka made it clear that smokers were unwanted at the Toyota offices in the Oslo suburb. "People must be aware that a car firm has large open areas. Out of consideration to both the working environment and clients we must be very clear...

Smokers beware: Puffing within 25 feet of the door of a publicly used building, a park or in other public spaces could cost you $500 or a year in prison. But if alcohol is being served or you're rolling the dice, well, smoke 'em if you got 'em. The Metro Council narrowly approved an anti-smoking ordinance filled with exemptions Wednesday. Some council members expressed concern about enforcing the new ban. The long list of exemptions includes bars and lounges, restaurants with liquor licenses and casinos. "You can smoke -- with limitations. You can drink -- with limitations. You just can't...

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) -- The day the Legislature approved a smoking ban for most North Dakota businesses, Dennis Laches put a sign on his laundry and television repair shop, announcing he would close when the ban took effect Aug. 1. "Nobody knew if he was going to go through with it," said Troy Mosbrucker, the mayor of Mott, a town of about 800 in southwestern North Dakota. "He had a point to prove, and he proved it." As promised, Laches closed his business that day. He said it had nothing to do with his pack-a-day habit. Rather, he said, it...

The smoking threads are conspicuously lacking in appropriate graphics lately. Post your graphics here! A few (hopefully clever) examples: >P>

OLYMPIA – Grady Russell thought he'd found a great bargain. A smoker for more than six decades, the retired Ephrata, Wash., carpenter found an Internet company two years ago that sold cigarettes – taxed at the ultra-low Kentucky rate – for slightly more than $1 a pack. Delighted with the savings, Russell started placing orders, 10 cartons at a time. Then, last year, he got a letter in the mail. The state Department of Revenue told him he owed Washington taxes on all those cigarettes. Advertisement "I hate it," Russell said. But he paid up, dutifully calculating the number of...

APPLETON (AP) - At Jokers Bar, the staff of eight has been laid off. Owner Tony Schaefer said he's now working the bar with his brother. Schaefer is among many business owners still fuming a month after a ban on smoking at all indoor workplaces was enacted in this city. The ban was approved by 56 percent of voters in an April 5 referendum and went into effect on July 1. Madison's similar smoking ban went into effect on the same day, although there was no referendum preceding it. "We'll be closing up" if business doesn't improve, Schaefer said. "The...

LONDON - Sir Richard Doll, the British scientist who first established a link between smoking and lung cancer, died Sunday at age 92, Oxford University said. The epidemiologist died at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford after a short illness, said the university, where Doll worked at its Imperial Cancer Research Center. The exact cause of death was not immediately released. Doll's seminal 1950 study, which he wrote with Austin Bradford Hill, showed that smoking was "a cause, and a major cause" of lung cancer. Doll remained active up to his death, releasing a follow-up study to the 1954 report...