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SEATTLE -- Non-tribal casinos have already lost tens of millions of dollars because of Washington’s new indoor smoking ban. A new financial study, conducted by our own KIRO Team 7 Investigators, discovers taxpayers could loose millions as well. Card-rooms, charity bingo halls, and some bars and restaurants are required to report financial information to the state every year. The state hasn't had a chance to look at the figures since the smoking ban took effect. I have. It looks like "no smoking" means economic devastation for the non-tribal gaming industry. If there was ever any doubt that gamblers are also...

Sex and the ciggie If your teens watch "Sex and the City," the sex isn't the only thing you have to worry about. Virtually every teen girl interviewed as part of a new Health Department report on smoking said the show influenced their deadly habit. "Whenever I think of how to smoke, it's the way Sarah Jessica Parker exhales, and I'm like obsessed," one 10th-grader said. "I love her, and the way she exhales is very memorable. She kind of ... elongates her neck and exhales into the air." About 11% of teenagers smoke, according to the Health Department. The...

Curbing tobacco use and taking other steps to eliminate some of the most common risk factors for cancer could save millions of lives over the next few decades, health officials said Monday. Tobacco alone is predicted to kill a billion people this century, 10 times the toll it took in the 20th century, if current trends hold. "In all of world history, this is the largest train wreck not waiting to happen," said John Seffrin, chief executive officer of the American Cancer Society. Reducing tobacco use would have the single largest effect on global cancer rates, Seffrin and other health...

U.S. Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona today issued a comprehensive scientific report which concludes that there is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke. Nonsmokers exposed to secondhand smoke at home or work increase their risk of developing heart disease by 25 to 30 percent and lung cancer by 20 to 30 percent. The finding is of major public health concern due to the fact that nearly half of all nonsmoking Americans are still regularly exposed to secondhand smoke. The report, The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke, finds that even brief secondhand smoke exposure can cause...

This comes after we showed you video on Thursday night of elderly and disabled residents, risking their lives, shuffling across a busy street. On the other side was the new designated smoking area. Investigative Reporter Chris Halsne discovers our video has revved-up interest in scaling back the state's tough smoking ban. Our new law clearly says you can smoke inside your residence, but there is not an exemption for people residing at assisted living centers. As our cameras found out, that means smokers, already in poor health, may have to brave dangerous conditions to light up. Some legislators say that...

ST. PAUL — Several Iron Range lawmakers have snuffed out any talk of a possible statewide smoking ban. They believe it’s a local control issue.St. Louis County commissioners earlier this week deferred action on a possible countywide smoking ban and passed a resolution urging the Legislature deal with the issueCurrently the smoking ban bill is still “alive” in the Senate, but was put to rest in the House last year, and supporters of the legislation in the House will have to resurrect the measure again.Rep. Tom Rukavinia, DFL-Virginia, who described himself as a “libertarian” on this issue, was adamantly...

Companies are charging smokers more money for health insurance CINCINNATI — Smokers already feeling pressure from increasing cigarette costs and workplace smoking bans are now feeling squeezed from another direction — health insurance premiums. A growing number of employers — private and public — are charging employees who use tobacco more money for their health insurance coverage. Employers hope that the higher charges will motivate more employees to stop smoking, resulting in improved health and lower health care costs for the companies and their workers. "With smokers costing companies about 25 percent more than nonsmokers in the area of health...

Highland Park enacted Lake County’s first smoking ban Wednesday, a move local health officials say is something they hope all municipalities will soon consider.It means all indoor public areas, including restaurants, taxis and places of work, in the city are off limits to smokers. The ordinance was approved by the city council in April.“The second-hand smoke issue is becoming really big,” said Bill Mays, the county health department’s director of community health services. “Highland Park’s leadership in this regard is an important precedent.”Health department officials say the action is the most sweeping they’ve seen. That’s due, in part, because Highland...

New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, 125 Worth St, Room 331, CN #28, New York, NY 10013. tfrieden@health.nyc.gov. OBJECTIVES: We sought to determine the impact of comprehensive tobacco control measures in New York City. METHODS: In 2002, New York City implemented a tobacco control strategy of (1) increased cigarette excise taxes; (2) legal action that made virtually all work-places, including bars and restaurants, smoke free; (3) increased cessation services, including a large-scale free nicotine-patch program; (4) education; and (5) evaluation. The health department also began annual surveys on a broad array of health measures, including smoking. RESULTS:...

Port of Call's general manager, Mike Mollere, has considered creating a no-smoking section in his Esplanade Avenue restaurant, but a bill scheduled to be debated today in the state Senate may force him to ban smoking entirely. Senate Bill 354, which is at the top of the Senate's agenda this morning, would ban smoking in virtually all indoor public places in Louisiana, including restaurants and bars, although they could still let smokers light up in outdoor areas, such as patios. Most businesses in the state that employ four or more workers would be required to adhere to the ban, including...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tobacco companies designed cigarettes to appeal to women's desires to be thin and healthy in ways that went "far beyond marketing and advertising," health researchers said on Monday. They said internal documents released by tobacco companies under a 1998 court settlement show the companies created cigarettes, including "slim" and so-called "light" brands, in part to attract women. "These internal documents reveal that the tobacco industry's targeting of women goes far beyond marketing and advertising," said Carrie Murray Carpenter of the Harvard School of Public Health, who led the study. Writing in the June issue of the journal...

The worldwide smoking rate among women is expected to rise 20 percent by 2025, the report says. BOSTON (May 31) - Tobacco companies did elaborate research on women to figure out how to hook them on smoking. Researchers at Harvard University's School of Public Health said they examined more than 7 million documents - some dating back to 1969, others as recent as 2000 - for new details about the industry's efforts to lure more women smokers. ''They did so much research in such a sophisticated way,'' she said. ''Women should know how far the tobacco industry went to exploit...

APPLETON, WI (AP) - Two groups have backed out of plans to bring their conventions here because of a ban on smoking set to take effect July 1, according to the Fox Cities Convention & Visitors Bureau. The bureau's executive director, Lynn Peters, declined to name the groups, but The Post-Crescent of Appleton said one was a scotch-and-cigar-loving sportsmen's association and the other a military group with lots of older smokers as members. Voters approved the ban last April on smoking in all indoor workplaces, including bars, restaurants and meeting rooms. But a group of business owners has filed a...

Fines? They pay them. Investigators? They avoid them. These restaurants proudly say, "Light up." WILDWOOD - A Friday evening storm rolls through rural Sumter County, spitting rain at the cows that graze beside the local high school. The faithful brave the weather and pull into the parking lot of a red concrete block building on the outskirts of Wildwood, a once-thriving railroad town off U.S. 301. Outside, smoke from the pits at Buddy's Bar-B-Que drifts through the air, smelling of pecan and blackjack oak. But inside, the smoke smells more like Marlboros and menthols. A sign in the window reads,...

New law for 'fire-safe' cigarettes takes effect Associated Press ALBANY, N.Y. -- There's something different about cigarette brands sold in New York these days, but you would hardly notice it by looking at them. Next to the bar code of a pack of smokes is a tiny mark -- an asterisk, a dash or a diamond -- indicating that the cigarettes will self-extinguish if they're not puffed on regularly. On Monday, New York will become the first state to phase in a law requiring tobacco companies to sell the new "fire-safe" cigarettes. The law is meant to cut down on...

Australian smokers will soon have to look at the picture of a cancer-ridden lung or a gangrenous foot missing toes each time they light up. Following a trend pioneered by Canada, the government said it wants cigarette companies to put graphic pictures and warnings on 30 percent of the front of each pack and 90 percent of the back. One gruesome photo shows a color cross-section of a diseased lung. Another shows a blackened foot missing a toe and the rest twisted. "Smoking causes peripheral vascular disease," it reads. A third shows a dissected, bloodied brain with the caption, "Smoking...

Senate committee to consider bill to ban smoking in public restaurants By DAVID EGGERT The Associated Press 6/21/2004, 5:21 p.m. ET LANSING, Mich. (AP) — A state Senate committee will consider a proposed ban on smoking in public restaurants, but opposition from business groups and others makes the bill's approval a tough sell, especially in Michigan's struggling economic climate. After a 16-month wait, a Senate committee on Tuesday will hear testimony from supporters and opponents of the legislation to prohibit smoking in restaurants. It would exempt bars that take in less than 30 percent of their income from food, along...

PORTLAND, Maine -- The latest batch of anti-tobacco television advertisements created by Maine students features a guy with yellow teeth and a giant cigarette butt chasing children around. The Department of Human Services had so much success with the original ads three years ago that Maine youths were tapped again for public service announcements that began airing Monday.

Oslo, Norway - A Norwegian county has declared smoking to be a basic human right in a dispute over a ban imposed on one town's workers. Levanger, a township of about 18 000 people in central Norway, banned all smoking by municipal employees during working hours on or off city property at the beginning of the year. The ruling, which made national news Wednesday, came after three opponents of the rule, all local council members from the right-wing Party of Progress, asked the county governor's office to assess the ban's legality. In a letter to the city dated Tuesday,...

For the first time, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is warning people at risk of heart disease to avoid all buildings and gathering places that allow indoor smoking. The CDC disclosed its new advisory in a commentary to a study published in the British Medical Journal yesterday, saying doctors need to warn people with heart problems that secondhand smoke can significantly increase their risk of a heart attack. The agency said that as little as 30 minutes' exposure can have a serious and even lethal effect. The commentary accompanied a study showing that the number of heart attacks...