Free Republic

SACRAMENTO — California will ban the sale of flavored tobacco in retail stores, including flavored e-cigarettes that many blame for a sharp rise in vaping among youths. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill Friday to outlaw the sale of fruit-, menthol- and mint-flavor cigarettes and vaping cartridges, effective Jan. 1. ~snip

Boston health officials voted Thursday to raise the minimum age for buying cigarettes and other tobacco products - including electronic cigarettes - from 18 to 21. Mayor Marty Walsh said the city now joins more than 85 other Massachusetts cities and towns - as well as New York City and Hawaii - in hiking the age for purchasing cigarettes. The Boston Board of Health also voted to increase the age for admission to adult-only retail tobacco stores and smoking bars to 21. ...

<p>A California Democrat has proposed a bill that would raise the state’s minimum smoking age from 18 to 21 in an effort to keep cigarettes out of the hands of teenagers.</p> <p>State Sen. Ed Hernandez introduced Senate Bill 151, which would make California the first state in the country to raise the minimum smoking age to 21. Similar proposals have previously failed in New Jersey, Utah, Colorado and Maryland.</p>

When it snows, Albert Smith dreads having to put on a couple of coats and sit in his car in the parking lot of the West Mifflin Manor apartment complex to smoke a cigarette. But after the Allegheny County Housing Authority banned smoking inside his building this week, he fears that's what he'll have to do. “I'm not on board,” said Smith, 72, a smoker since he was 15 who sat outside the subsidized apartment complex with a pack of Pall Malls in his shirt pocket and a smoke-free sign tacked to the wall behind him. “I pay $400 a...

RUSH: Okay, wait for it, wait for it. You're gonna love this. Folks, you're absolutely going to love this. Well, wait. Maybe some of you won't love this. Let me speak for myself. I love this. You know that magical serum that was given to two white Americans suffering from Ebola? You know what the magic ingredient is? Nicotine. Tobacco is the magical ingredient in the serum. It's a Kentucky tobacco plant from which they derive the magical serum that has caused massive reversals of the symptoms of Ebola in the two white Americans. BREAK TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Okay. So yesterday...

Any beachgoers that enjoy puffing away on a cigarette while they sit on the sand or frolic in the surf may have to get their nicotine fix elsewhere, as Oregon has proposed a ban on smoking that would include all 362 miles of beaches on its coastline. The Oregon Parks and Recreation Department has followed up an earlier ban on smoking at most state park properties with this proposal, partly because the agency is worried that all those smokers pushed out of parks will come to the beach, reports the Associated Press. The move would also serve to cut down...

The rapid decline in Americans' tobacco use has leveled off, and now the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is calling for new taxes, regulations and warnings to force Americans to kick the habit. In a new report, the CDC found that 50 million, or one in five, Americans use tobacco every day or some days, and 60 million, or one in four, “every day, some days or rarely.”It also revealed that the use of electronic cigarettes is surging, and and e-cigarettes now account for nearly 5 percent of the smoking market.Worse: Americans aged 18-24 showed up as the top...

The public will have more time to weigh in on a federal proposal to regulate electronic cigarettes and other tobacco products. The Food and Drug Administration said Friday that the public comment period slated to end July 9 is being extended an additional 30 days to Aug. 8 after getting lots of input on how to regulate e-cigarettes. Those are battery-powered devices that heat a liquid nicotine solution, creating vapor that users inhale. The FDA also proposed extending its authority to regulate cigars, hookahs, nicotine gels and pipe tobacco.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. -- Cigarette smuggling costs states an estimated $5.5 billion annually. Much of that traffic takes place on the East Coast along Interstate 95, as cigarettes from lower-tax states are being smuggled to states with higher taxes in the Northeast. A new website, sponsored by RAI Services Co., a subsidiary of Reynolds American Inc., calls the I-95 corridor "The New Tobacco Road."The website draws attention to the problem to encourage states to pass stiffer penalties for smuggling and devote more resources to enforcement.The website, www.thenewtobaccoroad.com, shows how I-95 has become a key transit route for cigarette smuggling from southern...

First the city banned smoking in most public places. Now it’s moving to snuff out the use of smokeless electronic cigarettes as well. The City Council announced Wednesday that it will hold a hearing Wednesday on a bill prohibiting the use of the battery-operated, tobacco-free vaporizers in restaurants, offices, parks, beaches and other places where smoking regular cigarettes is not allowed.

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.

Patients are being denied minor treatments because they smoke, The Mail on Sunday has found. In one case, a healthy middle-aged man was told he could not have a ten-minute operation to cut a small benign growth off the side of his head because of his habit. Paul Merrett thought it would be no problem to get the inch-long fatty lump, called a lipoma, removed. … But when he attended King George Surgery in Stevenage, his GP said he could not have the minor operation—which doctors often do under local anesthetic in their own consulting rooms. Mr. Merrett, 46, said:...

President Obama’s plan to raise the federal cigarette tax by 94 cents a pack would put 2 million low and middle-income kids through preschool, a new report has concluded. Obama’s fiscal 2014 budget proposal calls for a near doubling of the tax, from $1.01 to $1.95 per pack, with the proceeds going toward an expansion of early childhood education. Taxes on other tobacco products would increase proportionally, bringing the estimated additional revenue to an estimated $78 billion over the next decade.“Taken together, these two measures would help ensure a future of smart, healthy kids nationwide and in every state,” according...

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...

OXFORD, Miss. (FOX13) - If you are looking for a place to smoke on the Ole Miss campus, good luck with that. The new "No Smoking" policy has it covered and is being strictly enforced. Basically the policy reads you can't smoke anywhere on the Ole Miss campus. That includes the interior of all University buildings. As for the property or the grounds, you can't smoke on the sidewalks, parking lots, recreational areas, partially enclosed or open areas such as walkways, breezeways, patios, porches, gazebos, tents and bus shelters. As for University vehicles, you can't smoke in them, you can't...

NYC Mayor Bloomberg is behind a secret cabal of neighborhood spies who run around convincing tenants and landlords to disallow all smoking by tenants, even within their own apartments.The community spy groups get a $10,000 bounty for their efforts. The bounty is coming out of a grant, in other words, our tax money. This is ripe for corruption to say nothing about the whole stealth factor being unethical, sneaky, and communistic. It pits neighbor against neighbor and it demonizes people.But don’t worry, it is for the common good.I’ve never smoked in my life and I don’t like being around cigarettes,...

So much for Santa Claus, who could turn up slim and gluten-free at any moment. A new version of the classic “A Visit from St. Nicholas” edits out all references to Mr. Claus‘ pipe smoking in the beloved old poem, rewritten by Pamela McColl, a writer and smoking-cessation advocate in Vancouver, Canada, who deleted two verses penned in 1823 by original author Clement Moore, for “the benefit of children in the 21st century,” she says. Vanished: “The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, and the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.” Santa now explains...

RALEIGH – Emergency room visits by North Carolinians experiencing heart attacks have declined by 21 percent since the January 2010 start of the state’s Smoke-Free Restaurants and Bars Law. State Health Director Dr. Jeffrey Engel reported the results to the Justus-Warren Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention Task Force this morning. “We pushed for passage of this law because we knew it would save lives,” said Governor Bev Perdue, who signed the law into effect. “Our goal was to protect workers and patrons from breathing secondhand smoke and we are seeing positive results.” The N.C. Division of Public Health report cites...

International Tobacco Growers' Association Exposes the Likely Loss of Millions of Jobs Due to WHO Proposal on Tobacco Ingredients WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The International Tobacco Growers’ Association (ITGA) expressed outrage today at the devastating impact that the latest set of recommendations from the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) would have on the jobs and livelihoods of millions of tobacco growers around the world. “In some parts of the world, entire communities depend on the tobacco growing sector. I want to know what these bureaucrats have to say to the people whose lives they are going to ruin...

Posted: May 11, 2010 at 10:00 AM [Today] Michigan has banned smoking in restaurants and bar, which means some bars and restaurants noted for being smoky have a need to attract new customers, bring back old customers that have left because the place was too smoky, or find ways to accommodate their regulars who are used to smoking. Here's a list of some new reviews, gathered from the Internet, showing some reactions to the environment in newly smoke-free places around town that were previously noted for their smoky atmosphere. Fraser's Fraser's Pub is a neighborhood pub on Packard Street. Among...