Free Republic

A married couple from Largo who admitted entering the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot was sentenced to jail time Friday. Marilyn Fassell, 59, a nursing assistant who gained notoriety through a selfie she took while smoking a cigarette inside the building, was sentenced to 30 days and three years probation. Her husband Thomas Fassell, 68, a retired postal worker and Air Force veteran, was sentenced to seven days and two years probation. “There are lawful means available in a democracy to challenge actions you disagree with which don’t include a violent insurrection,” U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly...

Who doesn’t want to ... smoke while running?No athlete in the world matters anymore other than “Uncle Chen,” a mysterious marathon enigma who smokes while running. Chen has garnered a following on Chinese social media site Weibo, with various photos of him lighting up and running making the rounds on the site. Uncle Chen finished the Xin’anjiang Marathon in Jiande, China with a time of 3 hrs 28 mins, all while chain smoking an entire damn packet of cigarettes according to local reports. This is nothing new for him either, and lighting up before running is a part of his...

Cannabis users soon may be a majority among young adults in the District of Columbia and several pot-friendly states, a trend that points to a potential future of destigmatized marijuana across much of the nation. More than two-fifths of young men and women nationwide now use cannabis at least on occasion, according to federal data, a quotient that has risen steadily in a decade of relentless legalization. Much of the trend is driven by young women, who have all but closed a decades-long gender gap in marijuana use.

On the ropes and with no message about rising crime or the struggling economy to appeal to voters, President Joe Biden has gone to pot. Literally. The president’s election-eve marijuana decriminalization order has him yet again putting politics over people’s lives and health. In a shameless attempt to buy the votes of young people and lower-income minority communities, Mr. Biden is waving his pen around again to dig himself out of the political cellar. The American Left, and some on the Right, along with the Big Tobacco companies already responsible for millions of deaths from their products, have spent heavily...

New findings by the American Cancer Society (ACS) found cumulative economic losses from cigarette smoking topped $891 billion in 2020, or 4.3% of the United States Gross Domestic Product. The economic loss significantly outpaced the cigarette industry's $92 billion revenue by nearly a ten-to-one ratio. The study was published today in the journal The Lancet Public Health. This economic modeling study is one of the first to provide a comprehensive measure of economic loss from cigarette smoking on a state-by-state level. On average, states lost $1,100.00 per capita income annually from cigarette smoking. Kentucky ($1,674.00), West Virginia ($1,605.00) and Arkansas...

Aug 26 (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Friday upheld a ban on smoking in federally subsidized public housing. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals said the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) properly enacted a 2016 rule requiring state and local public housing agencies to ban cigarettes, cigars and pipes inside housing units and indoor common areas, and outside within 25 feet of those spaces. Six tenants and a smokers' rights group, the New York City Citizens Lobbying Against Smoker Harassment ("NYC Clash"), challenged the ban, known as the Smoke Free Rule. They said it improperly invaded...

A clinical trial to test whether three proven smoking cessation treatments could also reduce alcohol intake found no differences between the medications, but the rates of behavior change for alcohol consumption and smoking were high in all treatment groups. Results suggest these medications could play an important role to reduce alcohol use and smoking at the same time. Unexpectedly, nicotine replacement therapy performed as well as the prescription drugs varenicline and cytisine. The study showed that after three months, alcohol consumption decreased regardless of whether participants were given nicotine replacement therapy, varenicline or cytisine. The main outcome was number of...

ALBANY, N.Y. (WROC) — New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed new legislation Friday, banning smoking on all state-owned beaches and most public parks. According to the governor’s office, smoking in these designated areas will be punishable with a civil fine of $50. The legislation goes into effect 90 days from the July 15 signing. “Smoking is a dangerous habit that affects not only the smoker but everyone around them, including families and children enjoying our state’s great public places,” Hochul said. “I’m proud to sign this legislation that will protect New Yorker’s health and help reduce litter in public parks...

The Biden administration is planning to push a policy that would require tobacco companies to reduce the level of nicotine in cigarettes sold in the U.S. The policy would see the amount of nicotine reduced to 'nonaddictive levels'. Although it would likely not come into force for several years, the move would likely disrupt the entire tobacco industry. The Food and Drug Administration first needs to outline the proposed new rules before inviting comments from the public. Then final rules would be published. Even then, tobacco companies would be able to sue likely delaying any implementation of the policy reports...

The war on drugs is winding down, and the war on tobacco is ramping up. E-cigarettes, a safer nicotine-delivery alternative, have contributed to plummeting use of traditional cigarette smoking. Yet the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has effectively made it harder for cigarette smokers to switch by limiting vapes from the market. The agency also recently announced a ban on menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars, which will push more products onto the black market, with all sorts of unintended consequences.

Federal grant recipients broke the law while spending an estimated $246 million in taxpayer dollars for cannabis and e-cigarette animal experiments, a new report by a group opposing publicly-funded animal testing finds. White Coat Waste Project’s report, published Wednesday, highlights 10 instances of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funneling money to researchers experimenting with getting animals high on THC or making them consume nicotine. “The blunt truth is that tens of millions of tax dollars are going up in smoke for half-baked marijuana and vaping experiments on animals and NIH-funded white coats are breaking federal law by not disclosing...

Cigarette smoking is overwhelmingly the main cause of lung cancer, yet only a minority of smokers develop the disease. A study led by scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and published online on April 11, 2022, in Nature Genetics suggests that some smokers may have robust mechanisms that protect them from lung cancer by limiting mutations. The findings could help identify those smokers who face an increased risk for the disease and therefore warrant especially close monitoring. “This may prove to be an important step toward the prevention and early detection of lung cancer risk and away from the...

Quitting smoking adds up to five years of life for a person with heart disease, an analysis presented Thursday during the European Society of Cardiology's Preventive Cardiology 2022 scientific congress found. This is comparable to the benefits these same people would receive by taking medications to lower levels of low-density lipoprotein, or LDL, which is known as "bad cholesterol," the researchers said in a presentation during the meeting. For adults age 45 years and older who still were smoking at least six months after suffering a heart attack and/or undergoing stent implantation or bypass surgery, stopping the habit added 4.81...

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is expected to introduce a nationwide ban on the sale of menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars this spring, a move intended to reduce racial health disparities in tobacco-related diseases and death. But the proposal has divided racial justice advocates who debate whether the health benefits would come at the risk of further criminalizing Black communities. The FDA gave itself until April to draw up rules that limit the sale of menthol cigarettes, which are easier to smoke and harder to quit than unflavored products. The tobacco industry’s marketing of menthols included a targeted campaign...

I've watched a few online streaming movies recently and have noticed a big change in on aspect. A LOT of the actors/actresses are now smoking again. Apparently the tobacco industry has gone woke enough for the film industry to begin supporting them again even though we DO know that smoking can cause cancer. I find that ironic since the movie business at one time was rabidly anti-smoking. Why the change? Has to be something with the money flow. Another point. I have yet to watch a movie where any of the general public are wearing Covid masks. Maybe I'm vision...

The Friday evening Air Canada flight took off close to 9 p.m., more than three hours after it was supposed to leave. Social media posts suggest an unruly Russian squad smoking and refusing to wear masks on the plane are to blame. The Calgary Police Service confirmed officers responded alongside airport security due to an incident caused by players and staff members of the Russian team. Police stated the whole flight was deplaned as officers dealt with the incident. The Russian and Czech teams weren’t allowed back on.... Czech team manager Otakar Černý denied his team was involved in the...

People currently aged 14 and under will never be able to legally purchase tobacco. New Zealand has announced it will outlaw smoking for the next generation, so that those who are aged 14 and under today will never be legally able to buy tobacco. New legislation means the legal smoking age will increase every year, to create a smoke-free generation of New Zealanders, associate health minister Dr Ayesha Verrall said on Thursday. “This is a historic day for the health of our people,” she said. ...

The Beatles ain’t changing their image for anyone — not even Disney. The British rock group teamed up with director Peter Jackson to release their long-awaited musical documentary, “Get Back,” now streaming on Disney+. The series includes several scenes featuring smoking and explicit language; however, the group refused to have them removed. The three-part show includes a disclaimer from the streamer ahead of each episode that reads: “This footage contains explicit language, mature themes and smoking.”

Earlier this month, news outlets all over the world reported breathlessly on new research which claimed to find that e-cigarette users were 15 percent more likely to have a stroke at young age than smokers. News sources as diverse as the Daily Mail in the UK, the South African Sunday Times, and all major U.S. TV stations picked up on it ensuring that a large portion of the global population were exposed to this bad news. The problem is that this “research” was at best, highly misleading and, at worst, plain wrong. First, this was not new published research as...

Actor Benedict Cumberbatch has been quite busy lately. He has four movies awaiting release: "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness," "Spider-Man: No Way Home," "The Electrical Life of Louis Wain," and "The Power of the Dog." It was Cumberbatch's dedication to immersing himself in this last film's character that got him into a bit of health trouble. "The Power of the Dog," based on the 1967 novel by Thomas Savage, is a story about an early 20th century Montana rancher, Phil Burbank, who torments the wife of his younger brother, George. Phil is described as "a great reader, a...