Free Republic

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.

Some pull support for Cancer Society fund raisersNo one is a fan of cancer. But some Oshkosh restaurant owners lately have less love for the American Cancer Society. As a form of protest, a few city restaurants fuming over Oshkosh’s two-month-old smoking ban ordinance have refused to donate food or drinks to annual cancer-cure fund-raisers fueling the organization. The referendum drive that led to the ban was supported financially by the Cancer Society. “If we could be 100 percent sure the money we were donating was going to research and not to put us out of business, we’d do it,”...

Smoked outSome companies now forbid workers to smoke anywhere on their property -- not on the sidewalk, not even in their cars in the parking lot.01:00 AM EST on Sunday, April 4, 2004BY JENNIFER LEVITZ Journal Staff Writer Everyone knows you can't smoke in the office anymore.But increasingly, you can't smoke outside work either.At Rhode Island Hospital, employees have a nickname for their designated outdoor smoking kiosks: butt huts.The workers, however, could consider themselves indulged that they're allowed to puff on the hospital's sprawling property at all.Because a few miles away at Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse, in Cranston, employees who...

OLYMPIA _ Spokane-area restaurateurs, bar owners and anti-smoking activists are gearing up for battle over two proposed initiatives to limit smoking. "We think we have the momentum," said Cheney's Tedd Nealy, a farmer and substitute teacher who's supporting the stronger of the two initiatives: a ban on indoor smoking in public places. "If this has worked in six other states, including our biggest-populated state of California, it can work anywhere," he said. Filed Monday by Breathe Easy Washington, a group of smoking foes, the tougher ban is backed by the state medical and dental associations. Co-chairman Kevin Phelps said the...

BANGOR - Protecting the lungs of little ones in foster care from the effects of secondhand smoke is the primary reason behind a new law in Maine." Secondhand smoke is really dangerous for kids," said Janet Spencer, director of Bangor Region Partners for Health. "Their lungs are in a developing stage and anything that is pulled into their lungs can potentially be harmful in the long run. In a lot of ways secondhand smoke is more harmful." The law, which was enacted last fall, calls for the Maine Department of Human Services to "adopt rules on smoking by foster parents...

A US government agency has drawn up a comprehensive plan to encourage five million Americans to stop smoking. The Interagency Committee on Smoking and Health, which developed the 10 point plan over 14 months, has proposed increasing the tax on a pack of cigarettes by $2 (£1; €1.60). Details of the national plan for tobacco cessation are published in the American Journal of Public Health (2004;94:205-10), and the plan was endorsed by four former US surgeons general—Jesse Steinfeld, Julius Richmond, C Everett Koop, and David Satcher—at a press conference last week in Washington, DC. The $2 tax is estimated to...

An air filtration system, new to the UK could help to avoid a smoking ban in pubs, restaurants and other public places in the UK, claims Dianne White MD of Essa air cleaners, which claim to be so effective that the need for smoking and no-smoking areas in pubs and restaurants could be eradicated, solving a number of issues highlighted in the current smoking in public places debate.Already a number of leisure industry heavyweights have installed these air filtration units in their outlets nationwide. A spokesman for Thwaites Inns, the trading arm of Daniel Thwaites Brewery running 70 managed houses...

Toledo bar owners find loophole to let patrons light upTOLEDO — James Pierson sat at the corner of the bar with a cigarette in his hand and a court summons in his coat pocket.The retired autoworker was charged about a month ago with violating the city’s ban on smoking in bars and restaurants.That wasn’t stopping him from a beer and another cigarette."In reality, I’m breaking the law right now," said Pierson, 62, of Temperance, Mich. "Everybody should stand up for their rights."Defiant smokers and tavern owners in cities where smoking has been outlawed are rising up to protest, staging "smokeins"...

<p>Albany -- New York lost more than $500,000 in lottery sales after hundreds of bars and restaurants unplugged their lottery machines to protest the statewide smoking ban in businesses, officials said Thursday.</p> <p>The protest was meant to deprive the state of revenue from the Quick Draw game and publicize bar and restaurant owners' concerns that the smoking ban will hurt business, said Scott Wexler of the Empire State Restaurant and Tavern Association.</p>