Lung lobby lambastes smoking stars

Aykroyd under fire over on-screen prop

Sunday, December 19th, 2004

By Chris Cobb

OTTAWA -- The American Lung Association is shining a critical spotlight on Hollywood stars in a high-pressure effort to get them to butt out on screen. And one of the first targets on the association's new anti-smoking website launched this week is Canada's own Oscar winner Dan Aykroyd, who has incurred the wrath of clean-lung advocates for puffing on a pipe towards the end of Christmas with the Kranks.

The association rates movies with icons of lungs -- black for heavy depictions of smoking and pink when none of the characters smoke. Aykroyd's neighbourly Kranks movie gets a light grey rating.

In other reviews of the week's top 10 movies and DVDs, SceneSmoking.org also has harsh words for Andy Garcia and his cigar-chomping Ocean's Twelve character Terry Benedict.

"There won't be an Ocean's Thirteen if some of the thieves and Benedict don't quit their cigar habits," notes one of the 50 young people the association has hired in the Sacramento, Calif., area to monitor smoking content in newly released DVDs and movies.

Other stars are on the black list for either smoking in movies or flaunting their personal smoking habits during interviews. High on the list are Ben Affleck, Jennifer Aniston and her husband Brad Pitt, Ann Archer, Lara Flynn Boyle, Drew Barrymore, Tom Arnold and Aykroyd's sometime singing partner Jim Belushi, who has a well-advertised liking for cigars. Even Humphrey Bogart, the most famous screen smoker of all time, gets some posthumous negative comment on the website. Bogart died in 1957 of throat cancer in an era when smoking was at its most glamorous and few suspected it could kill.

The lung association campaign is deadly serious and is motivated by recent U.S. studies that offer the most conclusive evidence yet that tobacco use by popular actors and actresses has a direct and pervasive influence on youngsters. According to the studies, conducted at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, smoking is increasing among North American teenagers and at least half of those who start smoking say they were influenced by movie stars or other celebrities.

"Star power sells movies," says the association on its website. "It can also sell tobacco use."

The lung association is trying to get cigarettes, cigars and pipes banned as movie props unless the subject of the film is a real person or historical figure.

"If the movie was about Winston Churchill, it would be acceptable to portray him smoking cigars," said Shelley Mitchell, senior project manager for the Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down anti-smoking project.

-- CanWest News Service

WINNEPEGFREEPRESS.COM

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Blowing smoke -ON

By PAUL MOLLON
Saturday, December 18, 2004 - Page A26

Owen Sound, Ont.-- Re Ontario Unveils Smoking Ban (Dec. 16): It's so comforting to know that Ontario Health Minister George Smitherman is looking after us and plans a complete ban on smoking. After all, banning alcohol in the Twenties was such a rip-roaring success, and aren't we all so happy that the current "war on drugs" has stamped out the use and abuse of all other mind-altering substances?

The nanny state once again rides to the rescue. I'm quickly going to my cookie jar to flush all the high-fat, high-sugar goodies down the toilet. Mr. Smitherman will surely be coming for them next.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20041218/LETTERS18-13/TPHealth/

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Blowing smoke ON

By D. GRIFFIN
Saturday, December 18, 2004 - Page A26 Toronto -- Wouldn't it be great if the anti-smoking legislation, scheduled to take effect May 31, 2006, roughly coincided with the retirement of 100,000 nursing staff (One-Third Of Nurses Close To Retirement -- Dec. 15)? If the legislation actually accomplished its goal, we might not need that many replacement nurses after all

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20041218/LETTERS18-14/TPHealth/

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The anti-smoking gun -ON

Friday, December 17, 2004

The campaign to discourage smoking and to protect the health of non-smokers is admirable, but the legislation proposed this week by Ontario Health Minister George Smitherman is so absolutist that it risks trampling fairness and common sense.

Consider the case of Toronto. In 1999, the Toronto Board of Health drafted abylaw to ban smoking completely inbars and restaurants by 2001. The politicians found this to be extreme. They brokereda deal between an anti-smoking coalition and the bar and restaurant industry that permitted the existence of enclosed,separately ventilated designated smoking rooms. The city council passed the amended bylaw (which also extended the deadline for bars) by a vote of 50 to 1. Many of Toronto's bars and restaurants, fearful of driving away customers who chose to smoke, invested between $20,000 and $300,000 in such rooms.

In May of this year, the Toronto Board of Health went over Toronto's head, urging Mr. Smitherman to close down the city-sanctioned smoking rooms by 2007. Mr. Smitherman, whose Liberal government had come into office keen to crack down on smokers, this week introduced provincial legislation that he said would, among many other controls, "eliminate so-called designated smoking rooms." (The bill would also ban smoking in Legion halls but permit it in nursing homes. Oh, the whims of power.)

Tobacco is an addictive, health-destroying substance. But as long as it remains a legal product, the crusade to ensure that an Ontario region can't even let adult smokers light up in an enclosed, separately ventilated room is punitive law, not good law. There may be an argument that smokers who retire with their drinks or their food to those rooms shouldn't expect regular service there -- the health of the waiters is at issue -- but such subtleties don't seem to be a factor in the government's crusade. Neither does the good faith in which establishments built their separate rooms to comply with the Toronto bylaw.

Mr. Smitherman this week proudlydescribed his government's proposed legislation as the "toughest, most comprehensive and far-reaching" in North America. He may well be right. Certainly his crusades have had an evangelistic zeal to them; consider his blanket ban, since aborted, on the sale in Ontario of sushi and other raw fish. What's missing is a sense of proportion.

http://globeandmail.workopolis.com/servlet/Content/fasttrack/20041217/ESMOKING17?section=Travel

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Canada's highest court to hear tobacco companies' appeal of legislation

Greg Joyce Canadian PressDecember 19, 2004

VANCOUVER (CP) - The long-standing fight between British Columbia and three tobacco companies moved to the judicial big leagues Thursday after the Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal by the companies.

The nation's highest court agreed to hear an appeal of B.C. legislation known as the Tobacco Damages and Health Care Costs Recovery Act.

Several provinces have been watching the case with a view to launching similar legislation of their own. However, the Supreme Court hearing means it could be years before any costs are recovered.

The B.C. Court of Appeal, in a unanimous decision last May, ruled the B.C. government's legislation is constitutionally valid.

"It's important and it's (the Supreme Court appeal) the right thing to do," said Dave Laundy, spokesman for the Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers' Council, which is also a part of the appeal.

In May, the province's Liberal government got a green light to proceed with the lawsuit that seeks to recover $10 billion in health-care costs from tobacco companies.

The lawsuit names Imperial Tobacco Canada, Rothmans, Benson and Hedges, JTI-Macdonald, the tobacco council and several foreign tobacco companies.

Attorney General Geoff Plant said the case is important to the province.

"I think the stakes are high for British Columbia because we believe that the actions of the tobacco companies in not telling the truth about their products have cost the health-care system billions of dollars over the years."

The attorney general may prod other provinces to get involved.

"We may well encourage other provinces to intervene in the Supreme Court of Canada decision here."

The B.C. Appeal Court ruling overturned the decision of the B.C. Supreme Court, which twice previously - dating back to 1998 - had declared the legislation unconstitutional.

Laundy said the legislation is unfair to the tobacco manufacturers because its wording restricts the industry from gaining evidence on health-related issues, including how many people have become ill from smoking.

But Plant disagreed.

"I don't think that's a fair characterization of what the provincial statute tries to do," he said.

"It certainly tries to change some of the usual rules about evidence but it does so in the context of a completely new kind of lawsuit."

The legislation alleges tobacco manufacturers failed to warn consumers of the dangers of smoking, marked light cigarettes as safe and targeted children in their advertising and marketing.

A policy analyst and lawyer with the Canadian Cancer Society also said the case was of great importance to both sides.

"Other provinces are watching this closely so a judgment by the Supreme Court that is favourable will really give a green light to provinces to move ahead with their own legislation," said Rob Cunningham.

"Clearly, the stakes are high on both sides of the issue."

In 1998, B.C.'s former NDP government became the first government in Canada to attempt to sue tobacco companies, but the suit was rejected by the courts as too broad.

The suit said tobacco companies should be held liable for the tobacco-related illnesses that cost British Columbia an estimated $500 million a year in health costs.

http://www.canada.com/health/story.html?id=941120d0-4a97-4528-8eed-db32e4e9e586

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Arrests over smoking fracas at Wanganui pub -NZ

20 December 2004

A fight broke out and a 22-year-old female bar manager was allegedly assaulted after a smoker was asked to leave a Wanganui hotel on Saturday. 
 
The woman, who asked not to be named, said she had come on duty just before 6pm when the incident happened in the Sports Bar of the Red Lion Inn.

It had been a cold, rainy afternoon and all the other smokers had gone outside to smoke, she said.

One man lit up, and was told he could not do so indoors. He took exception to this, and said no one had a right to tell him not to smoke, she said.

After about 10 minutes' conversation the bar manager asked him to either comply with the new Smokefree Environments Act or leave. He became abusive, she said.

He was told police would be called if he did not leave quietly. When the manager tried to confiscate his remaining alcohol she said she was grabbed and shoved, which she found frightening.

Another bar patron came to her aid and then one of the smoker's companions got physical as well, while others joined in to try to break up the fight.

By the time "six to eight" police officers arrived five minutes later, helpful bar patrons had edged the smoker and his companions to the door.

Police were then allegedly assaulted by a woman and fighting started again.

The bar manager said patrons were trying to be helpful. They wanted to enjoy the horse racing in peace and "didn't want to put up with that kind of crap".

Four people were arrested as a result of the incidents, acting Sergeant Wade Satherley said.

Three were charged with disorderly behaviour and a fourth with assaulting police and resisting arrest. They are due to appear in Wanganui District Court on Thursday.

The manager said the brawl was completely unexpected on a Saturday afternoon, and prior to that she had not even had to remind anyone not to smoke inside.

She said she was a smoker herself, and had gone outside in the rain to light up.

She and others were shaken by the incident, but she was back on duty yesterday.

"You go home, take a deep breath, have a shot of whisky and carry on carrying on. You learn to adapt, and not take it personally.

"We don't make the rules, we just have to try and enforce them."

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3133431a11,00.html

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Anger, negative emotions may trigger stroke, Israeli study finds
By David Brinn   December 19, 2004

Try not to get angry. That's the message gleaned from new Israeli research that found that anger appears to have a bigger effect on the onset of strokes than positive emotions. Anger and other negative emotions may be triggers for ischemic stroke, according to an Israeli study published in the December 14 issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

Strokes are the third leading cause of death in the United States and the leading cause of disability in adults. Each year, about 500,000 Americans suffer new strokes, and another 200,000 suffer a recurrent stroke. Thirty percent will die within the year, and another 30% will be unable to live independently. More than half of those who survive their strokes will die within eight years.

The study found that people who had strokes were more likely to have experienced anger or negative emotions in the two hours prior to the stroke than at the same time the day before the stroke. They were also more likely to have reacted quickly to a startling event, such as getting out of bed suddenly after hearing a grandchild fall down and cry or standing up from a chair quickly after hearing an unexpected loud noise. The people were also more likely to have experienced anger, negative emotions, or sudden changes in body position in the two hours before the stroke than they were, on average, in the year before the stroke.

The study's lead researcher, Dr. Silvia Koton of the Israel Center for Disease Control, said many patients reported that stroke symptoms began after episodes of "overwhelming emotion."

"There's a lot of information and studies that have been done about the conventional reasons for the cause of strokes - high blood pressure, obesity, smoking - there are the main reasons, Koton told ISRAEL21c."Despite that, there has been little research done to explain why a person has a stroke at a certain moment - what is the trigger that brings it on?"

The study examined 200 Israelis who were hospitalized with an ischemic stroke or a transient ischemic attack (mini-stroke). Ischemic stroke is caused by reduced blood flow to the brain. It is the most common type of stroke.

The study participants, who had an average age of 68, were interviewed one to four days after the stroke occurred. Approximately 30 percent of patients reported exposure to anger, negative emotions such as fear, irritability, or nervousness, or sudden changes in body position in response to a startling event during the two hours before the stroke. According to the study, exposure to a potential trigger could increase the risk of stroke by as much as 14 times during the two-hour period immediately following exposure.

Levels of anger and other negative emotions were rated on a scale. For example, participants were identified as exposed to anger if they said they had a peak level of anger at a five or higher on a seven-point scale, which was defined as "very angry," "furious," or "enraged."

Researchers don't know how these triggers precipitate a stroke. "It's possible that brief episodes of mental stress cause transient changes in blood clotting and in the function of cells lining blood vessels. It is important to note that our study does not assess the cumulative risk related to exposures to potential triggers but short-term risks during the two-hour period immediately following exposures," said Koton, who in addition to her research at the center for disease control also teaches at Tel Aviv University.

Sudden reactions to startling events could trigger stroke through effects on blood circulation or an excessive response by the sympathetic nervous system, which regulates body functions such as heart rate or blood pressure.

The study also examined whether other factors such as positive emotions, heavy physical exertion, and heavy meals were triggers for stroke, and no significant relationship was found.

Other studies have found that anger, negative emotions, sudden changes in body position, and heavy physical exertion may be potential triggers for heart attacks.

"The main modifiable risk factors for stroke are high blood pressure, smoking, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, and obesity. However, this study demonstrates that there are factors that may trigger the premature onset of stroke and this is an important area of potential intervention," said Koton.

"We hope that the findings will lead to some prevention of strokes. One way is targeting groups of people who are prone to strokes because of one of the conventional reasons, and giving them training in behavior management - teaching them how to cope with anger and pressure. Behavior modification can protect their health to an extent," she said. "The possibility of preventive medications to lessen the risk of stroke among specific high-risk groups might also be studied."

Koton said further research might be able to identify the people most vulnerable to strokes set off by particular occurrences. "Although people cannot be told not to get mad, stress- and anger-coping programs can be offered to high-risk groups," she said.

"There's more work to be done - such as to explain why I act differently to a trigger than you do, but we've started the ball rolling by looking at the mechanism of the trigger."

Kotin discounted the theory raised by some people who have read her study that Israelis might be more stroke-prone due to the various pressures they deal with on a daily basis.

"We're all just people, and everyone reacts differently to pressure. What we're talking about in the study is immediate anger and how that can trigger a stroke. And people around the world get angry, not just Israelis."

http://www.israel21c.org/bin/en.jsp?enScript=PrintVersion.jsp&enDispWho=Articles^l861

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City businesses face fines

By Tanjie Nash,

A Monday deadline for local businesses to submit smoking policies to the City of Athens could result in a tiny windfall for the municipality. Those business owners who fail to submit such a policy will be fined $100, according to City Clerk John Hamilton.

On Sept. 13, the Athens City Council passed an ordinance governing smoking policies in local restaurants. The ordinance allows restaurant owners to choose from three policy options. Smoking may be allowed throughout the establishment or completely disallowed. A third option enables business owners to allow restricted smoking. Restaurants establishing a restricted policy will be required to completely isolate smokers from non-smokers.

Hamilton said smoking policies must be fully implemented by Jan. 1. In September, letters were mailed to 136 local businesses requesting notification of their plans by a Nov. 1 deadline. Only 40 replies had been received at city hall by that date.

Those businesses failing to report were given a grace period until Dec. 20, at which point they will be subject to a $100 per day fine and/or revocation of business licenses.

Hamilton said several business owners have indicated they never received the original letter.

"I've had quite a few phone calls in the last few days," Hamilton said Friday. "We've probably heard from a third of them. We sent another set of letters on Monday, so Tuesday morning we started getting quite a few calls. Some of them say they don't remember getting the first one."

In any case, Hamilton said, the Dec. 20 deadline stands.

"For those who said they don't remember getting the first letter, we're not going to shut them down or anything," he said. "I asked that they let us know their status by Monday (Dec. 20) at 4:30 or they are subject to a $100 fine and we can revoke their business licenses."

Hamilton said the letters were sent to any business holding a food and beverage permit issued by the Limestone County Health Department.

"Barbara Daly with the Health Department has been extremely helpful on this project," he said.

Most responses received by Friday indicate that dining out in Athens will soon be a largely smoke-free endeavor.

"We sent out 96 letters last Monday and we've heard from about half of them," Hamilton said. "We've had a handful who chose smoking-restricted and two or three that are smoking, so far. But it's leaning toward non-smoking, by far."

According to the city's smoking ordinance (no. 2004-1502), business owners found in violation of policy may be levied a $100 fine upon the first violation, A $500 fine upon the second violation. Subsequent violations are also subject to a fine of $500. Restaurant patrons may also be fined if they violate policy even after restaurant owners or managers attempt to enforce their policies.

http://www.enewscourier.com/articles/2004/12/18/news/news02.txt

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Tobacco lobbyist tied to Premier --ON
Ran ad campaign in last election Dec. 16, 2004. 01:00 AM
Smokers' website `totally up-front'

ROBIN HARVEY LIFE WRITER
They say they are more than 10,000 strong, reflecting the voices of ordinary adults "who choose to smoke."

 The public-interest group that operates the website mychoice.ca has emerged in recent weeks as the voice of smokers targeted by new laws. The group makes no secret of being funded by tobacco companies. Less well-known is that it was organized by the professional lobbyist who helped remake Dalton McGuinty's image.

 The smokers' rights group is running ads in print, on radio and on television attacking Ontario's proposed anti-smoking laws. Mychoice.ca president Nancy Daigneault is regularly quoted in news stories.

 But the organization that operates mychoice.ca is called Smokers Voice Inc. It was set up by a lobbying firm run by James Deacey, who Industry Canada confirms is listed as a registered lobbyist with Imperial Tobacco.

Deacey is head of the Ottawa public relations and lobbying firm Association House, which lists tobacco companies Imperial and JTI Macdonald as clients.

He was advertising chair for Dalton McGuinty in the last provincial election. He was communications chair for Paul Martin in the 1990 federal Liberal leadership race, communications chair for Premier David Peterson in the 1987 election and chairman of communications for Don Johnston in his 1984 Liberal leadership bid.

In an e-mail yesterday, Deacey referred questions about the firm and his own activities to Association House vice-president Sean Durkan.

Durkan said Association House was paid by tobacco firms to create mychoice.ca and the ads as part of its lobby work. He said Association House created the non-profit corporation Smokers Voice because they had to appear at "arm's length" from the tobacco lobby and they "had no members yet."

They intend to find non-lobbyists to run the group in the new year, he said.

Daigneault said mychoice.ca has 10,500 members and has been "totally up-front and honest." She added that it was open about being promised $2.5 million from Imperial Tobacco Canada, Rothmans, Benson and Hedges Inc. and JTI Macdonald when the site was launched.

Gar Mahood, a veteran anti-tobacco crusader, takes a different view.

"They say they are up-front about their funding, but they don't tell the whole story," he said. "The entire process was manufactured by professionals with the tobacco lobby."

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&call_pageid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1103152222350

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Someone should punish drivers -ON

Dec. 17, 2004. 01:00 AM 

Home last refuge for most smokers Dec. 16.

"Unless Ontarians want to be exposed to cigarette smoke, they won't be," Health Minister George Smitherman solemnly declares. Too bad they won't be allowed the same respite from car exhaust, which makes every cubic inch of air in the city of Toronto, indoors and out, blue.

But then, some forms of deadly air pollution (the containable kind like tobacco smoke, oddly) are really, really bad and others (the kinds that spew from millions of auto exhausts or coal-fired generating plants, say) we can live with if we have to.

Car drivers, unlike tobacco smokers, are too powerful a class to tangle with. Better to put smokers in the stockades and hold them up as an unholy example.

To ban grownups from indulging in exclusive grownup pastimes, such as smoking in pubs, is plainly infantile. To defend such infantility based on a spurious, selective and hypocritical notion that the health of one is the health of all is to promote a loomingly ominous intolerance of others whose behaviour does not match ours in every personal particular.

The new Puritans righteously force-marching the rest of us into their brave new world where we will all be protected, whether we like it or not, from selective kinds of bad behaviour (as long as such salvations don't impact too much on the base economy) are far more dangerous to our society in their self-satisfied bigotry than any poor schmuck innocently lighting up a smoke over his beer.

George Higton, Toronto

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&call_pageid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1103237409982

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Restrict smoking in shared spaces -ON
Home last refuge for most smokersDec. 16.

It pleases me to no end to praise Health Minister George Smitherman's efforts to curb tobacco usage in the province of Ontario in any way that he can. What puzzles me though is the exception granted buildings containing shared, common and adjoining living spaces such as those found in apartment buildings, condos, hotels and nursing homes.

In each of these cases, cigarette smoke represents the very same menace it does in any other building or enclosure. Walk through the hallways of just about any apartment building or condo you care to. When people are cooking, the cooking aromas fill the hallways. When people are smoking, the hallways are filled with that stuff too. And the balconies? Where cigarette smoke is concerned, it just doesn't seem to matter. The foul stuff gets everywhere; upwind and downwind and both, it seems, at the very same time.

In short, cigarette smoke is horrid, unhealthy and wholly unnecessary. It's one substance we can all do completely without. And this includes each and every one of our smokers, too.

So Smitherman should add all living spaces, both permanent and temporary, to the new bill requiring that all Ontarians act in a completely smoke-free way.

Bob Unitt, Burlington

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&call_pageid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1103237410779

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Want to smoke indoors? Try the Whitehorse hospital -YUKON
WebPosted Dec 18 2004 08:16 AM CST

WHITEHORSE - You won't be able to smoke in bars in Whitehorse on Jan. 1, nor in restaurants, or your office, or at any other public building… except the hospital.

When the city's new smoking bylaw takes effect in two weeks, the Whitehorse general hospital will be the only public place in the city where smoking is permitted indoors.

 The hospital keeps one ventilated smoking room with its own outdoor entrance for patients to light up.

 The hospital says it doesn't encourage smoking, but it's willing to make an exception for the sake of its patients.

 For Ken Dervishire, his twice-a-day visit to the smoking room is a relief.

 Lighting up an Export A, he says his recovery from a heart attack would be a lot harder if he couldn't have his cigarette fix.

 "I've been smoking for 40 years, I can't just jump in the Mercedes and drive around the block," he says. "Around here I can't even walk."

 Dervishire says he spends about an hour a day smoking at the hospital.

 He says asking him to quit would be too much.

 "That's like following a dying dog and throwing stones at him, not all dogs need the stones thrown at them," he says.

 Nurse Valerie Pike says patients like Dervishire often stay at the hospital for weeks at a time.

 She says closing the smoking room would cause more harm than good.

 "The belief is that during a hospital stay is not the time to insist that people either go outside at -40 and smoke, or hang around the front wrapped in blankets and pajamas and that sort of thing," she says.

 Whitehorse city council says it has no plans to shut down the hospital smoking room.

http://north.cbc.ca/regionalnews/caches/hospital-smoke-12182004.html

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 Don't be hypocrites -- ban tobacco products  -ON

Letter to the editor-Dec.18/04
The smoking ban has been in force for over a year in Winnipeg and
Brandon and only a few months for the rest of Manitoba.
It is painfully obvious that revenues and profits for provincially
operated casinos and privately operated bars, lounges and restaurants have
declined dramatically as a direct result. This exercise has proven,
beyond a doubt, that the vast majority of the non-smoking public of this
province do not go to casinos, bars, lounges, etc. The smoking ban is
effectively protecting people who do not patronize the hospitality
industry.
Both civic and provincial levels of government are extremely
hypocritical in their approach to this situation. The Manitoba government is
saying that smoking in casinos and bars is unhealthy but they are still
allowing tobacco products to be legally sold at the corner store, thereby
continuing to collect huge tax revenues. The City of Winnipeg, which
first imposed the ban locally, is still receiving funds from the
provincial government and the private sector which contain revenues from the
sale of tobacco products. This situation is grossly unfair and
inequitable. If both levels of government support the principle of anti-smoking,
then all tobacco products should be immediately banned and removed from
store shelves.
A complete ban would be less hypocritical and force all Manitobans, not
just the hospitality industry, to foot the bill. Are all Manitobans
ready to pay more if their provincial and municipal taxes increase as
dramatically as the loss of revenue experienced by the hospitality
industry?
TERRY BAILLEY
Winnipeg

Winnipeg Free Press

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Provincial anti-smoking laws go beyond Thunder Bay bylaw  -ON
By Chen Chekki - The Chronicle-Journal
December 18, 2004
Medical officials and political leaders in Thunder Bay are excited about Ontario’s proposed anti-tobacco rules, which will amount to a double-whammy of smoking bans in the city.
However, a gripe some have of the province’s idea of a ban that appears much the same as Thunder Bay’s law is that it is coming later than hoped.
“It’s a good thing and a bad thing,” said Joe Vander Wees, Thunder Bay councillor-at-large. “It’s a bad thing because they should have done it a long time ago.”
He said the Ontario ban that is targeted to start in 2006 would be law in Thunder Bay, too, as did councillor-at-large Iain Angus.
Angus said parts of the law that would be over and above Thunder Bay’s ban would be applied in the city and parts of the city’s smoking ban not covered by Ontario’s rules would still apply.
Ontario’s smoking ban would cover all indoor workplaces and enclosed public places just like the city ban, but goes beyond by banning in-store displays of tobacco, for example.
Likewise, the city ban appears to go beyond the proposed Ontario ban by snuffing out smoking within three metres of public entrances.
“We don’t have bylaws to reduce provincial laws, but add to them,” Angus said.
He is disappointed that the provincial ban will take more than a year to start-up, but agrees with Vander Wees that the proposal is quite appropriate and long overdue.
Those at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre believe the ban could help reduce the number of patients they see with smoking-related illnesses.
“We are in favour of anything that curtails smoking because it is so disadvantageous to health,” said hospital board chairman Ron Nelson.
Jim Morris, who leads the hospital’s Nicotine Dependence Centre, wants the provincial law to require more support for programs that offer intensive programs to quit smoking and for those who are trying to kick the habit.
His centre is the only intensive smoking cessation program out of Ontario’s 11 cancer centres.
It has received close to 600 clients since 2001 and has a success rate of 35 to 40 per cent. Going cold turkey, Morris said, only succeeds about five per cent of the time.
Enrolling in the center costs $100, and the only people currently getting the fee waived are cancer patients, their relatives and those who had heart attacks or are covered by their employers.
“The government doesn’t pay to help people quit smoking,” Morris said.
Meanwhile, Ontario’s health minister told the grand chief of Nishnawbe Aski Nation, Stan Beardy, that traditional aboriginal ceremonies requiring tobacco in indoor settings would be protected under the new law.
Nishnawbe Aski Nation received the phone call earlier in the week from the minister George Smitherman about the proposed anti-smoking legislation.
Beardy told Smitherman the proposal is a good thing.
Residents in NAN, which has about 40,000 people in 49 First Nations, have high rates of lung cancer which Beardy blames on smoking.
“I want to find a way to work with the province to see how (the proposal) can be applied to benefit our people,” Beardy said.
On the other hand, Fort William First Nation wants its bingo hall to be exempted from the Ontario smoking ban.
All of the public buildings and administrative offices in the community just south of Thunder Bay are smoke-free, but there is a special space for smokers inside the bingo hall.
“It’s part of the (economy), allowing people to smoke and come to our bingo hall,” said the chief of the First Nation, Peter Collins.
He said the bingo hall serves as a good revenue generator for his community. With about half the patrons at the bingo hall being smokers, Collins sees smoking as a basic right.
“That’s the way it is,” he said.

http://www.chroniclejournal.com/story.shtml?id=24972

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'I don't even smoke and I think it's stupid'

KELLY PEDRO, Free Press Reporter 2004-12-18

A law that would ban smoking nearly everywhere in Ontario but in people's homes isn't going down well among smokers on London's busiest bar stretch. The Richmond Row eateries and bars were already hit by the city's no-smoking bylaw, which prompted many to build costly outdoor patios to cater to patrons who smoke.

But the McGuinty government's proposed new law -- said to be the toughest in North America -- would sweep away even those last refuges for diehard smoking customers.

"I don't see a problem with being outside and smoking because if you're a non-smoker just stay inside," said customer Danielle Bateman, while smoking on the patio at Jack's on Richmond Row.

"If it's not morally wrong, I don't see why we can't smoke outside."

Bateman, who works at the Honest Lawyer on Dundas Street, said that bar doesn't have a patio and smokers puff in a back alley.

"That's the kind of environment they're going to force everyone into," she said.

Queen's Park this week announced the tough new Smoke Free Ontario Act that would make it hard to smoke anywhere, except in homes.

If passed, the law would take effect in May 2006. Smoking would be banned in bars, restaurants, Legion halls and casinos.

It would still permit hotel guests to smoke in designated suites and residents in long-term care facilities to light up.

But the law would ensure anyone who doesn't want to be exposed to smoke won't be.

"Any server who serves in an establishment knows that second-hand smoke is an inherent part of the job," said Mike Fabrizio, a smoker.

While Fabrizio wondered about the potential profit loss for bar owners, friend Matt Bateman said the proposed law is disappointing, but wouldn't stop him from hitting the bars.

The legislation has smokers and bar owners -- who spent thousands outfitting outdoor patios with screens and heaters to comply with London's smoking bylaw, which would be overtaken by the new law -- fuming.

"It's disgusting," said Dan Saint, a smoker and Club Phoenix employee.

"People have already paid to put patios up to make people comfortable outside and now they're saying you can't? That's ridiculous. If you look around the bars in London almost every one has spent money to put up patios like this," he said of the red screens and heaters set up at the club.

Even non-smoker Matt Chung said he thinks the legislation goes too far.

"I don't even smoke and I think it's stupid," he said.

The anti-tobacco bill would also restrict in-store cigarette displays.

The legislation prohibits countertop tobacco displays in convenience stores and limits the size of behind-the-counter power walls -- rows upon rows of cigarettes for sale.

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/LondonFreePress/News/2004/12/18/787888-sun.html

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'Ban it and buy us out' -ON

HANK DANISZEWSKI, Free Press Business Reporter 2004-12-18

A tough new Ontario law that would ban smoking practically everywhere except in homes is another blow for farmers in the heart of the tobacco belt, and for bar owners in London who have invested heavily in patios that have allowed them to skirt the city's smoking bylaw.

DELHI -- Here in the heart of the tobacco belt, Ontario's tough new anti-smoking legislation is another nail in the coffin. At the Delhi tobacco exchange, two growers lean over a bale of fragrant golden leaf and glumly talk about the end of the Canadian industry.

For years tobacco producers vigorously defended themselves, saying smoking was a personal choice and Canadian smokers should buy Canadian tobacco. They still say those things, but now they mainly talk about getting out.

"If you want a smoke-free Canada, ban the product and buy us out," said Steve Csercsics, who grows tobacco near Langton.

There are only about 700 growers left in the Ontario Flue-Cured Tobacco Growers Marketing Board, down from a peak of about 3,700 in the '70s. In the United States, the federal government is scrapping its tobacco marketing system, under pressure from world prices, and buying tobacco quota back from producers for about $10 a pound.

Csercsics said if Canadian growers got the same deal, "everybody and their brother would get out."

Emiel Janssens, who has grown tobacco for 44 years, doubts a new generation can take over the business.

"The old farmers are the only ones who can survive. The younger ones can't," said Janssens, who farms east of Port Burwell.

Mark Bannister got out of tobacco growing last year but still owns quota. He is one of the organizers of a new group called Tobacco Farmers in Crisis aimed at getting the best deal for growers trying to get out of the business.

He said the buyout of American quota will undermine the Ontario marketing board. He said manufacturers will inevitably refuse to negotiate a premium price for Canadian tobacco that is well above the world price.

"Come springtime, this will all collapse," he said, nodding toward the exchange floor.

The smoking ban announced this week will take effect in May 2006 and is expected to drive down tobacco consumption even farther.

It means growers at the auction exchange would have to butt out, despite being surrounded by tonnes of tobacco.

"I would not want to be the guy who has to enforce it," said Csercsics.

At the Tillsonburg headquarters of the tobacco marketing board, chairperson Fred Neukamm says the legislation was no surprise, noting the McGuinty government has vowed to wage war on tobacco.

The federal government has committed $67 million to compensate farmers who want to sell their quota and get out of the business. But Neukamm said that money is contingent on a $50-million provincial program that has been promised but never announced.

He said Premier Dalton McGuinty promised him the money was coming as recently as last week.

"The cheque's in the mail is not good enough at this point. We have a segment of growers who want to exit and need to exit," said Neukamm, a third- generation tobacco producer from the Aylmer area.

Neukamm said the 700 tobacco growers left in Ontario still support 10,000 full-time jobs and half a billion dollars annually in economic activity.

Ontario Agriculture Minister Steve Peters, whose Elgin riding includes the western end of the tobacco belt, said he understands the hardship facing the tobacco belt.

He said the government is still working on the details of a "transition" plan for tobacco farmers. In the meantime, growers will have to be patient.

"When we are in a position to reveal that option, we'll do so."

Tillsonburg Mayor Stephen Molnar said that in the government's zeal to stamp out smoking, the effect on the tobacco belt has been ignored. Over the years, Tillsonburg has lost its cigarette processing plant, a tobacco exchange and other spin-off revenue.

"The impact on rural development and municipal growth is devastating. Those decisions are not being co-ordinated within government and that's dangerous," Molnar said.

At the Bunkhouse sports bar on the main street of Delhi, smokers are still welcome to light up, but owner Vassilos Vatiliotis knows the day is coming when he'll have to tell his customers to butt out.

He said he has seen the downtown decline along with the tobacco industry since he arrived in Delhi in 1980.

Down the street, the Golden Leaf restaurant, a landmark gathering place for generations, is shut down and boarded up.

"The farmers know eventually there isn't going to be any tobacco.

"They just want something out of it," Vatiliotis said.

The provincewide ban on public smoking that comes into effect in May 2006 will not have much impact in the London area, where most municipalities have already gone smoke free.

Chatham-Kent - June 2003

London - July 2003

Middlesex County - October 2003

Huron County - September 2004

Lambton County - September 2004

St. Thomas - Smoking ban takes effect March 2005

Oxford County: Woodstock, Ingersoll and Zorra Township have smoking bans.

Perth County: four rural municipalities, Stratford and St. Marys have smoking ban bylaws, although some allow smoking in private clubs.

Elgin County, Norfolk County and five Oxford County municipalities have not enacted public bans.

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/LondonFreePress/News/2004/12/18/787887-sun.html

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Cardiovascular effects in patrol officers are associated with fine particulate matter from brake wear and engine emissions

Abstract

Background

Exposure to fine particulate matter air pollutants (PM2.5) affects heart rate variability

parameters, and levels of serum proteins associated with inflammation, hemostasis

and thrombosis. This study investigated sources potentially responsible for

cardiovascular and hematological effects in highway patrol troopers.

Results

Nine healthy young non-smoking male troopers working from 3 PM to midnight were

studied on four consecutive days during their shift and the following night. Sources of

in-vehicle PM2.5 were identified with variance-maximizing rotational principal factor

analysis of PM2.5-components and associated pollutants. Two source models were

calculated. Sources of in-vehicle PM2.5 identified were 1) crustal material, 2) wear of

steel automotive components, 3) gasoline combustion, 4) speed-changing traffic with

engine emissions and brake wear. In one model, sources 1 and 2 collapsed to a single

source. Source factors scores were compared to cardiac and blood parameters

measured ten and fifteen hours, respectively, after each shift. The “speed-change”

factor was significantly associated with mean heart cycle length (MCL, +7% per

standard deviation increase in the factor score), heart rate variability (+16%),

supraventricular ectopic beats (+39%), % neutrophils (+7%), % lymphocytes (-10%),

red blood cell volume MCV (+1%), von Willebrand Factor (+9%), blood urea

nitrogen (+7%), and protein C (-11%). The “crustal” factor (but not the “collapsed”

source) was associated with MCL (+3%) and serum uric acid concentrations (+5%).

Controlling for potential confounders had little influence on the effect estimates.

Conclusion

PM2.5 originating from speed-changing traffic modulates the autonomic control of the

heart rhythm, increases the frequency of premature supraventricular beats and elicits

pro-inflammatory and pro-thrombotic responses in healthy young men.

http://www.particleandfibretoxicology.com/content/pdf/1743-8977-1-2.pdf

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Deep frying tonight  -UK
The campaign for healthy eating could be a long and messy one
Ruaridh Nicoll Sunday December 19, 2004
Who are these people who thought the deep-fried Mars bar was a myth? Dr David Morrison of NHS Greater Glasgow said he had never seen one and didn't know anyone who had tasted one, so he set out to prove it was an urban tall-tale. 'I was certainly surprised by the results,' he said.

Not as surprised as I am that anyone who works in the NHS could have suspected such a thing. I thought the nation's doctors spent much of their working lives desperately trying to stop Scottish hearts exploding like popcorn in a pan.

What Dr Morrison found when he rang 500 of Scotland's chippies was that nearly a quarter of them sold the battered chocolate bar, 10 of them selling between 50 and 200 a week. His study allowed a sight of the enemy in Jack McConnell's fight against Scotland's eating habits. News from the front is not encouraging. One in three of our children is overweight, while one in five is clinically obese.

McConnell's urge to make us live better has been one of his better traits. While it does not have the grand vision of Aneurin Bevan founding the National Health Service or Bevan's wife, Jennie Lee, setting up the Open University, it does show his desire to make a difference. It is also smart politics given how low our expectations are of its success, for it chimes the forlorn bell that we Scots love so much.

While the forces that face McConnell may be terrifying, some small successes have cheered the troops. The astonishment of our southern neighbours was wonderful to behold last week when they discovered that English schools still serve a food banned here: Bernard Matthews's Turkey Twizzlers.

Rather than be outraged that the Twizzlers are more than a fifth fat (and look as if they might have corkscrewed out of an electrocuted turkey's bottom), it was the knowledge English children were eating things that even the Scots disdained that so worried the English press. So no change then from when Samuel Johnson defined oats in his dictionary as 'a grain which in England is generally given to horses, but which in Scotland supports the people'.

This reassuring prick on English assumptions is down to McConnell's initiatives. Children in primary one and two now receive free fruit, while fizzy drinks are being removed from school vending machines.

Yet for McConnell, the playground is territory he controls. Irn-Bru might have been banished, but only as far as the school gate where it hangs about with the deep-fried Mars and the Embassy Regal. The Executive hits out with endless adverts in the hope it will change our perception, but given that the teacake-making Tunnock's just reported increases in domestic sales and Gregg's shares are up 20 per cent on the year, perhaps they are not terribly successful.

More radical action - warning labels on food or even outright bans - would probably be counterproductive. Where do you draw the line? At flumps or at sausage rolls? We'd rebel. Last night, I saw the perfect stocking gift for the smoker: small cards that perfectly mimic the government health warnings on cigarette packets, except these say: 'Smoking makes you hard' and: 'Smoking makes you cool'.

It is the Executive's other effort towards healthy living - getting children to play sports - where greater hope lies. Given the recent exit of Celtic, Rangers and Hearts from European competition, it is also pressing. I didn't notice the Australians eating particularly healthily the last time I was there, and many of them share our blood. One of the truly distressing studies of recent times showed that a majority of Scottish men choose to be overweight because they don't want to appear puny.

There is no doubt McConnell is trying to promote sport in schools. He is also moving to make the routes to school safer, so more children can walk. This is where the battle of our eating habits will be won, getting children to find exercise they enjoy. We may not have the weather but we certainly have the countryside.

Our history of innovation is proud but a little disturbing. The telephone meant we no longer had to walk when we wanted to talk to our friends. Tarmac was a boon to the gut-expanding car. Most recently, we have given the world Grand Theft Auto, the computer game that has little boys everywhere sitting in front of their television sets, busy stealing and running over prostitutes ... but that's another story.

We are good at this stuff. I once interviewed the inventor of the deep-fried Mars. He told me that it was an ongoing project trying out new treats on the youngsters who patronised the now-defunct chippie in Stonehaven. Like all good innovators, he had had both successes and failures. A notable fiasco was the deep-fried Chewit. He hadn't reckoned on the candy turning white hot inside the batter. 'It nearly took the top of the mouth off,' he said. 'I stopped that sharpish, before their mothers heard.'

The First Minister faces a long war. I hope he's feeling fit.

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,9115,1377018,00.html

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Vendors demand £30m over smoke ban -UK
MURDO MACLEOD Sun 19 Dec 2004
POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT

CIGARETTE vending machine companies are to demand millions of pounds in compensation from the government if smoking is banned in pubs and clubs in Scotland.
They are claiming around £30m, arguing that the proposed ban on smoking will "devastate" their businesses and cost hundreds of jobs.
The vending companies have launched their own campaign to head off the ban, which involves stickers on every packet of cigarettes sold out of machines, urging smokers to sign petitions.
But the Scottish Executive has ruled out any prospect of compensation, saying that since smoking was not being made illegal, the vendors had no right to any cash.
Rod Bullough, the chairman of the National Association of Cigarette Machine Operators (NACMO) said they were campaigning against the smoking ban and claimed it would kill off his business.
He said: "We shall certainly be calling for compensation if smoking is banned in bars and pubs. The farmers got compensation over the foot and mouth outbreak and the same principle should apply to us.
"If people are no longer able to smoke in bars our trade will be completely devastated."
Across the UK, the cigarette vending machine business is worth about £360m per year and employs about 1,000 staff in small companies.
Bullough said: "Our whole rationale is the selling of cigarettes in bars so that the landlord doesn’t have to. There’s not much else you can put in our machines that you can’t already get from behind the bar."
In addition to calling for compensation, NACMO has also set up its own "Oppose the Ban" campaign aimed at fighting plans to ban smoking in bars. The campaign, which features stickers on every pack sold from a machine, is pushing for better facilities for non-smokers, such as better ventilation and no-smoking zones.
But the Scottish Executive has ruled out any prospect of compensation.
A source close to First Minister Jack McConnell said: "I can’t imagine we’re talking to anyone about compensation. We are not banning smoking and we are not banning cigarettes or the sale of cigarettes."
He added that the licensed trade was fighting a losing battle by opposing the ban.
He said: "There is a massive weight of public support behind the legislation. The best thing the licensed trade can do is recognise the fact that the ban is coming and concentrate on the marketing opportunities it brings."

http://news.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=1447892004

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Health Costs Making It Harder for States To Have Full Economic Recoveries, USA

19 Dec 2004

States' financial situations continued to improve this year, but states' full recovery from the "worst fiscal crisis in six decades" has been stymied by "soaring health care costs," according to a new report from the National Governors Association. States ended fiscal year 2004 with combined balances totaling $25.3 billion -- or 4.8% of state spending -- up from balances of $16.4 billion, or 3.2% of state spending last year.
According to the New York Times, a 5% balance "cushion" is considered "healthy," and 23 states reported balances of 5% or more, up from 12 in 2003. In addition, spending from state general funds increased by 3% this year to $523.5 billion after two years of "hardly any growth," according to NGA, the Times reports. Nine states reported a decline in general fund spending from 2003 to 2004. NGA also said that tax collections have stabilized since 2001, when a recession reduced state revenues for two years. The higher tax revenue resulted in part from an increase in cigarette and tobacco taxes -- which brought in an additional $888 million -- and an increase in sales taxes totaling $710 million.
Rising Medicaid, Health Care Costs
The governors said that tax revenues still are "not sufficient to pay for the growth of Medicaid and other health costs," the Times reports (Pear, New York Times, 12/17).
Medicaid costs this year for the first time exceeded elementary and secondary education as the largest budget item for states, and the program's costs are expected to increase by 12.1% in fiscal year 2005, Reuters reports. The Medicaid cost increase is partly because of the absence this year of "federal stimulus funds" given to states last year to "help them through the economic and fiscal weakness," Reuters reports (Reuters, 12/16).
According to the Times, Congress provided $20 billion in fiscal relief to the states, but the aid expired in June (New York Times, 12/17).
Reaction
The report said, "Even though the overall fiscal situation seems to be getting better in many states, most are still keeping expenditures reined in, especially considering pent-up demand that resulted from the recent fiscal crisis" (Tanner, AP/Cincinnati Post, 12/16).
Raymond Scheppach, NGA executive director, said, "We have just come through a tremendously difficult fiscal period. The light at the end of the tunnel is beginning to appear, but unfortunately it's a long tunnel." Scott Pattison, executive director of the National Association of State Budget Officers, said that the report shows "relative improvement from the fiscal malaise of the past few years, [but] the states' fiscal situations will remain difficult for the foreseeable future" (New York Times, 12/17).
He added, "There's stability on the revenue and spending front, but it's really the bills to pay that keeps ratcheting up the problem" (Reuters, 12/16). The report is available online. Note: You must have Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the report.
Broadcast Coverage
NPR's "Morning Edition" on Friday reported on the NGA report. The segment includes comments from Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen (D); Trish Riley, director of Maine's Governor's Office for Health Policy and Finance; and Scott Pattison, executive director of the National Association of State Budget Officers (Jones, "Morning Edition," NPR, 12/17). http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_hpolicy.cfm#27301

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=18032

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Criticism stung new mother, father

By Joe Kennedy THE ROANOKE TIMES Saturday, December 18, 2004

Mellisa Williamson has no computer and has never used the Internet, but she has seven stapled pages of ridicule that computer users aimed her way after she was depicted in our newspaper smoking a cigarette while pregnant in September.

The photograph accompanied a story about traffic-calming measures in Southeast Roanoke. Williamson said she worried that noise from jackhammers might harm the child she was carrying. The cigarette, the quote and the photo made the pregnant Williamson a target of worldwide derision. Comedian Jay Leno made sport of her on the "Tonight Show."

Her name appeared on hundreds of Internet sites, and some talk radio hosts fed off the topic like swine at a trough.

There is no dispute that smoking - if not jackhammer noise - has been linked to heart, lung and other diseases in adults and birth defects in children. The habit is estimated to account for 20 percent to 30 percent of low birth-weight babies, up to 14 percent of preterm deliveries and 10 percent of all infant deaths.

In an interview a week after the photo furor began, Williamson shrugged off her critics and said her doctor had asked her to cut down on smoking, but not to go cold-turkey for fear of stressing herself and her unborn child. She claimed she had reduced her daily cigarette consumption from two packs to half a pack. And, she said, people had bugged her about smoking since she started the habit 20 years ago. She was used to it.

Simple joy

Tuesday afternoon, I dropped in at the apartment that Williamson and Emmett Muse Jr. share in a house on Bullitt Avenue Southeast. She was in the front room, dressed in a red sweat shirt and white pants and holding Emmett Muse III - the baby she bore at 1:15 a.m. on Nov. 15.

Emmett III weighed 5 pounds, 2 ounces at birth and measured 18.5 inches in length. He arrived one day early. He is up to 6 pounds now and doing well, she said.

She and Muse, her partner for two years, had a good Thanksgiving, and they anticipate a good Christmas.

Muse is 49, a big man in a camouflage jacket who has applied for disability because of a back injury he suffered in car wreck several years ago. Williamson, 35, is a small woman who worked at a fast-food restaurant until after she became pregnant. She is unemployed and on public assistance.

A small, artificial Christmas tree stands decorated in the front room. The baby's bassinet and swing are there, too.

If Jay Leno happened by, Muse said, "He would see a perfect child made by God almighty and the angels above."

Hard words

Clearly the couple is thrilled by their newborn - Emmett's first child and Mellisa's second. Their moods shift when the talk turns to the criticism caused by the photograph of Williamson smoking while pregnant and her jackhammer quote.

Here are some examples of the reactions, taken from www.sternfannetwork.com, a Web site for fans of radio shock jock Howard Stern.

• "Those rednecks down there just don't care."

• "What a moron."

Somebody even published the couple's telephone number on the Internet.

"I got calls from people telling me how stupid I was," Williamson said.

Someone else gave her the seven pages of criticism she has saved. Her ability to shrug it off didn't last long.

"I just cried," she said. "It upset me, but I thought, 'I can't be upset,' so I had to overrule everything because I was pregnant."

One online wit suggested that Emmett III's father really was her uncle.

The remark infuriated Emmett Jr., who called it "slander, big-time, on a person."

The critics, he said, "are all being judgmental unless they've had the nicotine habit."

He has known people who got off cocaine and other drugs but failed to shake nicotine.

"It's like a sickness to a person," he said.

Nevertheless, he said, he has reduced his smoking, just as Mellisa has.

She and Muse said they hope to marry in January.

Despite their smoking, their apartment did not smell of smoke.

"We don't allow no smoking in the house at all," Muse said, emphatically. "Cigarettes are a habit my son will never pick up."

http://www.roanoke.com/columnists/kennedy/15601.html

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Plan Would Sanction Minnesota Welfare Recipients For Smoking

Dec 17, 2004 3:27 pm US/Central
St. Paul (AP) First, it was junk food. Now, a Minnesota legislator wants to keep some of the state's poor people from using state aid for cigarettes.
Rep. Marty Seifert, R-Marshall, said Friday that welfare recipients should be fined for smoking because the habit increases the state's health costs.
Seifert, the chairman of the House State Government Finance Committee, said he would introduce legislation next month imposing higher premiums, co-payments or economic sanctions for people getting state assistance who don't quit smoking.
Seifert would test smokers on welfare periodically to verify that they've quit, and said the state could help them enroll in programs to kick the habit. The proposal would apply to people receiving public health and welfare benefits, he said.
"The bottom line is, if you're a recipient of health and welfare benefits, we expect you to stop smoking with the taxpayers' money," Seifert said.
He estimated that a pack-a-day habit costs a smoker at least $1,200 a year. Seifert said he'd also like to impose sanctions for gambling and buying alcohol, but said it's too difficult to test for compliance.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture turned back a plan from Gov. Tim Pawlenty to ban food stamp recipients from spending their benefits on junk food, saying such a ban might stigmatize people receiving assistance. Reining in health care costs is one of the top priorities for the legislative session that starts Jan. 4.
Forcing welfare recipients to quit smoking would be discriminatory, said Linden Gawboy, of the Minnesota Welfare Rights Coalition.
"Are the legislators going to get their salaries cut if they don't quit smoking?" she said. "Smoking is an addiction. They've made it so much harder to get health care, people can't even get help. I'd like to see where they're going to get the money for these programs when they're cutting all the programs that people need."
The Legislature last year used $1 billion from a settlement with tobacco companies to help plug a $4.2 billion deficit. That move meant the end of the Target Market anti-smoking campaign aimed at teenagers. The number of likely teen smokers jumped 10 percentage points after the program's elimination, according to a survey for the Minnesota Department of Health.
About 900,000 people got public assistance, health care or both from the state in the last fiscal year, according to the Department of Human Services. Almost half were were under age 21.
Lawmakers also will consider proposals to raise the cigarette tax in the session that starts Jan. 4. Raising the tax $1 per pack would affect more than 100,000 Minnesotans, who either wouldn't start smoking or would cut back or quit, according to Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota. 
 http://wcco.com/topstories/local_story_352162843.html

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Across Europe, Smokers Are Hitting the Streets
BY REBECCA GOLDSMITH
Newhouse News Service
DUBLIN, Ireland -- After the Irish government banned smoking from public places earlier this year, Caroline Kennedy made a rash decision. Instead of suffering the indignity of puffing outside like an outcast, or the frustration of holding her drink in one hand without a cigarette secure in the other, the devoted pub patron vowed to stay home.
But by late November, as Dublin's slick sidewalks and cobbled alleys heaved with smokers exiled from bars, Kennedy was among the reluctant converts satisfying nicotine urges outdoors, between pints of beer at the pub.
"The idea was so alien to me," Kennedy said. Even now, "the very first thing I do when I go to a bar is take a cigarette out."
Nine months ago, the unthinkable happened in Ireland. The Emerald Isle, once one of the world's most smoker-friendly countries, became the first nation to go cold turkey, banning smoking inside bars, restaurants, businesses and other public places. The sheer audacity of turning the storied pubs of James Joyce, Oscar Wilde and Samuel Beckett into smoke-free zones emboldened other countries to follow suit in a way that earlier bans in New York and California never did.
Now, countries in Europe are following Ireland's lead. Driven by rising health costs and a fear of passive-smoking lawsuits, Scotland, Norway and Malta have enacted measures, and Sweden is scheduled to do so next year. England, with its 12 million smokers, is likely next.
"Ireland has provided the template of something most governments wanted to do but feared a populist reaction from individuals and from lobby groups," said Ray Kinsella, director of the Centre for Insurance Studies at University College Dublin. "In Ireland, the lobby groups were faced down by the government."
Even more impressive than getting industry to back down was persuading the Irish people to go along with the ban. This was no small feat in a country where "the craic" (pronounced "crack"), or a fun time, is viewed almost as a God-given right.
"If this had happened in someplace like Germany or Switzerland, it wouldn't have been a shock. They're not known for letting down their hair. They're known for conformism," Kinsella said. "We do like our enjoyment. We don't like the government looking over our shoulder. Beneath the surface, we're a rebel people."
Ireland's smoking ban has affected all aspects of life, from the economics of tax collections to the business of "smirting" -- Irish slang for "smoking and flirting." One in four Irish people smoke, down from 31 percent in 1998. In the United States, the smoking rate was 22.5 percent in 2002, down from 24.1 percent in 1998.
And while the Irish government has declared it a success, the decrease in smoking may prove more expensive than predicted.
Sales of cigarettes, according to the government, fell by 17.6 percent this year, cutting tax revenue by $171 million -- $78 million more than projected. Alcohol sales, which bring in about $6.7 billion to Ireland's economy, also are down. The Irish Brewers' Association, an industry group, said pubs sold 6 percent fewer pints of stout, ale and lager between April and September compared to the same period the previous year.
Perhaps nowhere is the transformation more dramatic than at local pubs -- centers of communal life and meeting places for friends, colleagues and families. The haze of smoke had become as integral to the decor of pubs as trees in a forest.
Mulligan's, where Kennedy met her colleagues last weekend, once was among the smokiest pubs in Dublin. Now, smokers cluster outside on Poolbeg Street, huddled against the raw wind coming off the River Liffey a block away. Inside the 1785 watering hole, fashioned with dark wood and pressed-tin accents, the difference is enormous.
"Can you see the time on the clock?" asked Paul Cantwell, a 56-year-old non-smoker who has been a regular for 32 years. "Previously, you could not see beyond your fingers.
"The ban is the best thing that ever happened in this country."
Indeed, non-smoking pub-goers expressed almost universal enthusiasm for the change. But the ban also is surprisingly popular among some smokers.
"Our pubs were so smoky before. Your clothes would stink. Your hair would stink. They weren't places where you really brought children much," said Crona Barrett, a 33-year-old Web development manager who said smoking is crucial to her enjoyment on a night out.
Many smokers -- especially young women -- said they smoke less now. Barrett, for instance, said she smokes three to five cigarettes a night, when she previously smoked 10.
"As it's getting colder and colder now, it's a lot less attractive of a proposition to stand outside getting cold and wet. I still do it, but a lot, lot less. I absolutely think it has impacted smoking in a good way," she said.
Though most pub-goers said the ban has enhanced pub culture, Ireland's influential hospitality industry -- which bitterly opposed the ban -- tells another story. The Vintners' Federation of Ireland, which represents 6,000 pub owners, said the ban and a new law barring children from pubs after 9 p.m. have devastated business.
"You just don't have the same atmosphere in the pubs. There's a lot less people coming to the bars. There's more people drinking at home," VFI President Seamus O'Donoghue said. "It has changed the face of sociability."
Some bars have attempted to make outdoor smoking more comfortable by constructing beer gardens with protection from the rain and powerful gas heaters. The hardest-hit watering holes are the traditional bars that attracted an older clientele and had no room for expansion.
"The older generation won't go out to smoke at the front of the pub. It looks bad. People don't want to be seen smoking out the front of the pub. They're ashamed that they have to be put out as if they had leprosy or some other disease. Because they want to go out for a smoke, they feel like second-class citizens," O'Donoghue said.
Dec. 17, 2004
(Rebecca Goldsmith is Europe correspondent for The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. She can be contacted at rgoldsmith@starledger.com.)

http://www.newhousenews.com/archive/goldsmith121704.html

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Smoking split not cut and dried
IAN GILLESPIE, Free Press News Columnist  2004-12-15

At first glance, the story seemed straightforward. There was a vulnerable victim, a threat to her health and a violation of her rights.

Now, I'm not sure it's so cut and dried.

It starts with a conversation with Robert Axford-Gatley, a London family doctor concerned about one of his patients.

For confidentiality reasons, let's call her Donna.

Donna lives in a small, three-bedroom house operated by the Western Ontario Therapeutic Community Hostel (WOTCH).

WOTCH provides housing for people too mentally unstable to live on their own. In London, the organization owns a residential rehab unit, three group homes and 23 single-family homes. It also operates 89 one-bedroom apartments and a 23-unit apartment building.

Donna has lived in a WOTCH residence in north London for more than a year.

About five months ago, a smoker moved in.

"She can't tolerate the smoke," says Axford-Gatley, adding Donna suffered from childhood asthma. "She's trying to fight it by plugging all the hot-air ducts into her room."

The doctor says Donna complained to WOTCH about the smoke, but was told they didn't have the jurisdiction to intervene.

"They make all kind of lifestyle rules," says Axford-Gatley. "But they're saying they can't ask a resident to smoke outside.

"It's not a nuisance or convenience matter," he says. "It's a health matter."

Next, I spoke to Donna. She says she's been suffering from agoraphobia -- an abnormal fear of open spaces or public places -- since childhood. She says she has spent much of her life in various mental-health institutions.

She says her current house-mate (there are only two women in the three-bedroom house) smokes constantly, even rising at night for a few puffs.

As a result, Donna says her throat is constantly sore. To avoid the second-hand smoke, Donna spends almost all her time in her tiny room. She says she's blocked the heating duct with newspaper. She runs an air purifier, too.

The 38-year-woman says she complained many times to WOTCH workers.

"And every time, the response was, 'If it makes you sick or you don't like it, move out,' " she says.

Donna says WOTCH offered to place her in an apartment, but she says she can't cope with that now.

"Because of the panic attacks," she says, "I got so afraid of everything that I couldn't leave my bed without totally freaking out."

She says the second-hand smoke just makes things worse.

"I'm agoraphobic, so I can't even stand on the front porch and breathe fresh air," she says. "And there's the anxiety of them (WOTCH) always threatening, 'If you don't like it -- move out.' "

But Jeff Lounsbury says it isn't that simple.

The director of property management for WOTCH says the group has moved Donna three times in attempts to accommodate her needs, but "she has never been able to live with anybody -- smoker or non-smoker."

He also admits WOTCH can't offer anyone a smoke-free environment.

"A lot of people think that because the funding is from the (Ontario) Ministry of Health, that all these places are smoke-free," he says. "Well, that's not the case. They're just essentially private homes in the community."

There are no bylaws prohibiting smoking in private residences. And Lounsbury says he can't withhold housing from someone just because they smoke.

In fact, Lounsbury estimates about 75 per cent of WOTCH's clients are smokers.

"We know the smoke levels in some of these houses are high," he says. "Up to about 10 years ago, they used to give out cigarettes in hospitals to encourage good behaviour, so many people became firmly addicted.

"For a former psychiatric patient, smoking is one of the few joys they have."

He says any smoke-free WOTCH residences are purely happenstance and if a non-smoker did move out, the new resident might be a smoker. He says residents could theoretically work out a non-smoking agreement, but it would be impossible to enforce.

"This woman wants a degree of control over her environment that we just can't guarantee," says Lounsbury. "It's really just like any other residence in the community."

So for now, Donna sits in her room. And nothing seems cut and dried.

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/London/Ian_Gillespie/2004/12/15/782957.html

 

Just butt out, George!

By CHRISTINA BLIZZARD -- For the Toronto Sun

December 15, 2004

Bar owners across the province want Health Minister George Smitherman to butt out of their business and reconsider his province-wide, all-encompassing smoking ban in all public places.

It's not that they oppose a ban on smoking in family restaurants, says Doug Needham, President of the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservice Association.

"We welcome the legislation, as opposed to the patchwork quilt of municipal laws," he says.

His major concern is for places such as sports bars, which are only now staggering back after the triple whammy of SARS, terror attacks -- and now the hockey strike.

"What we would like to see is a transition period," Needham said in an interview. "This (new legislation) couldn't have come at a worse time."

The Liberals are poised to bring in their new antil-smoking bill this week -- just before Queen's Park's Christmas break. Needham argues B.C.'s legislation should be the model. That province allows smoking rooms in bars, but employees must volunteer to serve there and can only work in the smoke for 20% of their shift.

More than 700 bars in Toronto have spent thousands -- in some cases, hundreds of thousands of dollars -- on designated smoking rooms for their smoking patrons.

John McKillop is one such bar owner. He owns Elsewhere, a neighbourhood bar at Yonge and Eglinton, and Tortilla Flats, a restaurant and bar on Queen St. In August, in the wake of the city's smoking ban, he spent $32,000 to put in a 14-seat, separately ventilated smoking room at Elsewhere.

"By the end of August, I sat down and said, 'if you don't do something you will not be in business by the end of January,'" he recalls.

Through the summer, smokers could sit on the patio. McKillop put a windbreak on it for winter, but now the city is cracking down on those.

One brewery told McKillop this spring that every time a smoking ban is implemented, bars lose 35-40% of their business for about 8-10 months.

"After that, they gradually make it up to the point where they are at 85% of where they used to be -- if you survive."

McKillop predicts 15-20% of bars will go broke as a result of the new provincial law. That's the bad news. The good news is that two or three years down the road, the bars that do survive will be be doing more businesses -- simply because there'll be fewer of them.

He's done the math on cigarette smoking and says Smitherman's claim that smokers cost the government money in health care just doesn't add up. McKillop estimated that at $7 a pack a day on average in taxes, smokers contribute more than $2,500 to the treasury in a year. Over 40 years, they pay more than $100,000 -- which adds up to a lot of health care.

Between his two establishments, McKillop employs about 65 people. "If we go out of business, where are they going to go?" he asks. "Everyone is down."

Industry sources have told McKillop that since the city of Toronto implemented its butt ban June 1, sales of beer in licensed establishments are the lowest they've been in 15-20 years.

"The point is, smoking is legal. If the government is serious, then ban it. But they won't. They make way too much in taxes and too many (tobacco) farmers give them votes," says McKillop.

These days, most of his business comes from Manchester United soccer fans, who've made Elsewhere their home, so he isn't hurting from the hockey strike -- yet. But his business always boomed during the playoffs.

Smitherman said yesterday the government will go full steam ahead on the ban.

"We campaigned on a commitment to bring in a 100% ban on smoking in public and work places and that's what I'm about to fulfil," Smitherman said in a scrum.

Look, I quit smoking 22 years ago and I don't like being around smokers. But if consenting adults want to indulge in a legal activity in a ventilated, designated smoking room in a sports bar, just what is the problem?
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/Toronto/Christina_Blizzard/2004/12/15/782946.html

 

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McGuinty government protecting Ontarians' health with proposed smoke-free legislation

    New Ban Would Make All Workplaces and Enclosed Public Places Smoke-Free

    TORONTO, Dec. 15 /CNW/ - The McGuinty government is protecting the health of all Ontarians by introducing legislation that would prohibit smoking in all workplaces and enclosed public places in the province, Health and Long-Term Care Minister George Smitherman announced today. 
    "Smoking and exposure to second-hand smoke is the number one preventable killer in Ontario today," Smitherman said. "We promised to make all workplaces and enclosed public places in Ontario 100 per cent smoke-free. The legislation we are introducing today will fulfill this commitment and attack the chief cause of death and disease in this province."
    The proposed legislation would prohibit smoking in all workplaces, protecting all workers regardless where they are employed, and would prohibit smoking in all enclosed public places which are not primarily a place of residence as of May 31, 2006. This would include restaurants, bars, schools, private clubs, healthcare facilities, sports arenas, entertainment venues, work vehicles and offices including government buildings.
    The proposed Act would also limit the sale, distribution and use of tobacco products, including stricter measures to ensure only those 19 years of age and older can buy cigarettes. It would ban all countertop displays at retail outlets and prohibit the promotion of tobacco products at entertainment venues.
    "The government is to be applauded for the leadership it is showing by banning smoking in all workplaces and enclosed public places in Ontario," said
Michael Perley, Director of the Ontario Campaign for Action on Tobacco. "This new legislation would override a patchwork of municipal by-laws on smoking and send a clear message that second-hand smoke is extremely harmful, and that it's not to be tolerated in any enclosed place where people work or gather."
    Dr. Sheela Basrur, Ontario's Chief Medical Officer of Health, also applauded the government's proposed legislation. "About 16,000 Ontarians die prematurely each year due to smoking - that's about 44 deaths every day," Dr. Basrur said. "A growing list of cancers, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases are linked to smoking, which is responsible for at least $1.7 billion in health care costs annually. This bill is extremely important and timely."
    "This proposed legislation is fair and balanced," Smitherman said. "We've consulted broadly, worked closely with our stakeholders, and we're confident
that a large majority of Ontarians support what we're doing."
    This proposed legislation is part of the government's comprehensive tobacco control strategy, which also includes initiatives to prevent young people from starting to smoke and helping smokers who are ready to quit.

    This news release, along with other media materials, such as matte stories and audio clips, on other subjects, are available on our website at:
http://www.health.gov.on.ca under the News Media section.
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    BACKGROUNDER
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------

                             SMOKE-FREE ONTARIO

    The McGuinty government is protecting the health of all Ontarians with its legislation that would prohibit smoking in all workplaces and enclosed
public places in the province.      The proposed act would amend and rename the Tobacco Control Act (TCA), 1994 to the Smoke-Free Ontario Act and would repeal the Smoking in the Workplace Act (SWA). This proposed act would retain provisions from the TCA and SWA and build upon them by strengthening key provisions.

    Smoke-Free Workplaces and Enclosed Public Places
    The proposed legislation would prohibit smoking in all workplaces and enclosed public places that are not primarily a place of residence (as of
May 31, 2006), including:
    -   Restaurants, bars, banquet halls and entertainment facilities
    -   Healthcare facilities
    -   Public and private schools and school property
    -   Casinos, gambling facilities and bingo halls
    -   Private clubs, including legion halls
    -   Common areas in residential buildings (hotels, motels, apartment and condominium buildings)
    -   All offices and government buildings
    -   Work vehicles
    -   All enclosed public places including parking garages
    -   Day nurseries
    -   Private home day care
    -   Reserved seating in sporting arenas or entertainment venues.
    The proposed legislation would also eliminate designated smoking rooms by May 31, 2006 and would restrict smoking by residents in specified residential
care facilities to a controlled smoking area that meets the prescribed criteria.
    Employer and Proprietor Responsibilities

 The proposed act sets out a series of obligations for employers and proprietors of public places to make sure their environment is smoke-free.  Employers and proprietors would be responsible for posting no-smoking signs, notifying people within the space that smoking is prohibited, ensuring no ashtrays are available, and taking action if anyone violates the smoking ban.  Employees would be protected by a list of prohibitions aimed at preventing an employer from retaliating if an employee complained about non- compliance with the proposed act.
    Home healthcare workers would be able to ask a person not to smoke in his/her presence while the health care services are being provided. The home
care worker would be permitted to leave under certain conditions, if the person refuses to comply.
    Controlling Sale and Distribution
    The proposed legislation would achieve stronger control over the sale, distribution and use of tobacco products. These new restrictions would include the banning of all countertop displays at retail outlets and prohibit the promotion of tobacco products in entertainment venues. Under the proposed act, it would become an offence to allow the purchaser to handle the product before buying it and to display tobacco products except as permitted by regulations.
    The current provision that requires that tobacco may only be sold to people 19 years of age and over would remain in place. In addition,  storeowners would be required to request photo identification from anyone who appears to be under the age of 25.
    The act would also make the owner of a business that sells tobacco liable for the action of employees when an employee sells tobacco to someone under
the age of 19

http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/December2004/15/c5686.html

 

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Smoking ban burns biz profits

By Chen Chekki - The Chronicle-Journal

December 15, 2004

Bars and lounges in Thunder Bay have lost customers due to the city-wide smoking ban, while some businesses just outside the city are drawing more smokers, the Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce said Tuesday.

The chamber in November asked about 100 bars, lounges and restaurants about their business activity since the butt ban started in July, and 93 per cent of them said they suffered losses.

“Where are all the non-smokers?” asked Terry Tapak, owner of Kilroy’s Sports Pub and Billiards. “They were going to come out in droves. Like hell.”

Tapak said he has lost about a quarter of his patrons due to the bylaw that bans smoking in public places and workplaces.

Up to 90 per cent of Kilroy’s patrons smoke and since the bar began losing them, it has become so strapped for cash that it has stopped giving to charity. The bar has also laid off staff and reduced business hours, just like all other bars and restaurants that reported losses, the chamber said.

“This is the tip of the iceburg,” Tapak said.

He said with colder temperatures settling in, people are going to get tired of bundling up to have a smoke outdoors. And some have started looking for a warm place to smoke just outside the city where the ban is not in place.

The Stanley Tavern, about a 15-minute drive west of Thunder Bay, has seen a slight increase in business since the summer, owner Susan Poulin said.

“We’re seeing some strange faces we haven’t seen before,” she said.

Just east of Thunder Bay in Shuniah, the McKenzie Inn is getting more than its usual number of visitors, too.

“There seems to be way more people coming out here to eat at this time of year,” said Don Stewart, a manager at the inn. He said at least 70 per cent of the new customers smoke and he hears people complaining about the city butt ban all the time.

Customers at the McKenzie consider it a treat to come in, sit down and have a smoke, Stewart said.

When one community doesn’t have smoking and another one does, they’ll just go to the other community, said chamber president Mary Long-Irwin.

“And that’s exactly what’s happening,” she said.

The chamber survey also notes that the Thunder Bay Charity Casino has been hurt by the ban and bingo halls have lost at least 30 per cent of their business.

The survey, which polled about half the city’s bars and lounges and less than half the restaurants, found that 12 per cent of restaurants lost an average of 35 per cent of their business to the ban.

Long-Irwin, who does not smoke and does not advocate smoking, said the survey was done to make the community aware of what was happening.

A province-wide tobacco ban will help level the playing field, Long-Irwin said.

Indoor smoking areas were listed as desireable by some of the Thunder Bay businesses polled.

http://www.chroniclejournal.com/story.shtml?id=24924

 

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Working to reduce smoking -ON
Industry takes great pride in its efforts to initiate and enforce ongoing `age-restriction' programs

Dec. 14, 2004. 01:00 AM 

RE: Small stores must drop tobacco Letter, Dec. 10.

There are very few businesses or families who are willing to work 12 to 15 hours a day to serve our society's needs and the small convenience store operator is but one of these. Convenience stores are located in every neighbourhood and community throughout the province and sell many important products to consumers.

It seems that convenience stores are being needlessly targeted by individuals such as letter writer Dr. Alexander Hukowich, who are fighting another fight.

In his proposed solution, he offers no financial assistance or has any concern for the wellbeing of the families who run convenience stores, many of them immigrants (70 per cent) to this country.

The convenience-store industry takes great pride in its efforts to initiate and enforce ongoing "age-restriction" programs to ensure that our members are zero tolerant in their approach to selling any age-restricted product, such as tobacco. All convenience operators in the province work very closely with both Operation I.D. and Not to Kids (which is funded by the Board of Health in conjunction with retailers), two very successful age-enforcement programs in use throughout the province. The Ontario Convenience Stores Association supports the government in its objectives to reduce smoking, especially among youth and is proud to continually work on limited access through education and age restriction. Today we know that declines in youth smoking confirm the success of these programs.

Tobacco is a societal issue and we must all work together in this area and encourage Hukowich, to be part of the process through a constructive dialogue; not to come up with solutions that will put up to 50,000 families out of work and bankrupt them. Our members will continue to work with the government on voluntary programs that continue to show reduction and discipline while still allowing us to support our families, run our businesses and contribute to the vibrant economy of this prosperous province.

Dave Bryans, Executive Director,

Ontario Convenience Stores Association,

Oakville

 

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Editorial: No-smoking law targets No.1 killer -ON

Dec. 16, 2004. 01:00 AM

The world is about to get a whole lot smaller for Ontario smokers.

 

Under some of the toughest anti-smoking legislation ever introduced in North America, the Ontario government yesterday took an encouraging — and courageous — step toward making it illegal to smoke indoors in any public place in the province. Once in effect, the legislation will go a long way to protecting all residents from the deadly effects of tobacco smoke.

 

The legislation, introduced by Health Minister George Smitherman, will mean no more playing fast with the rules. Smokers will no longer be able to cross a municipal line to find a bar in a neighbouring city with less stringent smoking laws. Nor will bars and other businesses be able to circumvent local bylaws by opening "private" clubs, enclosing outdoor patios or setting up designated smoking rooms.

 

Legion halls, casinos, the common areas of hotels and apartment buildings, even parking garages will fall under the Smoke-Free Ontario Act. The only exemptions will be for nursing homes and designated rooms in hotels, because both are termed "residential" areas, a reasonable call.

 

Smitherman also plans to ban in-store cigarette displays, a move that will hit the tobacco industry where it hurts. Product displays are the only marketing tool the tobacco industry has left. Diehard smokers don't need ads; they are brand loyal. Store displays are primarily aimed at the young.

 

One of the key elements of this welcome legislation is that it will eliminate Ontario's existing anti-smoking laws that have turned the province into a crazy quilt of confusing restrictions. Currently, regulating tobacco use in restaurants, bars and bingo halls is the responsibility of municipalities. Some have enacted outright bans while others still allow smoking in certain places, such as bars, while a few do nothing.

 

With the new bill, the province hopes to level the playing field, making it fairer for all businesses. More importantly, Queen's Park is also rightly taking on the responsibility to tackle the inevitable legal fights, instead of forcing each little municipality pay the costs themselves.

 

Originally to take effect in 2007, the new laws are to become effective by May 31, 2006, if they win legislative approval.

 

Already, retailers, cigarette makers and the hospitality industry are starting to mobilize for what promises to be a long and costly legal fight. Some plan to fight this as a smokers' rights issue. But this is not a matter of discrimination. We have known for 40 years that smoking is a killer. Some 16,000 Ontarians die each year from tobacco-related illnesses. That's 44 people a day. If a car or a food or any other substance killed that many people, there would be no dithering about whether to take action.

 

But smokers won't give up easily. A spokesperson for a smokers' rights group complained yesterday that smokers are weary of being marginalized and are resentful of policies that try to "stigmatize us into quitting."

 

True, smokers find it hard to stop. But if a law can make life so difficult that they quit out of frustration, few will shed a tear. On the contrary, millions of Ontarians — smokers and non-smokers — will be healthier for it.

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/Toronto/Joe_Warmington/2004/12/16/784564.html

 

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Puffers get smoked -ON

HOME WILL BE THE LAST LEGAL PLACE TO TAKE A DRAG

By ANTONELLA ARTUSO, QUEEN'S PARK BUREAU CHIEF Thu, December 16, 2004

ONTARIO IS introducing the toughest anti-smoking legislation on the continent, restricting puffers to private residences and hotel rooms, nursing homes and possibly Casino Rama. By May 31, 2006, smokers will no longer be able to partake of their habits in virtually all enclosed public spaces, including designated smoking rooms, legion halls and private clubs.

Health Minister George Smitherman pointed out yesterday that smoking kills more Ontarians than AIDS, traffic accidents and alcohol combined.

'DEADLY EFFECTS'

"This bill, creating the Smoke-Free Ontario Act, would protect all Ontarians from the deadly effects of cigarette smoke, whether they are in their office, at a restaurant, in the laundry room of their apartment building, on the floor of a factory, in an underground parking garage or at a shopping mall," Smitherman said.

"Unless Ontarians want to be exposed to cigarette smoke, they won't be."

The minister said Casino Rama, which is operated by natives, could likely create a bylaw exempting the facility from the smoking ban.

The legislation would prohibit smoking in a private home if it's a licensed daycare and children are present or when a health-care worker comes into a home to provide treatment.

Retailers will be required to demand proof of age from anyone buying cigarettes who appears to be under age 25.

The proposed law was heralded by members of the medical community and anti-tobacco groups.

Former Toronto bartender Suzanne LaChapelle, a single mother who now suffers from an irreversible lung ailment caused by secondhand smoke, said she's grateful the government is taking this step to protect citizens.

'FIGHT FOR BREATH'

"Every day I fight for breath," she said. "The things I once took for granted like playing with my kids are now a struggle."

Terry Mundell, president of the Ontario Restaurant Hotel and Motel Association, said the legislation will hurt many bars and pubs already reeling from the hockey strike and the aftershocks of SARS. He called on the government for a rescue package for these businesses.

Toronto bar owner Heli Donaldson, who invested $100,000 for a ventilated smokers' room, branded the legislation "Orwellian," saying it threatens to put her out of business. She said she was promised by the municipality that her smokers' room would be protected from any future ban.

Smitherman said those bars have had time to recoup their investments. Donaldson said that takes years.

Opposition MPPs questioned why the legislation didn't include help for tobacco farmers to change crops or for smokers to quit.

PLEA FOR LEGIONS

Tory MPP Jim Flaherty said smokers need help, not punishment and also questioned ordering veterans to stop smoking in their own legion halls.

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/TorontoSun/News/2004/12/16/784653-sun.html

 

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Province's new butt law 'good news for Toronto' -ON

By ZEN RURYK, CITY HALL BUREAU CHIEF Thu, December 16, 2004

CITING a 97% compliance rate over a six-month period, city health officials say Toronto's new anti-smoking bylaws are working. Inspectors paid more than 16,000 visits to 6,000 bars, restaurants and other businesses covered by Toronto's anti-smoking bylaw between June 1 and Nov. 30.

They reported bylaw violations on just 353 of those visits. There are cases where a business was charged more than once, health department official Rob Colvin said.

"We're looking at over 97% compliance on the visits we make," Colvin said yesterday. "That's quite pleasing to us, but we do have a real interest in achieving 100% compliance because there are still lots of work places and public places out there where people aren't being protected from smoke."

While smoking was already banned in restaurants, a city bylaw that came into force on June 1 required bar patrons to extinguish their cigarettes unless the building was equipped with a designated smoking room.

The Ontario government yesterday unveiled its plan ban smoking in all work places and enclosed public places by May 2006. The province also will do away with designated smoking rooms on that date.

"It's very good news for Toronto," said health board chairman John Filion, who added the designated smoking rooms were initially permitted in Toronto as a measure of compromise.

"They really have not worked out very well," he said. "They were probably useful on an interim basis, but are counter-productive at this point."

A first-time offender of Toronto's anti-smoking bylaw faces a $255 fine.

Filion said the city has charged and will seek convictions for restaurant and bar owners who try to find loopholes, such as claiming they're operating as a private club or allowing smoking in enclosed outdoor patios.

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/TorontoSun/News/2004/12/16/784652-sun.html

 

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Ban has bar owners crying in their beers

By KEVIN CONNOR, TORONTO SUN Thu, December 16, 2004

THERE WILL be far fewer watering holes in the province when Queen's Park outlaws self-contained smoking rooms in bars, a hospitality industry boss says. Provincial legislation introduced yesterday would prohibit smoking in restaurants, bars, schools, private clubs, health care facilities, sports arenas, entertainment venues, work vehicles and offices as of May 31, 2006.

"There is no doubt some (bars) won't make it," predicted Terry Mundell, president of the Ontario Restaurant Hotel Motel Association.

"Contrary to what the government says, some won't survive," Mundell said. "Many business plans had a 10-year payback time to cover the cost of designated smoking rooms. Some paid as much as $300,000 to build them and they can't pay it off by May 31. It's a major shake."

Mundell said a string of events, such as SARS and the smoking ban last June, have resulted in the average bar's sales dropping by $170,000 a year.

"This is another blow to the industry. It is a regressive legislation and I'm against it," said Brenda Atkinson, manager of C'est What bar on Front St.

After the province banned smoking in bars in June, C'est What lost 15% of its business and spent $25,000 to build a separately confined and ventilated smoking room to attract smokers back to the bar.

"We needed a few years to get that investment back and now we won't. It's one thing after another. We are in a battle for survival," Atkinson said.

The new smoking rules would also forbid retailers from displaying tobacco products in their stores, a move convenience store operators believe will financially kill their industry.

"Most convenience stores are small family businesses that would be devastated by the impact of a ban on retail tobacco displays," said Dave Bryans, executive director of the Ontario Convenience Stores Association. "Tobacco's a mainstay for these families."

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/TorontoSun/News/2004/12/16/784654-sun.html

 

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Watch out for Fun Police

By JOE WARMINGTON -- For the Toronto Sun Thu, December 16, 2004

The phone number is 416-325-7245 and the fax is 416-325-0803. Yes, you may not be able to have a smoke in many places in Ontario but you can call Premier Dalton McGuinty directly.

Now, as Don Cherry might say, you smokers out there can call and complain to this number but Scrawler thinks it might also be a good idea to call each day and check in with Sir Dalton to see if it's okay to get out of bed in the morning too.

I mean there are dangers with such a move and he and his gang of privacy pirates probably know what's best for you anyway.

 

Aren't you looking forward to the reward money of turning in the smoking vandals. You know squealing on them for profit. It will be fun. And lucrative.

I see the vermin on sidewalks everywhere. You can tell it's them by the shivering.

Half of them will probably die of pneumonia before they ever die of lung cancer.

But who cares, eh! They are second class citizens anyway. Get outside -- and, heck, make it 150 metres away from the door, too. Yeah, this ought to be great for the bar business.

One thing I did pick up last night is a tone from smokers that they are fed up with being the target.

"I do feel ostracized," said salesman Ken Tuck, who was enjoying time on a sidewalk with his date, Tina Varuna.

They were being shunned. They are modern-day lepers. Sorry, guys. That should be New Age lepers. Am I allowed say lepers. Should I check in with McGuinty and see? Well I can at least rat out these two and collect a reward.

Man, that Raptors announcer Herbie Kuhn is good. Who needs Vince Carter?

Herbie keeps the place humming. I am going to do a real story on that guy once day. Should do a story as well on Maple Leafs game announcer Brooke Melanson, if they ever get back to hockey -- and if it's okay with McGuinty.

Hey, my pen in my coat exploded so I am thinking about legislation about banning pens with ink.

And here's one I had never heard. I am in a cab coming back from the Hangar when driver Mac Beckton tells me it's "derogatory" to call him a cabbie. "I am a professional taxi driver," he insists. He also told me most taxi drivers feel this way. Did any of you know that? More information is needed at this end. We'll have to get McGuinty on it.

Don't tell McGuinty but I actually had a lot of fun this past week. I didn't even have a permit either.

I eluded the Smile Police. The most fun was at the Court House where there were three Christmas parties going at once and because all three agreed there was smoking allowed. Lots of cigars were smoked and Export A's.

Dirty words soon to be stricken from the language. New legislation will end that kind of thing and anyone violating this could end up in those groovy cells in the basement where Toronto prisoners were once housed.

But if you have to go, being in there with bartender Cynthia would be my choice. With permission from McGuinty of course.

Last but not least, happy birthday to my dear long time friend Det. Mark Mendelson, the longest serving member of Toronto's homicide squad. He was out celebrating with his lovely lawyer wife Jill Knudsen last night and even though we weren't allowed to have a smoke it was still great conversation in a country that, for now at least, has free speech. Mark has served this city in investigating more than 100 murders.

What a book he could write. If that's okay with McGuinty.
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/Toronto/Joe_Warmington/2004/12/16/784564.html

 

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Legion not amused -ON

By KEVIN CONNOR, TORONTO SUN Thu, December 16, 2004

VETS FIGHT BUTT BAN IN 'PRIVATE CLUB'

VETERANS FOUGHT in wars for freedom of choice and shouldn't be dictated to by the province where they can smoke, the head of Ontario's Royal Canadian Legion says. Yesterday, Health Minister George Smitherman introduced legislation that would do away with designated smoking rooms and smoking in legion halls, casinos and on enclosed outdoor patios.

"We fought for freedom, so give it to us," said Erl Kish, president, Ontario Provincial Command of the Royal Canadian Legion.

"The legion is like our second home. It's not like Joe's Bar down the street. We are a private club and we shouldn't be lumped in with the for-profit clubs."

Kish, who has written to Smitherman asking for legions to be exempt from the smoking-ban set for May 31, 2006, said if legions are forced to butt out it will be a financial blow to clubs already struggling to keep their doors open.

"We requested that ventilated smoking areas be allowed in our legions, even though many of our branches will find the cost difficult," Kish said.

The Beaches Branch on Kingston Rd. has been a private club where veterans have smoked since 1926 and it should stay that way, said Lynne Byrnes, second vice-president.

"The government can't tell an 88-year-old veteran he can't smoke in his own club in the country he fought for," she said.

"It was the government who sent the cigarettes to the veterans during World War I and World War II in the first place."

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/TorontoSun/News/2004/12/16/784672-sun.html

 

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RCMP allege Imperial Tobacco defrauded Ottawa of $600 million in taxes

Last Updated Thu, 16 Dec 2004 11:57:33 EST

MONTREAL - Court documents used to obtain a search warrant against Imperial Tobacco last month allege the company was involved in a cigarette smuggling network in the early 1990s.

 

In the recently unsealed documents, the RCMP also allege the company and its alleged co-conspirators defrauded the Canadian government of more than $600 million in taxes in the early 1990s.

But Imperial Tobacco has denied the allegations, saying it has no involvement in any illegal activities.

The 172-page document claims Imperial Tobacco conspired with other tobacco firms as well as distributors to sell billions of cigarettes to the U.S. so that they could later be smuggled back into Canada.

The document says the cigarettes made their way into the country through the Akwesasne Mohawk reserve that borders Ontario, Quebec and the U.S.

Companies conspired to smuggle, police allege

The RCMP affidavit includes excerpts from some internal correspondence between Imperial and other tobacco companies.

Police allege those documents show Imperial and those companies not only knew about smuggling but conspired to make cigarettes available to smugglers.

One of the documents contains a letter dated June 3, 1993, written by Imperial Tobacco's president and CEO Don Brown to the managing director of its parent company British American Tobacco. The letter reads:

"Although we agreed to support the federal government's effort to reduce smuggling by limiting our exports to the U.S.A., our competitors did not. Subsequently, we have decided to remove the limits on our exports to regain our share of Canadian smokers ... Until the smuggling issue is resolved, an increasing volume of our domestic sales in Canada will be exported, then smuggled back for sale here."

Christina Dona, a spokeswoman for Imperial Tobacco, acknowledges Imperial knew about contraband activity but she says it only dealt with authorized wholesalers. She said knowing about smuggling in no way implies the company collaborated with criminals.

Company tried to hamper smuggling

Dona said Imperial actually restricted its exports to help undermine smuggling.

"We wanted to restrict the quantity of our tobacco products that were available for export and we were hoping that this would assist authorities in their ongoing investigation," she said.

Late last month, the RCMP launched a surprise raid on Imperial Tobacco's Montreal headquarters. In the three-day raid, hundreds of thousands of documents were seized.

Imperial Tobacco says it has been co-operating fully with the investigation and continues to do so.

"We're saying there are no grounds for the current search and we are completely proud of the ethical way in which we behaved," Dona said.

The investigation was launched following a Fifth Estate report in 1998 that linked several major tobacco companies to a cigarette smuggling ring based out of Akwesasne, Que.

Last year, following a lengthy investigation, the RCMP charged Toronto-based JTI-MacDonald and some of its former executives with fraud, related to cigarette smuggling in the early 1990s.

The Quebec government is now suing the company for more than a billion dollars in back taxes. JTI-Macdonald has denied any involvement in smuggling.

The RCMP haven't laid any charges against Imperial Tobacco and say their investigation is continuing. Nor will they give any indication if, or when, any charges will be laid.

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2004/12/15/tobacco041215.html

 

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N.B. reserve flaunts province's smoking ban

Broadcast News

Friday, December 17, 2004

WOODSTOCK, N.B. -- New Brunswick's Woodstock First Nation plans to build a new bar allowing smoking.

Chief Jeff Tomah says they're working on a business plan for the facility with hopes to have it open in the spring.

The reserve hasn't observed the province's smoking ban, in effect since October.

Tomah says the reserve intends to pass a by-law to exempt themselves from the provincial legislation

He says non-native bar and restaurant owners shouldn't blame First Nations communities for claiming treaty rights.

Tomah adds the reserve will also likely drop the price of tobacco next week because of the province's refusal to rebate sales taxes.

The reserve's gas bar has been offering gas at reduced prices since last week.

http://www.canada.com/national/story.html?id=53f1739a-dedd-4d41-a424-8c6865d82351

 

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Just ban cigarettes to solve problem

Dec. 17, 2004. 01:00 AM

Home last refuge for most smokers

Dec. 16.

All the lauding of provincial Health Minister George Smitherman's anti-smoking legislation perplexes me.

f he and his government truly wanted to provide anti-smoking legislation, they would introduce a bill that completely bans the sale of cigarettes to everyone in the province of Ontario.

Instead of going after the "manufacturers/pushers," they go after the user.

If there is no product, there will be no user.

But that would involve taking the courageous step of losing a source of income that provides tax money for the provincial coffers.

Therefore, the Liberals instead introduce legislation that does not shoot the golden goose, but only maims it temporarily.

Savino Quagliara, Woodbridge

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1103237410000&call_pageid=968332189003&col=96

8350116895&DPL=IvsNDS%2f7ChAX&tacodalogin=yes

 

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Sell tobacco in adults-only stores

Working to reduce smoking

Letter, Dec. 14.

Tobacco regulation is a necessity. I am not prepared to shell out my hard-earned dollars for ever-increasing health-care costs just so convenience store owners do not have to forego their revenue from tobacco.

 

Maybe it is time that tobacco was regulated in the same way as alcohol — restricted to licensed, adult-only venues that sell nothing else. Convenience store owners can then make a choice about what makes better business sense for them. They can either cater to the general public or become tobacconists.

 

Given the significant profits they appear to be making from tobacco, those who choose the latter should be able to easily afford the extra security needed to protect themselves against crime.

 

The fact that tobacco is a lucrative source of income for a select segment is not a good reason to reduce tobacco control measures that benefit all Canadians.

Sera Kirk, Vancouver

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=11

03237409988&call_pageid=968332189003&col=968350116895&DPL=IvsNDS%2f7ChAX&tacodalogin=yes

 

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Dec. 15, 2004. 01:00 AM

Smoking rooms not a solution

Hospitalty group bids to aid smokers

Dec. 13.

Contrary to claims by the Canadian Restaurant and Food Services Association, designated smoking rooms (DSRs) are not a solution to the second-hand smoke exposure problem in either bars or other hospitality premises, for both health and business reasons.

First and foremost, DSRs simply don't work. In tests by York Region's Health Services Department during the past three years, more than 75 per cent of the 102 DSRs in various restaurants, bars, taverns and bingo halls in the region failed to meet minimum standards. The report says most DSRs failed to meet bylaw requirements due to poor maintenance, insufficient air supply and exhaust, overcrowding or failure to keep doors closed. York Region's tests mirror anecdotal reports received by the Toronto public health department and staff in other municipalities

Legislation making all hospitality premises 100 per cent smoke free will be introduced in the Legislature this week by Health Minister George Smitherman. This legislation should sunset all DSRs province-wide, creating a level playing field for worker and patrons' health, and competition.

Michael Perley, Director, Ontario Campaign for Action on Tobacco, Toronto

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1103065818506&call_pageid=968332189003&col=

968350116895&DPL=IvsNDS%2f7ChAX&tacodalogin=yes

 

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Dec. 16, 2004. 02:53 PM

Chief medical officer gains greater independence

FROM CANADIAN PRESS
New legislation giving the province's top doctor more independence and freedom from political interference will allow her to become a more effective advocate for Ontarians, Health Minister George Smitherman said today.

"We will have an independent chief medical officer of health who can act quickly and speak freely on any public health issue without any political interference," Smitherman said.

Amendments to the Health Protection and Promotion Act passed Wednesday and expand the powers of the chief medical officer, currently Dr. Sheela Basrur.

The position has also been raised to the level of assistant deputy minister, increasing the job's leadership role in setting public health policy and overseeing operations of the ministry's public health division.

The new legislation will also:

— Transfer powers from the health minister to the chief medical officer during potential public health emergencies.

— Give the chief medical officer the power to report directly to the legislature and the public.

— Require future chief medical officers to be appointed through a transparent process.

Basrur will begin a fixed five-year renewable term when the amendments come into effect.

The amendments, which must still receive royal assent, follow recommendations made by an expert panel on SARS and infectious disease control, as well as those by Justice Archie Campbell in an interim report on last year's SARS crisis.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1103197300768&call_pageid=968256289824&col=968342212737&DPL=IvsNDS%2f7ChAX&tacodalogin=yes

 

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Now that the government is pulling out all the stops on those filthy smokers, we have nothing to fear. ("Puffers get smoked," Dec. 16) I can now safely walk down the street knowing I won't be swarmed and stabbed by a Matinee king size cigarette. And now I can safely order my sandwich without fearing that some punk will fire off a pack of Rothmans through the window. What the hell is wrong with this government? People being stabbed and gunned down in the streets -- it's a good thing the important issues are being addressed first. Way to go Fiberals, you certainly have my vote in the next election ... NOT!

T. Troutman

Malton

(They'll tell you smoking kills more people than criminals do)

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/TorontoSun/Letters/home.html

 

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Council to ban smoking at Casino Rama

Orillia, Ont.  —  Smoking should be banned in most areas of the province's largest native-run casino, a central Ontario band council decided Wednesday.

The decision by the Mnjikaning First Nation would confine smoking at Casino Rama to designated smoking rooms.

It was made on the same day that the Ontario government unveiled legislation that would ban smoking in virtually all buildings in the province.

The provincial ban does not apply on First Nations land, which falls under federal jurisdiction.

At a special meeting on Wednesday, the band council approved the creation of a bylaw that would ban smoking in most of the community's public places, including the casino.

Chief Sharon Stinson Henry told the Orillia Packet and Times that the council still has to draft the bylaw.

She expects the ban to take effect about six months after the council passes it.

The Ontario government's ban comes into effect in May 2006.

Casino Rama is located on the north shore of Lake Simcoe, just east of Orillia. It employs about 3,800 people, and has daily revenues of more than $1 million.

http://toronto.cbc.ca/regionalnews/caches/to-casino20041216.html

 

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Ontario plans tough new anti-smoking laws

By Frank Pingue 16 Dec 2004 21:38:54 GMT

TORONTO, Dec 16 (Reuters) - Ontario has introduced the toughest anti-smoking legislation in Canada, prompting anger among smokers, who will be forced to butt out virtually everywhere except in their own homes, or outside in the cold.

The provincial bill, announced in the legislature on Wednesday, aims to ban smoking in almost all indoor public places, including restaurants, bars, private clubs, work vehicles, bingo halls and casinos, starting in May 2006.

The Ontario legislation would replace an existing patchwork of municipal bylaws with a province-wide law containing some of the strictest anti-smoking measures in the world.

"It makes me feel like a second-class citizen when I have to go to the back of a building for a smoke," said Gary Hanson on Thursday, as he smoked outside his downtown office. "I'm sympathetic with both sides, but it's still nice to be able to have the choice."

"The government is going too far because it's pretty restrictive already," said Fred Drake, a smoker for 20 years. "We are not exposing people to a health hazard as much any more, so I don't know why they want to go to these extremes."

The Canadian province of 12 million will permit few exceptions in the new legislation, other than to allow smoking in nursing homes in a controlled setting and let hotels set aside rooms for guests who smoke.

If approved, the legislation would mean a ban on designated smoking rooms in restaurants and bars, as well as in enclosed patios. Smoking would still be allowed on open-air patios.

According to the Ontario Ministry of Health, smoking kills more than 16,000 people in Ontario every year and costs the province more than C$1.7 billion ($1.4 billion) to treat tobacco-related illness.

Mychoice.ca, a non-profit organization funded by the Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers' Council, said the government should help people quit smoking by paying for their cessation products instead of forcing them into their homes or outdoors.

"This is hypocritical government talking here and I think what they are trying to do is demonize smokers and shame them into quitting," said Mychoice.ca president Nancy Daigneault.

"If the government really wants to help people quit they should pay for their cessation products because that's the more humane approach rather than forcing them to go out into the cold weather."

The province collects about C$1.35 billion in tobacco taxes each year.

"FINE WITH ME"

While the legislation is causing grief for many smokers, others viewed it as a legitimate chance to end a habit they have been trying to kick for years.

"This is a good way to make people quit or smoke less and it's already having that affect on me," said Susana Roque, who has been smoking for five years. "The less I smoke the less money I will spend on cigarettes so it's fine with me."

"It's a good idea," said another 35-year smoker who asked not to be named. "I really don't feel that there is a real need for people to smoke in public places."

Ontario Health Minister George Smitherman introduced the legislation on Wednesday and said it would protect people from smoke whether they are in a restaurant, the floor of a factory or in an underground parking garage.

"In other words, unless Ontarians want to be exposed to cigarette smoke, they won't be," said Smitherman.

"No worker in Ontario, no truck driver, no home care worker, no blackjack dealer or bartender at a Legion (veterans' club) will be compelled to accept deadly second-hand smoke as a condition of employment."

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N16661501.htm

One-third of Ontario smokers are planning to quit for New Year's - again

Attention News/Health Editors:

    TORONTO, Dec. 14 /CNW/ - Close to a third of Ontario smokers are planning
to quit as a New Year's resolution, according to a recent survey. Many are
making this same resolution for the second or even third time. But smokers who
want to quit shouldn't be discouraged. Research shows it often takes more than
one try to succeed at becoming smoke-free.
    Kicking the habit is a popular New Year's resolution but quitting "cold
turkey" on the day after ringing in the New Year may not be ideal. However,
research shows that smokers who plan ahead and have support, such as friends,
family and professional help, find it easier to try to quit and are also more
likely to succeed.
    "Aiming for a milestone day such as New Year's Day is often helpful when
a smoker is planning to quit," says Sylvia Leonard, Senior Director, Cancer
Control, Canadian Cancer Society, Ontario Division. "However, we urge smokers
to call for advice ahead of time and get the information they need to make it
work."
    The Canadian Cancer Society's Smokers' Helpline is free anywhere in
Ontario in English and French from Monday through Thursday, 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.,
and Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Smokers' Helpline toll-free number is
1 877 513-5333.
    The Quit Specialists who answer the phone offer friendly advice,
information and support. "It's a resource for smokers and for anyone who is
helping a family member or friend," says Leonard. "It's important for smokers
to get the information they need now to help them cope with late-night
cravings and holiday temptations later."
    For more information about Smokers' Helpline and the benefits of quitting
smoking, visit www.cancer.ca (Ontario section) to find out how much a smoker
gains by quitting - both physically and financially. The Canadian Cancer
Society's online Cost of Smoking Calculator shows the potential health
benefits and financial savings over time to someone who quits smoking.
    Of the 600 Ontario smokers surveyed by the research firm Synovate on
behalf of the Canadian Cancer Society, 28% said they are planning to quit as a
New Year's resolution.
    According to the most recent tobacco use survey by Health Canada, more
than half the smokers in Canada made one to three attempts to quit smoking
during 2003.
    The Canadian Cancer Society is a national community-based organization of
volunteers whose mission is to eradicate cancer and to enhance the quality of
life of people living with cancer.
http://www.cnw.ca/en/releases/archive/December2004/14/c4990.html

---

Transcript of the ad on the heather Crowe ad on Health Canada site.. 

Refuse to be a target?
TV: 30-seconds
(V/O = voice-over)

OPEN ON SUPER:
HEATHER CROWE
NEVER SMOKED
DYING OF CANCER

HEATHER V/O: I've been a waitress for 40 years ...
FADE TO A SHOT OF HEATHER CROWE SITTING ON A CHAIR IN A RESTAURANT.
SUPER FADES OUT.

CLOSE-UP OF HEATHER.

HEATHER V/O: ... to earn a decent living for... my daughter and myself...

CLOSE-UP OF HEATHER'S HANDS.
HEATHER V/O: My doctor told me I had a smoker's tumour...

CLOSE, MEDIUM AND WIDE SHOTS OF HEATHER.
HEATHER: ...and therefore, uh, I'm dying...

SIDE PROFILE OF HEATHER.
HEATHER V/O: I never smoked a day in my life.

LONG SHOT OF HEATHER.
HEATHER V/O: I never smoked... The air was blue where I worked.

HEATHER CLOSING HER EYES. FADE TO SMOKE RINGS APPEARING LIKE A TARGET.
HEATHER V/O: And I'm dying of lung cancer from second-hand smoke.

SUPER: SOME TOBACCO COMPANIES SAY 2ND HAND SMOKE BOTHERS PEOPLE.

SUPER: HEALTH CANADA SAYS IT KILLS.

SUPER:
REFUSE TO BE A TARGET?
1 800 O-CANADA 1 800 622-6232
www.GoSmokefree.ca
Canada WORDMARK

To view flash version of this TV ad click here

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hecs-sesc/tobacco/facts/mild/tvadstrans_heather.html

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Auditor General's response letter

Dear ( looped_ca):

Thank you for your letter of December 6, 2004.

I should clarify that the role of our Office is to audit the programs and activities of federal government departments and report our findings to Parliament. Heather Crowe’s case is not within our mandate to comment on, nor can we comment on legislation.

As most of the issues you raise would fall under municipal or provincial jurisdiction, I suggest you contact the Minister of Health as well as your Member of Parliament. You may also wish to contact Health Canada.

Thank you again for taking the time to write to us.

Sincerely,

 

 

Isabelle Serrurier

Communications Officer

Office of the Auditor General of Canada

---

 From: looped_ca [mailto:looped_ca@yahoo.ca]
Sent: 06/12/2004 4:46 PM
To: Communications
Subject: I have some questions I would like looked into

I am wondering of the many cancer and advocacy groups are joining together in order to fund a single mission.  One may pay for Heather Crowe to speak, another pays for the ads, and yet another pays for something else?  Should this be allowed?  Should the many organizations that have a one platform agenda be joining up to support each other?  I also wonder whether there should be a monetary amount, not only a percentage of budget, as limits for spending on advocacy.

 I mention the Heather Crowe speaking at the Alberta Union of  Public Employees meeting as an example.  I question the reason she talked to the AUPE, since they have been covered under smoker protection legislation for over 10 years.  Who paid for her advocacy?  Who was she trying to influence?  Should this be allowed, (her to speak) considering that she is talking to a sector of the legislation.  I say the public employees are a sector of legislation, because in order to  be knowledgeable, the politicians have to rely on employee's knowledge on some areas; they can't know everything.

 I also wonder why if someone is being an advocate and spokesperson, for  an issue using a  workers compensation case; they don't have to have the case scrutinized.  I realize any case may depend upon the small details.  We keep hearing that "Heather Crowe got cancer by second hand smoke" .  Yet we have no way of authenticating, or even examine the details.  The only people we hear talk about this case is the advocates for smoking bylaw regulations.  If she is using the judgment to promote legislative change shouldn't the public, and people affected (business owners) know all the facts?  I  have copied a letter to the editor Heather Crowe wrote in the local paper weeks before the bylaw vote date in Alberta.  I also mention the Heather Crowe commercials put onto the national airwaves, by health Canada.  I would say that since the lobbyist groups have become part of the legislature, they can't be relied upon to give a creditable evaluation.  In a CPAC interview (Dec 2/04 with Ken Rockburn), John Anderson (former Environment minister)  mentions that it is very common to have lobbyists who work in the legislature.

I would like to have this situation looked into for the concern that small groups, who don't have Millions of dollars at their disposal , won't get their side heard.  I also wonder whether the truth is really known in the Heather Crowe, and smoking issue. Should the Workman's Compensation judgment be able to effect legislation, without the examination of the judgment by  the public, or non advocacy organizations?  I also include a link to the

Thank you For your Time.

"Jasper Booster — I'm Heather Crowe of Ottawa. I am 59 years old. I spent my entire 40-year career working in the hospitality sector, mostly as a waitress. I am now dying from lung cancer as a result of my exposure to second-hand smoke.
Hospitality workers, like me, have been the forgotten workers. All too often, laws and by-laws that restrict smoking in workplaces and public places make exceptions for bars and restaurants, thereby continuing to expose people who work there to daily doses of second-hand smoke.
In effect, this means that we have been treating waitresses, waiters and bartenders as second-class citizens with second-class lungs. We have made our bars and restaurants into gas chambers and we are sending the workers in there to perish.
Recently, I had the privilege of visiting seven wonderful communities in Alberta - Airdrie, Drumheller, Jasper, Olds, Peace River, Stettler and Wainwright. On Oct.18, citizens in all seven of these communities will have the opportunity to cast their vote in favour of making their communities smoke free.
While it is too late for me, it is not too late for the citizens of Alberta communities to take matters into their own hands and make local democracy work on behalf of local citizens. I urge you, the citizens of these seven Alberta communities to vote in favour of smoke-free workplaces and public places, with no exceptions. That is how you can protect all citizens and all workers equally.
And that is how you can help me to realize my dying wish, to be the last person in Canada to die from second-hand smoke at work.
I sincerely thank the good people of Alberta for making me feel so welcome in every community that I visited.
And I look forward to more and more communities in Alberta becoming smoke-free.

-Heather Crowe,
Ottawa
http://jasperbooster.com/index.php?id=83  "

In the  AUPE site she is in the homepage with this photo and caption.  Since I am on dialup I have just copied the placement of the picture file.  You can also  look at the whole page  at:  http://www.aupe.org/in_the_news/photo_archive/Archived%20front%20index%20pics04.htm

http://www.aupe.org/images/Jan004/crowe1860.jpg  
1- caption saying "Heather Crowe with AUPE President Dan MacLennan at a news conference in Calgary Wednesday where she asked provincial health ministers to implement non smoking legislation for all Canadian workplaces. Crowe has been diagnosed with lung cancer from second hand smoke she inhaled while working in the restaurant industry over the past 40 years."
http://www.aupe.org/images/Jan004/crowe1792T.jpg
2- caption saying "Heather Crowe, talks to members of Local 03 along with AUPE President Dan MacLennan at a news conference in Calgary, Wednesday where she is demanding Provincial Health Ministers to implement non smoking legislation in the workforce. She had been diagnosed with lung cancer from second hand smoke she took in while working in the restaurant industry for the past 40 years. Photo by Dave Olecko"  

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Smoking split not cut and dried
IAN GILLESPIE, Free Press News Columnist  2004-12-15

At first glance, the story seemed straightforward. There was a vulnerable victim, a threat to her health and a violation of her rights.

Now, I'm not sure it's so cut and dried.

It starts with a conversation with Robert Axford-Gatley, a London family doctor concerned about one of his patients.

For confidentiality reasons, let's call her Donna.

Donna lives in a small, three-bedroom house operated by the Western Ontario Therapeutic Community Hostel (WOTCH).

WOTCH provides housing for people too mentally unstable to live on their own. In London, the organization owns a residential rehab unit, three group homes and 23 single-family homes. It also operates 89 one-bedroom apartments and a 23-unit apartment building.

Donna has lived in a WOTCH residence in north London for more than a year.

About five months ago, a smoker moved in.

"She can't tolerate the smoke," says Axford-Gatley, adding Donna suffered from childhood asthma. "She's trying to fight it by plugging all the hot-air ducts into her room."

The doctor says Donna complained to WOTCH about the smoke, but was told they didn't have the jurisdiction to intervene.

"They make all kind of lifestyle rules," says Axford-Gatley. "But they're saying they can't ask a resident to smoke outside.

"It's not a nuisance or convenience matter," he says. "It's a health matter."

Next, I spoke to Donna. She says she's been suffering from agoraphobia -- an abnormal fear of open spaces or public places -- since childhood. She says she has spent much of her life in various mental-health institutions.

She says her current house-mate (there are only two women in the three-bedroom house) smokes constantly, even rising at night for a few puffs.

As a result, Donna says her throat is constantly sore. To avoid the second-hand smoke, Donna spends almost all her time in her tiny room. She says she's blocked the heating duct with newspaper. She runs an air purifier, too.

The 38-year-woman says she complained many times to WOTCH workers.

"And every time, the response was, 'If it makes you sick or you don't like it, move out,' " she says.

Donna says WOTCH offered to place her in an apartment, but she says she can't cope with that now.

"Because of the panic attacks," she says, "I got so afraid of everything that I couldn't leave my bed without totally freaking out."

She says the second-hand smoke just makes things worse.

"I'm agoraphobic, so I can't even stand on the front porch and breathe fresh air," she says. "And there's the anxiety of them (WOTCH) always threatening, 'If you don't like it -- move out.' "

But Jeff Lounsbury says it isn't that simple.

The director of property management for WOTCH says the group has moved Donna three times in attempts to accommodate her needs, but "she has never been able to live with anybody -- smoker or non-smoker."

He also admits WOTCH can't offer anyone a smoke-free environment.

"A lot of people think that because the funding is from the (Ontario) Ministry of Health, that all these places are smoke-free," he says. "Well, that's not the case. They're just essentially private homes in the community."

There are no bylaws prohibiting smoking in private residences. And Lounsbury says he can't withhold housing from someone just because they smoke.

In fact, Lounsbury estimates about 75 per cent of WOTCH's clients are smokers.

"We know the smoke levels in some of these houses are high," he says. "Up to about 10 years ago, they used to give out cigarettes in hospitals to encourage good behaviour, so many people became firmly addicted.

"For a former psychiatric patient, smoking is one of the few joys they have."

He says any smoke-free WOTCH residences are purely happenstance and if a non-smoker did move out, the new resident might be a smoker. He says residents could theoretically work out a non-smoking agreement, but it would be impossible to enforce.

"This woman wants a degree of control over her environment that we just can't guarantee," says Lounsbury. "It's really just like any other residence in the community."

So for now, Donna sits in her room. And nothing seems cut and dried.

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/London/Ian_Gillespie/2004/12/15/782957.html

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Just butt out, George!
By CHRISTINA BLIZZARD -- For the Toronto Sun

December 15, 2004

Bar owners across the province want Health Minister George Smitherman to butt out of their business and reconsider his province-wide, all-encompassing smoking ban in all public places.

It's not that they oppose a ban on smoking in family restaurants, says Doug Needham, President of the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservice Association.

"We welcome the legislation, as opposed to the patchwork quilt of municipal laws," he says.

His major concern is for places such as sports bars, which are only now staggering back after the triple whammy of SARS, terror attacks -- and now the hockey strike.

"What we would like to see is a transition period," Needham said in an interview. "This (new legislation) couldn't have come at a worse time."

The Liberals are poised to bring in their new antil-smoking bill this week -- just before Queen's Park's Christmas break. Needham argues B.C.'s legislation should be the model. That province allows smoking rooms in bars, but employees must volunteer to serve there and can only work in the smoke for 20% of their shift.

More than 700 bars in Toronto have spent thousands -- in some cases, hundreds of thousands of dollars -- on designated smoking rooms for their smoking patrons.

John McKillop is one such bar owner. He owns Elsewhere, a neighbourhood bar at Yonge and Eglinton, and Tortilla Flats, a restaurant and bar on Queen St. In August, in the wake of the city's smoking ban, he spent $32,000 to put in a 14-seat, separately ventilated smoking room at Elsewhere.

"By the end of August, I sat down and said, 'if you don't do something you will not be in business by the end of January,'" he recalls.

Through the summer, smokers could sit on the patio. McKillop put a windbreak on it for winter, but now the city is cracking down on those.

One brewery told McKillop this spring that every time a smoking ban is implemented, bars lose 35-40% of their business for about 8-10 months.

"After that, they gradually make it up to the point where they are at 85% of where they used to be -- if you survive."

McKillop predicts 15-20% of bars will go broke as a result of the new provincial law. That's the bad news. The good news is that two or three years down the road, the bars that do survive will be be doing more businesses -- simply because there'll be fewer of them.

He's done the math on cigarette smoking and says Smitherman's claim that smokers cost the government money in health care just doesn't add up. McKillop estimated that at $7 a pack a day on average in taxes, smokers contribute more than $2,500 to the treasury in a year. Over 40 years, they pay more than $100,000 -- which adds up to a lot of health care.

Between his two establishments, McKillop employs about 65 people. "If we go out of business, where are they going to go?" he asks. "Everyone is down."

Industry sources have told McKillop that since the city of Toronto implemented its butt ban June 1, sales of beer in licensed establishments are the lowest they've been in 15-20 years.

"The point is, smoking is legal. If the government is serious, then ban it. But they won't. They make way too much in taxes and too many (tobacco) farmers give them votes," says McKillop.

These days, most of his business comes from Manchester United soccer fans, who've made Elsewhere their home, so he isn't hurting from the hockey strike -- yet. But his business always boomed during the playoffs.

Smitherman said yesterday the government will go full steam ahead on the ban.

"We campaigned on a commitment to bring in a 100% ban on smoking in public and work places and that's what I'm about to fulfil," Smitherman said in a scrum.

Look, I quit smoking 22 years ago and I don't like being around smokers. But if consenting adults want to indulge in a legal activity in a ventilated, designated smoking room in a sports bar, just what is the problem?
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/Toronto/Christina_Blizzard/2004/12/15/782946.html

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McGuinty government protecting Ontarians' health with proposed smoke-free legislation

    New Ban Would Make All Workplaces and Enclosed Public Places Smoke-Free

    TORONTO, Dec. 15 /CNW/ - The McGuinty government is protecting the health of all Ontarians by introducing legislation that would prohibit smoking in all workplaces and enclosed public places in the province, Health and Long-Term Care Minister George Smitherman announced today. 
    "Smoking and exposure to second-hand smoke is the number one preventable killer in Ontario today," Smitherman said. "We promised to make all workplaces and enclosed public places in Ontario 100 per cent smoke-free. The legislation we are introducing today will fulfill this commitment and attack the chief cause of death and disease in this province."
    The proposed legislation would prohibit smoking in all workplaces, protecting all workers regardless where they are employed, and would prohibit smoking in all enclosed public places which are not primarily a place of residence as of May 31, 2006. This would include restaurants, bars, schools, private clubs, healthcare facilities, sports arenas, entertainment venues, work vehicles and offices including government buildings.
    The proposed Act would also limit the sale, distribution and use of tobacco products, including stricter measures to ensure only those 19 years of age and older can buy cigarettes. It would ban all countertop displays at retail outlets and prohibit the promotion of tobacco products at entertainment venues.
    "The government is to be applauded for the leadership it is showing by banning smoking in all workplaces and enclosed public places in Ontario," said
Michael Perley, Director of the Ontario Campaign for Action on Tobacco. "This new legislation would override a patchwork of municipal by-laws on smoking and send a clear message that second-hand smoke is extremely harmful, and that it's not to be tolerated in any enclosed place where people work or gather."
    Dr. Sheela Basrur, Ontario's Chief Medical Officer of Health, also applauded the government's proposed legislation. "About 16,000 Ontarians die prematurely each year due to smoking - that's about 44 deaths every day," Dr. Basrur said. "A growing list of cancers, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases are linked to smoking, which is responsible for at least $1.7 billion in health care costs annually. This bill is extremely important and timely."
    "This proposed legislation is fair and balanced," Smitherman said. "We've consulted broadly, worked closely with our stakeholders, and we're confident
that a large majority of Ontarians support what we're doing."
    This proposed legislation is part of the government's comprehensive tobacco control strategy, which also includes initiatives to prevent young people from starting to smoke and helping smokers who are ready to quit.

    This news release, along with other media materials, such as matte stories and audio clips, on other subjects, are available on our website at:
http://www.health.gov.on.ca under the News Media section.
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    BACKGROUNDER
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------

                             SMOKE-FREE ONTARIO

    The McGuinty government is protecting the health of all Ontarians with its legislation that would prohibit smoking in all workplaces and enclosed
public places in the province.      The proposed act would amend and rename the Tobacco Control Act (TCA), 1994 to the Smoke-Free Ontario Act and would repeal the Smoking in the Workplace Act (SWA). This proposed act would retain provisions from the TCA and SWA and build upon them by strengthening key provisions.

    Smoke-Free Workplaces and Enclosed Public Places
    The proposed legislation would prohibit smoking in all workplaces and enclosed public places that are not primarily a place of residence (as of
May 31, 2006), including:
    -   Restaurants, bars, banquet halls and entertainment facilities
    -   Healthcare facilities
    -   Public and private schools and school property
    -   Casinos, gambling facilities and bingo halls
    -   Private clubs, including legion halls
    -   Common areas in residential buildings (hotels, motels, apartment and condominium buildings)
    -   All offices and government buildings
    -   Work vehicles
    -   All enclosed public places including parking garages
    -   Day nurseries
    -   Private home day care
    -   Reserved seating in sporting arenas or entertainment venues.
    The proposed legislation would also eliminate designated smoking rooms by May 31, 2006 and would restrict smoking by residents in specified residential
care facilities to a controlled smoking area that meets the prescribed criteria.
    Employer and Proprietor Responsibilities

 The proposed act sets out a series of obligations for employers and proprietors of public places to make sure their environment is smoke-free.  Employers and proprietors would be responsible for posting no-smoking signs, notifying people within the space that smoking is prohibited, ensuring no ashtrays are available, and taking action if anyone violates the smoking ban.  Employees would be protected by a list of prohibitions aimed at preventing an employer from retaliating if an employee complained about non- compliance with the proposed act.
    Home healthcare workers would be able to ask a person not to smoke in his/her presence while the health care services are being provided. The home
care worker would be permitted to leave under certain conditions, if the person refuses to comply.
    Controlling Sale and Distribution
    The proposed legislation would achieve stronger control over the sale, distribution and use of tobacco products. These new restrictions would include the banning of all countertop displays at retail outlets and prohibit the promotion of tobacco products in entertainment venues. Under the proposed act, it would become an offence to allow the purchaser to handle the product before buying it and to display tobacco products except as permitted by regulations.
    The current provision that requires that tobacco may only be sold to people 19 years of age and over would remain in place. In addition,  storeowners would be required to request photo identification from anyone who appears to be under the age of 25.
    The act would also make the owner of a business that sells tobacco liable for the action of employees when an employee sells tobacco to someone under
the age of 19

http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/December2004/15/c5686.html

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Smoking ban burns biz profits

By Chen Chekki - The Chronicle-Journal

December 15, 2004

Bars and lounges in Thunder Bay have lost customers due to the city-wide smoking ban, while some businesses just outside the city are drawing more smokers, the Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce said Tuesday.

The chamber in November asked about 100 bars, lounges and restaurants about their business activity since the butt ban started in July, and 93 per cent of them said they suffered losses.

“Where are all the non-smokers?” asked Terry Tapak, owner of Kilroy’s Sports Pub and Billiards. “They were going to come out in droves. Like hell.”

Tapak said he has lost about a quarter of his patrons due to the bylaw that bans smoking in public places and workplaces.

Up to 90 per cent of Kilroy’s patrons smoke and since the bar began losing them, it has become so strapped for cash that it has stopped giving to charity. The bar has also laid off staff and reduced business hours, just like all other bars and restaurants that reported losses, the chamber said.

“This is the tip of the iceburg,” Tapak said.

He said with colder temperatures settling in, people are going to get tired of bundling up to have a smoke outdoors. And some have started looking for a warm place to smoke just outside the city where the ban is not in place.

The Stanley Tavern, about a 15-minute drive west of Thunder Bay, has seen a slight increase in business since the summer, owner Susan Poulin said.

“We’re seeing some strange faces we haven’t seen before,” she said.

Just east of Thunder Bay in Shuniah, the McKenzie Inn is getting more than its usual number of visitors, too.

“There seems to be way more people coming out here to eat at this time of year,” said Don Stewart, a manager at the inn. He said at least 70 per cent of the new customers smoke and he hears people complaining about the city butt ban all the time.

Customers at the McKenzie consider it a treat to come in, sit down and have a smoke, Stewart said.

When one community doesn’t have smoking and another one does, they’ll just go to the other community, said chamber president Mary Long-Irwin.

“And that’s exactly what’s happening,” she said.

The chamber survey also notes that the Thunder Bay Charity Casino has been hurt by the ban and bingo halls have lost at least 30 per cent of their business.

The survey, which polled about half the city’s bars and lounges and less than half the restaurants, found that 12 per cent of restaurants lost an average of 35 per cent of their business to the ban.

Long-Irwin, who does not smoke and does not advocate smoking, said the survey was done to make the community aware of what was happening.

A province-wide tobacco ban will help level the playing field, Long-Irwin said.

Indoor smoking areas were listed as desireable by some of the Thunder Bay businesses polled.

http://www.chroniclejournal.com/story.shtml?id=24924

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