Tobacco.org

• Democrats Plan an Early Push Against Tobacco  

The new Congress plans to move aggressively against the tobacco industry in coming months by regulating cigarettes, raising per-pack sales taxes and ratifying an international antitobacco treaty, according to aides for key lawmakers and experts who expect the Obama administration to break a logjam on smoking issues.

The measures, which even tobacco executives acknowledge as nearly inevitable, are ones that the Bush administration opposed, vetoed or declined to act upon but that President-elect Barack Obama, himself an intermittent smoker, supported as a senator.

The steps include legislation giving the Food and Drug Administration broad authority over cigarettes for the first time. . . .

In the House, Henry A. Waxman of California, a Democrat and chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, plans to move quickly with the F.D.A. legislation

"We hope for early action on the bill in the new Congress," Melissa Wagoner, a spokeswoman for Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, said of the landmark legislation, which Mr. Kennedy has promoted for years.

Robert Gibbs, Mr. Obama's spokesman and incoming press secretary, said by e-mail on Sunday that Mr. Obama supported the measures when he was in Congress but had not made any decisions yet about actions on them in the White House.

Matthew L. Myers, the head of a nonprofit antismoking group, said on Monday, "The election of Barack Obama changes everything." . . .

Democratic leaders in both houses of Congress, whose new members will be sworn in on Tuesday, have also said they hope to pass legislation to raise federal cigarette taxes by 61 cents, to $1 a pack. That may even be among the economic measures awaiting Mr. Obama's signature as soon as he takes office Jan. 20, according to Congressional aides and antismoking lobbyists. . . .

As a third step against smoking, Congressional aides and lobbyists on both sides expect the new president to submit an international tobacco control treaty to the Senate for ratification. . . .

In this country, an estimated 45 million people smoke. That number is unchanged since 1990, the American Lung Association says, although the number of cigarettes smoked has declined by one-third. . . .

The Democrats who are expected to help reinforce the efforts against tobacco include Tom Daschle, the president-elect's choice for health and human services secretary, who has been an ardent opponent of the cigarette industry.

And among those whose names are being circulated as candidates to head the F.D.A. is Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein, the antismoking health commissioner for Baltimore and a former investigator for Representative Waxman. It was Mr. Waxman who convened the memorable 1994 hearing where seven tobacco executives swore under oath that nicotine was not addictive.

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The election of Barack Obama changes everything. . . . I think that 2009 has the potential to be the most historic year in making progress on tobacco at the federal level since the first surgeon general's report in 1964.
Matthew L. Myers, "the head of a nonprofit antismoking group" (sez the Times). Quick action is expected on FDA regulation, a federal tax increase and ratification of the Framework Convention

TRICE: Tribune writers' New Year's resolutions for 2009  

I know that smoking is one of the hardest addictions to break. Still, my New Year's resolution is for President-elect Barack Obama to try once again to kick the habit.

In a February, 2007 interview with CBS's "60 Minutes," Michelle Obama said that she wouldn't allow her fear of her husband being shot to prevent him from running for president. "As a black man, you know, Barack can get shot going to the gas station," she said.

Well, "as a black man" his risk of dying from lung cancer is all too real.

The American Lung Association says that in 2006, 27 percent of black men smoked compared to 24 percent of white men.

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EDITORIAL: President-elect Obama should make an effort to quit smoking  

Obama's example could help others kick the habit. He has the bully pulpit and can use it to draw attention to the perils of tobacco use. . . .

''It takes the average smoker eight to 10 times before he is able to quit successfully,'' said Dr. Steven A. Schroeder, director of the Smoking Cessation Leadership Center at the University of California.

Obama should start the new year with a new effort to quit smoking.

And he should take the nation on the journey with him. It would be good for his - and the country's - health.

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New Texas law calls for fire-safe smokes 

A state law that went into effect today calls for fire-safe cigarettes to be sold.

Distributors and retailers have until 2010 to sell off their old inventory.

Officials say the new cigarettes taste and cost the same as the old ones but extinguish on their own when a smoker finishes smoking it.

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Obama feeling heat to quit tobacco 

Some folks, however, say if Obama wants to smoke, his critics should butt out.

"My take on this would be that he should attempt to not smoke in public but whatever he does on his own time in private is his business," said Charleston city councilman and outgoing state Delegate Dave Higgins, D-Kanawha.

"Quitting is very difficult for most people. Personally, I don't want my commander-in-chief stressed out. If a cigarette will calm him down and let him think better, then I say go ahead for pity's sake. We have bigger problems to worry about than whether President Obama takes a few puffs in private."

Higgins, an ardent Obama supporter throughout the election, smokes a pipe. . . .

Charleston attorney Kit Francis, a legislative lobbyist for R.J. Reynolds, defended Obama's personal choices with a breath of lightheartedness.

"I have heard that President-elect Obama enjoys a cigarette, and perhaps an occasional puff on a cigar, always away from his children, and almost always away from his lovely wife," Francis said. "President-elect Obama is an adult who chooses to enjoy an occasional smoke. I have no problem with his personal choice, and, of course, applaud his decision to smoke away from his children." . . .

Caseman said Obama could reach out and use support organizations that help folks quit smoking.

Sen. Dan Foster, D-Kanawha, said his wife took a few stabs at quitting before she could put the lid on it entirely.

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LETTERS: Voters clear when voting smoke-free 

Quit smoking one week at a time 

Even though millions of smokers will resolve to 'butt out' on January 1st, experts say many will be still be smoking on Valentine's Day. They have some tips to help quitters retain their resolve and strengthen their commitment to quitting which apply even to the likes of President-elect Barack Obama.

With 'The Stay Quit Monday' idea, smokers can increase their chances of making this attempt the one which works and for someone like Obama who wants to quit but is very busy, with a stressful job, that extra motivational push each week to stay on track might be needed.

Frances Stillman, who co-directs the Institute for Global Tobacco Control at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health says there is a known high relapse rate for first-time quitters and it takes a number of attempts for most people to stop smoking altogether.

Stillman suggests using each Monday to reaffirm their goal of quitting is a sensible way to stay on track - she says for most people it takes from 7 to 10 tries to quit.

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Health Blog : Could We Possibly Want Obama to Sneak a Cigarette in a Crisis? 

"The nation is too precariously balanced right now to risk having him burst into tears, or march off in a snit, or take to his bed with the glums," suggested an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times over the weekend.

The piece, by ex-smoker and novelist Amy Goldman Koss, was tongue-in-cheek. But it got us thinking about what the impact might be if Obama resisted an urge to smoke during a moment of high stress.

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KRISTOL: George, Abe, Rick and Barack 

One more heartening tidbit -- from my point of view -- about the president-elect: he's been in the past an intermittent smoker, and is now a nicotine gum chewer who admits that he's occasionally fallen off the wagon this past year to indulge in a cigarette. He's been chastised for this by some scolds. The editors of The Mercury News told him recently he needed to make "a very public show of quitting" to set a good example for young people.

Bah, humbug. Those of us who dislike finger-wagging nanny-state-nagging liberalism relish the prospect of President Barack Obama sneaking a cigarette on the second floor of the White House

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• Lessons for Other Smokers in Obama’s Efforts to Quit  

His pattern matches that of millions of other people who have resolved but stumbled in their efforts to give up cigarettes. Today, 21 percent of Americans smoke, down from 28 percent in 1988. Off-again-on-again smoking and serial quitting are common, as is the long-term use of nicotine gum and patches.

"It takes the average smoker 8 to 10 times before he is able to quit successfully," said Dr. Steven A. Schroeder, director of the Smoking Cessation Leadership Center at the University of California, San Francisco.

Dr. Schroeder said that counseling was helpful, and that if Mr. Obama were his patient, he would urge him to try it, even if only by telephone, toll free at 1-800-QUITNOW (1-800-784-8669). With nicotine replacements and counseling, quit rates at one year are 15 percent to 30 percent, Dr. Schroeder said, about twice that of those who try without help.

But Mr. Obama has apparently been chewing nicotine gum for quite a while. Is it safe? Dr. Neal L. Benowitz, another expert on nicotine addiction from the University of California, San Francisco, said that long-term use of the gum or patches, "if it keeps you off cigarettes, is O.K."

He said people had the best chances of quitting if they used more than one type of nicotine replacement at the same time -- like wearing a patch every day, but also using the gum when cravings took hold.

Studies have found that 5 percent to 10 percent of people who try nicotine replacements were still using them a year later, and nicotine itself appears not to be harmful, except possibly during pregnancy and for people at risk for diabetes, Dr. Benowitz said. The risks of cancer, other lung disease and heart problems come from other chemicals in tobacco smoke. . . .

"Then there is something called hedonic dysregulation," Dr. Benowitz said. "It involves pleasure. Nicotine involves dopamine release, which is key in signaling pleasure. When people quit smoking, they don't experience things they used to like as pleasure. Things are not as much fun as they used to be. It's something you get over in time."

People become hooked on nicotine in part because, like alcohol and other addicting drugs, it alters the brain. Some of the changes are long-lasting, and the younger people are when they take up smoking, the stronger their addiction.

"There is increasing evidence that you lay down new neural circuits related to smoking, sort of memory tracks," Dr. Benowitz said. "Nicotine does it, and other aspects of smoke do, too. Your brain is forever changed."

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• Legislators rolling in tobacco money ALTRIA DONATIONS TOBACCO DONATIONS 

When Gov. Tim Kaine proposed last week to double the tax on cigarettes, he took on a large contributor to state politicians.

Tobacco companies have over the years given millions of dollars to Virginia candidates--including to Kaine himself.

According to the Virginia Public Access Project, a database of campaign finance donations in Virginia, tobacco companies, executives and farmers have given state politicians nearly $6 million since 1996.

By contrast, anti-tobacco groups seem to donate much less . . .

Think of a big name in state politics--former Gov. Jim Gilmore, former Lt. Gov. John Hager, former Gov. Mark Warner, former state Sen. John Chichester, former House Speaker Vance Wilkins, former GOP gubernatorial candidate Jerry Kilgore, current Democratic Party Chairman Dick Cranwell, House Speaker Bill Howell, Gov. Tim Kaine--they're all on the list of tobacco donations.

Local lawmakers on the list, in addition to Howell and Chichester, include Sens. Edd Houck and Richard Stuart and Dels. Mark Cole, Bobby Orrock and Albert Pollard.

The largest donor by far is Altria, the Richmond-based parent company of Philip Morris, maker of the Marlboro brand of cigarettes.

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• KOSS: Obama and smoking  

Nearly 10 years after my last cigarette, I continue to peek behind the counter at Walgreens to make sure Kools still exist. Their pack has changed over the years, as has mine, but I know that, were we to reunite, there would be no hard feelings, no recriminations, no demands for explanations.

And all this support and acceptance is from the single source of my success; the very Kools through which I channeled all my novels! And did they ever demand coauthor credit or a cut of my advances or royalties? Never!

I voted and campaigned for President-elect Obama partly because deep in my soul I believe that he is not the kind of man to abruptly begin flapping his hands, shrieking in disgust at the least whiff of a stranger's smoke. I am confident that he will honor and mourn his smokes when his relationship with them must end.

But because there are a few other matters requiring his attention at this time, I dearly hope he waits until both his terms are completed before he begins the required smashing and weeping and gaining of weight.

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Christopher Caldwell - No smoke without ire 

About a week ago, the New York Post published a portfolio of photographs of Barack Obama that had been taken on the campus of Occidental College in 1980. . . .

It is less than self-evident why Mr Obama’s forgoing the cigarette he sneaks every few weeks should be a matter of national importance. There is no consistent relationship between smoking and performance of official duties. It is true, according to the historian Michael Oren, that Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli chief of staff, was taken to hospital with nicotine poisoning at the height of the six-day war, but he was on 100 a day. Cigars buoyed Churchill in the second world war. Whether or not smoking makes you think more clearly, the former German chancellor, Helmut Schmidt, who celebrated his 90th birthday last week, must count as one of the sharpest thinkers and heaviest smokers among world leaders of the last half-century.

Although smoking does not pose any obvious risks to good government, stopping smoking might. . . .

One assumes it is scientific knowledge that has caused the rate of smokers in the US to fall below 20 per cent, and not any rite of self-abnegation carried out by elected officials. But perhaps one assumes wrong. It is not the orderly running of government that is endangered by Mr Obama’s smoking but the quasi-religious role that a confused electorate has grafted on to the presidency. The president not only must do something, he must embody something. He must be a “role model”. He must offer “moral leadership”.

We would do well to remember that moral leadership is not in the constitution. Also that the US has just had eight years of a president who made moral leadership the obsessive focus of his administration. Voters did not seem to like that much, either.

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Editorial: Obama should quit smoking  

Quit smoking. Now. Really. For good.

We know it's hard. If it weren't, nobody would smoke anymore. And we know quitting just as you're taking on one of the most stressful jobs in the world — well, it's not great timing in that sense.

But it is in another: Everybody's watching. Especially kids. . . .

That's not surprising. Well over half of those who try to quit fail. And most of them don't also happen to have the weight of the world on their shoulders.

But for a president who wants to bring about change, it's hard to imagine a finer goal than slowing the march of young people into a habit that leads to an early grave.

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Anti-smoking groups hope Obama will be role model  

A similar hope, albeit with no implied timetable, comes from Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

"He's shown a firm commitment to beat this addiction even though no one could have tried under more stressful circumstances," Myers says. "It takes courage to admit failure, but even more courage to pledge to succeed."

One might think, given Obama's clear ability to influence children in many ways, not to mention his own two daughters, that anti-smoking advocates would find him a disappointment on this issue.

Yet they say his foible makes him more human, and better able to teach by example.

"I cheered when I saw him acknowledge to Tom Brokaw the very human reaction that he's fallen off the wagon," says Myers. And the fact that he has two young daughters? "That makes him an even better role model."

If he occasionally lights up, he won't be the most recent White House occupant to do so. First lady Laura Bush, who quit a lifelong smoking habit at least a decade ago, reportedly will bum a cigarette from friends on occasion. . . .

Jorenby says such logic is a fallacy. "They're not mutually exclusive," he says of discipline and smoking. For one thing, a cigarette often helps smokers concentrate - one reason it's so hard to stop. "The thought of not being able to think clearly is terrifying to them," he says.

And also, people often ignore the fact that tobacco addiction is a chemical dependency. "This is not simply a bad habit that one uses willpower to stamp out," he says.

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