Tobacco.org

Glendale tells smokers to butt out -- or else 

Glendale City Council members were expected this week to consider adopting new rules that would make smoking illegal just about everywhere in Glendale -- including, in some cases, inside homes.

The proposed ordinance would prohibit smoking on all public property, including streets and sidewalks, unless there are no non-smokers within 20 feet. Smoking would also be forbidden on private property that is accessible to the public, such as restaurant patios and shopping centers. Violators would receive citations of $100 to $500 for failing to put out their butts after receiving a warning.

Jump to full article »

• Smoke ban in your home? 

The Lake County Housing Authority is considering banning smoking in public housing units, an unprecedented move in Illinois.

"We try to be ahead of the curve," said David Northern, Lake County Housing Authority executive director. "We have a high population of persons with disabilities, senior citizens and lower income individuals who have health problems without the health care to treat those problems. It's not right for them to have to deal with secondhand smoke."

Roughly 80 public housing authorities in 15 states from California to Maine have adopted smoke-free policies, said Jim Bergman, director of the Smoke-free Environments Law Project based in Ann Arbor, Mich. The group works with local health departments on smoke-free issues largely focusing on apartments and condominiums. . . .

Any policy change has to be approved by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the housing authority's board of commissioners.

Officials started discussing the idea two years ago, spurred by a few residents' complaints about secondhand smoke, concerns about health and fire safety, and the costs of rehabbing apartments with smoking damage. . . .

Smokers' rights activist Garnet Dawn Scheuer of Lake Bluff, Midwest regional director for The Smoker's Club Inc., said banning smoking in peoples' homes is an invasion of privacy and goes against constitutionally protected rights.

Jump to full article »

We have a high population of persons with disabilities, senior citizens and lower income individuals who have health problems without the health care to treat those problems. It's not right for them to have to deal with secondhand smoke.
David Northern, Lake County (IL) Housing Authority executive director.

Lake County considering public housing smoking ban  

the Lake County Housing Authority is considering pushing the smoking ban even further.

It is discussing banning smoking in all of its public housing units, which would be an unprecedented move in Illinois.

David Northern, the Lake County Housing Authority executive director, notes that the agency has a high population of persons with disabilities, senior citizens and lower income individuals who have health problems and no available care. He says it is not right for such people to have to have to deal with secondhand smoke.

Jump to full article »

• Home Smoking Ban Keeps Teens From Lighting Up 

A new study finds that parents who enforce a no-smoking ban at home are less likely to have teens who experiment with cigarettes.

The Massachusetts study, which followed more than 2,200 children, ages 12 to 17, for four years, also found that teens living in households that allowed smoking were more likely to find smoking as socially acceptable. Teens whose parents allowed smoking at home also tended to think a higher percentage of local adults smoked, compared to teens with household bans.

"This basic intervention -- implementing a household smoking ban -- has the potential to promote antismoking norms and to prevent adolescent smoking," lead study author Alison Albers, an assistant professor at Boston University School of Public Health, said in a news release issued by the Center for the Advancement of Health.

The findings are published in the October issue of the center's American Journal of Public Health.

Jump to full article »

• Warner Center Homeowners Demand Smoke-Free Living 

Homeowners at The Met, a popular condominium located at the Warner Center in Woodland Hills have begun a process of petitioning to restrict smoking in both private and common areas at the complex. The campaign to make The Met smoke-free began after multiple claims of unwanted secondhand smoke coming into units went unresolved by the HOA.

Brian Meert, a homeowner at The Met stated, "The homeowner below me had a medical marijuana license and when he smoked, the unwanted secondhand smoke would rise into my condo. I tried working with the HOA multiple times to find a solution, but their response was that it is just the way the building was designed."

"The issue of smoke traveling to other units has been one of the major concerns at The Met," states Meert. "If the buildings are unable to restrict smoke from traveling between units, I believe the smoking policy should be a decision that the homeowners make as it directly affects their health and potential property value."

An official website for The Met Smoke-Free campaign has been posted online at http://www.TheMetSmokeFree.com.

Jump to full article »

• Shelter children from smoking, parents told 

Tanzanian parents who smoke can and should play a big role in blocking the young generation from picking up the killer habit.

Public education and sensitization, strict enforcement of anti-smoking regulations and sharpening legislation against tobacco are also key facilitators of the campaign against a crop whose effects are medically and environmentally disastrous.

So says Professor Robert Machang`u, the National Professional Officer at the WHO Regional Office in Dar es Salaam and Chairman of the Tanzania Public Health Association.

He was speaking in Dar es Salaam yesterday, at a workshop for tobacco control champions - young citizens belonging to nearly 10 groups that are working closely with the Tanzania Tobacco Control Forum (TTCF). . . .

Homes are thus breeding grounds for smokers, he said, urging parents to protect their offspring by refraining from manipulating them as cigarette buyers and lighters.

Jump to full article »

• No-smoking housing catches on in Dallas-Fort Worth  

Welcome to the latest no-smoking frontier: private homes. Smoke-free housing could become as common as no-pet policies.

Nationwide, more landlords are barring tenants from lighting up to reduce neighbors' exposure to secondhand smoke, joining a long list of cities, companies and hotels that have done the same. The Smokefree Apartment House Registry features about 300 listings nationally, up from 11 when it began in 2001. . . .

California is the leader in smoke-free apartments, with 17 cities, including Santa Barbara and Sacramento, having passed policies.

In North Texas, smoke-free housing is scarce. But a handful of new apartment complexes offer smoke-free or partially smoke-free living, reflecting a budding trend. . . .

The Dakota in Dallas had no trouble filling its smoke-free, 20-unit building, said Kimberly Walker, regional property manager for owner Lincoln Property Co. The new complex has 496 apartments in 25 buildings near Northwest Highway and North Central Expressway.

No smoking is part of a bigger picture for two projects.

Jump to full article »

• Home Smoking Bans Prevent Teens From Lighting Up 

Parents who enforce no-smoking rules at home are less likely to have teens who experiment with cigarettes, a new study finds.

"This basic intervention implementing a household smoking ban has the potential to promote antismoking norms and to prevent adolescent smoking," said lead study author Alison Albers, Ph.D., an assistant professor at Boston University School of Public Health.

Albers and colleagues interviewed 2,217 Massachusetts adolescents ages 12 to 17, and followed them for four years. They discovered that teens living in households that did not ban smoking were more likely to report smoking as socially acceptable, compared to teens whose parents banned smoking.

Jump to full article »

• Smoking rule fires up residents 

"I don't think anybody has the right to tell me what to do in my own apartment unless it is against the law," said Cornell, 66, a smoker for 50 years.

Vicksburg Halls in April last year adopted rules prohibiting smoking in its apartments, a decision approved by the Marysville Housing Commission.

Wayne Pyden, the executive director of the complex, said as of Oct. 1, any resident caught smoking in his or her apartment will be evicted. . . .

Vicksburg Halls is home to about 20 smokers, of which 17 still are allowed to smoke in their apartments, since they were residents before the new rules.

Most of those smokers are outraged by the rule.

Outside the complex Tuesday, a group of residents -- almost all smokers -- complained about the situation.

Jump to full article »

• More W.Va. kids live with smoking in home, study finds 

West Virginia's youngest and poorest children are twice as likely to be exposed to secondhand smoke in their homes as other low-income kids in the United States, according to a report released Tuesday.

More than 23 percent of West Virginia infants and toddlers enrolled in the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) supplemental nutrition program lived in homes where parents or caregivers smoked last year, the state's Office of Nutritional Services reported.

The national average for WIC children - ages 4 and under - was 10.6 percent.

Children exposed to tobacco smoke have higher rates of respiratory illness, ear infections and sudden infant death syndrome.

"Everybody knows secondhand smoke is bad, but they're still smoking around their kids," said Bruce Adkins, director of the state's Division of Tobacco Prevention. "People are so addicted. We have a lot of hard-core tobacco users in West Virginia, and they're tough to get at." . . .

West Virginia has the second-highest percentage of adult smokers in the nation, behind Kentucky.

Jump to full article »

• Smoking ban gets lawyer’s green light  

An attorney for the homeowners association at the Centennial affordable-housing complex says a ban on cigarette smoking in its privately owned units is viable and will hold up in court.

When the homeowners association board proposed banning smoking in the 92 privately owned condominiums, some residents — smokers and non — balked, arguing that the ban would set a dangerous precedent for infringing on civil liberties and possibly violating the constitutional right to privacy.

“Preliminary findings indicate that we will be able to make Centennial a ‘smoke-free environment’ if we so choose,” homeowners association board president Ed Cross wrote to residents in a letter this week. “Legal precedent has stated that smoking is not a constitutionally protected right.” . . .

attorney, Fred Peirce, has since prepared a legal argument for the ban that he will present at a Centennial homeowners meeting on Aug. 19.

That meeting will also include remarks from Aspen Fire Marshal Ed Van Walraven, who recommended that Centennial ban smoking after a June fire caused by a smoldering cigarette destroyed 10 apartments in the Castle Ridge affordable-housing complex. (

Jump to full article »

Smoking remains major danger to children 

ital, says in general children are growing up in a safer environment than 20 years ago, but the one area the consultant paediatrician has not seen improvement in is exposure to cigarette smoke.

As a way of addressing the issue, the hospital has now become part of the SmokeFree Kids campaign, the latest arm of SmokeFree Liverpool's battle against cigarette exposure. He said: "Parents will protect their children from anything, yet it is different for smoking for some reason. They will allow their children to have that exposure.

"We know it affects children coming into the hospital. It makes it more likely that children will come here unwell with conditions like asthma, chest infections and bronchitis. Many would not have these problems if their parents had not smoked around them.

Jump to full article »

Hotel owner prosecuted for smoking on her own premises 

Patricia Coupeland was given a 12 month conditional discharge by Blackpool magistrates after she admitted smoking on a smoke-free premises.

Ms Coupeland, 50, of the Cheers Hotel in Blackpool, told a court the hotel was closed at the time and not taking in guests.

She said: "I was in the dining room doing my paperwork and having a cigarette. It was closed as a hotel at the time and was therefore my private home. There were no guests. I only had a friend stay. The health officer came across as vicious and a person with attitude."

Victoria Cartmell, prosecuting for Blackpool Council, told the court that on February 1 environmental health officer Alan Taylor arrived at the hotel to carry out a hygiene inspection. . . .

"The defendant confirmed it was a smoke-free hotel, but said it was her own home and she was free to smoke in her own home.

"The officer said smoking in her private quarters was okay, but not in the bar."

Jump to full article »

• North Texas Neighborhood Bans Smoking 

Monterra Village is a 100 percent smoke-free apartment complex in suburban Fort Worth.

"You can walk outside and know that you can breathe the air and you're not going to breathe in secondhand smoke from someone who chooses to do that," said Guidry.

Monterra Village is a multimillion-dollar gamble. It is the first major housing development in North Texas that is saying no vacancy to smokers.

Representatives for Monterra Village said there will eventually be more than 1,000 residences in the complex and that smokers are not allowed to smoke anywhere while on community property -- including in their own cars.

Jump to full article »

Secondhand Smoke Raises Stroke Risk for Spouses  

Nonsmokers who are married to smokers run a significantly higher risk for experiencing a stroke, a new study suggests.

Researchers also found that ex-smokers married to men and women who still smoke carry an even greater risk for stroke. However, nonsmoking spouses of former smokers do not appear to bear any higher risk for stroke than those married to someone who had never smoked.

"This adds to the growing evidence that secondhand smoke is bad for you, and I hope that it will help people who want to stop smoking to know that it will probably be good for their spouse's health, too," said Maria Glymour, an assistant professor of society, human development and health at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. Glymour is also a health and society scholar in the department of epidemiology at Columbia University in New York City.

She and her team were expected to publish the findings in the September issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Jump to full article »