Email
Password
(Forgot Password?)
A short time ago, the American Lung Association set up a petition asking the Obama administration to ban interior smoking in federal buildings and protect all federal employees from second-hand smoke.
It may be a coincidence. But, effective on December 22, 2008 the General Services Administration, the agency that used to ensure every federal agency had an ample supply of light brown, heavy ashtrays in every building, has issued a new bulletin.
Entitled "Protecting Federal Employees and the Public From Exposure to Tobacco Smoke in the Federal Workplace," this new edict (FMR Bulletin 2009-B1) says that "cigarette smoking is the number one preventable cause of morbidity and premature mortality worldwide. Studies also have shown that the harmful effects of smoking are not confined solely to the smoker, but extend to co-workers and members of the general public who are exposed to secondhand smoke as well."
The bureaucracy does not move quickly. For example, the new GSA issuance cites the 11-year old Clinton Executive Order which "encourages the heads of executive agencies to evaluate the need to further restrict smoking at doorways and in courtyards under executive branch control and authorizes the agency heads to restrict smoking in these areas in light of this evaluation."
After long and careful consideration over the past eleven years, the agency has decided to implement this remnant of the Clinton administration's policies. The new bulletin highlights its new policy as: "smoking is prohibited in courtyards and within 25 feet of doorways and air intake ducts on outdoor space under the jurisdiction, custody or control of GSA."
And, as part of the new policy, all interior smoking areas will be closed as well.
The new policy is already effective as a government policy but agencies have six months to implement it. Some astute readers may be wondering why, if second-hand smoke is such a dire problem, there is a six-month delay.
The reason for the delay is to give federal employee unions a chance to negotiate on the implementation of the change. . . .
The new policy may test the ingenuity of some agencies and unions. In any event, the GSA bulletin does not provide a solution other than to stop smoking. "The heads of executive agencies are encouraged to use existing authority to establish programs designed to help employees stop smoking. Cessation program materials for agencies interested in establishing a smoking cessation program for their employees are available from the Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention...."
Jump to full article »
Last April four of Iris Bouchard's children stood bunched together in a spare bedroom in their mother's Bethesda home staring at stacks of it: loose pages on the desk and bookshelves, manila folders poking out of an overstuffed filing cabinet, rows of letters in wooden clementine boxes in the closet. Bouchard had died just days ago, and her sons, Stephen and Ed, and daughters, Charlie and Ellie, had come to sort through the remains of her business, the Inter-American Employment Agency. For 35 years, until Bouchard stopped working around 2004, the company placed chauffeurs, maids, butlers and other household help in the homes of the Washington elite.
Bouchard had a thing for flamboyance -- furs, jewelry, one hat that closely resembled a strawberry shortcake -- but the walls of her home office were bare. She had died of emphysema, and though she had quit smoking several years before, the smell of cigarettes still hung in the air.
Government workers at federal buildings who want a cigarette break will have to take a stroll before they light up, according to a new federal policy.
A regulation published last week in the Federal Register by the General Services Administration prohibits smoking in the courtyards of federal buildings, or within 25 feet of doorways and air intake ducts. It also bans designated smoking rooms in federal buildings. The policy is to be implemented within six months.
The regulation replaces an executive order signed by President Bill Clinton in 1997 that prohibited smoking in federal buildings but allowed smoking in designated rooms or outdoor areas. Anti-smoking advocates viewed the exceptions as significant loopholes that exposed co-workers and passersby to secondhand smoke, and they welcomed the new regulation.
"We see this as a major victory," said Heather Grzelka, director of media relations at the American Lung Association. "This is going to go a long way to protecting workers from exposure to secondhand smoke."
Anonymous: Now that we have a smoker about to be president, will the city offer the White House an exemption to the smoking ban? Is the White House covered? Or will President Obama need to step out to the Rose Garden like President Bartlett?
Marc Fisher: Interesting--surely the White House wouldn't be covered by the District's smoking ban; after all, it is a residence as well as a place of business. More important, as a federally controlled installation, it would find some way around any city ordinance. But haven't we been told repeatedly that the prez to be has switched from actual cigarettes to Nicorette or some such stuff?
_______________________
Smoking in the White House: Apparently, Anonymous hasn't heard that Laura Bush has long been reported to be a closet chain-smoker. So it's pretty likely that the ashtrays in the private residence, at least, have been gotten a lot of use for the last eight years. Still, here's hoping Obama is able to break the habit.
Marc Fisher: You would think that people who have the extraordinary self-control and self-denial needed to devote their lives to politics at that level would also have the basic personality tools necessary to stop smoking. But perhaps not--perhaps the sociopathology that enables the expenditure of energy required of presidential-level political players is of a piece with the addictive personality that can't quit smoking.
Mount Rainier, Md.: Marc, Smoking at the White House, as a federal facility, are regulated by the portions of the Code of Federal Regulations accessed here:
Federal Management Regulation (pdf)
Interestingly, it appears the office parts of the White House would be required to be smoke-free, but a smoking area could be designated in the residence part. Of course, the WH is also a historic building, so those regs would apply as well.
Marc Fisher: I love this town.
For me, banning tobacco in the United Kingdom's bars and restaurants could not have happened soon enough. Coming from California, where tobacco has been banned in public places since 1998, I have always found it shocking to walk into the soupy air of a British pub . . .
Surprisingly, according to the News@Nature.com article, many gaps remain in the science of how much damage secondhand smoke does to nonsmokers:
But the data supporting the link between second-hand smoke and cardiovascular disease are more controversial. The surgeon general's report states that "pooled relative risks from meta-analysis indicate a 25-30% increase in risk of coronary heart disease from exposure to second-hand smoke." Although most epidemiologists think there is a link, it's the size of the effect that surprises them.
"It seems to me that a 25% increase is not plausible," says John Bailar, a biostatistician at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington DC, who thinks the effect should be proportional to exposure, as it is for lung cancer. . . .
Despite these concerns, the surgeon general's report takes a hard line on exposure, stating that there is no "safe" level. According to Terry Pechacek, one of the authors of the report and associate director at the Office on Smoking and Health at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia: "Exposure to second-hand smoke for even a short time can have adverse health effects--this is not subject to debate. Compounds in tobacco smoke have the ability to cause cancer in humans, it's just a probabilistic game of whether they will cause death in a certain individual."
Meanwhile, back in the United States, there are still numerous states where the fog of smoke remains in bars, restaurants, and workplaces. This includes our nation's capital, Washington, DC, which has no ban. I was there recently in a posh pub in a neighborhood within DC, Georgetown sitting near a woman who was waving her cigarette behind her and in my face--strategically out of the way of her friends. I didn't say anything, but I did wonder if this cigarette, which she was apparently enjoying, would be the one that would trigger that p53 mutation in her or in one of us in the room.
A nerdy, uncool thought, perhaps, but it's sad nonetheless that in the country that launched the antismoking movement with the 1964 Surgeon General's report, the fog remains.
Save the date! You are cordially invited to attend the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids' 13th Annual Youth Advocates of the Year Awards Gala.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009 The Ritz-Carlton, Washington, D.C. [Hotel Web site] 1150 22nd Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20037
Navy Yard: Hi Marc -- Does The Post plan on ever doing a story on how bar revenues have fared since the smoking ban went into effect? And not places that serve food, but bars that only serve alcohol, since they relied on the drinking-smoking crowd.
Marc Fisher: We've done a couple of pieces looking at tax revenue levels, especially in Montgomery County, where it appears that the smoking ban has not had a terrible impact on business. Many bar and restaurant owners contend, however, that the ban has reduced bar revenues. I haven't seen D.C. numbers on that--we should take a look.
Five members of the U.S. Supreme Court were among those who on Sunday attended the annual Red Mass, held the day before the nation's highest court begins its fall term.
Four of the five Roman Catholics on the Supreme Court - Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas - attended the Mass presided over by Cardinal John Patrick Foley, a Vatican official. . . .
The Red Mass in Washington is sponsored by the John Carroll Society. The chief justice's wife Jane Roberts is listed as a member of the group's board of governors.
Below is the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit's current oral argument calendar for the 2008-2009 Term. . . .
Tuesday, October 14, 2008 9:30 AM
Judges Sentelle, Tatel and Brown
06-5267 USA v. Philip Morris USA
U.S. v. Philip Morris: Topping the list is United States v. Philip Morris, an appeal of the decade-long civil racketeering case against the tobacco industry. Philip Morris, now known as Altria Group, is challenging the 2006 verdict which found that it and six other Big Tobacco defendants conspired for years to deceive the public about the health risks of tobacco. In addition to upholding the lower-court verdict, the government is asking the court to order the tobacco industry to pay more than $12 billion to fund a smoking cessation program and to fund an educational, counter-marketing campaign. Miguel Estrada of Gibson Dunn and Michael Carvin of Jones Day plan to argue the case on behalf of Altria.
The answer, the American Lung Association of D.C. believes, depends partly on the culture you come from. So it is aiming two flashy anti-smoking campaigns in two very different directions: one in English, targeting African Americans, and one in Spanish, for Latinos.
"These are the populations that have the highest rates of smoking, and of tobacco-related health disparities -- heart disease, stroke, cancer -- particularly in the Medicaid and under-served population," says Debra Annand, director of the lung association project that launched the ad campaigns two months ago.
The radio and television spots, plus bus shelter and Metro posters, mark the first big push to come out of the $10 million the District allocated for anti-smoking efforts in mid-2007, using its portion of a 1998 national settlement by tobacco companies. In both languages, they try to get smokers to call the local lung association's "QuitLine," where staffers offer free nicotine patches, lozenges and counseling.
The difference in tone between the two campaigns is striking.
D.C. Council member Carol Schwartz tried all last week to accept defeat, but she just couldn't do it.
"I don't think I can let that happen," she said. "Not without putting up a fight."
So the four-term at-large council member, dazed last week by 33-year-old Patrick Mara's win in the Republican primary, announced yesterday that she will be a write-in candidate for the November general election. . . .
Hunter said Schwartz's poor performance in the primary shows that the general public has grown tired of Schwartz and her recent votes against the smoking ban, school reform and open council meetings.
But Schwartz said the primary was skewed by special interests and college Republicans.
One of the most spirited races is Mr. Mara's unexpectedly strong challenge to veteran council member Carol Schwartz (R-At Large). There is much to admire in Ms. Schwartz's four decades of service to the city. She has been a fierce advocate for good government who showed courage in speaking out against the wasteful spending of the 1980s and in challenging then-Mayor Marion Barry (D). There is no questioning her love of this city, but, sadly, her service of late has been detrimental to the District. Unrelentingly negative, Ms. Schwartz opposed no-smoking laws, open-meeting reform and, most notably, the mayoral takeover of the schools. . . .
as much as we salute Ms. Schwartz's past contributions to the city, we fear the consequences of her continued presence on the council.
When I was at a D.C. restaurant recently, I saw eight students walk in, sporting middle-school mascots on their shirts. They looked no older than 14. They ordered two hookahs and smoked for about an hour. No one bothered them. No one questioned them. It seemed as though no one even cared that what seemed like 14-year-olds were smoking. No one, that is, except me.
I asked my medical and public health school friends what they thought about what I saw. They all agreed and were "sure" that hookah smoking was not unhealthy or unsafe. Boy, were they wrong -- although their opinions are apparently the norm.
According to the American Lung Association, hookah smoking is thriving because of a false belief that it is safe when, in fact, it carries many of the same risks as smoking cigarettes. . . .
Shouldn't there be a minimum age for hookah smoking, as there is for cigarettes? Why is hookah smoking exempted from D.C. smoke-free laws? How is this fad going to affect future morbidity and mortality rates? I'm not sure I want to know.
The most important task at this point is to raise awareness. The city should broaden its anti-smoking campaigns to include hookah smoking. After all, this hot fad may be on its way to becoming a deadly epidemic. It's just that few people know enough about the dangers of hookah to stop the hype and drop the pipe.
in just a little over a month D.C.'s cigarette tax doubles to $2.00, something diehard smokers don't like one bit.
"Absolutely not," said Don Zimmerman, a smoker. "Like we're not taxed enough already?"
"It hurts me, cause if it goes up another dollar, I won't want to smoke anymore," said Jimmy Rauch.
The D.C. City Council signed off on the plan just this week. The goal is to raise money to help fund a health plan for the city's roughly 25,000 uninsured. The new tax could double the nearly $20 million the city takes in each year.