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Iowa is leading the way in smoking cessation, Governor Culver announced today, with a new report showing that smoking in Iowa has dropped 22 percent since 2006. The decrease is one of the most significant drops experienced by any state in recent years.
"As Governor, improving the health and well-being of Iowans is one of my top priorities," said Governor Culver. "Iowans statewide have taken on the challenge to stop smoking, and we can all be proud of their efforts. Helping Iowa become the healthiest state in the nation is a goal we can all get behind."
The news comes as many Iowans make New Year's resolutions to quit using tobacco. "These survey results are very encouraging not only for individuals, but for our state as a whole," said Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH) Director Tom Newton. Iowa currently spends an estimated $1 billion each year in smoking-related health care costs.
To help the thousands of Iowans who will try to quit smoking in January, IDPH is providing twice the amount of free nicotine patches and gum available through Quitline Iowa
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DES MOINES - Two Iowa bars will have their liquor licenses suspended for violations of the state's public smoking ban -- the first in the state to face such sanctions.
Fro's Pub n' Grub in Wilton will lose its license for 21 days and Otis Campbell's Bar & Grill in West Burlington will have its license suspended for at least 30 days if there are no appeals of the decisions, according to separate rulings from an administrative law judge released Friday.
Both suspensions are to begin Feb. 9.
Fro's Pub n' Grub and Otis Campbell's Bar & Grill received notices of potential violation from the Iowa Department of Public Health after the law took effect in July. Law enforcement and health officials observed violations at both bars on repeated visits, according to the rulings.
Similar complaints have been filed against Manning's Whistle Stop in Clinton and Outer Limits in Des Moines.
Governor Chet Culver's resolution is to make Iowa the healthiest state in the nation, and the habit he wants Iowan's to kick is smoking. Recent studies show it may already be happening.
Governor Culver recently announced that smoking in Iowa is down 22 percent since 2006 - one of the most significant drops in any state in recent years. But some Iowa smokers are saying his anti-smoking legislation is hurting business and not convincing them to quit.
For most Iowans, getting a nicotine fix is not a part of their everyday life. But for some it's a hard habit to kick, and for one Iowa business its hard to believe that less people are smoking.
Cashier Traci Heath says tobacco sales at the Select Mart on Gordon Drive in Sioux City have been fairly steady since it opened in 2006.
"Since 2006 I haven't seen a decline at all," said Heath. "The only thing I've seen a decline on is with the new FCS law, that's the only decline I've seen."
The Select Mart on Gordon Drive has seen some of their business go across the river to Nebraska thanks to high state taxes and the new fire-safe cigarettes that Iowa stores are required to sell.
I would like the citizens of Iowa to strongly oppose any initiatives to seize income at the local level, as cited in the Dec. 28 article, "Plan Would Give Iowa Cities Power to Tax Incomes."
Government's thirst for money has become insatiable, and it could be argued that its greed could rival that of any greedy corporation. In these trying economic, environmental and health-care times, I propose the following: Impose drastic tax increases on gasoline, cigarettes and alcohol. . . .
The cigarette- and alcohol-tax increases would help to reduce tobacco and alcohol abuse and addiction.
A new report from the Iowa Department of Public Health shows the number of adult Iowans who smoke cigarettes has dropped 22 percent since 2006.
Preliminary results released Wednesday show that 14 percent of adult Iowans, or about 327,000 people, say they smoke cigarettes. That's down from more than 400,000 two years ago.
The number of smokers in Iowa has decliend 39 percent since 2002, the report said.
"These survey results are very encouraging not only for individuals, but for our state as a whole," said Tom Newton, state health director.
Health was the number one reason for quitting somking, the report showed. . . .
The full report will be released in February.
This year, ten Iowans died in fires caused by careless smoking. Now, the state is taking action to prevent cigarette-related fires.
Nearly every other state in the nation already requires or is in the process of requiring retailers to sell fire-safe cigarettes
They cost the same price, but some smokers say the new cigarettes leave a bad taste in their mouths.
Smokers have already been burned by higher taxes and laws dictating where they can light up. Now, a new state law requiring cigarettes to be fire-safe will change the flavor of their fix.
"It's more blah, more chemicals,” Jon Parrott said.
Cigarette Outlet employee Cassandra Wesley said, "It’s like burnt oil. It's a pretty bad taste."
Cigarette fires are the leading cause of fire-related deaths for the last 30 years in Iowa, but a new state law is intended to reduce those fires.
Most packages and cartons of cigarettes on the shelves today already comply with the new state law. The small "FSC" printed on the label indicates they are fire-safe cigarettes and are less likely to spark a fire.
"Well, each year there's hundreds of lives that are lost due to smoking and careless smoking and smoking material. Along with that, there's hundreds of millions of dollars of property loss," said Lt. Seth Twedt with the Ames Fire Department.
Iowa's fire marshal has pinned his hopes on cigarettes to reverse an unexpected jump in the number of statewide fire deaths.
State lawmakers last year mandated the sale of new cigarettes that are less likely to cause fires when discarded, dropped or left near combustible material. The law takes effect next month.
"We are hoping this is going to reduce the number of fatalities," Fire Marshal James Kenkel said.
Ten people were killed this year in Iowa by fires blamed on careless smoking, double the number from 2007. The overall number of fire deaths stands at 48, which is 18 more than last year.
Iowa doesn't care that nonsmoking workers or people who go on the casino gaming floors are forced to smell it and ruin their lungs. Small businesses deserve equal rights. End discrimination! Let people have a choice to enter any business they choose. Smoking or not.
Lake View lives another day.
A controversy over anti-tobacco billboards featuring this small northwest Iowa town was resolved when Lake View leaders complained and state officials listened.
Lake View Mayor John Westergaard was aghast last month when he realized Lake View had been featured as part of a statewide marketing campaign sponsored by Just Eliminate Lies, or JEL, a youth-led anti-tobacco group that works with the Iowa Public Health Department.
The billboards feature an ominous message, one that shines a light on the estimated 1,200 people who die from tobacco-related illnesses in the United States each day.
"Lake View. Tobacco can kill this town in 1 day," the signs read.
This month, the Public Health Department shocked Westergaard again. The Lake View signs have been replaced. . . .
Most of the complaints he has received have been over the lack of communication between state officials and town leaders prior to the billboards being erected. "That was an oversight on our part. We didn't feel the message was controversial."
In the future, the agency will work with town leaders before bringing such an ad into the community. But it will continue to launch new anti-tobacco campaigns in Iowa.
"Big tobacco is in your town already," Buttermore said, referring to advertisements at local convenience and grocery stores. "Nobody is raising a fuss over those signs."
Lake View. Tobacco can kill this town in 1 day.JEL's anti-tobacco sign featuring Lake View, IA (pop: 2100) created a big fuss.
Big tobacco is in your town already. Nobody is raising a fuss over those signs. Garin Buttermore, the JEL youth coordinator, referring to advertisements at local convenience and grocery stores.
The billboard, developed by the youth-focused anti-smoking group, Just Eliminate Lies (JEL), which is overseen by the Iowa Department of Public Health, suggests that the entire City of Lake View (about 1,200 people) could be killed in a day by smoking.
The fact that in this economy any government dollars - even if obtained through direct taxes on smokers - is going to advertise the obvious (cigarettes are bad for your health) is preposterous. How about using the money to encourage Christmas shopping in small towns or to promote renewable-energy development? . . .
There are many provocative ways in which to deliver an anti-smoking message without tying up the community images of Iowa's small towns in a confusing ad campaign - one which may be clear after a full reading but that could leave a negative or at least confusing impression about Lake View at first blush. . . .
Anything that detracts from the positive image of Lake View, even if well-intended in a big-picture sense, is an economic enemy to the city - and the Carroll trade area as a whole.
If the blind-to-logic tobacco zealots, who in a childlike way see the world as simply and most significantly divided into non-smokers and smokers, insist on continuing with these billboards then, please, at the very least, leave Lake View out of it.
Go with Grand Junction or Guthrie Center or some other place that doesn't rely a lick on tourism and would probably be ecstatic to be mentioned on a state billboard for anything.
Indiana University's campuswide smoking ban is a year old next month, and by most accounts, it's not very effective.
The ban on all tobacco use applies to everyone on campus, and is enforced as a personnel policy, not a law involving IU police.
Asked to describe the effectiveness of the ban, Provost Karen Hanson said, "not very." But she intends for that to change.
The university is considering making the ban stricter, Hanson said today. The crackdown on smoking is again coming from students, she said -- it was a group of students that originally called for the ban in late 2007, prompting IU's then-President Adam Herbert to take the idea to IU trustees. Now, a committee led by a graduate student in public health will begin meeting to "think creatively about what we can do to make the policy more strict," she said.
One change in the works is the installation of new, larger signs informing staff, faculty, students and visitors of the ban. When the ban was implemented on Jan. 1, there was a reluctance to adorn the campus with garish signs, Hanson said.
State administrators have hit a glitch in their plan to gain $183 million in immediate cash for the rights to future payments from cigarette makers. The problem? Nobody wants to pay the asking price.
Legislators voted last year to sell off the rights to about $16 million a year that Iowa receives from tobacco companies. The payments are the result of a 1998 lawsuit settlement, in which the companies agreed to pay up to $2 billion to Iowa over 25 years.
Iowa sold off the rights to most of those payments for about $500 million in 2002. State officials hoped to do the same with what's left, but they have been unable to find investors willing to pay the asking price.
State Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald said the credit market has tightened, and the best he could hope to raise would be $130 million to $150 million. "Right now, nobody wants tobacco bonds," Fitzgerald said.
SIOUX CITY -- Tracy Mertz slowed her vehicle to a stop during a recent shopping outing along Singing Hills in Sioux City recently. . . .
The billboard featured Sloan's "A Place to Grow" slogan and town sign. It also said, "Tobacco Can Kill This Town in 1 Day."
"We were at the stoplight anyway, so he told me to wait so he could take a picture of the billboard with his cell phone," said Mertz. Soon, her 14-year-old son Jason was e-mailing the picture to his buddies in Sloan.
The billboard is the brainchild of the Just Eliminate Lies campaign, which falls under the Iowa Department of Public Health. Just Eliminate Lies (JEL) is an organization which aims to cut smoking among young people. The Sloan billboard is part of the group's 1.2 million "What Town Is Next" campaign. The blitz also included three television spots, including one that focused on Arnolds Park, population 1,162.
Garin Buttermore, JEL coordinator for the Iowa Department of Public Health, contends the effects of smoking can kill some 1,200 Americans per day. Rather than simply use that figure, his group illustrated it by featuring Iowa towns whose population is around 1,200.
The 2000 Census shows Sloan at 1,032 people.
Tom Brokaw took political journalism to a new threshold last Sunday when he demanded that Barack Obama tell the world whether he's been lighting up in private. The White House is a no-smoking zone, the acting "Meet the Press" host sternly reminded the president-elect. . . .
Before Obama's moment of truth in the nation's capital, there was the one here in Iowa's, when first lady Mari Culver was noticed by a reporter smoking in a state vehicle. That's against a law her husband signed, banning smoking in most workplaces, including cars owned by employers and the government. . . .
A smoking ban in government spaces benefits everyone who wants to breathe clean air. The ban is more questionable in private businesses like bars, where attendance is self-selecting.
Bad for health as smoking is, it's not a crime of moral turpitude, like illicit sex or drug use. In fact, it wasn't long ago there was status associated with smoking. At fancy dinner parties, men wore smoking jackets and women used cigarette holders. Cigarettes were served with the coffee. You can change the laws, but you can't overturn a culture overnight.
So while it's good to stigmatize smoking, can we avoid stigmatizing smokers themselves?
For true political scandal, stick with Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.