What Happens If There Are Smoking Bans In Every State?

It's only taken half a century or so, but the American public has finally realized and come to accept that inhaling additive-laden smoke--first or second-hand (or third-hand, even)--isn't the healthiest thing in the world. So over the past 10 years, 25 states and Washington, D.C. have implemented smoking bans in private sector worksites, restaurants, and bars. If the bans continue at their current rate, that number could balloon to include every state in the union by 2020, according to some simple math (25 states in 10 years equals 50 states in 20 years) from the Center for Disease Control.

Currently, there are only seven states with no smoking restrictions: Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, West Virginia, and Wyoming. Some of these--like tobacco-loving West Virginia--may never budge on smoking laws, but the tobacco industry should still be shaking in its cowboy boots. That's because, unsurprisingly, bans have a big influence on smoking rates.

In one CDC study, employees who worked in smoke-free workplaces were almost twice as likely to stop smoking as those who worked in places that allowed free-for-all smoking. And in New York City, smoking rates among adults dropped from 21.6% to 19.2% (approximately 140,000 fewer smokers) after the implementation of an all-encompassing smoking ban.

This is all well and good, but 88 million nonsmokers aged 3 and up are still exposed to deadly secondhand smoke each year. Remember:This is with bans in 25 states. Until the CDC figures out how to eliminate rebellious 13 year-olds and stressed-out office workers, people will continue to smoke and die from heart disease and lung cancer. Still, the tobacco industry may want to start thinking more seriously about manufacturing other kinds of cigarettes.

Spartanburg Council Votes In Favor Of Smoking Ban

Spartanburg's smoking ban ordinance passed the first reading during a City Council meeting Monday.
The new proposal could mean that smoking would be banned inside restaurants, and smokers at those establishments must be 15 feet away from entrances and exits before they light up. The proposal also bans smoking at outdoor events like Jazz on the Square.
"I would have no problem with the ordinance if it was rewritten to when an establishment could serve food in an outdoor environment and allow smoking at the same time," said Bradley Carter, a smoker.
During the meeting, those on both sides of the heated debate were asked to take a deep breath before speaking.
"I am just thrilled," said Jan Benajmin, a non-smoker who supports the ban.
Benjamin stood in front of the council and talked about her stepfather, who died from lung cancer. She said she blames second-hand smoke.
"To be able to go into an eating establishment, a restaurant here in Spartanburg, and not have to worry about whether there's going to be a smoker next to you, is a wonderful thing," Benjamin said.
After discussion and debate, council members voted to pass the proposal.
Councilman Robert Reeder, who voted against the proposal, said he doesn't support smoking in restaurants, but believes there should be a designated area for smokers at outdoor events.
"I'm not for smoking, but we're using taxpayers' money for these events," Reeder said. "When we're using taxpayers' money for these events and we stated earlier that there will be a designated area, then we come back and change that, they have the right to participate in smoking."
If the proposal becomes law, businesses like cigar bars would be exempt from the ban.
Council members said the ban will be complaint driven, meaning police will first give business owners a warning, but the next time they would be given a ticket.
Fines would range anywhere from $25 to $100. If a business owner tells a customer to stop smoking and he or she won't, then police would give the customer the fine, not the business owner.
Council members will have their second reading on the ban in two weeks.

Casino smoking regulations / Follow the rules

Folks who think Atlantic City casinos can regulate themselves must be dismayed by word of the sad job they are doing obeying the city's partial smoking ban.
Four years after the city adopted a partial smoking ban in casinos, apparent violations are common. A Press reporter recently documented them at eight of the city's 11 gaming halls. They ranged from patrons openly smoking in "non-smoking" areas to a lack of signs designating smoke-free locations.

For a time, Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino and Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort drew their non-smoking plan to include such strange contrivances as having gaming tables themselves be non-smoking, while allowing smoking in the seats around them.
At one casino, two slot machines sitting side by side each bear a sign. One prohibits smoking, the other allows it.
At another casino, one side of a craps table is a smoking area, the other side is smoke-free.
And there seems to be almost no effort to enforce the ban, either on the city's part or by the gaming halls themselves.
We've said before that Atlantic City should ban smoking on casino floors. The health danger to employees who have to work in smoke-filled rooms outweighs the concern that non-smoking sections may be bad for business.
But, at the very least, Atlantic City's casinos should be working harder to obey existing smoking regulations, especially now.
New Jersey's answer to the increasing competition our gaming halls face has been an unprecedented level of cooperation between government and the casino industry.
Regulations are being eased. State inspectors are no longer present on every gaming floor and in the counting rooms. The Division of Gaming Enforcement recently adopted an "emergency" rule to allow casinos to do away with pit bosses.
Each such change is accompanied by assurances that the industry will follow all necessary rules and is capable of policing itself.
Unfortunately, it is human nature to cut corners. And the pressure to meet the bottom line can be a powerful incentive for the best-intentioned to look the other way.
Which is why casino operators should be demonstrating their good faith by meticulously following the partial smoking ban, and every other current regulation. The law is the law. If you don't like it, work to change it.
In the meantime, if casinos want a more relaxed regulatory climate, they need to act more responsibly in the existing climate.

Cutting Anti-Smoking Efforts Could Reverse Progress, Experts Say

Indiana's anti-smoking efforts have been touted as some of the most successful in the country, but advocates worry budget cuts could snuff out Hoosier's progress.
A Senate bill threatens to wipe out the Tobacco Prevention and Cessation Program, cut funds to $5 million and give the responsibility to the Indiana State Department of Health, 6News' Stacia Matthews reported.
The news came after lawmakers failed to pass a statewide smoking ban this session.

"I think the chances of Indiana being smoke-free are in danger," said Brandee Bastin with Hancock Regional Hospital. "I think the efforts for a comprehensive program, consumption rates to go down, is all in jeopardy."
Advocates credit the state's tobacco prevention effort for reducing smoking rates among kids in Indiana by 42 percent in the past decade.
Rick Stoddard, whose wife died of lung cancer, told a school group Tuesday the best way to avoid the risks associated with smoking is to never start.
"You can't wait until you get cancer and then go, 'Uh, this is a mistake. I better quit,'" he said. "It was too late."
With the session set to end Friday, advocates are mobilizing opposition to the bill.
"Tobacco-use rates will rise again," said longtime anti-smoking advocate Mickey Maurers. "There is something missing here because we do not need to be the ashtray of the Midwest."
Ohio, Illinois and Michigan all have passed smoking bans.

Smoking bans on campuses get buzz

First, there was the news this month that Bemidji State University had gone tobacco-free.

Soon afterward, a student vote put St. Cloud State University a step away from doing the same.

Then on Sunday, Winona State University showed up in the New York Times on a short list of campuses certified nationally as smoke-free.

Campus-wide smoking bans at Minnesota's colleges are having a moment.

But that moment falls within a years-long movement.

Hundreds of colleges and universities across the country have banned tobacco on campus -- indoors and out.

A national list of such policies notes 17 campuses in Minnesota. The newly converted Bemidji State makes that 18.

Melinda Wittmer, a junior there, helped form that policy after she grew sick of smokers lighting up in the one area they weren't supposed to be -- within 20 feet of building entrances.

So, a dozen days into the ban, how's it working?

She laughed. "We're still in the first stage, and not really enforcing it yet. But I think I've seen a decrease at least in the number of people smoking around the main classroom building."

Winona State, which went smoke-free in 2009, made the news because it was one of just three campuses nationally certified by the health-education organization Bacchus Network. After a yearlong process, it earned a "silver" standing.

Karen Johnson, dean of students, called it "a formal recognition on a national level that we're doing the right things."

The majority of students, faculty and staff at St. Cloud State support banning smoking campus-wide, recent nonbinding votes show. Earlier this month, 63 percent of students who voted supported the proposed policy. Last week, 75 percent of faculty and staff did.

That policy probably would be phased in over a year, a St. Cloud State spokeswoman said, "to give people some time."

Big Tobacco to fight on over plain packaging plan for cigarettes

THE tobacco industry will take its fight over plain packaging to the Federal Court, after a tribunal affirmed the government's right to withhold the secret legal advice authorising the plan.

British American Tobacco has confirmed to The Australian it will appeal against an Administrative Appeals Tribunal ruling refusing the company access to the Keating-era document on the grounds of legal professional and parliamentary privilege.

Under the plan, unveiled by federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon on Thursday, all cigarette packets will be olive-coloured and emblazoned with confronting images of diseased organs.

The secret advice, prepared by the Attorney-General's Department in 1995, details the government's constitutional powers to implement plain packaging, and canvasses possible legal hurdles such as international trade rules and intellectual property rights.
British American Tobacco Australia and Philip Morris last year requested access to the document using Freedom of Information laws, but were rebuffed by the Department of Health and Ageing. The companies dragged the department to the tribunal in November, but were defeated last week.

BATA spokesman Ian McIntyre said: "Given the government is continuing to try to hide this advice, unfortunately BATA has little choice but to appeal this decision (to the Federal Court)."

Successive governments have kept the document a closely guarded secret, sharing it only with their hand-picked tobacco advisory groups. The only public record of the document is a one-paragraph summary provided by the Howard government to the Senate in 1997.

Arguing their case before the tribunal in November, the tobacco companies claimed the governments had waived their legal professional privilege by sharing the document with advisory groups.

The tribunal disagreed, with senior member Francis O'Loughlin concluding that the advisers "would have been obliged to observe and maintain the confidential nature of the advice".

The tribunal also found the advice was protected by the Parliamentary Privilege Act, since the 1997 summary formed part of "proceedings in parliament".

The Keating government rejected plain packaging in 1995, saying it would require an "unfeasible" buy-up of the tobacco companies' trademarks.

Cigarette packaging study at uni

Researchers based at the University of Bath have found that plain packaging for boxes of cigarettes could help prevent people from starting the habit – but has little impact on those who already smoke.

A team from the UK Centre for Tobacco Studies (UKCTCS), which has a base in Bath, monitored the eye movements of non-smokers, light smokers and daily smokers when they looked at different style packets.

The results showed that non-smokers and light smokers were drawn to health warnings on plain packets, while existing smokers did not notice a difference.

This suggests that if cigarette packets are plain, without branding, then health warnings are more effective for those who are not yet addicted.

Professor Marcus Munafò from UKCTCS, who led the research, said: "In this study we assessed the impact of plain packaging on visual attention towards health warning information and brand information on branded and plain cigarette packs, using eye tracking technology.

"This technology provides a direct measure of eye gaze location and therefore the focus of visual attention. It is plausible that the more someone looks at the health warnings, for example, the more likely those health warnings are going to be read and understood, with a subsequent impact on behaviour."

Many countries have banned tobacco marketing.

The introduction of plain packaging has been proposed, meaning every packet would be the same shape and colour, with all branding removed apart from a standard typeface, colour and size with all relevant legal markings, including health warnings.

Worcester close to new tobacco laws

Worcester is close to becoming the ninth city in the state to ban the sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products in pharmacies and drug stores.

After weeks of debate, Tuesday city council members voted to give initial approval on some controversial changes.

One would ban the sale of so called 'blunt wrappers' in the city. Another would prohibit tobacco advertising in any store window that is in public view.

The other amendments would ban the sale of tobacco at higher education institutions and in city pharmacies ... a change not everyone's supporting.

Lawmakers Consider Bill That Would Lower Cigarette Tax

Buying a pack of cigarettes in New Hampshire could soon be a little cheaper if some state lawmakers get their way.
The Senate is taking up a House bill that would lower the cigarette tax in the Granite State by 10 cents per pack.
Opponents argue it sends the wrong message, but others said it will draw more people across the border to spend money.
Sen. Chuck Morse, Republican Senate Finance chairman, said, "I do believe we are going to have people coming into the state of New Hampshire and supporting us, and that's what we are looking for."
The bill lowering the cigarette tax has already passed the House and has to have strong support of Senate Republicans to pass. The Senate Ways and Means Committee is expected to make a recommendation this week.

But you can buy cigarettes without taxes, visit online cigarettes store, buy cheap Marlboro cigarettes using mail delivery.

Bondholders Likely to Suffer From States’ Tobacco-Funding Addiction

It was an offer difficult for many cash-strapped states to pass up. Take billions of dollars upfront from a 1998 settlement that attorneys general in 46 states inked with four major tobacco companies and pass the risks onto investors.

Since the early 2000s, 19 states, the District of Columbia and three territories have used their share of a $200 billion tobacco settlement due to be paid out over 25 years to serve as collateral on about $55 billion of mostly tax-exempt municipal bonds.

Illinois, which had been taking in about $300 million per year from this settlement, issued $1.5 billion in bonds backed by its share of the proceeds in December 2010. That’s a useful amount as Illinois desperately searches state coffers for revenue to close its budget gaps.

As I spell out in an article in the April 25, 2011 issue of Forbes Magazine, investors in these tobacco-settlement securities may now be holding bonds at risk of default. As Americans kick the smoking habit, investors in these securities may take the hit as dwindling cigarette sales cause payments to fall off a cliff.

Most tobacco bonds have a so-called turbo structure (rather like a sinking fund). For the issuer it works like a prepayment option does for a mortgage borrower. For years that meant states used the settlement cash they received in excess of what they needed to make interest payments to pay down principal. Prices factored in expectations that outstanding values would decline and the bonds’ weighted average lifetimes would fall short of their official maturity dates.

Investment banks like Citigroup who structured more than half of these deals, Bear Stearns, UBS, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley, have taken in millions in fees. Since the bond issuances have been drafted as bankruptcy-remote, investors only have the payouts from tobacco companies as collateral.

The National Association of Attorneys General drafted the 1998 settlement that indemnified the big four cigarette manufacturers- Philip Morris USA, R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, Brown & Williamson Tobacco, and Lorillard Tobacco – so that these companies would pay states as a percentage of cigarette cases shipped in the US each year. As states and the federal government have passed laws making it more difficult to sell cigarettes by raising taxes and putting more restrictions on sales, cigarette companies actually payout less money from that settlement. In 2009, when volumes of cigarette cases shipped dropped 9.3% to 324 million, tobacco manufacturers paid $6.4 billion around tax time in 2010 compared to original projections around about $8.1 billion if cigarette smoking had decreased less rapidly (about 3% per year).

The National Association of Attorneys General told me that they’ll release the payment amount cigarette companies will make around April 22, 2011,after its been paid. Bondholders will then have a better sense of how much money will be used to pay down their principal with the turbo structure. According to data from the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, cigarette shipments declined 4.5% in 2010.

The market has been relatively quiet for new issuances, since 2007. Illinois’ $1.5 billion December 2010 was among the first. Analysts and bankers in the industry say that despite state budget turmoil, they don’t expect many new issuances this year.

Cigarette, liquor taxes up for debate in Nevada Legislature

Increased taxes on cigarettes and alcohol will be up for debate before two Nevada legislative panels.

AB333, to be considered Tuesday by the Assembly Taxation Committee, would raise the tax on a pack of cigarettes from 80 cents to $1.70. The levy on hard liquor would jump from $3.60 to $4.50 a gallon.

The bill is sponsored by Democratic Assemblywoman Peggy Pierce, and the Department of Taxation calculates it would generate about $250 million for the state general fund over two years.

Another tax bill, SB386, will be heard later in the day by the Senate Revenue Committee. That measure would raise the cigarette tax to $2 per pack.

British American Tobacco launches bid for smokers who find cigarettes a drag

SOUTHAMPTON based cigarette maker BAT has set up a new firm to commercialise innovative nicotine products that will rival the smoking experience without the health risks.

British American Tobacco confirmed today that it has established a start-up company called Nicoventures Limited that will “focus exclusively on the development and commercialisation of innovative regulatory approved nicotine products”.

It said it aims to provide adult smokers with a range of alternative products - currently unavailable on the market - that will offer them “much of the experience they expect to get from a cigarette but without the real and serious health risks of smoking”.

It said Nicoventures will be managed separately from the group's tobacco businesses.

BAT, which manufactures the Dunhill, Kent, Lucky Strike and Pall Mall brands, employs 1,200 people at its site in Southampton where it has its research labs.

In 2006 more than 100 years of production came to an end with the loss of 550 jobs.

Tobacco companies misled public

For more than three decades, the tobacco industry used public relations strategies to keep people smoking, a professor of history at Stanford University testified Monday.

In the first local tobacco lawsuit trial since the Florida Supreme Court opened a floodgate of individual smoker suits in 2006, Dr. Robert Proctor testified about the "history of what the tobacco industry knew and didn't know."

Starting with explorer Christopher Columbus, whose sailors had a hard time putting down tobacco, Proctor described memos, media interviews and studies -- paid for by the industry -- in which tobacco executives denied that cigarettes caused cancer.

"It was part of their denial routine," he said.

Stella Koballa, 77, of Daytona Beach smoked for nearly 50 years, starting with Lucky Strikes in 1949 when she was 16 years old. In 1996, Koballa smoked her last butt, when she was diagnosed with lung cancer.

Koballa's first trial ended with a hung jury when the panel couldn't agree on the meaning of addiction. She is seeking an unspecified amount of damages in the first of 150 local cases filed against tobacco companies to go to trial.

To prove the tobacco company R.J. Reynolds used deception in making and selling cigarettes that made her sick, Koballa's lawyers asked Proctor questions about the history of the tobacco industry.

Proctor also described the growth of lung disease during the same period, testifying that smoking now accounts for 400,000 deaths in the United States each year, with lung cancer responsible for 160,000 deaths.

"There was a time when there was very little cancer in the lung," Proctor said, referring to 140 known cases of lung cancer in 1900.

Ben Reid, a lawyer for R.J. Reynolds, has attacked Proctor's views, pointing out the doctor never studied Koballa's smoking habits.

"That is true," Proctor said.

Koballa's lawsuit, which seeks damages for product liability as well as fraud and conspiracy, was made possible by a 2006 state Supreme Court decision that dismantled the Engel class-action lawsuit verdict of $145 billion in favor of smokers.

Of the 36 tobacco trials that have been heard statewide since then, a dozen decisions have been reached in favor of tobacco companies. Verdicts have ranged from $1 million to more than $50 million.

Koballa's lawyers argue the tobacco company should be required to pay punitive damages for wrongdoing. The plaintiffs claim the tobacco industry "deliberately carried out a campaign of doubt and disinformation which clouded the issue for addicted smokers."

In 1964, when the Surgeon General of the United States came out with a report that found smoking was a cause of lung cancer, Proctor testified, the tobacco industry responded through lobby groups and public relations efforts "to ridicule and denigrate" the findings."

There were strategies to "give people a reason to continue smoking" and statements of health risks that Proctor described as misleading.

Anne Browder, a spokeswoman for the industry-funded Tobacco Institute, appeared in a television interview in 1984. Smoking, she said, "is not the cause of any disease."

Browder suggested the causes of cancer and other illnesses were a mystery.

She described smokers' "freedom of choice," adding "the vast majority (of smokers) do not get these illnesses." Proctor's opinion of that and other statements were that they were less than honest, he said.

The jury was also shown a memo from 1926, in which salespeople were encouraged to seek cigarette sales from younger smokers.

"School days are here," the memo begins. "And that means big tobacco business for somebody. Let's get it."

Reid argued on behalf of the cigarette maker there is no evidence that R.J. Reynolds "had anything to do with (Koballa) beginning to smoke when she was a youth."

The trial continues today with a marketing expert. The jury is expected to begin deliberating later in the week before Circuit Judge Robert K. Rouse Jr.

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House Holds Public Hearing On Tobacco Tax

Democrats held an informational meeting on raising the cigarette tax in Idaho by $1.25 per pack, a move forced by the Republican Party's refusal to schedule a hearing.
About 60 people attended Monday's session.

Democrats want a tax hike from 57 cents per pack now to help reduce smoking - and raise money to fund programs being cut, including public schools and Medicaid.
Republicans, even those who also favor a cigarette tax hike like Rep. Dennis Lake of Blackfoot, say there just wasn't support this year.

At Monday's meeting, Cory Jackson of Capitol Distributing contended hiking the tax would drive more people to the black market.
But Andrea Shipley of Idaho Community Action Network said her members are "angry" Idaho would cut budgets before even considering a cigarette tax hike.