Letter to the Editor: E-cigarettes aren’t a solution for those addicted to nicotine

By: Jim Tennant, Napa
After reading the story about a new e-cigarette store in Napa, I was disappointed that your reporter uncritically repeated the propaganda that the e-cigarette industry (which is being taken over by the traditional tobacco industry) has been feeding the public (“E-cig entrepreneur hopes to blow away tobacco cigarettes,” Nov. 20).
In fact, there is no evidence that e-cigarettes are any safer than the deadly, traditional tobacco products. E-cigarettes are not useful as a way to quit or cut down smoking. Nicotine is one of the most addictive drugs known to man and e-cigarettes are another way of delivering this terrible drug to your body. E-cigarettes seem to me to be like washing your glass before drinking poison.
Flavored e-cigarettes are a blatant attempt to market to children — adult smokers would not buy them. Napa County has regular, free, effective quit-smoking classes available to the public and I hope that anyone who wants to quit smoking will use this service and not switch to another form of this deadly drug.
 http://napavalleyregister.com/news/opinion/mailbag/e-cigarettes-aren-t-a-solution-for-those-addicted-to/article_a25bbf74-5705-11e3-9c78-001a4bcf887a.html

Study: Teens' E-Cigarette Use Promotes Heavy Tobacco Use

By: Jessica Berman
WASHINGTON — According to the first-ever study on the use of electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes, by young people, researchers have found that the devices, marketed as an alternative to real cigarettes, appear to fuel heavy smoking among youth.
E-cigarettes are battery-powered devices that look like cigarettes and deliver a smokeless aerosol of nicotine, flavorings and other chemicals. They are promoted as a safer alternative to cigarettes and an aid to stopping smoking.
However, a new study looking at the use of electronic cigarettes in nearly 76,000 Korean teenagers found they are less likely to have succeeded in kicking the habit and that electronic cigarettes made them heavier smokers.
Stan Glantz directs the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California, San Francisco.  He is also the senior author of the study.
Glantz said that while there is evidence electronic cigarettes help a small percentage of adult smokers stop, the same is not true for adolescents, who he says are being bombarded with appealing ads.
“They are being marketed with flavors, with images of sex and independence, and also marketed with the claim they will help you quit smoking and, in fact, the kids who are trying to quit smoking were more likely to be using e-cigarettes. But, as I said before, [they are] much less likely to actually quit,” said Glantz.
Glantz said that the nicotine in e-cigarettes makes them addictive even though users do not inhale as many toxic chemicals. He also claimed that tobacco companies, which manufacture the devices, take advantage of the lack of regulation of e-cigarettes to try to hook new smokers.
“We have the kind of Wild West marketing that we did in the bad old days for cigarettes. And the kids are clearly responding to that, and youth use of e-cigarettes in Korea is going up very rapidly just as it did here in the United States,” said Glantz.
U.S. regulators report the number of middle and high school students who use e-cigarettes doubled from 2011 to 2012, to a total of 1.7 million students.
Regulations to ban the smokeless devices are being proposed in Chicago, which may become the first U.S. city to restrict the sale of electronic cigarettes.
The article on e-cigarette use among Korean teens is published in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
http://www.voanews.com/content/study-teens-e-cigarette-promotes-heavy-tobacco-use/1798525.html

E-cigarettes sprouting promise and questions

With a preoccupied gaze into the distance, Matt Tlougan inhales from the mouthpiece of a device held in his hand. A battery in its base powers a heating unit that vaporizes a concoction of confectioners’ flavors and nicotine, “juice,” as it’s known.
A few moments later, a gray-white cloud rolls out of his nostrils and mouth.
Is he smoking?
The answer, so far, is as nebulous as the cloud around him. Electronic cigarettes, or e-cigarettes, began appearing in the U.S. as something more than a curiosity around 2005. The market for them is growing at such a rate that Tlougan has opened three Vape It Zone stores since he first tried an e-cigarette himself seven months ago. At his sites in Rochester and St. Cloud, Minn., he said, sales average 20 to 25 units a day. He has similar hopes for the kiosk in The Empire Mall that opened about a month ago, and he is considering opening a fourth Vape It Zone in Brandon.
Articles from Time and the New York Timesthis year note e-cigarette sales have doubled annually since 2008 and are expected to reach $1.7 billion this year.
E-cigarette proponents say the product simulates smoking, and Tlougan said within a day of using one he was able to stop a pack-and-a-half-a-day habit of the real thing. He also gave up chewing a can of smokeless tobacco a day.
Because e-cigarettes don’t incinerate tobacco, they don’t produce the toxic chemicals associated with smoking.
However, “we don’t know what the potential health effects are from vapor, nicotine and other compounds. It kind of goes back to the early days of cigarettes,” said Dr. Daniel Heinemann of Canton, president of the South Dakota State Medical Association.
Vapor could be as bad as smoke.
“Any time you heat chemicals, they change their properties … you get chemical reactions that take place. We don’t know if other chemicals are formed in that process. That could be a problem. It could cause health effects,” Heinemann said. At the very least, e-cigarettes are a potent device for delivering addictive nicotine to the body, he said.
Doctors and public officials are looking to the Food and Drug Administration for guidance on regulating e-cigarettes.
“All of us are waiting to see what happens at the federal level,” Mary Michaels said. She is a healthy community specialist with the Sioux Falls Health Department. Depending on how the FDA approaches e-cigarettes, they might fall under the South Dakota ban on smoking in public places.

Attorneys general press for FDA study

Marty Jackley already has joined 40 other state attorneys general in urging the FDA to move quickly to study and regulate e-cigarettes.
“The nicotine found in e-cigarettes is highly addictive, has immediate biochemical effects on the brain and body at any dosage and is toxic in high doses,” the attorneys general wrote FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg on Oct. 23.
“Consumers are led to believe that e-cigarettes are a safe alternative to cigarettes, despite the fact that they are addictive, and there is no regulatory oversight ensuring the safety of the ingredients in e-cigarettes.”
The latter assertion is a fair point. The e-cigarettes Tlougan sells already are manufactured. However, family members, including his mother, a chemist at the Mayo Clinic, make the juice he sells.
“We make each bottle, one by one.” Quality control can be readily achieved, though “you’ve got to be on your toes,” he said. The flavorings come from candy manufacturers, and the nicotine is from an FDA-approved lab. He offers juice with nicotine concentrations ranging from 18 percent to zero, and if you have to take his word for that, well, he points out competitors are selling juice they readily acknowledge was made in China.
FDA scrutiny ultimately could help his business, Tlougan said. He would like to be able to prove he’s selling a product using certified ingredients that is as safe as the nicotine inhalers Mayo Clinic physicians give to patients who are trying to quit smoking. The only substantive difference between those and e-cigarettes, Tlougan said, is that e-cigarettes transport nicotine in vapor and inhalers don’t.
Tlougan won’t sell to minors, and he has no problem with e-cigarettes being included in smoking bans.
“It would not hurt our business if they are banned in bars and public areas. If you ask me, I think it’s a great thing. Nonsmokers shouldn’t have to be around smokers,” he said.
Sioux Falls Mayor Mike Huether is a big supporter of the smoking ban. So far, though, he isn’t making e-cigarettes a priority for inclusion under the ban. They’re flying under his radar.
“I know nothing about those,” Huether said. “I couldn’t even pick one out.”
If his position mirrors many officials’ who have yet to learn about e-cigarettes, it is not universal. Rochester moved pre-emptively as a municipality to ban e-cigarettes everywhere smoking is banned. The City Council a week ago gave final approval to an ordinance, according to Stevan Kvenvold, city administrator.
“It wasn’t subject to much debate,” Kvenvold said. “The council pretty much agreed that e-cigarettes were smoking. There was not too much back and forth about it.”
While the attorneys general want the FDA to extend to e-cigarettes the existing rules prohibiting marketing tobacco to minors, Jackley said state and local governments should decide other issues associated with them, such as taxing them and determining whether they fall under the umbrella of smoking bans.
Heinemann of the state medical association said e-cigarettes should not be sold to minors. However, his group has not yet taken a position on whether they should fall under the smoking ban.

New thing for some, quitting for others

Tlougan said his customers fall into two camps: Those who are eager to try a new experience and those who hope to use e-cigarettes to wean themselves off smoking, and he cites his own spectacular success in being able to quit a savage tobacco habit using e-cigarettes.
But Heinemann said e-cigarettes are not an ideal tool to quit smoking.
If a patient came to him asking about using an e-cigarette to quit smoking, “I would tell them there are other things we can use over time to taper you off nicotine,” such as nicotine gum and patches. He said e-cigarettes re-enforce the ritual and oral fixation that is a part of smoking. For someone trying to give up smoking, “in my mind, replacing one oral device with another, I’m not sure that gets them headed in the right direction.”
For Tlougan, though, the fact he can hold it and it has a mouthpiece hardly are coincidental. They are attractive aspects of his e-cigarette.
While he still needs nicotine, he said almost half his customers buy juice without it. “They just want the flavor.” It begs the question: How dangerous is it to inhale vaporized cinnamon, blueberry or chocolate flavoring?
“We need to study them,” Heinemann said. “For anybody to say they’re not harmful, we don’t know that yet.
“In terms of what it means to the body to inhale this, we don’t know. We need more research.
“Until we have that, the minimum should be to keep these out of the hands of children.”
http://www.argusleader.com/article/DF/20131125/NEWS/311250014/E-cigarettes-sprouting-promise-questions?nclick_check=1

City poised to ban lighting up in public parks

By: Gary J. Remal
Boston is poised to fine anyone who smokes in its parks, including those who light up cigarettes or joints or who puff on e-cigarettes.
City councilors yesterday approved the ban, which also would apply to other property controlled by the Parks and Recreation Commission, and includes a $250 fine for each violation.
“It passed unanimously on a voice vote,” City Councilor Bill Linehan told the Herald.
Mayor Thomas M. Menino must sign the ordinance, and it must be adopted by the city Parks and Recreation Commission before it takes effect, said Nick Martin, spokesman for the Boston Health Commission.
That likely won’t be a problem, as the ban was put forward by Menino, and Martin said the ordinance was crafted by his agency, the parks commission and police officials.
“For the purposes of this subsection, the term smoking shall include inhaling, exhaling, burning or carrying any lighted cigar, cigarette, pipe, or other lighted or vaporized substance in any manner or form, including marijuana used for medical or any other purpose,” the new ordinance reads.
Linehan said he had introduced his own legislation to stop marijuana use in city parks.
“I put one in against pot smoking, but then the administration came in with a complete ban so I supported that,” he said. “It has the same set of criteria and enforcement, so I quickly decided to back that.”
The city has had limited bans on outdoor smoking in toddler playgrounds and in outdoor eating areas associated with restaurants, Martin said. But this is the first widespread ban on outside smoking.
“Those were just an education and awareness effort,” he said. “We posted signs that said no smoking, but there was not any enforcement. This is the first time there has been an 
enforcement effort outside.”
The ordinance says, “There is no known safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke, and secondhand smoke exposure in certain outdoor areas has been found to pose a significant health risk,” noting that “cigarette butts are a leading source of litter in Boston’s parks and pose a nuisance as well as choking hazard for children.”
http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2013/11/city_poised_to_ban_lighting_up_in_public_parks

The Truth About The Safety Of E-Cigarettes

By Christopher Wanjek, Columnist
At first, electronic cigarettes were a novelty — something a braggart in a bar might puff to challenge the established no-smoking policy, marveling bystanders with the fact that the smoke released from the device was merely harmless vapor.
Now, e-cigarettes are poised to be a billion-dollar industry, claimed as the solution to bring in smokers from out of the cold, both figuratively and literally, as e-cigarettes promise to lift the stigma of smoking and are increasingly permitted at indoor facilities where smoking is banned.
So, are e-cigarettes safe? Well, they’re not great for you, doctors say. What’s being debated is the degree to which they are less dangerous than traditional cigarettes.
1940 revisited
E-cigarettes are battery-powered devices, often shaped like traditional cigarettes, with a heating element that vaporizes a liquid nicotine solution, which must be replaced every few hundred puffs. Nicotine is inhaled into the lungs, and a largely odorless water vapor comes out of the device. Puffing an e-cigarette is called vaping.
Yet the industry’s duplicity is clear to medical experts: E-cigarettes are marketed to smokers as a means to wean them off of tobacco (although studies show they don’t help much); yet the same devices, some with fruity flavors, are marketed to young people who don’t smoke, which could get them hooked.
Hooked? Yes, e-cigarettes are a nicotine-delivery system, highly addictive and ultimately harmful because of their nicotine.
Cancer and respiratory experts see the same ploy being played out today with e-cigarettes as was done in the 1940s with cigarettes, when America started smoking en masse. They often are distributed for free and pitched by celebrities and even doctors as cool, liberating and safe.
In an ad for a product called blu eCigs, celebrity Jenny McCarthy, infamous for encouraging parents not to vaccinate their children, encourages young adults to vape, enlisting words such as “freedom” and the promise of sex. In another ad, for V2 Cigs, a medical doctor named Matthew Huebner — who is presented without affiliation but is associated with a Cleveland Clinic facility in Weston, Fla. — implies that vaping is as harmless as boiling water.
As for the notion of e-cigs as liberating, the cost of a year’s worth of e-cigarette nicotine cartridges is about $600, compared with $1,000 yearly for a half-pack a day of regular cigarettes.
As for whether they’re safe, it’s a matter of comparing the advantages of one addiction over another.
E-cigarettes not a patch
One would think that vaping has to be safer than smoking real cigarettes. Experts say they are probably safer, but safer doesn’t mean safe.
“Cigarettes have their risk profile,” said Dr. Frank Leone, a pulmonary expert at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center in Philadelphia. And just about everyone who breathes understands the risks: circulatory disease and myriad cancers, for starters. “E-cigarettes might be better off compared to that profile. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have their own risk profile.”
A top concern is the nicotine delivery rate, Leone said. With nicotine patches and gum, the nicotine delivery is regulated, with small amounts of nicotine released slowly into the bloodstream. But with traditional cigarettes and now e-cigarettes, heat creates a freebase form of nicotine that is more addictive — or what smokers would call more satisfying. The nicotine goes right into the lungs, where it is quickly channeled into the heart and then pumped into the brain.
Once addicted, the body will crave nicotine. And although nicotine isn’t the most dangerous toxin in tobacco’s arsenal, this chemical nevertheless is a cancer-promoting agent, and is associated with birth defects and developmental disorders.
A study published in 2006 in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology, for example, found that women who chewed nicotine gum during pregnancy had a higher risk of birth defects compared to other nonsmokers.
Great unknowns
This great unknown of possible negative health effects, along with the lack of regulation of e-cigarettes, scares experts like Leone. The products come bereft of health warnings. How many pregnant women will vape following McCarthy’s promotion?
As for their merits in smoking cessation, e-cigarettes don’t appear very helpful. A study published last month in the journal Addictive Behaviors found that most smokers who used them while they tried to quit either became hooked on vaping, or reverted back to smoking cigarettes. A study published Nov. 16 in the journal The Lancet found no statistically significant difference in the merits of the e-cigarette over the nicotine patch in terms of helping people quit.
Leone said that e-cigarettes might not help people quit smoking because the device keeps addicts in a state of ambivalence — the illusion of doing something positive to mitigate the guilt that comes from smoking, but all the while maintaining the ritual of smoking.
The Jenny McCarthy blu eCigs ad hints at this notion, with such phrases as “smarter alternative to cigarettes,” “without the guilt” and “now that I switched…I feel better about myself.”
Editors of The Lancet called promotion of e-cigarettes “a moral quandary” because of this potential to replace harmful cigarettes with something slightly less harmful yet just as addictive. Other researchers agree that e-cigarettes might help some people quit, but at a population level, converting millions of smokers into vapers still addicted to nicotine might not lead to the cleaner, greener, healthier world implied by e-cigarette manufacturers.
And then there’s the issue of not knowing what’s in the e-cigarette nicotine cartridge.
“It’s an amazing thing to watch a new product like that just kind of appear; there’s no quality control,” said Dr. Richard Hurt, director of the Mayo Clinic’s Nicotine Dependence Center in Rochester, Minn. “Many of them are manufactured in China under no control conditions, so the story is yet to be completely told.”
The authors of The Lancet study, all based in New Zealand, called for countries to regulate the manufacturing and sale of e-cigarettes. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which does not approve any e-cigarettes for therapeutic purpose, said it plans to propose a regulation to extend the definition of “tobacco product” under the Tobacco Control Act to gain more authority to regulate products such as e-cigarettes.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/22/ecigarettes-safety-health-risks-electronic-cigarettes_n_4323231.html
 

U.S. Colleges and Universities Deserve an 'A' for Going Tobacco-Free

, Assistant Secretary for Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Co-authored by
Cynthia Hallett, MPH
Executive Director
American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation
The Great American Smokeout (GASO), sponsored by the American Cancer Society, encourages smokers to quit for a day and plan to quit smoking for good. This year, celebrating GASO also involves recognizing the growing leadership of our nation’s colleges and universities in making campuses smoke- or tobacco-free.
Our physical environment affects the daily choices we make about life and health. For decades, such environments have promoted a cultural norm glamorizing tobacco use that has led to devastating outcomes. College and university campuses can prevent nicotine addiction among students by implementing tobacco-free campus policies and promoting healthy lifestyle choices.
As the 2012 Surgeon General’s Report Preventing Tobacco Use Among Youth and Young Adults illustrates, many lifestyle choices that lead to future health risk, including tobacco use, peak between 21 and 25 years of age. The number of smokers who started after age 18 has recently increased from 600,000 (2002) to 1 million (2010). This means that, ultimately, up to 1 million current college students could die prematurely from tobacco use.
In September of 2012, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), together with several key partners, launched the Tobacco Free College Campus Initiative (TFCCI) to encourage the voluntary adoption of tobacco-free policies at institutions of higher learning across the nation. It has been a remarkable year since the launch. Colleges and universities everywhere have launched campus conversations that remind their students, faculty and administration that the tobacco epidemic is far from solved. They have initiated inclusive dialogues about possible policy change options, and have considered new policies that could restore their campuses to places where health, not addiction, is the norm.
The Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights (ANR) Foundation, a non-lobbying, educational, nonprofit organization (501(c)3), creates comprehensive programs that support smoking prevention, the benefits of smoke-free air, and the right to breathe smoke-free air. The ANR Foundation has tracked, collected, and analyzed tobacco control laws around the country since the early 1980s. Each quarter, the ANR Foundation unveils updated information to communicate the current status of smoke-free air environments. Today, in honor of GASO, ANR Foundation has released the latest list of smoke- and tobacco-free schools.
When the TFCCI began in September 2012, 774 colleges and universities were smoke- or tobacco-free. Today, there are more than 1127 100% smoke-free campuses and 758 of those are 100% tobacco-free. We celebrate the dramatic rise in that number, not only because it represents a rapidly growing percentage of the 4,583 colleges and universities in the United States, but also because it reflects the improved health of students today that will reduce risk of illness and death tomorrow.
We can offer many resources for user-friendly information about tobacco prevention and cessation. Everyone who is interested in quitting should seek help from a tobacco cessation program such as smokefree.gov, 1-800-QUIT-NOW or through their health insurance plans. As a result of the Affordable Care Act, most private health insurance plans will now cover the cost of cessation interventions for tobacco users. HHS’ website,BeTobaccoFree.gov, represents another valuable resource that includes user-friendly information on the health impact of tobacco use, federal and state laws and policies, and the best guidance on how to quit. Also, January 2014 marks the 50th anniversary of the first Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking and Health. A new Report will highlight a half-century of progress in tobacco control and prevention, as well as present new data on the health consequences of tobacco use.
Deglamorizing and denormalizing tobacco use for adolescents and young adults can help our country reclaim a social norm of health and wellness. As we encourage our loved ones to quit today, let’s also recognize the leadership of colleges and universities around the country that will make our country stronger and healthier for the future.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-howard-k-koh/us-colleges-and-universit_b_4312131.html

E-cigarettes: Do benefits outweigh risks?

by Natalie Brand / KTVK
More and more tobacco companies are jumping into the “e-cigarette” market, considered the “wild, wild west,” since it’s without FDA regulations.
From celebrity commercials to candy flavors, some health officials worry who e-cigarette manufacturers may be targeting.
“You see all the commercials that cigarettes are so bad, which is true, then they say, it’s a new, safe alternative,” said Matt Majd who admitted e-cigarettes were popular at his high school.
“People think it’s cool to do it in class and try not to let teachers see,” said Majd who has also tried e-cigarettes himself.  “Just gives you somewhat of a buzz, somewhat of a head rush, kinda similar to the effect of cigarettes.”
“It’s still troubling to see some actors in the industry real actively trying to recruit kids to their product,” said Arizona Department of Health Services Director Will Humble.
Humble says the jury’s still out as to whether e-cigarettes will serve their purpose as a safer alternative for smokers, or inadvertently get a new generation hooked.
“What I don’t know yet is where electronic cigarettes lie on the scale; are there more benefits than risks?”
A recent CDC study found e-cigarette experimentation and use among middle and high school students doubled last year.  It’s too early to know if that will eventually lead them to smoking tobacco cigarettes.
“Once you’ve got a kid addicted to nicotine, now you’ve got an active potential smoker for the rest of their lives, because their brains get hardwired when they start smoking,” said Humble.
Craig Weiss, President and CEO of Scottsdale based NJOY says his company goes out of its way to play by the rules from verifying age to advertising to smokers and smokers only.
Former Surgeon General Richard Carmona of Tucson sits on NJOY’s Board of Directors.
“We’re not interested in people who are underage,” said Weiss.  He said his target is the public health epidemic of smoking.
“We feel we’re helping people,” said Weiss.  “Smokers are already addicted to nicotine, and that’s the only customer I’m interested in.”
Weiss said his end game is a place with no tobacco.
“We want there to be reasonable regulation by the FDA, so everyone is playing by the same rules,” said Weiss.
When asked if he fears e-cigarette commercials are glamorizing smokers:
“I think of it as advertising,” said Weiss.  “It’s important for us to communicate to our smokers that they have an alternative.”
But health leaders worry what could happen if this now billion dollar business is left unregulated.
“The potential is there for these products to really do a lot of good, I honestly believe that,” said Will Humble.  “But not if they’re going to go after kids, not if they’re going to go after people who don’t smoke.”
http://www.kvue.com/news/232829891.html

A case against e-cigarettes

By MANDY JORDAN, Bismarck
Today we celebrate the Great American Smokeout. It is a national campaign that brings awareness to the dangers of tobacco and secondhand smoke, and encourages people who smoke to quit.
According to statistics from BreatheND, this year in North Dakota 19.4 percent of high school students will smoke and will purchase 1.9 million packs of cigarettes. In our community, 42,000 kids are exposed to secondhand smoke on a daily basis.
Last year, Century SADD testified in front of legislators regarding the new threat to our young people’s health called e-cigarettes. These are electronic devices that deliver nicotine to the body through vapor. Not only can these be candy-flavored, you can now buy cartoon wraps for them to make them visually pleasing. They are not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration and contain carcinogens and toxic chemicals such as diethylene glycol, which is found in antifreeze.
Although the carton says that you need to be 18 to purchase these, we have seen our peers who are under 18 using this product. They are now being sold at a kiosk in a local mall, which is cleverly located by stores where young people shop.
The tobacco industry is trying to say that this is a “harms reduction” product that is intended to help people quit smoking. It is even trying to get North Dakota taxpayers to pay for research that benefits the industry. (Keep in mind that tobacco companies own this product.) It is our strong belief that “harms reduction” is a lie and that e-cigs are a gateway drug that will ultimately create long-term addiction versus reduction. Please join us in our effort to put an end to not only tobacco use, but the new threat of e-cigarettes.
(This letter was signed by Mandy Jordan and members of Century High School SADD. Laurie Foerderer is the adviser.)
http://bismarcktribune.com/news/opinion/mailbag/a-case-against-e-cigarettes/article_fe0eb3b8-522c-11e3-827c-0019bb2963f4.html

Forum editorial: Smokeout still has work to do

In 1976 a group of anti-smoking activists got the idea of having a national day when smokers would be urged to not smoke. From that modest beginning at the California Division of the American Cancer Society emerged The Great American Smokeout, which has been observed every year since then on the third Thursday of November. By any measure, it’s been a success. There is more work to do.
These days, the only people who deny the dire health effects of tobacco use are, well, not bright. Only those who cling to peculiar notions of “personal freedom” and business privilege sans business responsibility dismiss the damage to personal health and public health from tobacco use. They comprise a smaller minority every day, as more enlightened Americans favor laws and regulation to protect individual and public health.
It’s not a new concern. Efforts to restrict smoking in public places go back to 1908 in New York City, where the city council approved a ban on women from smoking anywhere except in their homes. The mayor vetoed the ordinance.
Since then, the nation, often led by states, has moved steadily toward smoke-free environments in public venues and private places that cater to the public, such as restaurants. Today only a handful of states do not have statewide smoking bans. Minnesota approved a ban in 2007. North Dakotans had to go to the polls in 2012 to secure a comprehensive ban after session after session of the Legislature capitulated to the tobacco lobby and refused to enact a statewide ban. Before the 2012 vote, voters in several cities, including Fargo and West Fargo, had pointed the way.
Smoking has not gone away. It won’t anytime soon. About 19 percent of Americans still light up, but that level is way down from the days when up to 60 percent of adults in many states used tobacco in its various forms. Progress has been steady and impressive, and it’s not always been a legislature or ballot measure that drove the issue. In many cities and states, private sector businesses were ahead of public policy in imposing smoking bans.
Credit must go to the American Cancer Society’s Great American Smokeout for keeping the issue in front of Americans. Together with a plethora of medical organizations, public health agencies, schools, attorneys general who were willing to challenge Big Tobacco (and win) and many other efforts, the message has been received. Even those people who smoke for reasons they believe to be legitimate understand what they are doing to themselves by smoking and to others via secondhand smoke. Given the unassailable science and medical evidence, how could they not know?
And so to that dwindling group, today’s Smokeout says: “Give it up for the day. Try to quit.” If a few do, that’s more progress.
——–
Forum editorials represent the opinion of Forum management and the newspaper’s Editorial Board.
http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/418984/

Utah Lawmakers endorse plan to hike smoking age to 21

By Lee Davidson | The Salt Lake Tribune
Legislators took a first step Wednesday toward raising Utah’s already highest-among-the-states smoking age, from 19 to 21. Committee endorsement of the proposal came despite lively arguments by even some cigarette opponents that the move would infringe on the personal liberty of adults.
“We have a responsibility to protect first and foremost the liberties of our citizens, not to protect them from harm that they may cause to themselves,” said Rep. Brian Greene, R-Pleasant Grove, one of five members of the Health and Human Services Interim Committee who voted against the bill.
But Sen. Stuart Reid, R-Ogden, the bill’s sponsor, said, “We make judgment calls about that all the time. Obviously, you wouldn’t advocate that we didn’t have any regulations, that we didn’t have any speed limits, that we didn’t inspect food.”
Reid added that Utah already bans drinking alcohol until age 21 — and argued that even more reason exists to also ban smoking until that age. “We know tobacco will kill people. You can drink and you’re not necessarily going to get sick or die from it.”
But Sen. Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross, who voted against the bill, rejected the comparison.
“I think there is a huge difference between cigarettes and alcohol. Cigarettes, you are talking about someone harming themselves. Alcohol, we’re talking about someone getting behind the wheel of a car and killing a family.”
The legal age to buy, sell or possess tobacco in most states is 18, with four exceptions. It is 19 in Utah, Alaska, Alabama and New Jersey. Utah is not the only place looking at raising the smoking age. New York City just approved raising it to 21, as have some other cities nationally. Legislatures in Hawaii, New Jersey, Colorado and Texas are all expected to consider similar bills next year — as will Utah now that the interim committee endorsed it.
Testifying in favor of the bill were anti-smoking groups and state and local health departments. The only group that testified against it Wednesday were retailers who sell cigarettes, although several lawmakers — who all said they dislike cigarettes — raised concerns about interfering with freedom.
DavidPatton, executive director of the Utah Department of Health, said state studies show that most young teenagers obtain their cigarettes illegally from adults who themselves are just barely old enough to buy them legally.
“Ninety percent of legal adults that purchase tobacco for underage smokers are under age 21,” he said, so raising the smoking age likely also would reduce the number of teenagers who try smoking and become addicted.
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/57157897-90/adults-age-alcohol-bill.html.csp