Tobacco Is No Longer Tolerated at Valley City Parks

On the heels of a state wide smoking ban in public places, a North Dakota city is taking it one step further. Tobacco use is now against the law in city parks and several other city-owned areas in Valley City. Valley News team’s Eric Crest clears the air on where smoking is, and is not, allowed in the city.
It wasn’t long ago that the state of North Dakota decided it was time to embrace a new smoking ordinance.
“I loved it, I absolutely loved it,” says, Heather Hildebrant of Bismarck.
The state wide ordinance kept cigarettes out of businesses and the approach to their entrances.
“I can bring my son outside and go anywhere and not worry about people smoking outside of buildings or inside of them anymore,” adds Hildebrant.
Recently Valley City took it one step further. A handful of city property will be tobacco free now too.
“They can’t smoke in any park owned property, any activity arenas outside, in any of our buildings,” explains Dick Gulmon the President of the Park and Recreation Board for Valley City.
That includes playgrounds, spectator areas, athletic fields, concession areas, and even parking lots on nearly all of the cities property.
“It’s our responsibility in managing the parks and recreation programming to set an example of a healthy lifestyle,” says Gulmon.
“It drives me insane. They’re not only affecting their body, they’re taking the choice away from everyone else around them that don’t want it in their system,” adds Hildebrant.
The Tobacco Prevention Coordinator in Valley City says by eliminating all tobacco use in public parks in town, they’re not just reversing the normalization of tobacco use, but they’re also impacting generations to come.
“I think it’s the effect on the youth. I think promoting that healthy lifestyle and not seeing cigarette butts in the parks, and (not to mention) what that can do to the environment. But promoting that for the youth and setting that example,” says Gulmon.
Because as the state and cities alike continue taking steps like these, it’s the youth, that will reap the benefits.
“It’s their choice I guess. What they want to do with their body. But it just bugs me when they do it around other people cause then we’re stuck with the consequence of their choices,” says Hildebrant.
Not all public parks in Valley City are tobacco free just yet. The local Tourist Park Campground and Bjornson’s Public Golf Course did not end up on the list. The park board mentioned that out of concern for a loss of business to neighboring communities, they made an exception.
http://www.valleynewslive.com/story/23762032/tobacco-is-no-longer-tolerated-at-valley-city-parks

E-cigarettes forging new pathway to addiction, death and disease

By Ross P. Lanzafame and Harold P. Wimmer – Redwood Times
Electronic cigarette use among middle school children has doubled in just one year. Last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that e-cigarette use also doubled among high school students in one year, and that one in 10 high school students have used an e-cigarette.
Altogether, 1.78 million middle and high school students nationwide use e-cigarettes. Yet, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) still is not regulating e-cigarettes. The absence of regulatory oversight means the tobacco industry is free to promote Atomic Fireball or cotton candy-flavored e-cigarettes to our children. Clearly, the aggressive marketing and promotion of e-cigarettes is reaching our children with alarming success.
It is well known that nicotine is a highly addictive substance, whether delivered in a conventional cigarette or an e-cigarette. The use of sweet flavors is an old tobacco industry trick to entice and addict young children to tobacco products, and the entrance of the nation’s largest tobacco companies into this market clearly is having an impact.
Why does Big Tobacco care about e-cigarettes? Tobacco use kills more than 400,000 people each year and thousands more successfully quit. To maintain its consumer ranks and enormous profits, the tobacco industry needs to attract and addict thousands of children each day, as well as keep adults dependent. Big Tobacco is happy to hook children with a gummy bear-flavored e-cigarette, a grape flavored cigar or a Marlboro, so long as they become addicted. We share the CDC’s concern that children who begin by using e-cigarettes may be condemned to a lifelong addiction to nicotine and cigarettes.
In addition, the American Lung Association is very concerned about the potential safety and health consequences of electronic cigarettes, as well as claims that they can be used to help smokers quit. With no government oversight of these products, there is no way for the public health and medical community or consumers to know what chemicals are contained in an e-cigarette or what the short and long term health implications might be. That’s why the American Lung Association is calling on the FDA to propose meaningful regulation of these products to protect to the public health.
The FDA has not approved e-cigarettes as a safe or effective method to help smokers quit. When smokers are ready to quit, they should call 1-800-QUIT NOW or talk with their doctors about using one of the seven FDA-approved medications proven to be safe and effective in helping smokers quit.
According to recent estimates, there are 250 different e-cigarette brands for sale in the U.S. today. With that many brands, there is likely to be wide variation in the chemicals that each contain. In initial lab tests conducted by the FDA in 2009, detectable levels of toxic cancer-causing chemicals were found, including an ingredient used in anti-freeze, in two leading brands of e-cigarettes and 18 various e-cigarette cartridges. That is why it is so urgent for FDA to begin its regulatory oversight of e-cigarettes, which must include ingredient disclosure by e-cigarette manufacturers to the FDA.
Also unknown is what the potential harm may be to people exposed to secondhand emissions from e-cigarettes. Two initial studies have found formaldehyde, benzene and tobacco-specific nitrosamines (a well-known carcinogen) coming from those secondhand emissions. While there is a great deal more to learn about these products, it is clear that there is much to be concerned about, especially in the absence of FDA oversight.
Ross P. Lanzafame is the American Lung Association National board chair and Harold P. Wimmer is the American Lung Association national president and CEO. For more information, contact Gregg.Tubbs@lung.org or 202-715-3469.

Too many American teens are smoking 'little cigars,' report says

Melissa Dahl, NBC News
They look like cigarettes, and they’re just as harmful as cigarettes — but “little cigars” are much cheaper, and they come in flavors like chocolate or candy apple, which makes them very attractive to kids, experts say.
Now, for the first time, kids’ use of flavored little cigars has been tracked by U.S. researchers. About four in 10 smokers in middle school and high school say they use flavored little cigars, according to the new report, using data from the 2011 National Youth Tobacco Survey.
Tom Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, called the new data “disturbing.”
“Flavored little cigars are basically a deception,” Frieden says. “They’re marketed like cigarettes, they look like cigarettes, but they’re not taxed or regulated like cigarettes. And they’re increasing the number of kids who smoke.”
A little cigar looks almost exactly like a cigarette: It’s the same size and shape, but instead of being wrapped in white paper, it’s wrapped in brown paper that contains some tobacco leaf. Many little cigars have a filter, like a cigarette, according to the American Legacy Foundation, a nonprofit that seeks to prevent teen smoking.

An illustration shows a regular cigarette next to a little cigar.

© American Legacy Foundation

“What makes a cigar a cigar is that it has some tobacco in the paper. Little cigars — there’s just enough tobacco in that paper to make them cigars,” says Erika Sward, assistant vice president for national advocacy at the American Lung Association. “They really are cigarettes in cigar clothing.”
Not that cigars are healthy. Little cigars – and large cigars and cigarillos (a longer, slimmer version of the classic large cigar) – contain the same harmful and addictive compounds as cigarettes. They can cause lung, oral, laryngeal and esophageal cancers and they increase the smoker’s risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The only upside of a cigar is the way they are usually smoked: Cigar smokers tend to take shallower puffs instead of deep inhales. But some research has shown people tend to smoke little cigars just like they’d smoke cigarettes, by inhaling deeply, which can exacerbate the tobacco’s health risks.

cigars & cigarillos

© American Legacy Foundation

But because little cigars are technically not cigarettes, they are taxed far less than cigarettes, making them that much more appealing to teenagers, because “kids are especially price-sensitive,” Sward says. A pack of little cigars can cost less than half as much as a pack of cigarettes, experts say.
“We know if they were cigarettes, what they’re doing now would be banned,” Frieden says. “If they were cigarettes, there would be a much greater awareness of their harm. But because they’re seen as somehow different, they’re getting another generation of kids hooked on tobacco.”
Overall, tobacco use among American kids declined significantly from 2000 to 2011. The same is true for the smoking rate in U.S. adults, which dropped 33 percent in that decade. But the consumption of non-cigarette tobacco products — like cigars or loose tobacco — increased 123 percent in that same time period, Sward says.
Little cigar sales in particular have increased dramatically, more than tripling since 1997, says Danny McGoldrick, vice president of research for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. And most of those little cigars are flavored, thus making them more attractive to kids.
“They’re really cheap, and they’re really sweet, and they have an obvious appeal to kids,” says McGoldrick. “They’re not your grandfather’s cigar.”
Appealing flavors like chocolate, cherry, strawberry or candy apple make it easier for people — especially kids — to start smoking by masking the harshness of tobacco, anti-tobacco advocates say. It’s the same concept behind those “alcopops” – flavored, sweet alcoholic beverages like wine coolers that experts argue are especially tempting to underage drinkers. And adolescence is a crucial time to prevent smoking before it starts, because about 90 percent of smokers start by the time they turn 18, national statistics show.
In 2009, Congress gave the U.S. Food and Drug Administration immediate jurisdiction over cigarettes, smokeless and roll-your-own tobacco. Currently, Sward explains, the FDA has submitted a proposal that would allow it to regulate all tobacco products. She says this current study highlights the urgent need for the FDA to be able to regulate all tobacco products, including little cigars.
“They’re deadly – just like cigarettes,” Frieden says. “It’s really important that we use all means at our disposal to protect the next generation from getting hooked on tobacco.”
http://www.nbcnews.com/health/too-many-american-teens-are-smoking-little-cigars-report-says-8C11433058

To quit smoking, he sketched a cigarette every time he wanted to light up

By Cara Pesek / World-Herald staff writer
On May 12, at 9:31 a.m., Brian Tait opened a small, homemade notebook and drew a small picture of a cigarette.
Normally at that time, he would have smoked a cigarette.
But Tait was trying to quit, as he had tried to do many times before. This time, he was serious. This time, he had a deadline — the impending birth of his daughter.
Three days later, Janie Wren was born.
In the following weeks and months, the 38-year-old artist and part-time stay-at-home dad drew cigarettes after meals, while paying bills, while taking a break from remodeling his home or painting. He drew them on shopping lists, envelopes, napkins and scraps of paper. He drew them any time he would normally smoke, and sometimes when he just needed to do something with his hands.
In this unconventional way, Tait quit smoking entirely. In the months since May 12, he estimates he’s drawn hundreds of cigarettes. He hasn’t smoked any.
Tait started smoking when he was 15, and he was quickly hooked. He was a skateboarder and street artist as a kid. He and his friends sought out “old guy stuff” — Pall Mall non-filters, Marlboro Reds.
“Branding and stuff got me pretty early,” Tait said.
Through his 20s and 30s, he continued to smoke. He worked as a professional sign painter (he’s painted the signs for the Boiler Room, Big Brain Tattoos and the Nomad Lounge, among others) and as an artist. Smoking was a break when he was stuck, a treat when he liked how things were going, a way to enjoy the weather when he was inside the studio on a nice day.
During that time, he also drank. He was a self-described wild guy, occasionally out of control.
But life changed. He started to date a woman who wanted a family. Tait, who has a 14-year-old daughter, wanted another child, too.
About a year and a half ago, he gave up drinking. He quit cold turkey, without even the assistance of pen and paper. He knew that cigarettes should come next. But no one who knew him knew him as a non-smoker, he said.
“I’ve always been personified as this working-class artist that chain smokes or drinks two pots of coffee a day, which is true,” he said.
He may have been a smoking artist, but he was an artist first. At the same time Tait was thinking of quitting smoking (and the same time the ever-nearing arrival of baby Janie was causing him to mull quitting more seriously), he was also wanting to refine his drawing skills, which after years of computer-aided work didn’t feel as sharp as they once did.
And with that, quitting smoking became an art project.
“Everything at some point is technical ability,” he said. “It’s the constant over and over that makes good people great.”
So he drew, and drew, and drew.
He drew unsmoked cigarettes, partially smoked cigarettes, packs of cigarettes. He drew them all the time — after meals, around the house, while waiting in line to apply for a building permit — and then less often, and then, not at all, though he still runs across the occasional scrap of paper with a cigarette sketch.
Laura Krajicek, who works with smoking cessation patients at Methodist Hospital, had never heard of anyone quitting cigarettes that way before.
She had heard of people quitting through prayer or chewing gum or wearing patches. She knew of people who smoked while driving who took to holding a pen instead of a cigarette while on the road.
“You can’t quit driving, so you have to find something else to do with your hand,” she said.
She heard from one woman who repainted the smoke-stained walls in every room in her house in an effort to remain smoke-free.
“I’ve got to say, I’ve never heard of drawing a cigarette, but good for him,” said Krajicek.
While Tait’s method was unconventional, Krajicek said it also had one key thing in common with other successful smoking cessation techniques — he found a way to fill the time normally spent smoking with something else.
Tait doesn’t need so much to fill the time anymore.
Baby Janie came, and Tait has been busy with her since. He also shares a studio space at 26th and Harney Streets with several other artists, including some younger ones whom he mentors. The giant space, which Tait refers to as “the shop,” includes a stage, homemade skateboarding ramp and various studios, and he’s converting part of the area into a gallery. He began work on a stay-at-home dad blog, and on a couple of other projects, too, and Tait found the time previously reserved for smoking filled with other duties.
Tait’s girlfriend, Jessica Brown, said it’s been a while since she even ran across one of the cigarette drawings that not so long ago seemed to be all over their home. The smell of smoke that clung to his clothes is gone, which is just as well as she doesn’t think her heightened post-pregnancy sense of smell would do very well with it anyway. She’s used to her new, non-smoking boyfriend, and she thinks it will stick.
Tait is an all-or-nothing kind of guy, Brown said, and she’s not surprised that he’s stuck to his experiment.
“He’s extreme,” she said. “He keeps it interesting.”
http://www.omaha.com/article/20131021/GO/131029960/1696#.UmVgaJRUM0M

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel calls for huge cigarette tax increase

By Cheryl K. Chumley – The Washington Times
Smoke ‘em if you’ve got ‘em — and then hurry and quit, because Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is planning a massive tax increase on cigarettes.
His proposed 75-cent increase would bring a pack of cigarettes in the Windy City to $7.42 a pack, the highest price in the nation, Fox News reported.
But the tax hike could have a countereffect on raising revenues for the city. That’s because border residents only need to jump across state lines to buy in bulk. Already, the city’s total tax collection on cigarettes has fallen in recent years due directly to tax increases. In 2006, the city brought in $32.9 million in cigarette taxes, but after two consecutive tax hikes, revenues fell to $16.5 million, the Chicago Sun-Times said.
The tax rate per pack now stands at 68 cents.
Mr. Emanuel said the move could raise $10 million for schools. He plans to bring it before the City Council for consideration in his Oct. 23 proposed budget.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/21/chicagos-rahm-emanuel-calls-huge-cigarette-tax-hik/
 

The poor more likely to smoke, research finds

PHILADELPHIA | Many people smoke after they’ve eaten. Lindell Harvey smokes because he hasn’t.
“You smoke out of anxiety because you don’t have the food you need,” said Harvey, 54, who lives alone in Crum Lynne, Pa. He receives disability checks from the Navy that keep him $2,000 below the poverty line.
Harvey relies on his Newports to see him through his hard days. “In my mind, the smoking becomes a comfort as I try to create ways to get food.”
In lives where people endure a dearth of nearly everything important — food, jobs, medical care, a safe place to live — the poor suffer an abundance of one thing:
Nicotine.
The poor are more likely to smoke than those above the poverty line.
In Philadelphia, there’s a 50 percent higher prevalence of smoking among the poor than among the non-poor, according to Giridhar Mallya, director of policy and planning for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health.
The poorest of the 10 largest U.S. cities, Philadelphia also has one of the highest rates of smoking of any big city, according to a health department report.
Lower-income neighborhoods such as Kensington, Bridesburg and Port Richmond are among the city’s most smoker-prevalent neighborhoods, department research shows.
The poor smoke to manage high levels of stress and depression, Mallya said, as much a part of poverty as empty pockets.
Then, too, the poor are more likely to be exposed to nearly ubiquitous cigarette advertising at corner stores, which exacerbates smoking, Mallya said.
It’s also harder for the poor to get smoking-cessation counseling and nicotine patches than others who may receive help through insurance, experts said.
Even as health insurance comes to the poor through the Affordable Care Act, smoking remains a problem: Smokers may be charged a premium of up to 50 percent, according to Frank Leone, director of the Comprehensive Smoking Treatment Program at the University of Pennsylvania.
Mariana Chilton, a professor at Drexel University’s School of Public Health, noted the complex link between smoking and poverty:
“When you’re deprived, it creates enormous mental anguish,” said Chilton, an expert on hunger. “One of the fastest, most convenient ways to help is a cigarette. It’ll keep you sane, and keep you from hurting yourself or others.”
Smoking is also a way to deal with hunger, Chilton said. Families without enough to eat are more likely to smoke than food-secure families, she said.
“Smoking treats hunger pangs,” Chilton said. “Instead of having lunch, mothers will feed their children, then smoke.”
That’s how it works in Camden, said Elaine Styles, 51, a laid-off day care worker.
“I smoke so I don’t have to eat,” she said. “I make sure my family eats, then I have a loosie (a cigarette sold singly for 50 cents or so) and go to bed.”
Because smoking is costly, people ask, aren’t the poor being irresponsible for misallocating money better spent on food?
Low-income smokers nationally spend 14 percent of household income on cigarettes, Mallya said. In Philadelphia, the average smoker spends about $1,000 a year on cigarettes, he added.
Mallya laments the fact that cigarettes in Philadelphia are relatively cheap — $5 to $6 a pack — compared to other cities where added taxes make them more dear. The more cigarettes cost, the fewer are smoked, he said.
The morality of buying cigarettes when you’re poor is complicated. Most poor people want to quit smoking, surveys show. But poverty itself, combined with the overwhelming power of nicotine, make stopping hard.
“People smoke knowing is not good for them,” said Leone of Penn, who is also a pulmonologist. “Nicotine gets into the part of the brain stem that creates a sense of safety, comfort, warmth. If you have to decide between buying bread or cigarettes, not buying cigarettes creates a disease and agitation in the brain that says there’s only one way to fix this situation: Just smoke.”
Yale University sociologist Elijah Anderson said people shouldn’t “blame the victim” by denigrating smoking behavior without understanding poverty, its underlying causes, and a poor person’s “limited sense of having a future.”
Among the poor, especially low-income African-Americans, menthol worsens smoking.
A flavor added to cigarettes, menthol makes the cigarette taste less harsh, which causes the smoker to take deeper, more frequent drags, Mallya said.
That, in turn, increases the harm of cigarettes.
For 50 years, menthol cigarettes were promoted in black neighborhoods; now, 90 percent of African-American smokers in Philadelphia smoke menthol cigarettes, Mallya said.
“There may be something biological at work,” Leone said, adding that science is studying whether race makes a difference. “But that doesn’t cloud the intense effort by cigarette marketers.”
In a city where black people already suffer greatly from asthma — Philadelphia is among the top-five worst asthma cities in America, experts say — smoking aggravates everything, especially among children, said Brad Collins, professor of public health and pediatrics at Temple University.
Jerry Goldstein, a pediatrician at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children, agreed. “Second- and third-hand smoke (found on clothing and walls) are seriously exacerbating kids’ asthma,” he said.
This is not to say all is hopeless. While still high, rates of secondhand smoke exposure in the city have decreased by nearly 7 percentage points between 2004 and 2012, health department research shows. And teen smoking is down from nearly 16 percent to over 9 percent in the same time frame, while there are slightly fewer adults lighting up these days.
Mallya attributes that to an intensive public education program and his department’s efforts to help get many poor people smoking-cessation help.
But that doesn’t mean the air will clean up any time soon.
As Amy Hillier, a professor in Penn’s School of Design, who helped study cigarette advertising, said, “Sometimes a pack of Marlboros will save someone’s life in terms of stress.”

http://jacksonville.com/news/health-and-fitness/2013-10-20/story/poor-more-likely-smoke-research-finds#ixzz2iNYGsIWx

Emanuel wants 75 cents a pack cigarette tax increase

Mayor Rahm Emanuel plans to propose increasing the city cigarette tax by 75 cents to help plug a budget gap and provide more free vision care for low-income ChicagoPublic Schools students, a City Hall source said Saturday.
The increase would leave Chicago with the nation’s highest total cigarette taxes. The administration expects to collect an additional $10 million, with $8 million going toward the budget shortfall and $2 million to expand a program that provides free eye exams and glasses to students who fail vision screenings, the source said.
The cigarette tax hike money represents only a fraction of the city’s estimated $339 million budget hole for next year. Even as City Hall was preparing to print budget documents on Sunday in advance of the mayor’s Wednesday budget address, there still was uncertainty over whether Emanuel will propose an increase in the city’s amusement tax on movies, plays, musical performances and sporting events.
Emanuel has ruled out politically toxic property and sales tax increases, so he will have to rely on other less-lucrative ways to raise revenue in addition to cutting costs. Further privatization of city services has been ruled out, the City Hall source said.
That approach will result in “a whole package” of options that aldermen will have to consider as they weigh in on the budget proposal, said Ald. Patrick O’Connor, 40th, the mayor’s City Council floor leader. “I don’t think that anybody is going to go through this and say I’m happy with everything here,” he said.
O’Connor predicted the new budget will be tougher for aldermen to swallow than last year’s spending plan — when there were no tax, fee or fine increases other than adding speed camera revenue — but less difficult than the mayor’s first budget, which increased a host of taxes, fees and fines while cutting and privatizing services.
If aldermen approve the cigarette tax increase, it will come on top of $1 smoke tax increases by the state and Cook County that went into effect during the past 16 months. The city hike would increase the per-pack total tax in Chicago to $7.42, putting it ahead of New York City’s nation-topping tobacco tax, which now is 19 cents higher.
Spending an additional $2 million on the CPS vision program would allow it to serve 45,000 students instead of 30,000.
In keeping with the theme of expanded youth programs, the mayor also plans to propose increased funding for after-school and summer jobs programs, allowing the city to continue increase funding for those programs despite federal cuts, the source said. Funding would come from revenue generated by the city’s speed cameras near schools and parks that are just starting to issue fines.
If approved, the total budget for after-school programs would be $12 million, a 15 percent increase since Emanuel took office in May 2011.
Meanwhile, some aldermen are expected to push for a commuter tax on suburban residents who work in the city, something the mayor has rejected partly because he worked to get rid of the city’s head tax on employees that businesses despised.
“For God sakes, we just got rid of the head tax,” O’Connor said. “If that’s just a replacement for the head tax, I think that’s counter-intuitive.”
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-10-20/news/chi-emanuel-wants-75-cents-a-pack-cigarette-tax-increase-20131019_1_amusement-tax-aldermen-pack-cigarette-tax-increase
 

Affordable Care Act: Smoking sends health premiums higher

BY FRANCINE KNOWLES Staff Reporter

If you light up, prepare to get burned with higher premiums when buying insurance in the new health insurance marketplaces.
Under rules of the Affordable Care Act, in Illinois and most other states, insurers can charge smokers and other tobacco users as much as 50 percent more on their premiums due to the higher health risks they face compared to non-tobacco users.
In some cases, the surcharge wipes out the subsidy for which some smoking health plan enrollees would qualify in the marketplaces, said Karen Pollitz. She is senior fellow at Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit focused on health-care issues.
“So you’d be back up to the sticker price,” Pollitz said. “The tobacco add-on is not covered by the tax-credit subsidies.”
Some insurers have imposed surcharges below 50 percent. Meanwhile Washington D.C. and states, including California, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont have prohibited insurers from applying a tobacco surcharge. Other states lowered the maximum surcharge allowed.
There were 1.8 million smokers in Illinois in 2012, or 18.6 percent of adults 18 and older, and nearly 240,000 residents used smokeless tobacco, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois, among six insurers in the Illinois Health Insurance Marketplace, imposes a surcharge on tobacco users ranging from 10 percent at age 27 to 32 percent at age 54, according to BCBS spokeswoman Mary Ann Schultz.
“Generally, the effects of tobacco use are cumulative, so the costs increase with the length of time one has used tobacco,” she said in an email explaining the insurer’s rationale for the variance. “Since the length of time someone has used tobacco is reasonably well-correlated with age, the effect is for costs to increase with the member’s age. We don’t see many people in their later years who choose to start using tobacco.”
Coventry Health Care Inc. imposes a 20 percent surcharge on premiums for all smokers above age 21 who purchase insurance in the Illinois marketplace, Coventry spokesman Walter Cherniak Jr. said.
For a 55-year-old smoker choosing a Coventry silver PPO, the monthly cost would be $699.78 compared with $583.15 for a nonsmoker, he said. That’s $1,400 more a year for smokers.
Health Alliance Medical Plans, the insurance arm of Carle Foundation, imposes an 18 percent surcharge, said spokeswoman Kelli Anderson. Tobacco use is defined as using an average of four or more times per week in the past six months, excluding religious or ceremonial use, she said.
Humana Inc., Aetna Inc. and Land of Lincoln Health Inc. Co-op, all impose a 10 percent surcharge on smokers’ premiums, representatives said.
Consumers applying for insurance self-report whether they use tobacco. “They need to check off a box on the form,” said Schultz.
When making a policy purchase, insurance shoppers don’t have to prove whether they use tobacco. But smokers who might consider lying about tobacco use to cut their premium rates should think again.
“If a tobacco user does not check the box, and we later found out through a review of medical records or other reasons that he or she is a tobacco user, that is considered fraud,” Schultz said. “An insurance policy may be terminated if one commits fraud and does not share accurate medical information.”
Humana policyholders would be required to pay the difference in premium, according to spokesman Jeff Blunt.
Tobacco users who buy insurance have access to help in kicking the habit as part of their benefits. All health plans must cover 100 percent of the tab for smoking cessation programs with no co-pay, Pollitz said.
At Humana, members who participate in its smoking cessation programs who become tobacco-free are eligible for plan savings upon renewal, Blunt said.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/23188991-418/affordable-care-act-smoking-sends-health-premiums-higher.html

Cotton Candy and Atomic Fireball flavored electronic cigarettes are forging a new pathway to addiction, death and disease

By:  Ross P. Lanzafame, American Lung Association National Board Chair
Harold Wimmer, American Lung Association National President and CEO
E-cigarette use among middle school children has doubled in just one year.  Last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that e-cigarette use also doubled among high school students in one year, and that 1 in 10 high school students have used an e-cigarette.  Altogether, 1.78 million middle and high school students nationwide use e-cigarettes.  Yet, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) still is not regulating e-cigarettes.  The absence of regulatory oversight means the tobacco industry is free to promote Atomic Fireball or cotton candy-flavored e-cigarettes to our children.  Clearly, the aggressive marketing and promotion of e-cigarettes is reaching our children with alarming success.
It is well known that nicotine is a highly addictive substance, whether delivered in a conventional cigarette or an e-cigarette.  The use of sweet flavors is an old tobacco industry trick to entice and addict young children to tobacco products, and the entrance of the nation’s largest tobacco companies into this market clearly is having an impact.   Why does Big Tobacco care about e-cigarettes?  Tobacco use kills more than 400,000 people each year and thousands more successfully quit.  To maintain its consumer ranks and enormous profits, the tobacco industry needs to attract and addict thousands of children each day, as well as keep adults dependent.   Big Tobacco is happy to hook children with a gummy bear-flavored e-cigarette, a grape flavored cigar or a Marlboro, so long as they become addicted.  We share the CDC’s concern that children who begin by using e-cigarettes may be condemned to a lifelong addiction to nicotine and cigarettes.
In addition, the American Lung Association is very concerned about the potential safety and health consequences of electronic cigarettes, as well as claims that they can be used to help smokers quit.  With no government oversight of these products, there is no way for the public health and medical community or consumers to know what chemicals are contained in an e-cigarette or what the short and long term health implications might be.   That’s why the American Lung Association is calling on the FDA to propose meaningful regulation of these products to protect to the public health.
The FDA has not approved e-cigarettes as a safe or effective method to help smokers quit. When smokers are ready to quit, they should call 1-800-QUIT NOW or talk with their doctors about using one of the seven FDA-approved medications proven to be safe and effective in helping smokers quit.
According to recent estimates, there are 250 different e-cigarette brands for sale in the U.S. today. With that many brands, there is likely to be wide variation in the chemicals that each contain.  In initial lab tests conducted by the FDA in 2009, detectable levels of toxic cancer-causing chemicals were found — including an ingredient used in anti-freeze — in two leading brands of e-cigarettes and 18 various e-cigarette cartridges. That is why it is so urgent for FDA to begin its regulatory oversight of e-cigarettes, which must include ingredient disclosure by e-cigarette manufacturers to the FDA.
Also unknown is what the potential harm may be to people exposed to secondhand emissions from e-cigarettes. Two initial studies have found formaldehyde, benzene and tobacco-specific nitrosamines (a well-known carcinogen) coming from those secondhand emissions. While there is a great deal more to learn about these products, it is clear that there is much to be concerned about, especially in the absence of FDA oversight.
http://www.gilmermirror.com/view/full_story/23870545/article—Cotton-Candy-and-Atomic-Fireball-flavored-electronic-cigarettes-are-forging-a-new-pathway-to-addiction–death-and-disease?instance=home_news_bullets

Poll: Most Nebraska voters support increasing cigarette tax

By KEVIN O’HANLON / Lincoln Journal Star

A majority of Nebraska voters favor increasing the state’s cigarette tax and using the money to provide property tax relief and smoking-cessation programs, according to a poll released Friday.
“Nebraskans have made it clear they are ready for a tobacco tax increase,” said David Holmquist of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, which paid for the poll.
The poll of 500 likely voters in Nebraska showed strong bipartisan support, with 68 percent supporting and only 29 percent opposing a proposal to increase the state tobacco tax in order to reduce property taxes and fund smoking cessation programs.
“A tobacco tax increase would have many immediate positive impacts, from the reduced health costs from smokers who choose to quit and youth who are priced out of the market to the ways that increased revenues could be used to fund smoking cessation efforts or offset property taxes,” Holmquist said.
Support for the tax increase was consistent across all subgroups, including smokers. Support remained high when voters were told that the state tobacco tax could be increased by $1 per pack, which if adopted would make Nebraska, currently a low tobacco tax state, slightly higher than Iowa’s current tax.
Nebraska’s cigarette tax is 64 cents a pack, which ranks 38th nationally. Iowa’s is $1.36, which ranks 26th.
The highest cigarette tax is New York’s $4.35 a pack. The lowest is Missouri’s 17 cents.
According to the poll, 78 percent of Nebraska voters said it was important to fund programs that will prevent kids from smoking and help smokers quit, with 36 percent saying that this is very important.
The poll was done as the 14 members of the Legislature’s Tax Modernization Committee are looking to create a tax system that is fair, simple, stable and competitive with other states. The tax committee has asked business leaders and the public to come forward with ideas to help the process.
Gov. Dave Heineman said the priority should be lowering income and property taxes.
The framework for the present tax system was built in the 1960s. Three major tax sources fund state and local governments in Nebraska: 44 percent comes from property taxes, 29 percent from income taxes and 27 percent from sales taxes.
According to the poll, most voters said property taxes are the most problematic tax by far. When asked which tax concerns them the most, 57 percent of Nebraskans said property taxes, only 26 percent said income taxes and 11 percent said sales taxes.
“Now is the time for our state’s political leaders to listen to their constituents and step up and lead on the issue of tobacco taxes,” Holmquist said. “We have an opportunity here, within the tax reform discussions that are taking place, for a winning plan — we can improve Nebraska’s health, and we can provide much needed property tax relief.”
The poll was done by Public Opinion Strategies from Oct. 6-8. It included 500 likely voters and was done via cellphones and landlines. The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.38 percent.
http://journalstar.com/news/state-and-regional/govt-and-politics/poll-most-nebraska-voters-support-increasing-cigarette-tax/article_ba7d9805-7b29-50f1-a97a-ea05665afcd4.html