Cigarette smoking at new low among youths, survey finds

Cigarette smoking hit the lowest point ever recorded among American eighth-graders and high school sophomores and seniors last year, a newly released report shows.

Last year, only 5% of high school sophomores said they had smoked cigarettes daily in the previous 30 days, compared with 18% of sophomores who were smoking daily at one point in the 1990s. The numbers have also plunged for eighth-graders and high school seniors, hitting their lowest point since the surveys began.
The change is just one of the findings in a vast new report on the well-being of American children, compiled by the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. The report draws together research from a host of government agencies and research groups, including smoking surveys from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Besides being less likely to smoke, U.S. children are also less likely to be exposed to secondhand smoke than in the past, the report showed.
Danny McGoldrick, vice president for research for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, credited tobacco taxes, laws limiting where people can smoke and smoking prevention programs with reducing the numbers. However, the surveys show progress has slowed in recent years, with teenage smoking rates falling only slightly from 2011 to 2012.
“We need to invest in more of what has worked in the past to accelerate these declines,” McGoldrick said.
Other findings from the report included:
• Birth rates have continued to drop among teenagers, falling for the fourth year in a row, according to preliminary data. As of two years ago, there were 15 births for every 1,000 teenagers ages 15 to 17 — a striking decrease from four years earlier, when the rate was 22 per 1,000.
• Last year, nearly a quarter of high school seniors reported binge drinking in the previous two weeks, a slight increase after earlier declines.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0712-kids-wellbeing-20130712,0,7542363.story

Mental illness, tobacco turn out to be deadly combo

By: John Lundy, Duluth News Tribune
It’s hard to quit smoking.
For individuals struggling with a mental illness, it’s even harder.
“They have higher levels of biological or physical addiction to nicotine, in many cases,” said Dr. Jill Williams, an addiction psychiatrist. “In illnesses like depression, studies show that they’re more addicted than other smokers.”
Yet mental health treatment is lagging when it comes to tobacco addiction, said Williams, who specializes in mental health and tobacco at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Jersey.
Her effort to correct brings Williams to Duluth today. At the behest of the American Lung Association in Minnesota, Williams is conducting a daylong conference for mental health professionals at the University of Minnesota Duluth.
About 75 people were signed up for the event, said Pat McKone of the lung association. Earlier this week, Williams led a similar conference in Moorhead, Minn., with 100 in attendance.
The Minnesota group brought Williams to the state because of the toll smoking takes on people with mental illness, an American Lung Association news release said. It cites studies from several states showing that people with severe mental illness die, on average, 25 years earlier than the general public. Their No. 1 cause of death? Heart disease related to tobacco use, the studies show.
Moreover, the percentage of people with mental illness who smoke is much higher than that of the general population, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported earlier this year. From 2009-11, 36 percent of adults with mental illness smoked, compared with 21 percent of the rest of the population, the CDC said.
The numbers in Wisconsin are similar, but the discrepancy in Minnesota is even greater: Just over 40 percent of Minnesota adults with mental illnesses smoke, compared to just under 20 percent of the rest of the population.
Part of the problem, Williams said in a telephone interview, is the lack of treatment.
“If you get your care from the behavioral health system, it’s just unlikely that you’ll be able to get treatment for your tobacco addiction in those settings,” she said. “Traditionally, that’s not been offered there.”
People with mental illness respond to medication and counseling to treat tobacco addiction, Williams said, although it may need to be more intense. And the mental health treatment centers and residences already have the counselors trained in addiction treatment, she said. They just need the specific training for tobacco.
“That’s why these trainings are so important,” Williams said. “When we do the training, it’s not unusual that people say this is the first time they ever had training on tobacco addiction in their professional career.”
Another issue, Williams said, is addressing public policy so that people who provide tobacco treatment are reimbursed as well as people who treat other forms of addiction.
“If we paid people better to do tobacco treatment, I think a lot more of it would be available,” she said.

New, desirable norm with tobacco

By: Ryan Bakken, Grand Forks Herald
Usually, cultural change in North Dakota starts in the bigger cities and seeps down to less populated towns.
That isn’t necessarily the case when it comes to tobacco, however.
Earlier this year, Cooperstown, N.D., a town of about 1,000 people in Griggs County, passed a tobacco ban in its city park. The ban includes the use of smokeless tobacco.
The Grand Forks Park Board hasn’t taken that extra step.
“We accepted the state law, which has no ban on smokeless,” said Bill Palmiscno, Park District director. “And, the way it was explained to us by the city health department, the smoking ban is about being around activities. If you go off alone somewhere in the park, you’re OK to smoke.”
Leading the charge in Cooperstown was Julie Ferry, administrator of the Nelson-Griggs Health Unit.
“I can’t take credit for it,” Ferry said. “The credit needs to go to health-minded people on the Cooperstown Park Board and their employees.”
A popular – and somewhat defensible – argument for not including smokeless tobacco is that there’s no second-hand damage to non-users, as there is with smoke. But Ferry comes well-armed to argue that point.
Her case is that: 1) Chew can have second-hand damage because it’s spit on the ground and can be consumed by youngsters and pets; 2) Chew sets a bad example; and 3) Banning chew can help to set a new, more desirable norm.
“If we adopt policies that limit places you can do something, that creates a new social norm,” Ferry said. “The social norm used to be that you could smoke on airplanes. Now you can’t.
“The consequence to others is them seeing it and thinking it’s an acceptable behavior. We need to role model for our youth.”
Molly Soeby, a first-term commissioner who has brought diversity to the Grand Forks Park Board in more ways than her gender, hasn’t given up her efforts to make parks tobacco-free. She has applied for a grant to conduct two surveys about the issue. One would be for the general public and the other specific to golfers and softball players, anticipated to be the demographic most opposed to a ban.
“The whole purpose behind this is to not get kids started because it’s so addicting,” Soeby said.
If the grant comes through, the survey should be completed by the end of summer. If the survey is favorable to her cause, Grand Forks may become the next Cooperstown.
“It’s sometimes easier to watch what bigger cities do, so you can find out where the battlegrounds are,” Ferry said. “On the other hand, because everyone knows everyone else, small towns can get things done faster.”
http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/267941/publisher_ID/40/

Letter: Use all anti-tobacco strategies

By: Rep. Blair Thoreson, Fargo, N.D., INFORUM
Several weeks ago, a letter from Dr. Eric Johnson appeared in The Forum in which Johnson made inaccurate accusations regarding a resolution I introduced in the 2013 North Dakota Legislature aimed at reducing the risk of death and disease among smokers. By attempting to distort my motives and tie me to special-interest groups with which I have never had any affiliations, the letter’s author distracted from what should be a productive conversation.
Because smoking harms us all, the state ought to pursue an all-of-the-above strategy to reduce cigarette consumption. In addition to conventional anti-smoking measures, like messaging to youths and promoting smoking cessation, one strategy our state should consider is tobacco harm reduction, which seeks to minimize the damage tobacco does to users and society alike.
Tobacco harm reduction is a secondary strategy that could be used when traditional anti-smoking measures fail. It’s not in question that quitting is the single best thing smokers can do for both themselves and society, but despite our efforts to encourage quitting, thousands of smokers remain unable or unwilling to snuff out their addiction. Tobacco harm reduction targets these individuals by accepting that they will continue to use nicotine, and explores ways to reduce the costs and harmful effects of their nicotine usage.
One alternate product current smokers could turn to is the electronic cigarette, which delivers nicotine without the toxic carcinogens and doesn’t produce secondhand smoke. In fact, a study by the Boston University School of Public Health found that electronic cigarettes are significantly safer than conventional ones, with carcinogen levels 1,000 times lower. If smokers who refuse to quit entirely could be persuaded to switch to electronic cigarettes, North Dakota would pay less in smoking-related health costs, and our children would be at less risk of secondhand smoke exposure.
It may seem like an unconventional method of reducing risk, but studies have shown that smokeless tobacco carries significantly lower health risks than cigarettes. No one should mistake smokeless tobacco for a healthy product, but compared to smoking, it may be less deadly and a better choice.
National and state anti-smoking campaigns have been highly effective, as the smoking rate is half of what it was 50 years ago, and smoking among teenagers is at an all-time low. Yet there remains a persistent minority of nicotine users for whom our conventional outreach has failed. In efforts to promote public health, cut health care costs and reduce preventable deaths, we can’t afford to give up on messaging to these smokers.
It’s clear, however, that we need to think outside the box to reach them. Tobacco harm reduction, endorsed by the American Association of Public Health Physicians, won’t eliminate all the health risks created by persistent smokers, but it could lower their death rate and medical expenses, and take secondhand smoke out of the air.
Instead of making false claims, I believe it would be much more productive to work together and address the public health problems created by smoking on as many fronts as possible. The Legislature’s interim Health Services Committee recently launched a study of the overall effectiveness of North Dakota’s tobacco control programs, which gives us the opportunity to expand and improve our outreach. As we move forward with developing the next generation of public health strategies, tobacco harm reduction should at least be part of the conversation.
Thoreson, R-Fargo, is a small-business owner and represents District 44 in the North Dakota House.

Tobacco taxes, smoking bans set to save millions of lives: study

RECORDER REPORT
Anti-smoking measures including higher taxes on tobacco products, bans on adverts and controls on lighting up in public places could prevent tens of millions of premature deaths across the world, researchers said on Monday. Similar steps taken by Turkey, Romania and 39 other countries between 2007 and 2010 were already saving lives, the independent study published by the World Health Organisation (WHO) said.
“If the progress attained by these countries were extended globally, tens of millions of smoking-related deaths could be averted,” Professor David Levy, the study’s lead author from Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, said in the WHO’s monthly bulletin.
Wider use of the controls could also lead to lower health care costs and higher birth weights for babies, he added. Tobacco-control measures already introduced in the 41 countries, that also included Pakistan, Argentina and Italy, were on track to persuade an estimated 15 million people not to smoke, the study said. That would prevent around 7.4 million smoking-related deaths by 2050, it added. The researchers found the most effective measures were increasing taxes and banning smoking in offices, restaurants and other public places. The first method would prevent 3.5 million smoking-attributable deaths, while the second would prevent 2.5 million, they said.
“If anything it is an under-estimate,” Dr Douglas Bettcher, director of WHO’s department of non-communicable diseases, told Reuters in an interview in his Geneva office. “It is a win-win situation for health and finance ministries to generate revenues that have a major impact on improving health and productivity,” he added.
Turkey’s steps led to a sharp drop in smoking rates to 41.5 percent among men in 2012 from 47.9 percent in 2008, he said. Six million people die every year from smoking and the toll is projected to rise to eight million by 2030, according to the WHO, a United Nations agency waging war on “Big Tobacco”.
The WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which came into force in 2005, lays down measures to curb smoking and tobacco use. About 175 countries have ratified the pact, shunned by others that are home to large tobacco companies, including the United States, Switzerland and Indonesia.
Measures include raising taxes on tobacco products to 75 percent of the final retail price, smoke-free air policies, warnings on cigarette packages, bans on advertising, promotion and sponsorship, and offering treatments to kick the habit. “We know that in many poor countries, the poor spend a lot of money on tobacco. They would be able to use it for nutrition and education which is a huge opportunity cost,” said Dr Edouard Tursan d’Espaignet, from WHO’s Tobacco Free Initiative.

Red River Valley Fair limits smoking to three designated areas

WEST FARGO – This year’s Red River Valley Fair here will be smoke-free.
Management for the fair, which runs at the Red River Valley Fairground here July 9-14, announced Monday that smoking will largely be banned at this year’s event, except for three designated areas.
The fair had to come into compliance with the new statewide ban on public smoking, which went into effect last winter, general manager Bryan Schulz said.
The grandstands are considered an “outdoor athletic venue” under that law, and therefore smoking in that area must be outlawed, Schulz said.
Schulz said fair management then had to consider the smoking law’s provision that bans puffing within 20 feet of any door, window or ventilation opening.
“That would eliminate just about every building on the grounds,” Schulz said.
Schulz said besides the state ban, the “trend” to ban smoking at fairs got a kick start last fall, when a child was poked in the eye by a cigarette at the Minnesota State Fair.
Schulz said the Minnesota State Fair is installing a similar smoking ban this fall.
The attractions company that the Red River Valley Fair hires for carnival rides has been notified of the change. It could be a “tough sell” for the carnies who are used to smoking around their rides and attractions, Schulz said, but he’s not expecting major problems.
The attractions company is aware that fines can be levied against it and any of its employees who run afoul of the ban, Schulz said.
The fine for a person smoking where it is outlawed is $50 per violation.
There is a $100 fine per violation that can be levied against an owner or person with “general supervisory responsibility over a public place or place of employment who willfully fails to comply” with the law, according to state law.
Smoking will be allowed in parking lots and the campground area, Schulz said. There will be three designated open-air spaces for smoking within the general fairgrounds.
Fairground staff and security will enforce the ban, and there will be signs to inform fairgoers of the change, said Schulz, who doesn’t expect any issues with the ban.
“I think people realize, when the law changed, they knew that things were going to happen,” he said.
http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/404939/

As Minnesota cigarette tax spikes, Moorhead retailers feel the burn

MOORHEAD – The cheapest pack of cigarettes at Brady’s Service Center located off Interstate 94 here jumped to $6.50 on Monday, the first day of a new per-pack tax increase in Minnesota.
Just a few miles away at Fargo’s Gateway Service Center-Cenex along Main Avenue, that same pack of Pall Malls was $3.79.
A pack of Marlboros at Brady’s totaled $8.30 after taxes, more than $3 more than the $5.15 being charged for the same brand at the Cenex station.
On the first day cigarette sales in Minnesota drew an additional $1.60 in taxes per pack, Brady Olson, owner of Brady’s Service Center, said the disparity is another disadvantage for Minnesota convenience stores that have no way of lowering their prices to compete.
“It puts a very unfair advantage for North Dakota because we’re also at a disadvantage on the gas tax, sales tax and whatever other taxes,” he said. “It’s just getting worse and worse.”
The per-pack cigarette tax in Minnesota jumped to $2.83 – the nation’s sixth-highest. North Dakota ranks 46th among the states with a tax of 44 cents per pack, which hasn’t changed in more than a decade.
Olson said the high state tax, in addition to the $1.01 of federal taxes on each pack, leaves little wiggle room for Moorhead retailers – especially when it comes to courting cigarette smokers, the top convenience store customer.
“They do more volume and more dollar sales than anybody on average,” he said. “They also shop more, so they stop more often.”
Moorhead resident Jeremy Myers said he wasn’t even aware of the latest tax hike in his home state because he’s been buying cigarettes in North Dakota for years.
“They’re just cheaper,” he said.
Even before Monday’s increase, the average pack of cigarettes was about $1 cheaper in North Dakota than Minnesota, he said. Myers said the only time he buys in Minnesota is if he has to, and then he’ll just buy one pack to hold him over until he can stock up at a North Dakota store.
Manager Shari Bettenhausen said that’s been common for years at the Cenex station just blocks from the Red River in downtown Fargo.
“I think we’ve always gotten customers from Moorhead just because North Dakota’s always been a little bit cheaper,” she said.
But she said the latest tax hike in Minnesota hadn’t been much of a boost to business in Fargo, at least through Monday morning.
“A few more cartons are going out the door today,” she said.
Olson said he’s been frustrated with the idea behind Minnesota’s latest tax increase, especially after years of hearing politicians talk about the need to make the state’s taxation fairer across all income levels. He also said statements from public health officials that the tax hike will prevent kids from starting smoking and motivate current smokers to kick their habit could be overly simplistic.
“It’s $15 in Las Vegas and over $10 in New York, and they’re still smoking,” he said. “If you want something, you’re going to do it whether you like to pay for it or not.”
http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/404925/

Are E-Cigarettes a Boon, a Menace or Both?

By THE NY TIMES EDITORIAL BOARD

Rapidly growing numbers of consumers are turning to electronic cigarettes to satisfy their nicotine addiction without inhaling the carcinogens and toxic chemicals found in tobacco smoke. Buyers need to beware. Unlike nicotine gum and skin patches, electronic cigarettes have not been evaluated for safety or effectiveness.

Global sales of electronic cigarettes, although small compared with overall tobacco sales, have been rising quickly in both Europe and the United States. Several major tobacco companies have announced plans to introduce new or revamped e-cigarettes. And regulators for the European Union and Britain have released plans to regulate e-cigarettes more stringently, possibly starting in 2016.

Electronic cigarettes turn liquid nicotine into a vapor inhaled by the user. The liquid comes in dozens of flavors, mimicking everything from a standard cigarette to a piña colada or bubble gum. Smoking the devices is undeniably safer than inhaling tobacco smoke, a carcinogen, but there are some risks. Nicotine is extremely addictive, and very high doses can be dangerous. Toxic chemicals have been found in some devices, suggesting serious quality control problems at the factories.

Health officials also fear that flavored vapors coupled with advertising aimed at young people might induce them to start smoking and then move on to traditional cigarettes.

The Food and Drug Administration has two avenues for regulating e-cigarettes. If a manufacturer claims its device will help smokers quit smoking, the agency can demand proof that it is safe and effective for that purpose. However, if a manufacturer makes no such claim and leaves it to smokers to infer that the devices will help them kick the habit, courts have held that the F.D.A. must regulate under a different law that doesn’t require the same level of proof.

Even under that weaker standard, the agency has broad powers to protect public health. It could ban flavorings (like fruit or candy) that make products appeal to youngsters and even ban sales or marketing to buyers under 18. It could ensure that advertising is not deceptive and that factories follow good manufacturing practices.

The F.D.A. has been working since 2011 to draft new regulations to exert its authority over nontraditional tobacco products, potentially including electronic cigarettes. It needs to move as aggressively as possible to protect the public in this rapidly expanding market.

Smokers Cost Employers Nearly $6,000 More Annually: Study

Smokers may feel the ultimate toll of their addiction, but its their bosses who are footing the bill in the meantime, according to a new study.
Employees who smoke cost the typical U.S. company an average of $5,816 more a year than non-smokers, according to research released Monday from Ohio State University. The researchers note that the annual cost of employing a smoker can reach up to $10,125, but also fall as low as $2,885.
Although nearly half of large companies have instituted wellness programs for employees, a majority of them are centered around factors like weight, cholesterol and blood pressure, rather than smoking. Micah Berman, the report’s lead author and an expert on health policy and management, told The Huffington Post that the lack of focus on nicotine consumption is a mistake, but one that can be explained by the “sensitive and challenging nature” of the addiction.
“I think it can be easier to focus on other issues,” he said. “You can encourage people to work out more without necessarily singling them out.”
Additional health care costs are not the only financial burden that employers have to worry about with smokers, according to the study. Smoke breaks may account for a per-smoker cost of $3,077 due to the loss in productivity. “Presenteeism,” or reduced productivity related to nicotine addiction, can cost $462.
Berman’s study notes that the research focuses only on the economic cost of employees that smoke, rather than the ethical and privacy considerations that surround the issue. While federal law does not protect smokers against hiring discrimination, a majority of states and the District of Columbia have passed smoker-protection laws, USA Today reports.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/04/smoking-employer-costs_n_3383685.html

Frank Lautenberg, New Jersey Senator in His 5th Term, Dies at 89

Frank R. Lautenberg, who fought the alcohol and tobacco industries and promoted Amtrak as a five-term United States senator from New Jersey, died on Monday in Manhattan. He was 89.
The cause was complications of viral pneumonia, his office said. In 2010, it announced that he had stomach cancer. Though he and his doctors expected a complete recovery, Senator Lautenberg, a Democrat, decided not to seek re-election next year.
His death leaves a vacancy in the Senate that will be filled by Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, a Republican. If the governor appoints a Republican, as expected, his party will hold 46 Senate seats while the Democrats’ number will drop to 52. Two independents caucus with the Democrats.
Mr. Lautenberg was the Senate’s oldest member and last surviving veteran of World War II. He had been frequently absent from the Senate in recent months because of failing health but did appear in April in a wheelchair to cast votes in favor of tougher gun-control measures, which were defeated.
First elected in 1982 at age 58 after a successful business career, Mr. Lautenberg served three terms, retired and instantly regretted the decision. When Senator Robert G. Torricelli made a last-minute decision not to seek re-election in 2002, Mr. Lautenberg ran in his place and won the seat. He was re-elected in 2008.
Never a flashy senator — his colleagues Bill Bradley and Mr. Torricelli got more attention — Mr. Lautenberg acquired influence on the Appropriations Committee and had a consistently liberal voting record. Americans for Democratic Action said he had voted liberal 94 percent of the time.
Mr. Lautenberg’s first major victory came in 1984. A freshman senator in the minority party, he pushed through a provision to establish a national drinking age of 21, a measure that threatened to cut 10 percent of a state’s federal highway money if it did not comply. He argued that the change would save lives by ending “a crazy quilt of drinking ages in neighboring states” and prevent those under 21 from driving over “blood borders” to get drunk and then try to drive home.
“He had to fight like hell to get it through,” Jay A. Winsten, associate dean of the Harvard School of Public Health, said in an interview. “The estimates are that the cumulative lives saved are in excess of 25,000.”
Mr. Lautenberg followed that move 16 years later with another condition on highway spending: States must designate 0.08 percent blood alcohol as the level that would constitute being drunk.
In 1989, he led a successful fight to ban smoking on all commercial airline flights. Mr. Lautenberg, once a two-pack-a-day smoker, told the Senate: “With this legislation, nonsmokers, including children and infants, will be free from secondhand smoke. Working flight attendants will avoid a hazard that has jeopardized their health and their jobs.”
He later pursued legislation that prohibited smoking in federal buildings and in all federally financed places that serve children.
Mr. Lautenberg’s other legislative achievements include a 1996 law denying gun ownership to people who have committed domestic violence. He was also the author of legislation requiring that by 2012 all cargo destined for United States ports be screened for nuclear material, a requirement that both the Bush and the Obama administrations said could not be met.
Passenger railroads were another priority of the senator. He won an important victory in 2008 with legislation that nearly doubled Amtrak’s subsidy, and he advocated for federal money to help build another commuter rail tunnel between New Jersey and Manhattan. When Mr. Christie killed the tunnel project in 2011, saying it was too expensive, Mr. Lautenberg, who was a critic of the governor, said the move “will go down as one of the biggest public policy blunders in New Jersey’s history.”
Another Lautenberg measure gave refugee status to people from historically persecuted groups without requiring them to show that they had been singled out. The senator estimated that 350,000 to 400,000 Jews entered the United States under that 1990 law. Evangelical Christians from the former Soviet Union also benefited from the law.
Mr. Lautenberg had never held elected office before running for senator, but he immediately took to the sharp style of New Jersey politics. His entry to the Senate and his return were preceded by scandals involving another Democrat. In 1982, Senator Harrison A. Williams Jr. resigned after being convicted of bribery in the federal corruption investigation known as Abscam. In 2002, the Senate Ethics Committee declared that Mr. Torricelli was “severely admonished” for failing to report gifts from a contributor while helping the contributor’s business through official acts. Mr. Torricelli quit the race six weeks before the election.
Campaigning was rough in Mr. Lautenberg’s first two races. In 1982 he implied that this opponent, Millicent Fenwick, a 72-year-old moderate Republican who had clashed with President Richard M. Nixon, was too old. He called her “eccentric” and offered doubts about her “fitness.” He won an upset victory with 51 percent of the vote.
In 1988, he and Pete Dawkins, a former West Point football star and Vietnam War hero, slugged it out with blunt and sometimes provably false campaign television advertisements. “Gladiator sports are in,” Mr. Lautenberg observed. He won with 54 percent.
Mr. Lautenberg contributed heavily to his own campaigns, using the wealth he had gained after joining with two boyhood friends to develop a payroll services company, Automatic Data Processing, now better known as ADP.
Mr. Lautenberg was a strong backer of motorcycle-helmet laws. Mark V. Rosenker, a former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, recalled on Monday that the senator had kept a broken helmet in his office and showed it to visitors.
“He was skiing and he hit a tree or a rock or something, and that thing broke open like an egg, and it saved his life,” Mr. Rosenker said.
Frank Raleigh Lautenberg was born in Paterson, N.J., on Jan. 23, 1924, to Sam and Mollie Lautenberg, Jewish immigrants from Poland and Russia. The family was poor. His father repeatedly tried to start up small businesses, returning to work in Paterson’s silk mills when the ventures failed.
In 2000, Mr. Lautenberg accompanied a reporter for The Star-Ledger of Newark to a long-closed silk mill. “My father took me in there one time and told me to look around,” he told the reporter. “He said you must never work like this. He said you have to get an education. I was 12; it didn’t mean a lot to me at the time. But it must have sunk in, because I did get an education. I didn’t want to work and struggle like he did.”
Mr. Lautenberg served in the Army Signal Corps in World War II and, after his discharge in 1946, used the postwar G.I. Bill of Rights to attend Columbia University, graduating in 1949. That experience, he said later, made him a strong supporter of the G.I. Bill enacted over Bush administration objections in 2008. The measure sharply increased educational benefits.
He briefly worked for the Prudential Insurance Company, but in 1952 approached Joe and Henry Taub, the classmates who had only recently started the payroll firm. Mr. Lautenberg persuaded them to hire him to sell the company’s services.
When he joined the company, he was its fifth employee. But it grew rapidly, and by 1982, when he left the company as its chief executive, it was one of the largest computer service companies in the world, with 15,000 employees.
He is survived by his wife, the former Bonnie Englebardt, whom he married in 2004; 4 children from his first marriage, to Lois Levenson, which ended in divorce in 1988: Nan Morgart, Ellen Lautenberg, Lisa Birer and Josh Lautenberg; 2 stepchildren, Danielle Englebardt and Lara Englebardt Metz; and 13 grandchildren.
As a boy Mr. Lautenberg did not have a bar mitzvah because his family’s poverty and frequent moves precluded joining a synagogue. But after he became aware of the Holocaust during the war, he began to contribute to Jewish causes. In 1968 he established the Lautenberg Center for General and Tumor Immunology at the Hebrew University Medical Faculty in Jerusalem. He served as president of the American Friends of Hebrew University, was a member of the Jewish Agency for Israel’s board of governors, and from 1975 to 1977 was general chairman of the United Jewish Appeal.
He also began donating money to Democratic candidates, including $90,000 to George McGovern’s presidential race in 1972, the last before there were effective limits on individual contributions.
When asked once why he had decided to enter politics at 58, he said he had been giving money to liberals like Mr. McGovern, Birch Bayh, Edward M. Kennedy and Gary Hart. “If I’m willing to support them,” he asked rhetorically, “why shouldn’t I support myself?”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/04/nyregion/frank-lautenberg-new-jersey-senator.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&#h[]