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Study Says Smoking Bans Don't Hurt Bars, Restaurants

A new study suggests a statewide law banning smoking in public places would not harm the restaurant and bar industry and the people who work in it.
The study has been done in North Carolina, the nation’s leading state for tobacco production. It is the home of major tobacco companies including the nation’s largest one, Phillip Morris. It’s also the home of RTI International, a think tank that has explored various health issues including those that are smoking-related.
Missouri is one of eight states without anti-smoking laws that has been studied by RTI. The lead author of the study, Brett Loomis, says the findings are straightforward.
He says local smoking ban ordinances in Missouri “were unrelated to any changes in restaurant and bar employment in those communities and revenues in eating and drinking places also were unaffected by the law.”
RTI looked at eleven years of employment and revenue records for Missouri bars and restaurants, the businesses most often targeted by local ordinances approved in almost cities-and the businesses most likely to oppose local ordinances.
The study has been indirectly underwritten by Pfizer, which makes an anti-smoking drug. Loomis says the company attended no meetings, had nothing to do with gathering and analyzing information. He says it had no influence on the findings.
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http://www.ozarksfirst.com/story/study-says-smoking-bans-dont-hurt-bars-restaurants/d/story/wZ7rRs6YMUGa5lsirLp2Jw

Smoking Ban Tilts Odds Against Ambulance Calls From Casinos

by DEBORAH FRANKLIN
Public health advocates have lobbied hard in recent years to clear restaurants, bars and other workplaces of tobacco smoke, and the winds seem to be at their back.
Already, 36 states and the District of Columbia have enacted some version of an indoor smoking ban to protect the health of workers and patrons, and many local communities in other states have followed suit.
But state-regulated casinos are often exempted from such restrictions (as are, of course, the casinos on tribal lands).
“It’s politics,” says the University of California, San Francisco’s Stanton Glantz, who has spent decades tracing the damaging effects of secondhand smoke to the heart and lungs. “Tobacco and gaming interests really fight for these exemptions,” he tells Shots.
To get a rough measure of whether those exemptions for casinos actually hurt health, Glantz and a colleague scrutinized 13 years’ worth of ambulance call data from Colorado. In particular, they focused on Gilpin County — the high-country home to more than two dozen casinos within about three square miles. The researchers compared the number of calls for ambulances in the county before and after Colorado extended its workplace smoking bans to include casinos in 2008.
The effect seemed “surprisingly strong,” Glantz says of his finding published online this week in the journal Circulation. After the smoking ban in restaurants, bars and most other workplaces was initially enacted in 2006, the number of ambulance-summoning phone calls that were made from any location but casinos dropped by 22.8 percent.
But the number of such calls made from casinos stayed as high as it had been the year before. Then, two years later — after casinos banned smoking, too — the number of such emergency calls made from the grounds of a casino dropped by a little over 19 percent. Such calls from all locations have continued to stay down, years after the implementation of the smoking ban.
Considered in isolation the findings confirm only a correlation, not a causal link, Glantz says. Other factors, such as high gas prices, for example, or tough economic times could have slightly reduced the number of patrons who visited casinos during some of the years studied. Fewer patrons might need fewer emergency calls.
Plus, the database Glantz looked at didn’t reveal the nature of each emergency. Surely some childbirths, dizzy spells and panic attacks were mixed in with the heart attacks, asthma attacks and strokes.
But a study of nine other states, published last week and covering much the same time period, suggests that, contrary to the fears of some business owners, “smoke-free laws did not have an adverse economic impact on restaurants or bars in any of the states studied,” according to the authors.
And in the context of what’s known about how smoke affects physiology, the way the number of calls decreased after each ban makes it “very likely,” Glantz says, that curtailing smoking inside the casinos was what reduced the phone calls about health emergencies.
“All the pieces fit together,” he says.
Many other studies have shown that, in addition to aggravating lung conditions, inhaled smoke can very quickly make platelets stickier and irritate the lining of blood vessels in ways that can lead to the sudden formation of artery-clogging clots that can cause strokes or heart attacks, Glantz says. Last fall two other studies showed that once smoking was banned in bars and workplaces, the number of deaths from heart attacks dropped within months.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/08/05/209149956/smoking-ban-in-casinos-linked-to-fewer-caller-for-ambulances

E-Cigarette Sales to Hit $1 Billion

By ALAN FARNHAM
E-cigarettes—a relative novelty three years ago–are about to hit $1 billion in sales, according to Wells Fargo securities analysts.
While that’s only 1 percent of sales of traditional cigarettes, the number of consumers who say they’ve tried e-smokes is growing fast. The sale of e-cigarettes totaled just $500 million last year.
According to the most recent survey by the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, in 2011 about 21 percent of adults who smoke traditional cigarettes said they had tried the electronic alternative, up from about 10 percent in 2010.
“Overall,” says a CDC press release, “about 6 percent of all adults have tried e-cigarettes, with estimates nearly doubling from 2010.”
“E-cigarette use is growing rapidly,” said CDC director Tom Frieden in a February 2013 release announcing the survey’s findings. “There is still we do not know about these products.”
E-cigarettes, in their most popular form, look like conventional tobacco cigarettes. They do not, however, contain leaf tobacco and they do not burn. As described by CDC, they are battery-powered devices that provide inhaled doses of nicotine vapor and flavorings. Because they do not burn and do not produce smoke, their advocates consider them more socially acceptable than traditional cigarettes.
Their detractors do not. The Long Island Rail Road declared earlier this month that e-cigarettes violate LIRR’s smoking ban, which declares it unlawful for railroad patrons to “burn a lighted cigarette, cigar, pipe or any other matter or substance which contains tobacco or any tobacco substitute.”
SAFER SMOKE OR NEW BAD HABIT?
In the eyes of some, the mere appearance of someone smoking—even smoking a non-tobacco, electronic substitute—creates the dangerous impression that smoking is okay.
“The use of e-cigarettes in public areas in which cigarette smoking is prohibited could counter the effectiveness of [smoke-free compliance] policies by complicating enforcement and giving the appearance that smoking is acceptable,” the CDC report says.
Gregory Conley, legislative director at the Consumer Advocates for Smoke-Free Alternatives Association, scoffs at that attitude, saying, “It looks like smoking…so it must be evil.”
Conley’s association, he says, represents some 5,000 e-cigarette users. Conley says e-cigarettes “annoy people who don’t understand that they’re a great advertisement for smoking-cessation” and “people who believe no one should be allowed to have nicotine in any form.”
NO PROOF E-CIGARETTES COMBAT ADDICTION
The question whether e-cigarettes can be viewed as an aide to quitting smoking, for conventional tobacco users, is a contentious one. Eli Alelov, CEO of LOGIC Technology, makers of LOGIC e-cigarettes, says e-cigarettes are not a health product, and that he’s not claiming they are. At the same time, however, he points out, an e-cigarette contains no tar and no tobacco. It produces no second-hand smoke. Regulations prevent his suggesting that his product is healthier or safer, he says. “So, we leave that up to the public: they can use their logic.”
Alelov says that the people who hate e-cigarettes most include both big tobacco and the tax man. E-cigarettes aren’t taxed the same as regular cigarettes, so “the states hate us, because they’re losing money,” Alelov said.
Five years from now, he thinks, 30 to 40 percent of traditional smokers will have switched to e-cigarettes—perhaps as many as 20 million customers. In five years e-cigarette sales will grow to $15 billion to $20 billion a year, he thinks.
As for what further restrictions might be coming down the pike, Alelov says he’s not particularly worried about any regulations the FDA may eventually promulgate. (The FDA currently does not regulate e-cigarettes, but it is expected to in the future.) He expects the FDA’s regulations, when they come, would apply to packaging, labeling, and minimum age of the buyer.
Alelov says there are some venues where he, personally, won’t smoke an e-cigarette. They include McDonalds, movie theaters and children’s playgrounds. Everywhere else, however — everywhere that nicotine gum or nicotine patches are permitted — he feels e-smokes should be, too.
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/electronic-cigarette-sales-billion/story?id=19815486
 

Reading the smoke signals on e-cigarettes: Can you puff away on a plane, train or in your local bar?

By / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Where there’s smoking, there’s no longer fire — but there’s plenty of heated debate.
Electronic cigarettes, known to smokers as e-cigarettes, are lighting up the city as puffers snuff out their butts in favor of the refillable, rechargeable alternative, which produces a not-so-smelly vapor instead of pungent smoke.
But should tokers treat these devices like cigarettes themselves, keeping the habit out of restaurants, bars, barbershops and airplanes? Or should they light up wherever the mood strikes, taking advantage of industry claims that the synthetic nicotine sticks are as harmless to passersby as nightclub fog machines?
Depends on who — and where — you ask.
Trains, planes and buses are out of the question.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority told the Daily News it allows no e-cigs on the E train or any of its rides, for that matter.
“We would interpret our prohibition on smoking as applying to electronic cigarettes,” a spokeswoman wrote in an e-mail.
The Long Island Rail Road also extends it cigarette ban to e-cigarettes.
The U.S. Department of Transportation says no smoking — or “vaping,” as e-cigarette enthusiasts call it — on airplanes.
But that’s where the formal prohibitions end. The city Parks Department doesn’t consider vaping to be smoking, meaning Mayor Bloomberg’s ban on puffers in parks is not airtight.
More importantly, the city’s Department of Health says Bloomberg’s defining Smoke Free Air Act, which prohibits smoking inside public places, does not govern electronic smoking. That means as far as the city is concerned, any bar, restaurant, movie theater, nightclub, bowling alley, nail salon or shopping mall is fair game for vaping.
That is, of course, if business owners choose to allow it.
Some do, and some don’t: Starbucks recently snuffed out the chance for patrons to enjoy coffee and e-cigarettes, while lower East Side bars Iggy’s, Whiskey Ward and Coal Yard don’t have a problem with it. On the other hand, many Times Square bars and Broadway theaters say no to e-smoking.
It’s a legal area that’s grayer than a smoker’s lungs, according to Phil Roseman, co-owner of VapeNY, Manhattan’s first electronic-cigarette shop.
“What we tell our customers is that you can vape anywhere you like,” says Roseman, whose newly opened lower East Side storefront sells the battery-powered devices for about $40 a pop, as well as flavored refills like coffee, vanilla and “juicy fruit.” “I’ve taken it on planes, into restaurants and movie theaters, and never had a problem.”
The store has been doing brisk businesses, as more and more nicotine addicts decide they don’t want to pay $15 for a pack of real cigarettes when there’s a cheaper, less-taxed, and more socially permissable alternative.
Not to mention, one that doesn’t stink up the whole apartment.
“I can use this e-cigarette as much as I want and my wife doesn’t complain about the smell,” says lower East Side resident Mike Chan, 41, a VapeNY regular who spends about $30 a month on the liquid refills, down significantly from his cigarette-smoking days.
That’s not to say all New Yorkers are welcoming the glowing tip of these electronic devices.
“There was a time when I was wasted, vaping an e-cigarette, and someone came up to me and told me to put it out,” says Alex Catarinella, 26. “I blew smoke in his face and then pretended to put out my cigarette on his chest. He jumped!”
Writers and regular e-smokers Christelle Gérand, 27, and Joel Johnson, 35, toured the city with the Daily News and vaped openly in bars, restaurants, a dry cleaner and even a grocery store without anyone telling them to cut it out.
“I am surprised at how many places don’t seem to mind — especially bars,” says Johnson.
One place that will never turn e-smokers away is the Henley Lounge, planned to open in SoHo in September. The local e-cigarette company hopes to screen films and host talks, all while passing out samples of its Henley e-cigs.
“Our job with this company is to educate people that nicotine is like caffeine,” says Henley co-founder Talia Eisenberg. “Yes, it’s addictive, but it’s not going to hurt you.”
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/rules-e-cigarettes-article-1.1412964?pgno=1#ixzz2ajJYNc2i
 

E-CIGARETTE BAN: Hennepin County property now off-limits

by Bill Keller
Smokers may be able to smoke in vehicles and their homes, but there are fewer public places to light up. Now, even electronic cigarettes are banned on Hennepin County property.
Most private buildings have a rule about smoking near entrances, but a new law is cutting a new way to cut cravings out of the picture.
“I was just a little disappointed that the county would take that stand on them because people are trying to quit,” said Donna Bratulich.
E-cigarettes seemed to fill a void as smoking restrictions continued to mount by offering a way to get a nicotine fix without breaking the law, but Hennepin County employees got an e-mail clarifying the tobacco-free property policy on Tuesday that listed the devices on a list of prohibited products.
“We are proactive. We’ve been proactive here,” said Hennepin County Administrator David Hough. “We want to make sure that our workforce and the residents, clients in the building are being protected.”
Hough said the decision was made after concerns were raised last week even though e-cigarettes do not violate the state’s Clean Indoor Air Act.
“The law is very specific in how it defines smoking as involving the combustion of tobacco or other materials to create smoke,” Dan McElroy, of the Minnesota Restaurant Association, told FOX 9 News. “So, an e-cigarette is not a cigarette or smoking device in the eyes of the law.”
McElroy told FOX 9 News he is not aware of any restaurants that ban e-cigarettes, but he has fielded several questions on the topic.
“The difference in e-cigarettes is they don’t create second-hand impact,” he explained.
Hennepin County’s decision may mark the first ban on nicotine regardless of where it comes from, and it applies to anyone on Hennepin County property regardless of whether the person works there or not.
Metro Transit is also in the process of updating its rules to make using e-cigarettes on a bus or light rail a violation of its code of conduct.
Read more: E-CIGARETTE BAN: Hennepin County property now off-limits – KMSP-TV http://www.myfoxtwincities.com/story/22973287/e-cigarette-ban-hennepin-county-property-now-off-limits#ixzz2ajIG8Ki4
 

The electronic cigarette ignites debate

By Michael Crusan – email
Eau Claire (WQOW) – Electronic cigarettes are technically smoke free, but some businesses and health experts are drawing the line to put them out.
This alternative to smoking is receiving mixed reviews in Eau Claire.
“Have the brown filter, the white battery, I mean it looks just like you’re naturally smoking a cigarette and even the end lights up red,” explains regional manager of Eau Claire Tobacco Shop, Jessica Hartkemeyer.
A red light leading restaurant owners and health officials to say stop.
“Electronic cigarettes, to me, is smoking.  It’s the same thing, it’s the same type of scene it is.  In all our restaurants where we have non-smoking areas, it will be non-smoking for electronic cigarettes,” says Eau Claire restaurant owner Lisa Aspenson.
Especially when the federal government isn’t controlling what’s in a cloud of e-cig vapor.
“The FDA has not evaluated it for the content of nicotine or for other dangerous drugs,” says Mayo Clinic Health System Nurse Practitioner, Kim Edson.
“The FDA, I think, is avoiding putting their stamp of approval on this because it’s not necessarily a quit smoking device.  It can be used as a replacement that’s just a little bit cheaper,” says Hartkemeyer.
So what does your average e-cig contain in a puff of vapor?
“USP grade liquid nicotine, kosher certified natural and artificial flavors,” says Hartkemeyer.
Much shorter than the list of ingredients in a cigarette, but still not approved by doctors.
“For the intent of stopping smoking we don’t recommend it because it still promotes the behaviors of smoking,” says Edson.
Because it’s hard to tell if the cigarette is made with paper or plastic.
“When they first came out I did have customers say, ‘Well bars asked me not to use these or restaurants because it gives the impression that we are smoking in the establishment’,” says Hartkemeyer.
“So I think we’ll just stay with the non-smoking trend and maybe be the first to implement it in the Eau Claire area,” says Aspenson.
Instead asking smokers to step outside whether they light or ignite.
Aspenson also owns the Livery in downtown Eau Claire and says they do allow outdoor smoking for tobacco or electronic cigarettes at that location.
Read more or view video:  http://www.wqow.com/story/22960738/2013/07/29/the-electronic-cigarette-ignites-debate

Law banning smoking in restaurants turns 10

 / Featured Stories, Fulton News
For many of us, it seems like a lifetime ago when we were asked if we wanted to be seated at the smoking or non-smoking section in our local restaurant.
For Zachary and Matthew Metott, it was an actual lifetime ago. The Metott boys turn 10 years old this year and have never known a world where smoking was allowed in New York state restaurants. July 24th is the 10th anniversary of the Expanded Clean Indoor Air Act, most commonly known for prohibiting smoking in bars and restaurants.
The 2003 state law banned smoking in almost all workplaces, bars, restaurants, bowling facilities, taverns and bingo halls and protected millions of New Yorkers from daily exposure to second-hand smoke and the illnesses it causes.
When the Metott boys were asked their thoughts on having smoking and non-smoking sections in restaurants Matthew replied, “That’s just weird!” Zachary added “I’d wonder why they were doing that.”
Zachary and Matthew met at Vona’s Restaurant to talk with the Tobacco Free Network of Oswego County about this milestone. Vona’s was one of the first Oswego restaurants to go smoke-free, making the decision before New York even passed the Expanded Clean Indoor Air Act. The boys also had strong opinions on being exposed to smoke in restaurants.
“We wouldn’t want to go there to enjoy time with our family because it would hurt us or make our little sisters sick,” said Zachary.
A recent survey of bars and restaurants in Oswego County revealed that compliance with the law 10 years later is excellent. In fact, there was a 100 percent compliance rate at the time of the unannounced survey. Despite the success of this law and the countless lives that have been saved, smoking remains the leading cause of preventable death and kills more than 25,000 New Yorkers every year.
The U.S. Surgeon General characterizes youth smoking as a pediatric epidemic, and states that the evidence is clear that tobacco marketing causes youth to start smoking, and most start before they reach the age of 18.
“Smoking is still a problem in Oswego County and New York state as whole, particularly among teens,” said Abby Jenkins, Program Coordinator of the Tobacco Free Network of Oswego County. “Zachary and Matthew have never known a time when smoking was allowed in restaurants. Maybe the next generation of 10 year olds will never know a time when they were inundated with tobacco marketing.”
For more information about efforts to reduce smoking and protect youth from tobacco marketing, visit www.tobaccofreenys.org.
http://valleynewsonline.com/blog/2013/07/27/law-banning-smoking-in-restaurants-turns-10/

Higher cigarette prices do save lives

These findings are a result of a World Health Organization (WHO) study of 41 countries where smoking policies have been in place since 2007.
From their MPOWER model – which stands for Monitoring tobacco use and prevention policies, Protecting people from tobacco smoke, Offering help to quit tobacco use,Warning people about the dangers of tobacco, Enforcing bans on tobacco advertising, and Raising taxes on tobacco – the WHO was able to predict that 7.4 million deaths could be prevented by 2050.
The research has shown that increasing taxes on cigarettes by up to 75% had the greatest impact on smoking, even more so than anti-smoking policies. While smoke-free air laws in 20 of the focus countries had averted 2.5 million premature deaths, tax rises prevented 3.5 million smoking-related deaths.
“Tobacco use is the single most preventable cause of death in the world, with six million smoking-attributable deaths per year today, and these deaths are projected to rise to eight million a year by 2030, if current trends continue,” said Douglas Bettcher, WHO director of the department of non-communicable diseases.
However, even with greater scientific evidence that smoking kills, some people are still resistant to change. And South Africans are no exception.
An uphill battle
Readers’ responses to an article on Heath24 earlier this year, titled ‘SA set to go 100% smoke-free’, are redolent of the resistance faced by advocates for a smoke-free society.
The article covered the announcement by the South African government that new legislation would make all indoors and some outdoor areas 100% smoke-free.
According to the proposed legislation, smoking will be prohibited in:

  • Stadiums, arenas, schools and childcare facilities
  • Health facilities
  • Outdoor eating or drinking areas
  • Places where outdoor events take place
  • Covered walkways and covered parking areas
  • Outdoor service areas and queues
  • Beaches, within 50 metres of a demarcated swimming area
  • Five to 10 metres of entrances, doorways, windows and ventilation inlets

What some of our readers have to say:
Martin said: “I shall continue to smoke in my office, and people needing to see me will continue to wait outside… I’m sorry, cigarettes contribute so little to general air pollution. Look at cars, industries etc. – there are your culprits… my guys suck up welding fumes all day, but smoking is banned, WTF?!?”
Dieter asked: “Is he [the minister of health] that bored with life that they would do something like that? What about overweight people, are they gonna make them stop eating as well? Get a job you’re good at!”
Raven said: “So, my freedom of choice is removed. Where do I sign to have this law scrapped?”
Charmain Nel said: “People give me the sh*ts when all they talk about is smoking. First do something about the DRINKERS WHO KILL PEOPLE. I have never KILLED WHEN SMOKING. The ones that are having a fit are all DRINKERS, which is why nothing gets done. LEAVE US SMOKERS ALONE!”
But with more studies concretely pointing to the dangers of smoking, both for smoker and non-smokers, it’s clear that researchers are not ready to leave the matter alone.
Scientifically speaking
Scientists from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, in the USA, recently proved that third-hand smoke can also kill over time.
They proved that the smelly residue (third-hand smoke), which sticks to almost all surfaces long after the second-hand smoke has cleared out, can actually cause significant long-term genetic damage to human cells.
The researchers said that chemical compounds found in third-hand smoke are among the most potent carcinogens around and are capable of causing most cancers in humans.
And estimated 30% of South Africans are smokers, and about 60% of all lung cancer deaths in South Africa are due to tobacco smoking, according to the national Lung Cancer Association.
“By taking the right measures, this tobacco epidemic can be entirely prevented,” concluded WHO’s Douglas Bettcher.
Hayden Horner
http://www.health24.com/Lifestyle/Stop-smoking/News/Higher-cigarette-prices-do-save-lives-20130717

Electronic cigarettes could rekindle battles over smoking in public

Article by: ANDREW WAGAMAN, Star Tribune
It was trivia night, and Michael Jamnick didn’t want to leave the TGI Friday’s in Maple Grove to go outside and have a smoke. So he started puffing right where he sat.
The 27-year-old from Minnetonka wasn’t breaking the law: He was using an electronic cigarette.
Still, Jamnick said he felt uncomfortable vaping (the e-cigarette term for lighting up).
“It’s been, what, six years now since they passed the smoking ban in Minnesota?” he said. “You give it a funny look because you haven’t seen it in a while.”
Electronic cigarettes have been on a slow burn for years, but they’ve recently caught fire. National sales jumped to $500 million in 2012 and are projected to clear $1 billion this year. In the Twin Cities, at least a dozen e-cigarette specialty shops have opened and shop owners say the growing business will likely see a boost from the $1.60-a-pack tobacco tax hike, which went into effect July 1.
The e-cigarette industry is promoting vaping as a hip, healthier alternative to smoking — and as a way to quit. But while health experts largely agree that the vapor from e-cigarettes poses less of a threat to public health than tobacco cigarettes, some worry that welcoming the so-called “clean nicotine” could erode smoking bans, encourage smokers to trade one addiction for another and hook nonsmokers.
“Shifting entirely over to vaping from smoking would be a big public health plus,” said Robert Proctor, a history of science professor at Stanford University. “But the question of whether e-cigarettes are good or bad isn’t that simple.”
Supplanting cigarettes?
E-cigarettes are battery-powered devices that create a vapor mist from a heated liquid solution when the user inhales on a mouthpiece. The solution, or “e-juice,” and vapor mist, which looks like smoke, typically contain nicotine, but users can regulate the amount. That’s why some vapers say e-cigarettes have helped them quit tobacco — and wean themselves off nicotine altogether.
Research released in late June by Italy’s University of Catania lends support to those claims. The study found that 13 percent of participants who used high-dose e-cigarettes quit smoking. Seventy percent of those who quit smoking eventually gave up e-cigarettes, too.
“As evidenced in this study, when people switch to electronic cigarettes, it absolutely makes it easier to quit nicotine use completely,” said Michael Siegel, a professor at Boston University School of Public Health who studies e-cigarettes. “It’s not as simple as saying people are substituting one addiction for another.”
In fact, Siegel said the quit-rate for e-cigarettes is comparable to rates in other nicotine-replacement therapy studies.
But others maintain that it’s not yet known how harmful vaping could be.
“We frankly don’t know much about them,” said Robert Moffitt, an American Lung Association media relations director.
Concerns about harm from secondhand vapor are not at the forefront. While a 2012 German study found that the vapor is an “aerosol of ultrafine particles,” no studies have shown it to be dangerous. But Moffitt and others question claims that e-cigarettes can help smokers quit.
“We’d strongly recommend anyone from using them,” he said, “especially with so many other valid smoking-cessation devices and techniques that we know work.”
He also doubts that the e-cigarette industry, which includes big tobacco companies, would encourage people to stop using nicotine entirely. “They’re looking for new young people to get hooked on nicotine products,” he said, “and e-cigarettes seem to be the latest.”
Stanford’s Proctor, however, sees both the promise and the threat in the recent rapid spread of e-cigarettes.
“E-cigs seem to offer us the possibility of keeping the addiction, while losing the cancer,” he said. “But is addiction itself a bad thing? That question is splitting the public health community, and it’s not yet clear which direction we’ll go.”
Bans cropping up
Michael “Troop” Wolberg, 41, used to smoke two packs of cigarettes a day. After trying to quit several times, he turned to e-cigarettes. On his third day of vaping, the Stacy, Minn., man says he lit his last cigarette. Since then, he’s become a champion of e-cigarettes. He’s written online reviews of vaping products, become a member of the Minnesota Vapers Club and helps run an online business that sells flavored e-juice.
Wolberg, who calls himself an advocate of “tobacco harm reduction,” isn’t shy about using his e-cigarette. “I’m rather proud to display it in public because I think it needs to be seen,” he said.
Cynthia Hallett couldn’t disagree more. Hallett, executive director of Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights, says vaping could undermine the hard-won battles to establish non-smoking areas.
Proctor echoes her concerns. “If you can’t tell whether someone is vaping or smoking, that could work to erode established no-smoking zones,” he said.
So far, e-cigarettes aren’t widely regulated.
In 2012, Minnesota passed a law banning the sale of e-cigarettes to minors. But, in part because e-cigarettes don’t burn anything, they haven’t been legally prohibited in public places. (This spring the St. Paul City Council proposed banning e-cigarettes in indoor public spaces, but the proposal was dropped.)
However, the electronic cigarettes have been banned in K-12 schools in the state and some colleges and universities also have moved to ban them.
“It was part of promoting a healthier lifestyle and clean environment for our students,” said Amber Luinenberg, coordinator of communications for Minnesota West Community and Technical College, which prohibits vaping on its five outstate campuses. “I think students in particular are very accustomed to tobacco-free locations, so there was no controversy at all. They were very receptive to it.”
Managers at local restaurants and bars say they are just starting to see people use e-cigarettes in their establishments. While some have banned them, others are taking a wait-and-see approach.
Parasole Restaurant Holdings bans vaping at its restaurants, said Kip Clayton, public relations director. “To not do so when dealing with thousands of people a night,” at restaurants like Uptown Cafeteria and Chino Latino, “would be inviting trouble,” he said.
The Lung Association’s Moffitt hopes legal measures will be taken to ban e-cigarettes in public places before they become more common.
“Maybe we need to put the kibosh on these right now,” he said.
For now, using e-cigarettes may come to down to common courtesy.
Jamnick, who has quit smoking cigarettes, doubts he’ll use his e-cigarette much anymore when he’s out.
“Generally, I try to avoid using it around other people,” he said, “because some people just don’t like it.”
http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/health/215258211.html?page=1&c=y

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.