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Smoking may increase suicide risk, study says

By MONTE MORIN, Los Angeles Times

It’s well known that cigarettes are bad for your health, but does smoking make you more likely to kill yourself too?

In a paper published Wednesday in the journal Nicotine & Tobacco Research, authors argued that smoking and suicide may be more closely related than previously thought.

The researchers analyzed suicide rates in states that aggressively implemented anti-smoking policies from 1990 to 2004 and compared them to suicide rates in states that had more relaxed policies.

Those states that imposed cigarette excise taxes and smoke-free air regulations had lower adjusted suicide rates than did states with fewer anti-smoking initiatives, authors wrote.
“There does seem to be a substantial reduction in the risk for suicide after these policies are implemented,” said lead study author Richard Grucza, a psychiatric epidemiologist at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

“For every dollar in excise taxes there was actually a 10% decrease in the relative risk for suicide,” Grucza told Washington University BioMed Radio. “The smoke-free air policies were also very strongly associated with reduced suicide risk.”

Study authors said that states with lower taxes on cigarettes and more lax policies on public smoking had suicide rates that were up to 6% greater than the national average.

This is not the first study to document a correlation between cigarette smoking and suicide, but it is among the first to suggest smoking and nicotine may be specific factors.

Up until now, researchers believed smoking coincided with suicide because people with psychiatric problems or substance abuse problems were more likely to smoke as well as to commit suicide.
“Markedly elevated rates of smoking are found among people with anxiety disorders, alcohol and drug dependence, schizophrenia and other diagnoses, in both clinical and general studies,” authors wrote. “However, it is also possible that smoking is not merely a marker for psychiatric disorders, but rather directly increases the risk for such disorders, which in turn increases the risk for suicide.”

Grucza said that the imposition of anti-smoking rules presented the researchers with a naturally occurring experiment. However, the authors did note that there were limitations on their research.

In particular, they said that since they considered state-imposed anti-smoking efforts only, their research would not account for local-level policies aimed at smoking behavior.

“While further studies may be required to establish a compelling weight of evidence, this study provides strong epidemiological support in its favor of the proposition that smoking is a casual risk factor for suicide,” authors wrote.

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-smoking-suicide-20140716-story.html

Secondhand smoke as harmful to pets as people

By SUE MANNING, Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Ten years ago, Shirley Worthington rushed Tigger to the vet when the dog’s mouth started bleeding. When she was told he had cancer, she knew to blame her heavy smoking, an addiction she couldn’t kick until after her pet died.

Secondhand smoke can cause lung and nasal cancer in dogs, malignant lymphoma in cats and allergy and respiratory problems in both animals, according to studies done at Tufts University’s School of Veterinary Medicine in Massachusetts, Colorado State University and other schools.

The number of pets that die each year from tobacco exposure isn’t available, but vets know from lab tests and office visits that inhaling smoke causes allergic reactions, inflammation and nasal and pulmonary cancers in pets, said Dr. Kerri Marshall, the chief veterinary officer for Trupanion pet insurance.

Despite Worthington’s certainty about the cause of her dog’s death, more research needs to be done before veterinarians can definitively say whether a dog’s cancer was caused by secondhand smoke or something else, said Dr. Liz Rozanski, whose research at Tufts College focuses on respiratory function in small animals.

Worthington, 52, of Brooklyn, New York, said she was a teenager when she started smoking and she had always smoked around Tigger, who was 8 when he died in 2004. A year later, Worthington, her mom and sister all quit in honor of the bichon frise.

Then, in 2007, Worthington’s mom died while suffering from cancer.

“Cigarettes took my mother,” she said. “And they took my dog.”

Pets aren’t mentioned in this year’s surgeon general’s report, but in 2006, it said secondhand smoke puts animals at risk. The Legacy Foundation, the nation’s largest nonprofit public health charity, encouraged smokers to quit for the sake of their pets, and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals urged making homes with pets smoke-free.

It’s even more important to safeguard cats, which are more susceptible to tobacco smoke than dogs.

Lymphoma is one of the leading causes of feline death. The Tufts research showed that repeated exposure to smoke doubled a cat’s chances of getting the cancer and living with a smoker for more than five years increased the risk fourfold. It can also cause a fatal mouth cancer.

Tobacco companies acknowledge the risks of smoking in people but haven’t taken the same stance with dogs and cats. Philip Morris USA says on its website that it believes cigarettes cause diseases and aggravates others in non-smokers and that the problems warrant warnings.

But “we haven’t taken a stand on the potential impact on pets,” said David Sylvia, a spokesman for Altria Group Inc., the parent company of Philip Morris.

Symptoms of cancer in animals include coughing, trouble eating or breathing, drooling, weight loss, vomiting, nasal discharge, bleeding and sneezing. Cancer kills more dogs and cats than any other disease, according to Denver-based Morris Animal Foundation, which has been funding pet cancer research since 1962.

In addition, the recent surge in the use of electronic cigarettes has raised questions about their impact on pets. The greatest danger is the trash, where dogs can find nicotine cartridges from e-cigarettes, said Rozanski, the Tufts veterinarian.

“You wouldn’t think dogs would eat such things, but they do,” she said.

___

Online:

Tufts University: www.tufts.edu/vet

ASPCA: www.aspca.org

Legacy Foundation: www.legacyforhealth.org

Morris Animal Foundation: www.morrisanimalfoundation.org

http://bismarcktribune.com/news/national/secondhand-smoke-as-harmful-to-pets-as-people/article_8a132d3e-e45d-53ed-8ca8-cb831ca46390.html#.U8VrjqFboDM.facebook

Tobacco companies have made cigarettes deadlier than ever

Updated by 

Over the last five decades, the tobacco industry has engineered cigarettes to be more addictive — and has also made them more dangerous.

Smokers suffer from higher risk of lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) todaycompared to 1964, when the very first Surgeon General’s report on cigarettes was issued. This infographic, from The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, lays out exactly how cigarettes have changed in the last 50 years.

Screen_Shot_2014-06-23_at_1.50.55_PMCompared to cigarettes in Australia and Canada, tobacco blends used in U.S. cigarettes have higher levels of tobacco-specific nitrosamines (TSNAs), chemicals known to cause cancer. TSNA levels have increased since 1964.

Cigarette companies also introduced ventilation holes in cigarette filters so that cigarettes would look healthier on paper. The ventilation holes cause machines to report lower levels of tar and nicotine when testing cigarettes. However, it’s been documented that these ventilation holes actually change how people smoke cigarettes. Smokers inhale more frequently and more deeply, drawing cancer-causing chemicals farther into the lungs.
The ill effects of these design changes are compacted by efforts to make cigarettes more attractive and more addictive.
Tobacco companies have introduced flavorings to make the taste of cigarettes more appealing, while also introducing chemicals that reduce discomfort and irritation in the lungs. Higher levels of nicotine, ammonia, and sugars have increased the addictiveness of cigarettes over time.
The smoking rate in the United States has hit an historic low — but tobacco use remains the greatest source of preventable death in the United States. According to the Surgeon General, smoking kills 480,000 Americans each year. It’s estimated that half of today’s smokers will die prematurely, losing, on average, ten years of life. It takes a toll on the nation’s economy, too: $289 billion is spent on health care and other financial losses associated with cigarettes annually.
The Tobacco Free Kids report calls for more aggressive oversight of the tobacco industry by the Food and Drug Administration. This is somewhat new terrain for the FDA; the agency wasn’t able to regulate tobacco much until 2009, when Congress enacted the Tobacco Control Act. Early efforts to stretch this regulatory muscle haven’t always been successful — the FDA wasn’t able to require cigarette manufacturers to totally overhaul their labeling to make health hazards more obvious, for example.
http://www.vox.com/2014/6/23/5835158/tobacco-companies-have-made-cigarettes-deadlier-than-ever?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=ezraklein&utm_content=sunday

Teen Smoking Is Way Down. But What About E-cigs?

Alexandra Sifferlin, Time Magazine
Rates of cigarette smoking among high school students has dropped to lowest level in 22 years, the CDC reports.
In 2013, the smoking rate among high school students hit 15.7%, which means the U.S. government has already reached its goal of lowing the teen smoking rate to 16% of less by 2020. That’s according to the National Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), which began in 1991. Another important data set on teen smoking and drug use—Monitoring the Future (MTF)—reports the rate is at 16.3%. Regardless, both surveys show fewer kids are smoking.
That’s good news, and it’s likely thanks to a combination of several factors, the most important being the rising costs of cigarettes. Others include the growing stigmatization of smoking, with half of states prohibiting smoking in places like bars and restaurants. The adult smoking rate is dropping too, which means teens have fewer smoking role models.
If teens are passing around fewer packs of cigarettes, does that mean they’re not smoking other things? Past data has shown a 123% increase in the consumption of other smokable tobacco products like cigars and pipes, though the recent numbers from the larger data sets show no change in smokeless tobacco use since 1999, and a drop in cigar use.
yrbs_release_smoking_final-copy
One question you’re likely going to see is whether teens are switching to e-cigarettes. E-cigarettes is a subject the public health community is uncharacteristically split on. On one side of the spectrum, you have critics arguing that it’s possible e-cigarettes serve as a gateway to regular cigarettes. One vocal critic being the head of the CDC himself. “The increased use of e-cigarettes by teens is deeply troubling,” said CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden in a statement about teen tobacco use going down. “Nicotine is a highly addictive drug. Many teens who start with e-cigarettes may be condemned to struggling with a lifelong addiction to nicotine and conventional cigarettes.”
Emerging data points to certain trends, but e-cigs are still so new. Earlier this fall, a CDC report showed that e-cig use among teens, while still low, had doubled in a year, from 3.3% in 2011 to 6.8% in 2012.
Dr. Kenneth Warner, a professor of health management and policy at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, looked back through the data and found that among kids who have never smoked a conventional cigarette, only 0.7% have ever tried an e-cigarette within the last 30 days. What this shows is that the same kids who are smoking regular cigarettes are smoking e-cigs.
“Everyone thinks they are right and the logical thing is that nobody knows,” says Warner. “This is a huge-stakes issue, because the proliferation of e-cigs has the potential to either reduce the cigarette problem or increase it over time among kids.”
The reality is we have a long way to go. It took 40 years to get the adult smoking rate down to around 20%, and it won’t be easy to cut it in half again. Warner and his colleague David Mendez have created a smoking-prevalence model that’s been used since the 1990s. Their predictions show that at the rate we are going, we might not be able to hit a 10% adult smoking rate until the middle of the century. But that’s if we don’t try anything radically different.
“I believe we will do better because I don’t think we’ll stick with just status quo tobacco control,” says Warner. “In my judgment, the future lies in how effectively FDA can regulate cigarettes and other [nicotine] products.”
The FDA announced it is expanding its regulatory powers to cover more tobacco products including e-cigs, but anti-smoking advocates are arguing it’s still not enough.
“The data on kids is great, but we have a long way to go before we can pack up and go home and say we solved the problem,” says Warner.
You can read more on the latest CDC numbers here.
http://time.com/2864214/teen-smoking-is-way-down-but-what-about-e-cigs/

'Teens choosing health': Smoking hits a landmark low

Kim Painter, Special for USA TODAY

Cigarette smoking among high school students in the United States has reached a landmark low in a survey health officials have been conducting every two years since 1991.

Just 15.7% of teens were current smokers in 2013, down from 27.5% when the survey began and 36.4% in the peak year of 1997, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday. That means the nation has already met the government’s official goal of getting teen smoking below 16% by 2020.

“I think the bottom line is that our teens are choosing health,” CDC Director Tom Frieden said.

Frieden was referring not just to the progress on smoking, but to other gains in healthy behaviors picked up in the nationally representative Youth Risk Behavior Survey of more than 13,000 teens. Data for the report also come from state and local versions of the survey. The surveys are conducted at public and private high schools.

The data show teens are drinking less alcohol and fewer sodas, getting into fewer physical fights and having less sex with more birth control. Also, despite all the recent news about school shootings, the share of students threatened or injured with a gun, knife or other weapon on school property has dropped to 6.9%, from a peak of 9.2% in 2003.

But it’s not all good news: Condom use among the sexually active (about one third of teens) is down to 59%, from a peak of 63% in 2003. Condoms remain essential for protection from HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, but teens may not be getting the message, Frieden says.

Even the news on tobacco is mixed: A once-rapid decline in cigar use has slowed, leaving cigars as popular as cigarettes with high school boys. Cigars were smoked by 23% of 12th grade boys in the month before the survey. Smokeless tobacco use hasn’t changed since 1999, holding at about 8%. Other surveys have shown increases in e-cigarette and hookah use. And the declines in cigarette use are uneven from place to place, reflecting varying tobacco control efforts, Frieden says.

“We’re moving in the right direction,” with the help of increased cigarette taxes, better educational campaigns and other measures, says Vince Willmore, a spokesperson for the non-profit Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, Washington, D.C. “But the fight against tobacco isn’t over and it can’t be over when you still have 2.7 million high school kids who smoke.”

The survey, a treasure trove of data on more than 100 risky behaviors, “tells us what kids do but not why,” says Stephanie Zaza, director of CDC’s division of adolescent and school health. Among other details:

• 25% of students were in a physical fight in the year before the survey, down from 42% in 1991. Just 8% fought at school, down from 16%.

• 32% watched three daily hours of TV, down from 43% in 1999. But some of that time apparently shifted to computers, with 41% using a computer for non-school reasons at least three hours a day, up from 22% in 2003.

• 27% had at least one soda a day, down from 34% in 2007.

• 41% of those who drove admitted to texting or e-mailing while driving. CDC first asked about texting in 2011, but with a differently worded question, so it can’t say whether rates are up or down.

• 2.3 % had ever used heroin, a number that has remained fairly steady through the years. But in some large urban school districts, use was much higher, up to 7.4%.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/06/12/teen-cigarette-cdc-survey/10368235/

Health Insurance Surcharge Has Vapers Fuming

By  via GOOD MORNING AMERICA

Under the Affordable Care Act, insurance companies can charge smokers and other tobacco users up to 50 percent more than non-smokers for a health insurance policy. But where do e-smokers fit in?

E-cigarettes are battery-operated nicotine inhalers that consist of a rechargeable lithium battery, a cartridge called a cartomizer and an LED that lights up during each puff. Although they contain no tobacco, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration plans on regulating them like cigarettes and cigars. This, it turns out, is complicating things for insurance companies.

While the ACA allows insurance companies to charge higher premiums to smokers and other tobacco users, the definition of a “smoker” is unclear under the law.

One way insurance companies could deal with e-cigarettes is to lump them in with tobacco products – a move that would subject so-called vapers to the same higher premiums as cigarette smokers. The companies could also swing the other way and decide to cover the cost of e-cigarettes as a means to help people quit smoking, despite a lack of evidence that the devices work as well as a patch. Insurers could also choose to ignore e-cigs altogether.

”The Affordable Care Act does not specify e-cigarette use for purposes of cessation coverage or tobacco surcharge application,” the American Cancer Society said in a statement to ABC News. “The lack of clarity may allow health plans to try to add the surcharge for e-cigarettes.”

If and when the FDA regulation of e-cigarettes goes into effect, insurance companies could change any of their current policies to reflect the agency’s direction. In the meantime, most companies claim they have too little experience with the devices to have a position, according to an informal poll by the National Association of Health Underwriters.

Carrie McLean, director of customer care for the online health insurance brokerage eHealth, said some insurers are telling their agents to add a smoking surcharge for those who vape.

“If a consumer indicates they use e-cigarettes, the carriers are expecting them to be uprated just as if they are a smoker,” she said, noting that consumers aren’t actually asked about the type of tobacco products they use during the health insurance application process – just whether they use them at all.

America’s Health Insurance Plans, an association which represents most of the country’s large health insurance companies, recommends that agents ask about regular tobacco use in the last six months and the most recent use. However, if a consumer were to ask for clarification about whether or not e-cigarettes count as tobacco use, then an agent is obliged to add the surcharge, McLean said.

“The problem arises because most people fill out their applications online and, as of now, most applications don’t ask specifically about e-cigarettes,” McLean said. “Consumers are left to decide on their own whether or not they consider themselves a tobacco user.”

It’s an important question to settle, as the price differential can be significant.

For example, a plan for a 40-year-old non-smoker with a $35,000 income that costs $3,857 a year minus a $532 tax credit would rise to $5,254 for someone labeled a smoker, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s exchange subsidy calculator. In some cases, the rate increase might even be larger than the 50 percent increase the ACA allows because government tax credits only apply to the base premium and not the tobacco surcharge.

Not surprisingly, e-cigarette advocates are fired up about vaping being likened to smoking by insurance companies. Cynthia Cabrera, executive director of the e-cigarette industry organization Smoke Free Alternatives Trade Association, said that e-cigarettes and other vaping products are a healthier lifestyle choice than combustible tobacco cigarettes, and argued that it seems inconsistent to apply the same higher insurance rates to vapers.

“The SFATA does not agree with any policy that positions users of electronic cigarettes and other vapor products in the same category as smokers,” she said. “These products do not emit smoke and do not contain tobacco, tar or any of the many carcinogens known to exist in combustible cigarettes.”

But the phenomenon of vaping is so new that experts say there’s insufficient science to determine whether e-cigarettes really are a healthier alternative to traditional tobacco products.

Dr. Ravi Ram, the chief medical officer for Blue Shield of Northeastern New York, said that although New York has chosen to eliminate rate increases for e-smokers, he suspects most plans would place e-cigarettes on par with cigarettes in terms of their health risk.

“Until you have some long term data and some actuarial differences to health outcomes such as lung cancer, emphysema, heart disease and other conditions which are significantly impacted by smoking, and likely to be impacted by e-cigarettes as well, you have to rate them the same,” he said.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/health-insurance-surcharge-vapers-fuming/story?id=23628060

 

Study: Tobacco use declines on prime-time TV dramas

By Saba Hamedy, Los Angeles Times
Prime-time television dramas are less smoke friendly than they were in the 1950s.

According to a study published online in the journal Tobacco Control on Thursday, there has been a dramatic decline in visibility of tobacco products on prime-time U.S. broadcast television.
Researchers at the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania determined this drop in portrayals of smoking and tobacco use in prime-time dramas mirrored the national decline in consumption.
The study examined 1,838 hours of popular U.S. prime-time dramas — everything from “Gunsmoke” (in the 1950s) to “House M.D.” (in the 2000s) — shown on television over 56 years.
Research suggested that from 1955 to 2010, tobacco use on television declined from a high of 4.96 instances per hour of programming in 1961 to 0.29 instances per hour in 2010.
The research also noted a decline in consumption and suggested that less prime-time smoking may have led to less smoking by the general population.
“TV characters who smoke are likely to trigger the urge to smoke in cigarette users, making it harder for them to quit,” said Patrick E. Jamieson, the study’s lead author, in a release.
“We now have further evidence that screen-based media are an important factor to consider in continued efforts to reduce the burden of smoking related illness in the U.S. and around the world,” said Dan Romer, the study co-author and APPC associate director.
However, the study, the largest ever of tobacco use on television, looked only at broadcast television shows. Cable programs, such as AMC’s “Mad Men” — where characters frequently smoke cigarettes on screen — were not part of the study.
“Despite the decline since 1961, tobacco use on TV remains a cause for concern,” Jamieson said. “The decline in prime-time TV tobacco use is welcome news, but we need to learn more about tobacco portrayal on cable TV, YouTube, and other popular Internet-based sources.”

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-tobacco-use-primetime-tv-dramas-20140403,0,5751556.story#ixzz2yJOrzdCI

Hookah is not harmless, experts say

By: REUTERS/SUSANA VERA
Smoking hookah can be addictive and harmful, though many dabblers may not realize the dangers, according to a new review.
“The cooled and sweetened flavor of hookah tobacco makes it more enticing to kids and they falsely believe it’s less harmful,” Tracey E. Barnett from the University of Florida in Gainesville told Reuters Health.
Barnett has studied the recent rise in teen hookah smoking. She was not involved in the new review, published in Respiratory Medicine.
“One-time use can lead to carbon monoxide poisoning or other diseases, including but not limited to tuberculosis, herpes, respiratory illnesses including the flu, and long-term use can lead to heart disease and many cancers,” Barnett said.
To read more, visit http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/02/24/hookah-is-not-harmless-experts-say/

Kathleen Sebelius column: Working toward a tobacco-free generation

For Press-Gazette Media

Here’s a sobering statistic about the tobacco epidemic — a battle many Americans think is already won: If we continue at current smoking rates, 5.6 million children alive today will ultimately die prematurely from smoking. That’s one in 13 kids gone too early due to an entirely preventable cause. That is unacceptable.
That’s why we are asking every American to join our efforts to make the next generation tobacco-free.
Today, we are at a crossroads. In the past 50 years, we’ve more than cut the adult smoking rate in half from nearly 43 percent down to 18 percent, and we’ve reduced 12th-grade students’ smoking rate to 16 percent in 2013 from a high of 38 percent in l976.
Yet nearly 500,000 Americans die of smoking-related disease each year. What’s more, the tobacco epidemic costs us nearly $300 billion in productivity and direct medical costs annually.
I believe a tobacco-free generation is within our reach, but it will take commitment from across the spectrum — from federal, state and local governments, but also from businesses, educators, the entertainment industry and beyond.
Already, we are seeing leadership from the private sector. This month, CVS, the second largest pharmacy chain in the country, announced it will no longer sell tobacco products. In doing so, CVS it is at once reducing access to these harmful products and helping to make smoking less attractive.
We know that consumers, especially children, are influenced by pro-smoking messages when they shop in stores that sell tobacco products. This includes the display of cigarettes behind the register known as the “power wall.” For young people, power walls help shape cigarette brand awareness and the sense that smoking is normal and accepted.
In multiple ways, CVS’ decision will have impact. I applaud this private sector health leader for taking an important new step to curtail tobacco use. I hope that other retailers will take up this pro-health mantle.
The stakes are high. Each day, more than 3,200 youth under age 18 in the United States try their first cigarette, and another 700 kids under age 18 who’ve been occasional smokers become daily smokers.
I am thrilled that earlier this month, the Food and Drug Administration launched its first national tobacco education campaign, TheRealCost.gov. The campaign is targeting on-the-cusp youth –— the 12- to 17-year-old kids who are open to smoking or have experimented with cigarettes, but are not regular smokers.
But creating a tobacco-free generation cannot start and end with our youngest citizens: working toward this goal begins in the present, and reaching adult smokers is essential.
In that light, I’m very pleased the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has started the third season of its impactful Tips From Former Smokers campaign. The 2012 tips series alone prompted an estimated 1.6 million smokers to try to quit, resulting in more than 200,000 additional calls to 1-800-QUIT-NOW, and helped at least 100,000 smokers quit for good.
I am inspired by the ongoing work that is necessary to drastically reduce smoking rates in our country. Whether it’s other retailers following CVS’ lead, more colleges and universities joining the 2,000 schools that are part of the Department of Health and Human Services’ National Tobacco-Free College Campus Initiative (tobaccofreecampus.org), or movie studios taking tobacco use and imagery out of youth-rated films, I encourage new partners to help us stop the cycle of sickness, disability and death caused by tobacco.
Victory will require bold action. What will you do to help make the next generation tobacco-free?
Kathleen Sebelius is secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/article/20140220/GPG06/302200419/Kathleen-Sebelius-column-Working-toward-tobacco-free-generation?nclick_check=1

Illinois Could Soon Become The Next State To Ban Smoking In Cars With Children Inside

The Huffington Post  | by  Joseph Erbentraut
Another state could soon ban smokers from lighting up while in a car carrying passengers under the age of 18.
Illinois State Sen. Ira Silverstein, a Chicago Democrat, has proposed legislation (SB 2659) that would hit those who smoke with anyone under the age of 18 in the car with up to a $100 fine.
A vehicle could not be stopped solely as a result of violating the ban, according to bill’s text.
Kathy Drea, vice president of advocacy of the American Lung Association’s Illinois chapter, testified in front of the Senate’s public health committee Tuesday. She said that drivers who light up put their passengers at risk of a smoking-related illness due to the harmful secondhand smoke being experienced within the confined space of a vehicle.
The bill is a “very simple thing that you can do to protect all of our children from a very serious health risk,” Drea added, according to GateHouse Media.
No vote has yet been taken on the measure.
Six other states — Arkansas, California, Louisiana, Maine, Oregon and Utah — already have similar bans on the books, though the cutoff age for child passengers varies from state to state. Puerto Rico has also passed a ban.
The most recent state to pass the smoking ban was Oregon, where a ban went into effect on Jan. 1, 2014. Oregon’s ban includes heftier fines of $250 for a first violationand $500 for additional instances.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/19/illinois-smoking-ban-cars-with-children_n_4818018.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000009