Toward Tobacco-Free Campuses

The American College Health Association released new guidelines Monday urging colleges and universities to adopt policies barring all tobacco use indoors and outdoors on their campuses.
The recommendations signal a shift for the association, which in its previous position statement, adopted in 2005, urged campus health officials to ban all smoking indoors but still permit it in “designated smoking spaces” outside.
Jim Turner, president of the ACHA and executive director of the University of Virginia’s student health center, said the guidelines reflect policies that are “from a public health standpoint, what we all aspire to have for our campuses.”He acknowledged the position statement “sets a very, very high bar for some campuses to get to,” but said that the members of the ACHA’s board, executive committee and Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs Coalition considered it “an important statement to be made” about tobacco use on campuses. “We may not achieve our total goal across the country but at least we can provoke a debate and get some movement on our campuses.”
Cynthia Hallett, executive director of Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights, called the guidelines “excellent” progress and said she hoped campuses would seriously consider adopting them.
As of October 6, Hallett’s group had identified 365 U.S. colleges and universities with policies requiring that all campus spaces, indoors and outdoors, be smokefree. Another 76 institutions have “100 percent smokefree campuses with minor exemptions for remote outdoor areas.”
All 33 public college and university campuses in the state of Arkansas prohibit smoking inside and outside. Despite complaints and protests coming from employees and students, a law enacted last year in Pennsylvania bars smoking indoors and outdoors at all 14 universities in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education.
The ACHA’s recommendations go even further. They ban not just the use of cigarettes, cigars and other smoke-producing products but also the use of snuff, chewing tobacco and other smokeless tobacco products. The eventual goal, as described in the position statement, is “becoming or maintaining tobacco-free living and learning environments that support the achievement of personal and academic goals.”
John Nothdurft, a legislative specialist on tobacco at the Heartland Institute, a nonprofit with libertarian and conservative positions, said he is “not surprised by any means” by the ACHA’s recommendations. “You saw this in Pennsylvania, you’ve seen this in other states,” he said. “This is more of a PR stunt than anything else. It’s more nannying going on by organizations trying to win brownie points from special interest groups.”
Nothdurft expressed concern that institutions would adopt policies “without considering all the unintended consequences and questions it creates.” Students, employees and visitors, he said, “will have to go off campus – maybe to an unsafe area, maybe not – just to use a legal product that they should be able to use outdoors without doing harm to others.”
He also criticized the absence of recommendations on how to enforce tobacco-free policies. “It’s hard to enforce a smoking ban and this document offers no suggestions,” he said. “As I see it, all these activities could keep going on” without penalty on campuses that choose to adopt the ACHA’s recommendations.
Turner said he “heard very little resistance” from within the ACHA on adopting the recommendations. “One concern a member had was that our guidelines not violate state or local law but, from a public health standpoint, we all agreed this was needed.”
Turner said that the University of Virginia, his institution and the flagship university in a state that’s had a dominant tobacco industry for centuries, enacted a ban on smoking outside all its medical facilities and research labs that went into place on October 1, having banned smoking indoors years ago.
“I go over to the medical school for meetings and I no longer see people in their scrub suits smoking outside the back entrance there,” he said. “Anecdotally, in my own little world, it’s really had a profound impact.”

Too worried about tobacco to see alcohol's damage

I thought The Star prided itself on being unbiased, but now I know better. I see the facts, figures and statistics on smoking, but I never see the same things on alcohol. Why is this? Everyone is so worried about the smoking issue but not alcohol abuse. The results of such abuse include higher health-care costs, domestic violence and the devastation to innocent people from drunk driving.
Matthew Tully commented about political issues regarding Mayor Greg Ballard's stand on smoking, but I certainly see more politics concerning alcohol. There is a lot of money involved with alcohol. Advertising is everywhere and the companies sponsor sports, arts and cultural events. What kind of mixed messages are we sending to our youth? Alcohol kills also. Quit blaming so much on tobacco. Let the City-County Council worry about crime for a change.

Nine held over cigarette haul

Gardaí are continuing to question nine men in connection with a seizure of illegal cigarettes last night.
More than 120 million illegal cigarettes, worth an estimated €50 million, were discovered on a ship in Greenore, Co Louth yesterday, the largest seizure in the history of the State.
The men were arrested following a Revenue Customs Service operation which was supported by the Garda.
The nine men include seven Irish nationals aged between 19 and mid-40s, one Lithuanian in his 50s and one Ukrainian in his 40s.
They are being detained under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act 1984 at Garda stations in Cos Louth and Monaghan.
The cigarettes are thought to have been produced in the Philippines. The vessel was kept under surveillance from when it left the Philippines on September 15th until it docked in Greenore early yesterday morning.
Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan today welcomed the seizure and said smuggling has a serious impact on the State¿s tax revenue. Had these cigarettes not been seized, they could have represented an estimated loss of €40 million of tax revenue to public services,¿ he said. ¿This potential €40 million shortfall equates to the cost of employing over 700 teachers in our education system. Citizens should remember that the purchase of illegal contraband directly affects our public service.A former commander at Scotland Yard today said smugglers may be targeting Ireland because of lenient penalties handed out by courts.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland , John O'Connor said that cigarette smuggling was seen as a less serious crime than smuggling hard drugs, where sentences can be much harsher.
"Ireland has been seen to be a fairly attractive staging post simply because if you look historically at the penalties that have been imposed by Irish courts for people smuggling cigarettes, I think the average is a fine of €500," he said.
"If you look at the profits involved in smuggling drugs, they're probably greater but the consequences of getting caught are much harsher."
He added that there was a certain amount of public apathy towards the issue of tobacco smuggling and called for a coordinated approach to the problem.
"There are a lot of things that can be done in Ireland to tighten up the problem of tobacco smuggling. It's very difficult to get to the source and stop it but It's a global black economy that really needs to be tackled in a coordinated way."

Author of tax study says trend is up and particular groups are most popular targets

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) — A study shows Tennessee's average 9.4 cent tax on every $1 spent is the highest sales tax rate in America.
Opponents of the sales tax say it's most unfair to those least able to pay but others favor the sales tax over a state income tax.
The author of the tax comparison study, Tax Foundation staff economist Kail (Cale) Padgitt, said an increasing number of states are raising so-called "millionaire taxes" on income of the wealthiest taxpayers and so-called "sin taxes" on cigarettes or beer.
Padgitt told the Chattanooga Times Free Press the foundation is "definitely seeing more movement upward than downward in taxes on the state level, and the most popular seem to be to target particular types of tax groups."

Students tell tobacco companies to back off

The Red Ribbon program focuses on staying healthy and achieving goals.
The schools use games and other activities to show kids how drugs, alcohol, and tobacco can affect those goals.
Wednesday, the kids at Consolidated Elementary in Vigo County wrote letters to tobacco companies to let them know how they feel about their role in getting kids to smoke.
"They're doing a good job of getting kids addicted. And so we want them to stop targeting kids," student Kelsey Farris said.
"These aren't going to be their customers of the future. Not if we can help it, " school counselor Monica Tener-Smith said.
More Red Ribbon activities are planned for the coming weeks.

Anger at tobacco sponsor for festival

A TOBACCO firm is among the sponsors of the Henley International Film Festival.
Imperial Tobacco’s backing of next year’s event brought a strong reaction from town councillors at Tuesday’s meeting of the town and community committee.
Councillor David Nimmo-Smith said: “There’s no way that I am going to subscribe to any tobacco advertising being endorsed by this town council — I want that made clear.”
Councillor Laura Pye agreed, saying that it would be hypocritical to support tobacco sponsorship considering the council’s complaints about cigarette butts littering the town. The committee agreed to write a letter to the event organisers making its concerns clear about tobacco sponsorship on banners during the festival. It said it would insist on removing such banners or posters from council property.
A meeting was held on October 7 to discuss the festival, where it was announced that Stephen Fry would attend the event over two days to give talks on the media. 
The festival will take place from May 25 to 29. The film submissions process has been opened, with 80 films to be shortlisted to 40.

Will smoking be cool again?

When Smoking Was Cool, an art exhibit opening at Black Maria Gallery on Saturday, takes on “the American propensity for legislating social behavior,” in this case, using ever-rising tobacco taxes as a jumping-off point.
While the exhibit will take note of the movement to define certain social behaviors as taboo, whether it’s smoking, drinking alcohol or easygoing attitudes about sex, its aim will be to examine the hidden motives and powerful interests behind the politics of social legislation.
Sam Saghatelian, curator of the exhibition and a participating artist, says in the press release, “The point is that government and corporate interests often single out targets for the legislation of social behavior because it’s politically and financially expedient to do so, and not necessarily for the wellbeing of the public as they claim.”
Featured artists include Paul Chatem, The Pizz, Shark Toof, Anthony Ausgang, Sarah Stephens, Stacy Lande, Christine Karas-Gough, Shannon Keller, Brett Manning and Harry Sudman