Author: Staff Writer

A Facebook campaign to extend a tobacco smoking ban in the central business district of an Australian town is said not to be about smoking but about antisocial behavior, according to a story by Patrick Billings for the Examiner.

The campaign, launched by Watson’s Showcase Jewellers in Launceston, Tasmania, is said to have garnered thousands of supporters.

Store owner, Neil Watson, said smoking bans in local malls had pushed groups engaged in antisocial behavior to congregate outside his store, where there were several public benches.

Watson said his staff had been threatened when asking groups to move on and the environment had left customers intimidated.

In a posting on Facebook, the business said the campaign was not directed at youth or smokers, but the behavior associated with the smoking area outside its shop.

Although Watson wants the smoking ban extended, he concedes that this will move the problem rather than solve it.

About 2,500 people turned out yesterday to protest outside the parliament building in Sofia, Bulgaria, against the tobacco smoking ban that was imposed in enclosed public places in June, according to a Sofia Globe story.

The protest was organised by a hotel and restaurant association and on social networks. Organisers object to what they described as the huge financial losses suffered by the hospitality sector because of the stricter anti-smoking laws.

Before June, all establishments bigger than 70 square meters had to have separate smoking and non-smoking areas, while smaller establishments had the choice of being either fully-smoking or non-smoking. Since then the ban has been total.

It seems unlikely that the protest will change the government’s mind. Previous campaigns by restaurant and bar lobby groups and an attempt by a group of independent MPs to table legislation to revert to the previous law have met with a government response that there will no backtracking.

Dr. Tonio Borg says that he is looking forward to starting work as European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Affairs, with the tobacco products directive being the first item on his agenda, according to a story by Keith Micallef for the Malta Independent.

The European Parliament on Wednesday approved Borg’s nomination by 386 votes to 281 with 28 abstentions. The European Council was expected to approve the appointment within a matter of days.

Borg is replacing John Dalli who resigned last month.

In raising taxes on licit tobacco products in its latest budget, the Québec government has set out a welcome mat for organized crime to increase its stake in the province’s tobacco market, according to a note posted by Imperial Tobacco Canada on its website.

“Given the availability of cheap illegal products, raising tobacco taxes is an irresponsible, short-sighted cash grab decision by the government of Québec,” said Caroline Ferland, the company’s vice-president, corporate affairs.

“Québec has simply pandered to its anti-tobacco lobby and handed over the tobacco trade to illegal traffickers.”

The Government of Québec acknowledges that it is already losing more than $225 million a year because of illegal tobacco sales and Imperial says that increasing taxes on tobacco products will make a bad situation worse.

There were more than 200 smoke shacks in Québec that were ready to meet the increased consumer demand this tax increase would generate, the company added.

“We understand that the government is looking for a quick way to fill its coffers,” said Ferland.

“Raising tobacco taxes will only drive smokers to illegal, untaxed sources.

“The government will not reap the reward it expects.”

Imperial Tobacco is to launch a Supreme Court challenge against the implementation of a cigarette display ban in Scotland, according to a story by Louise Wilson for the Edinburgh Journal.

Imperial, which is concerned about the cost to retailers of their implementing the ban and about the boost the ban will give to the illicit tobacco trade, believes the ban is anti-competitive and against the principle of adult choice.

It believes also that the Scottish government is not empowered to implement this type of ban.

“Imperial Tobacco is challenging the competence of the Scottish government to legislate for a tobacco display ban and a tobacco vending sales ban inScotland,” a spokesman was quoted as saying.

“We believe that a proper interpretation of the Scotland Act reserves the power to legislate on these issues toWestminster.”

Imperial Tobacco said also there was no evidence to suggest the bans would lead to a decrease in smoking amongst young people.

“There has been no reduction on smoking in countries where similar bans have been introduced,” the spokesman said.

Workers at a firm in Leeds, England, are being offered regular ‘sweet breaks’ after their boss discovered smokers were more productive after popping outside to smoke, according to a story by Ian Garland for The Sun.

Larry Gould, the CEO of translation company, thebigword, was said to have been shocked to find employees got more done immediately after taking a cigarette break.

And in a bid to get the same level of productivity out of his non-smoking staff, he has set up counters stocked with sweets and fruit on every floor of the firm’s Yorkshire HQ.

Workers are encouraged to get a regular sugar fix while they socialise with colleagues – in return for a small donation that will go to a local charity.

The full story is at http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/4655411/boss-offers-sweet-breaks-to-non-smoking-staff.html.

Health insurance companies in the US would be allowed to set their premiums for smokers at 1.5 times the level of those for non-smokers under proposed new rules.

According to a story by N.C. Aizenman for the Washington Post, the Obama administration proposed new rules on Tuesday that would loosen some of its 2010 health-care-law mandates on insurers while tightening others.

But while the law permits insurers generally to set their premiums for tobacco users higher than those for non-smokers, they wouldn’t be allowed to do so in a case where smokers were enrolled in smoking-cessation programs.

This and other changes were included in the fine print of three regulations the Department of Health and Human Services proposed to flesh out key parts of the statute. For the most part, the regulations, which will be open for comment until December 26, would simply codify mandates in the law or in earlier administration guidance.

‘Average air pollution levels from second-hand smoke directly outside designated smoking areas in [US] airports are five times higher than levels in smoke-free airports,’ according to a Newswire story quoting a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

This seems to imply that there is second-hand smoke in smoke-free airports, but might be meant to mean that the presence of second-hand smoke directly outside designated smoking areas in US airports raises the general air pollution levels there to five times the level of general air pollution levels in smoke-free airports.

The study conducted in five large hub US airports showed also that air pollution levels inside designated smoking areas were 23 times higher than levels in smoke-free airports.

In the study, designated smoking areas in airports included restaurants, bars, and ventilated smoking rooms.
Five of the 29 largest airports in the US allow smoking in designated areas that are accessible to the public: Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Washington Dulles International Airport, McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, Denver International Airport, and Salt Lake City International Airport.

There were worrying elements to the talks at the fifth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (CoP5) of the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, according to a story in The Moodie Report.

The story opened with an account of how the talks on the illicit trade in tobacco had ended without restrictions being imposed on the duty-free industry.

But it then went to say that daily bulletins from the event organizer revealed a climate in which interested parties were denied access to discussions.

‘Interpol – the international police organisation that works to identify, disrupt and dismantle transnational organized networks behind the trafficking in illicit goods – was denied observer status as a result of a donation by Philip Morris International to aid its efforts in the area,’ the story said.

‘And the public were denied access to the closing plenary session for the first time in the FCTC process.’

Parishas declared war on the billions of cigarette butts littering its streets, according to a WorldCrunch story.

An estimated 315 tons of butts are discarded each year on to the French capital’s streets.

The problem was exacerbated when smokers were banned from smoking in restaurants, cafés, hotels and other indoor public spaces, at which time they had no recourse but to take to the streets.

Now, the city’s authorities have begun installing 10,000 public trash bins with ashtrays in an attempt to deal with the problem of discarded butts.

And they are to increase the fine for dropping butts on to the pavement from €35 to €68.

The story quoted Le Monde as reporting that millions of filters end up blocking sewers and pollutingParis’ water supply with toxic substances such as nicotine, phenol and heavy metals.