A quarter of US citizens would support making smoking illegal, according to a piece in the Brevard Times based on the results of a new Gallup Poll and relayed by the TMA.
This support is one percent higher than has been measured previously by Gallup.
The proposal has garnered between 11 percent and 24 percent support during the nearly three decades that Gallup has been tracking it.
Meanwhile, the Gallop poll, from a July 1-11 polling, found that 59 percent of people supported banning smoking in public places.
The poll has particular significance now because the US Department of Housing and Urban Development is preparing to enforce a smoking ban in all public housing across the country.
The Smoke-Free Public Housing Rule was finalized on December 5, 2016, and became effective on February 3, 2017.
All public housing associations must comply with the rule and implement smoke-free policies within 18 months of the effective date, no later than July 31, 2018.
Category: People
Support for prohibition
Tenants fight smoking ban
Tenants are challenging a Housing and Urban Development rule that requires local public housing authorities across the US to prohibit people from smoking in their homes, according to a story by Jacob Sullum for Reason magazine.
A policy that is scheduled to take effect on Monday prohibits smoking in and near public housing throughout the country, affecting 1.2 million households in units managed by about 3,300 local agencies.
Sullum quoted a 2016 Observer editorial, as saying the policy ‘may be the most far-reaching, intrusive and over-reaching executive order of the entire Obama administration’.
In a lawsuit filed yesterday, six smokers who live in public housing argue that the ban violates their rights, exceeds the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s statutory authority, cannot be justified as a regulation of interstate commerce, and unconstitutionally commandeers state and local officials by ordering them to carry out federal policy.
The smoking ban, which covers low-income housing that is federally subsidized but owned and operated by local public housing authorities, applies to living units as well as common areas and extends to a zone 25 feet around each building.A cautionary tale
The New Nicotine Alliance (UK) has welcomed ‘the bold vision’ a UK MP in highlighting the increased role that tobacco harm reduction could play in the future of tobacco control policy.
In a press note issued on Friday, the Alliance said that, in a debate on the Government’s Tobacco Control Plan in the House of Commons on July 19, Sir Kevin Barron had highlighted the gulf between the UK and Ireland, two countries with identical traditional tobacco control policies but with differing approaches to electronic cigarettes. Between 2012 and 2016, smoking had dropped by nearly a quarter in the UK, while in Ireland, where e-cigarettes were viewed with suspicion, the smoking rate had risen.
‘Sir Kevin, who has 20 years’ experience of government policy surrounding tobacco, suggested that a “proper harm reduction strategy” which further welcomed the advent of innovative nicotine delivery products could deliver significant further benefits to public health in the UK,’ the press note said.
‘The NNA applauds Sir Kevin’s bold vision of the increased role that tobacco harm reduction could play in the future of tobacco control policy and calls on Under-Parliamentary Secretary of State, Steve Brine, to be less cautious and to commit to promoting a better understanding of risk-reduced products amongst health authorities under his charge.’
“E-cigarettes are a proven safer alternative to smoking and the UK boasts 1.5 million former smokers who have converted from combustible tobacco to exclusively vaping instead,” said NNA chair Sarah Jakes (pictured). “Sir Kevin’s comments are most welcome, but it is continually disappointing that Steve Brine is reluctant to recognise the part that recreational use of these products can play. Instead of adhering to a goal of total nicotine abstinence, it would be better to install policies which would encourage long-term use of alternatives.
“As mentioned during the debate, many smokers genuinely enjoy smoking and view giving up smoking as giving up on an enjoyable part of their life. Devices that can deliver the nicotine they enjoy without the harm of combustible tobacco are a perfect solution for huge numbers of people. Government should be more understanding of the pleasure that nicotine can deliver and of the reasons that current smokers continue to smoke.
“Pleasure should not be a dirty word when it comes to nicotine, just as it isn’t when talking about a pint in the pub or a welcome coffee in the morning. It is the combustion of tobacco which causes the harm, and if smokers are more confident in trying reduced-risk products, there will be even more future public health successes, like the ones highlighted by Sir Kevin yesterday [July 19].
“The UK is regarded worldwide as a global leader in tobacco harm reduction and the results speak for themselves, therefore we hope that Mr Brine will show more leadership, and less caution, towards safer nicotine products to better enable him to achieve the ambitious targets that he has set in the government’s Tobacco Control Plan.”Looking on the bright side
Indonesia’s Ministry of Finance estimates that the Government may collect up to Rp3 trillion ($207 million) in additional revenue next year from a new excise on vaping liquids, according to a story in The Jakarta Globe.
At the beginning of this month, the Government imposed a 57 percent excise tax on e-liquids containing tobacco extracts or nicotine, a rate the Globe said was more than four times the maximum excise on ‘regular cigarettes’.
The country’s 200 domestic producers are required to start paying excise on e-liquids by October. 31.
Noegroho Wahyu, acting director of excise, said that so far three e-liquid producers were registered to pay excise, but that the government expected the remaining producers to register before the deadline.
The Government is expected to collect Rp50-70 billion in additional revenue from the new excise this year, but it estimates that will rise to about Rp3 trillion per year once all manufacturers are registered.
Aryo Andrianto, chairman of the Indonesian Personal Vaporizer Association (APVI), was quoted as saying that the excise rule meant the government had officially acknowledged the industry and provided it with legal certainty.
Vaping liquid producers were planning to increase their prices by a maximum of 20 percent to soften the blow on consumers, Aryo said, before indicating that the producers were not opposed to the excise tax.
Meanwhile, producers hope that, following the imposition of the excise tax, the government may be more willing to support the industry’s export efforts.
Deni Syarifa, chairman of the E-Liquid Micro-Entrepreneurs Association, estimates that manufacturers could export up to two million bottles of vaping liquid per month.
“There is currently demand for around 5,000 to 10,000 bottles per month from just one country,” Deni said, adding that producers planned to ship the liquid to countries in Asia, Central America and Europe.Young drawn to abstinence
During the past four decades, an increasing number of US teenagers have decided to say no to drugs and alcohol, according to a story by Alan Mozes for medicalxpress.com citing a new report.
But the million-dollar question is why.
“There has been a steady increase in the proportion of students graduating high school who report never having tried alcohol, marijuana, tobacco or any other drugs,” said study author Dr. Sharon Levy, who directs the adolescent substance use and addiction program at Boston Children’s Hospital.
For example, while about five percent of high school seniors had embraced abstinence in 1976, that figure had risen to 25 percent in 2014, according to the most recent poll of nearly 12,000 students.
Surveys conducted among 8th and 10th graders between 1991 and 2014 unearthed a similar trend, with abstinence jumping from roughly 10 percent to almost 40 percent among the former, and from 25 percent to more than 60 percent among the latter.
Levy was quoted as saying that the downward trends didn’t catch her off-guard, even if “the findings may surprise people because we constantly hear bad news about drug use and the opioid epidemic”.
Levy said that both drinking and smoking – the number one and number three most common substance use habits – had been sliding in popularity across the board for a while now, even though pot use had held steady.
But why? That remains “the million-dollar question,” said Levy, “and for sure it doesn’t have one simple answer.”
Overall, she credited public health efforts for giving rise to a new cultural climate that encourages teens to shun substance use because it’s dangerous and unhealthy, rather than because it’s immoral or forbidden.
Meanwhile, Dr. Eric Sigel, an adolescent medicine specialist at the Children’s Hospital Colorado in Aurora, who was not involved in the study, was quoted as saying that the good news was “quite precarious”.
For example, he said, “while fewer teens overall are using substances, those who do face a landscape of more dangerous substances [like opioids] compared to their parents’ generation”.A question of smuggling
A German member of the European Parliament has asked the Commission what it is doing to combat the smuggling of tobacco products.
In a preamble to his question, Wolf Klinz said the EU was confronted with the smuggling of tobacco products across its eastern and southern borders, and, because of the low prices of these products, with the undermining of the EU’s efforts to limit smoking.
He asked whether the Commission was aware of the smuggling methods and the organised groups behind the smuggling, and what the Commission was doing to combat the smuggling.
The Commission is due to answer in writing.US using child labor
In the US, where people under 18 are barred from buying tobacco and vapor products, children as young as seven are hired to work on tobacco farms, according to a National Public Radio story relayed by the TMA.
Melissa Bailey Castillo, outreach co-ordinator at the Kinston Community Health Center in North Carolina, was quoted as saying that during the tobacco harvest season, some small farms in the state hired children as young as seven because the Fair Labor Standards Act, which governs child labor, made exceptions for small farms.
The Act allows big farms to hire children as young as 12.
According to a 2013 study conducted by Human Rights Watch, growers say they need the extra labor during the harvest season, while children from rural North Carolina say they must work to help support their families.
However, Castillo said loose federal regulations and tobacco industry policies had made the children vulnerable to the health risks from nicotine and pesticide exposure.
“Either your neighbor owns a farm, or a relative owns a farm,” Castillo was quoted as saying. “Tobacco obviously is part of that heritage, and kids have been working in it, farmers will tell you, for generations.”
The federal Government has acknowledged the health risks of tobacco farming, but it is still legal for children aged 12, with parental permission, to work on a tobacco farm of any size.
And there was no minimum age for children to work on small tobacco farms or family farms.
Tobacco is North Carolina’s most valuable crop, generating about $725 million in 2017.Growers left in limbo
The tobacco market in Lilongwe, Malawi, was suspended yesterday after hundreds of tobacco farmers protested against a decision by JTI Leaf Malawi to stop buying tobacco from farmers the company had contracted, according to a story in The Nyasa Times.
JTI officials reportedly had not been to the market since Monday and the Times said that no JTI representatives were on hand to confirm or deny a suggestion by one unnamed source that the company had accused the farmers of over-production.
However, the head of communications at Auction Holdings Limited (AHL) confirmed that there had been a stand-off between the company and the tobacco farmers.
He said there were nearly 300 tobacco bales at the Lilongwe sales floors that had been delivered by tobacco farmers contracted by JTI, but that the company was refusing to buy the leaf.
Some people at the auction said JTI had asked AHL and the Tobacco Control Commission to sell the leaf to other buyers, but that they, too, were refusing to buy it.
Meanwhile, the Times’ source reportedly said that the same type of stand-off was occurring at the Limbe sales floors, but that JTI was still buying tobacco from the Mzuzu and Chinkhoma floors.
‘The bitter tobacco farmers were meeting late afternoon on Thursday to chart the way forward following the decision by JTI to abandon them after the company had signed a mutual agreement to let the farmers grow the tobacco for the JTI,’ the Times report concluded.22 years on, prices down
With Zimbabwe’s flue-cured tobacco marketing season drawing to a close, the average price paid to growers so far is lower than it was during the full season of 1996.
That is; over the course of 22 years, getting on for a quarter of a century, the grower price has fallen.
Not by much. It’s down by 0.7 percent – from US$2.94 in 1996 to US$2.92 so far this season.
But given the price increases that tobacco manufacturers have imposed on smokers during the past 22 years, the fall in grower prices is huge.
A July 15 story in the Sunday Mail that was relayed by the TMA had it that, according to figures from the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB) growers had been paid US$673 million for the 230.4 million kg of flue-cured they had delivered so far, an average price of US$2.92 per kg.
By the same point of the 2017 marketing season, growers had been paid US$509 million for the 172 million kg they had delivered, an average price of US$2.96 per kg.
That is, year-on-year, the average price has fallen by US$0.04 per kg, or 1.3 percent.
The low prices need come as no surprise. In May, a story in The Daily News said that the TIMB had suspended the operations of flue-cured tobacco buyers accused of giving growers a raw deal.
The suspensions followed complaints by growers who said they were being short-changed by some of the buyers.
TIMB spokesperson Isheunesu Moyo reportedly acknowledged receipt of the complaints from the growers. “We have since stopped some firms’ operations … while investigations are being carried out pertaining to the complaints,” Moyo said.
Takura Mukomberanwa of Hurungwe West was said to have told the Daily News that growers were calling on the TIMB to investigate a “litany of malpractices such as unauthorized insurance deductions”.
Mukomberanwa said that, as things stood, it seemed that the TIMB did not care about what growers were going through.
Also in May, the associate editor of the Manica Post, Obert Chifamba, described Zimbabwe’s auction market for flue-cured as defying logic.
Chifamba said that, logically, prices would rise as the quality of the tobacco increased after the delivery of the early harvestings, but that the sad reality seemed to suggest that as the quality got better, the prices either took a tumble or hit a ceiling – a ceiling of steel or granite.Smoking ban passed
Japan’s Diet yesterday passed an amendment that will ban smoking in public facilities, according to a story by Tomohiro Osaki for the Japan Times.
The ban will be implemented in stages, coming into full force by April 2020, just ahead of the staging in Tokyo of the 2O20 Summer Olympics, which are due to start in July of that year.
The revision to the Health Promotion Law has been watered down from the health ministry’s original proposal, falling short of a comprehensive smoking ban in restaurants and bars.
Under the updated law, an estimated 55 percent of eateries nation-wide will end up being exempt.
This has prompted criticism from some quarters that though the amendment is a step forward, it is a far cry from the anti-smoking ordinance adopted by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government last month, which is expected to make more than 80 percent of eateries across the capital effectively smoke-free.
The revised national law will make smoking in some designated institutions illegal for the first time, penalizing non-compliant operators and smokers with fines of up to ¥500,000 and ¥300,000, respectively.
The measure, according to the health ministry, is expected to raise the World Health Organization’s grading of Japan’s anti-smoking efforts by one rank – to the second-lowest level.
The Times story reported that the amendment had been watered down after facing fierce resistance from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and industry groups. Japan had long been soft on smoking due largely to vested interests and pork-barrel politics, a system in which the tobacco industry had thrived, it said. Even corporate giant Japan Tobacco Inc. was partially owned by the finance ministry.
The amendment makes the premises of public institutions such as schools, hospitals and municipal offices non-smoking. That is, smoking will be prohibited both indoors and outdoors in principle, though smoking spaces may be set up outside those buildings.
A less rigorous measure will apply to other public facilities, including restaurants and bars, where only indoor smoking will be outlawed. But even inside, smoking will be allowed in segregated, well-ventilated rooms, where no drinking or eating will be permitted.
Smaller restaurants will be exempt altogether.
People under the age of 20 will be prohibited from entering these establishments.
Newly established bars and restaurants will be obliged to ban smoking, regardless of size.
Under the amendment, users of heat-not-burn devices will be allowed to dine and drink in ventilated smoking rooms.
