Anti Smoking

First it was the bars of New York. Then the bistros of Paris. Now the smoky teahouses and hookah cafes of the Middle East are pushing smokers to the sidelines. Eyebrows were raised last year when Turkey banned smoking in all bars, cafes and restaurants. Even though nearly 30% of the Turkish population smokes, polls said 95% of the people supported the move. Its neighbor Syria also recently stepped up measures against smokers and puffers of the hookah pipe. In October, Syrian President Bashar Assad issued a decree banning smoking inside public places.

Debi Austin looked into the camera, swallowed - the hole in her throat as big as a half-dollar coin and as black as nothingness - and said she had her first cigarette when she was 13, that she had tried to quit but couldn't. And that "they" say nicotine is not addictive. Then she picked up a half-burned, still-lit cigarette from an ashtray, titled back her head and took a drag from the hole in her neck. She winced, and as the smoke wafted out of the hole she said: "How can they say that?"

In your article regarding Orange County's anti-smoking law, the term "anti-smoking activist" was applied to me. This is a label that is incorrectly used to describe our activities and interests. Our goals are not to promote anti-smoking, but rather to protect the rights of the nonsmoker to be able to conduct his life to be free of secondhand smoke. In other words, it's not the smoker, it's the smoke. The phrase "anti-smoking" is abundantly used by the tobacco industry to generate sympathy to their cause by promoting the idea that one group is telling another group how to live their lives.

Did an aggressive anti-smoking campaign conducted earlier this year influence people to give up smoking? There's a good chance the $54-million campaign by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did have an effect, an article in the Annals of Internal Medicine reports. But it was short -- just three months long. And the impressive-sounding $54 million pales in comparison to the $27 million spent every day by the tobacco industry for marketing, the authors wrote. Nancy Rigotti and Melanie Wakefield described the campaign in the Annals of Internal Medicine, as well as what's known about its outcome so far. (The authors are at Massachusetts General Hospital and Cancer Council Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, respectively.)

Re "Pringle Targets Anti-Tobacco Research Ads," June 27: The tobacco industry's political influence is all too apparent in this latest attempt to undermine the Prop. 99 anti-smoking programs. Although we are pleased that the budget conference committee adopted full funding for Prop. 99 anti-smoking programs, Assembly Speaker Curt Pringle's proposed changes in the tobacco education media campaign would stifle the most powerful media messages, which have proven to be the most effective tools in curbing smoking rates.

In your article "Road Congestion Relief on Way Via 21 'Super Streets' " (Sept. 14), some merchants along Harbor Boulevard in Fullerton seemed opposed to the county's super street plan, on the grounds that traffic that is at a dead stop is good for their business. This strikes me the same way as if a hospital were to oppose the surgeon general's anti-smoking campaign because of all the business lung cancer and emphysema patients bring in. Sometimes people benefit financially from others' misery, but those people should not stand in our way when we try to relieve the misery.

I couldn't believe my eyes. The headline read: "Vivid Health Messages Can Run Afoul of Networks' Sensibilities" [April 29]. Anti-smoking public service ads with nose-less victims of skin cancer are too graphic for national broadcast. But not considered too graphic are violent, grisly killings; drug-induced abuse; alcoholic rampages; bombings; maimings; and any other form of out-of-control behavior. "It's only art imitating life!" many of my friends in the business say. If that's true, let's go all the way. Let's show the kids what can happen--for real--when you take life-threatening risks like sunning or smoking.

A large minority in this country, and particularly in this state, is being trampled, abused and made to feel it has no rights. The sanctimonious anti-smoking crusaders are acting as if they are on a mission from God and the end justifies any means. Many official policies call for accommodation of both sides. But practice gives us no-smoking offices, malls and airplanes whether there is a problem or not without even considering improving inadequate ventilation or other practical compromises.

I am appalled by the sleazy style and lopsided content of "That Cuisine and Nicotine Connection," by Judith Sims, (Sept. 28). While the entire article was an offensive harangue, calling for anti-smoking laws in L.A.'s finest restaurants, Sims reserves the most ludicrous comments for an unnamed "nonsmoking friend." This equivocally existent "friend" of Sims exhorts, "Outside is no better than air conditioning. The same breeze that blows the smoke away from me can also blow it up my nose."

It was shocking to me to read your editorial (July 14) advocating countywide anti-smoking ordinances or regulations similar to those in Laguna Beach. One would expect that on the editorial pages of a "great" newspaper, a more rational, scientific and non-fanatical stance would be taken on this controversial issue. Despite the widespread tumult caused by the anti-smoking zealots, the fact is that there is no scientific evidence that the smoke from someone else's cigarette is a public health menace.

WASHINGTON - A U.S. appeals court has struck down the government's plan to require graphic warnings on cigarette packs, ruling that the shocking images seek to "browbeat consumers into quitting" smoking and violate the free-speech rights of the tobacco companies. One of the nine proposed images shows a man exhaling cigarette smoke through a surgical hole in his throat, evoking the dangers of smoking and the addictive power of nicotine. Other images show diseased lungs, dead bodies and a baby enveloped in a plume of smoke.

In the 1970s it seemed like we had problems we could never fix - and I'm not talking about white polyester disco suits and the band Air Supply. The '70s presented America with the residue of a catastrophic war, soaring inner-city crime rates, runaway inflation and subjugation to Middle East oil. To punctuate the dismal vibe, everybody smoked, or so it seemed if you were sitting on an airplane at the edge of the DMZ between the smoking and nonsmoking sections,...

Seven out of 10 smokers say they'd like to quit, and many may already be struggling to stick to their resolution to make 2012 a smoke-free year. If quitting were easy, after all, chances are good that nearly 20% of adults wouldn't still be smokers, a figure that hasn't budged much in several years. Smoking is such a familiar health hazard that some experts say it doesn't get the attention it deserves; the focus is often on other lifestyle-related conditions, especially obesity. But smoking is still the No. 1 cause of preventable death in this country.

Squeezed between the Doritos and Budweiser ads during last weekend's Super Bowl was a spot paid for with California tax dollars. Airtime for the most expensive television event of the year is probably not the first item on which deficit-plagued California might be expected to spend money. The ad, exhorting people to quit smoking, came as Gov. Jerry Brown had proposed gutting many state healthcare services to help balance the budget. The commercial was a part of a $14.5-million television campaign funded this year partly by a 25-cent-per-pack tax on cigarettes.

Smoking remains a particularly awful habit. Not only is it the leading cause of premature death in the United States, but it directly harms people who don't even touch it. All they have to do is be in the same vicinity as a smoker. Overeating is a national problem too, but there's no such thing as secondhand Twinkies. So it's heartening to hear that the results of a state survey, released in December, show that adults in California are less likely to smoke than adults almost anywhere else in the nation.

You may support California’s Proposition 19 , the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010, because you think the war on drugs unfairly targets minorities . You may be in favor of it because you think it's up to you , not the government, to decide what substances you'd like to consume as long as you don't harm others. Or you may be sympathetic to the ballot measure based on the testimonials of patients with cancer or AIDS who swear that medical marijuana helps them cope with their illness.

The new anti-smoking law regarding schools goes into effect today. It eliminates smoking areas on campus for students. The new law, however, still allows staff and teachers to smoke, albeit in offices and staff work rooms, not classrooms or libraries. As a former school principal, I feel "no smoking" on campus means just that--and for all. That includes teachers, staff and visitors. The examples set by teachers and staff are very important to their students. Studies will show that teachers who smoke also tend to have more work-related problems than those who do not--such as absenteeism, tardiness, accidents, and work effectiveness.

Past anti-smoking messages aimed at teenagers and stressing the lethal nature of cigarette consumption have consistently fallen upon deaf ears, largely because of the propensity for young people to regard themselves as invincible. Now, in light of the recent discovery of "smoking gun" memos proving that R.J. Reynolds targeted children as young as 14 (Jan. 15), perhaps a new campaign should be mounted. If teenagers could see for themselves how these mega-corporations have played them for suckers over the years, they might become indignant enough to turn their backs on cigarette advertising and avoid the trap that has ensnared so many for so long.

California requires health insurance companies to cover in-vitro fertilization, bone-density screening for osteoporosis and chiropractic sessions. Curiously, it doesn't do the same for treatments to help smokers quit. Kicking the habit is, of course, a tremendous boon to the health of individual smokers, but it's also good public policy and potentially beneficial to insurance companies. Effective smoking-cessation treatments — which include certain medications, nicotine gums and patches, and group counseling — seldom cost more than a few hundred dollars and double the success rate over trying to quit without help.