Smoking Issues

[sincere]

What an interesting article Spiritman.  That mother needs to be knocked out for allowing her 10 year old to smoke at all!  That is just ridiculous!!  The article summed it up in the end though stating that the boy and his sister both lacked discipline.  BUT SMOKING CIGARETTES!!??

I lost my grandmother to complications from her emphysema.  She was still smoking when she was on oxygen!!  My grandfather would buy them for her because she claimed she "HAD to have them".  After seeing her from diagnosis to her death, it was a very traumatic and difficult situation.  

Now my mother suffers from emphysema because she couldn't quit her pack a day habit for 20+ years.  

I can't help but to be angry at cigarette manufacturers for selling such a dangerous product.  I would like to take them for everything they have because they have reduced my mother's quality of life.  She is only 54 years old and her prognosis is of course grim.

I wonder what complications my brother and I will have down the road for being exposed to second hand smoke for so long...

I try to talk to people about quitting smoking, but they always say, "Well, we gotta die of something".  My response is always "I'd rather die of old age than a COPD".

[Guardian Angel]

I cannot believe that a mother has such little control over a 4 year old that this could happen....

[SpiritMan]

"Hundreds of local restaurants are snuffing out smoking, despite North Carolina's tobacco history and the failure in June of a bill that would have imposed a state-wide ban on smoking in restaurants.

It's hard to get an exact count, but officials in Wake, Durham and Orange counties have identified about 350 eateries that are smoke-free.

'This is an issue where the writing is on the wall,' said Eric Wild, assistant policy director for the N.C. Health and Wellness Trust, which promotes smoking education and youth smoking prevention. "Smoke-free environments are seen as a positive thing. Even in North Carolina, more people are nonsmokers than smokers."

http://newsobserver.com/business/story/2811316p-9256086c.html

[SpiritMan]

Big Tobacco’s Attempts to Derail the Global Tobacco Treaty: Cases from Battleground Countries 

"Just over ten years ago, the tobacco industry still denied that its products are addictive and harmful to people’s health. The landscape for Big Tobacco has changed dramatically in the past decade. The global tobacco treaty, which took effect earlier this year, gives the international community tools to stand up to tobacco giants, decrease global addiction rates, and reverse the tobacco epidemic. Formally known as the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), the treaty is a major step for public health and a huge blow to Big Tobacco."

http://www.tobacco.org/news/207490.html

[SpiritMan]

SPAIN

Another country moves closer to banning smoking:

"A law banning smoking in the workplace and many other public locations starting in 2006 moved one step closer to reality after it was passed by the Spanish parliament's health committee...


The measure would prohibit smoking in the workplace, at health facilities and schools, enclosed sports venues, leisure and recreation areas and in places that prepare, process or sell food. . . . ."

http://www.tobacco.org/news/207567.html

[Butterfly]

There is a story on this page about Don Young, one of the people in our Smokefree group in MO.  He goes around to the schools and talks to the kids about not smoking.  Powerful, considering he has to talk with one of those little boxes to his throat.

http://www.barnesjewish.org/

[SpiritMan]

"Smokers breathe in about a quarter of a cigarette's smoke themselves while three quarters go to waste," said Volker Beck of Germany's Cancer Society, adding that the smoke lingers in rooms for hours afterwards. "You can't get rid of this highly toxic smoke. The consequences are cancers, cardio-vascular diseases and respiratory diseases."

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,1564,1736193,00.html

[pesoto74]

Some of the latest news about banning smoking in Champaign.
http://champaignamerican.blogspot.com/

[SpiritMan]

Thanks Pesoto.

I'm not surprised.

[Ray Nolan]

Pathetic....but real.   

[Butterfly]

Ad Agency that Created Marlboro Man Goes Smokefree
Leo Burnett pushes cigarettes, but prohibits them for employees
 
Parts excerpted from Crain's, 10/14/05
 
CHICAGO, 10/14/05 -- Trevor Shorey, art director at Leo Burnett advertising agency, lights up outside the agency's Chicago headquarters because he can't smoke at his desk anymore.
The Chicago ad agency that created the Marlboro Man is extinguishing a long tradition:  Smoking in the office was once commonplace at the agency, which has counted tobacco giant Philip Morris as a client since 1954. Employees who didn't welcome the whiff of a Marlboro were issued desktop ventilation machines or no-smoking signs to warn others against puffing nearby.

But since July, smokers like Mr. Shorey have had to go outside or to one of five smoking rooms spread among the agency's 30 floors.  Burnett's new policy was adopted simply for easier enforcement, the spokeswoman says.

An industry icon since 1935, the agency once followed in the free-spirited footsteps of its founder, former staffers say. "You'd be hard-pressed to find a photo of Leo without a cigarette in his mouth," recalls one.

Mr. Shorey, who works on the Nintendo account, doesn't mind going outside to smoke, but says: "Some people think it's kind of two-faced. We advertise the products but we can't smoke openly in the building anymore."

Even with its limited smoking areas — one is a bar on the 21st floor — the Burnett Building may soon be one of the last public places where one can take a drag.  Chicago official Ed Smith and anti-cancer groups are pushing for the city to clear the air in all workplaces, including restaurants and bars.

"I don't know of any office that allows smoking," says Ron Taylor, director of workplace solutions for the American Cancer Society.
 

[SpiritMan]

Anyone who has ever been to France will understand how significant this is!

French Willing to Support Smoking Ban


Many adults in France believe their government should establish specific guidelines for the public consumption of tobacco, according to a poll by Ifop published in Le Journal du Dimanche. 80 per cent of respondents support enacting a smoking ban in public places.

 Next month, National Assembly member Yves Bur of the centre-right Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) is expected to submit a bill seeking a smoking ban in all public places. Support for an eventual prohibition reaches 88 per cent among French non-smokers, and 56 per cent among French smokers.

http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/9480

[SpiritMan]

Smokers Cough May Be A Sign Of Cancer

More Americans will die this year of lung cancer than of breast, prostate and colon cancers combined.

Dr. Antonius Miller, a hematologist/oncologist specializing in lung cancer at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center says, "Cigarette smoke is the main cause of lung cancer. The symptoms are not all that particularly that standing out for the patient. Their cough may change, many smokers have a chronic cough and the nature of the cough or what they bring up, the sputum or phlegm production may change and it may color and there may even be blood in there, but otherwise the symptoms are not all that severe."

 The patient may notice more fatigue, maybe he can't exercise as hard or as long as he could before, he may feel weaker and he may lose weight.

http://www.wfmy.com/2yh/article.aspx?storyid=50377

[Pat Testa]

I honestly never thought that we would get as far as we have in the fight against smoking. It would be wonderful, if, in my lifetime...smoking would be totally banned anywhere there are people trying to breathe the air we were meant to breathe. My Brother SpiritMan has played a big part in helping to make this dream a reality and I am very proud of him...and with Butterfly right in there fighting a good fight...I am proud to be a member of this family. (I'm proud of you too GA)

[pesoto74]

Smoking can lessen IQ, thinking ability: study

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The poorer mental function seen among alcoholics, many of whom also regularly smoke cigarettes, may be partially due to the long-term effects of nicotine, new research suggests.

Story