Tobacco News

City’s health department launches program for quitting smoking
In honor of November being Lung Cancer Awareness Month, the city’s health department and the American Cancer Society are launching a public health program called “Break the Habit” through the Illinois Tobacco Quitline.
The program, funded by the Illinois Department of Public Health, is open to all Evanston residents 18 and older. Participants will be supplied with eight weeks of free nicotine patches and information on how to quit, according to a news release issued Tuesday. Ream more »

One student is working to snuff out tobacco use on campus.

In an effort to protect people from secondhand smoke, Emile Gordon, a senior studying microbiology, molecular and cellular biology and human physiology, began an initiative to make the UA smoke-free about one year ago. On Jan. 1, the entire Arizona Health Sciences Center campus will prohibit smoking. Gordon said he hopes the entire UA campus will follow suit within one year.
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Texas State is the largest public university with a tobacco-free campus in the state. Or perhaps we are just fooling ourselves. It has been a total of 89 days since university President Denise Trauth initiated the campus-wide smoking ban.
Smokers are still active on campus because the smoking ban is not being enforced strictly or even at all. This leads to cigarette butts being thrown on the campus grounds because all the ashtrays were removed. Ream more »

The lone medical marijuana center in Mesa County will keep its doors open after Palisade residents Tuesday night soundly rejected a measure that would have banned commercial medical marijuana sales within the town.

Final, unofficial results showed voters turning away Referred Measure 2B 61 percent to 39 percent, with 545 votes to allow Colorado Alternative Health Care to remain operational compared with 347 votes to shut it down.
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The Philippines is gaining headway in its flight against tobacco use. It has been cited by the Framework Convention Alliance (FCA), representing 350 non-government organizations in more than 100 countries that support the World Health Organization-Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO-FCTC), for “taking concrete steps toward protecting its citizens from the global epidemic that is caused by tobacco use.”
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In the smoker-heavy state of Kentucky, a cancer center is suggesting something that most health experts won’t and the tobacco industry can’t: If you really want to quit, switch to smoke-free tobacco.
The James Graham Brown Cancer Center and the University of Louisville are aiming their “Switch and Quit” campaign at the city of Owensboro. It uses print, radio, billboard and other advertising to urge smokers to swap their cigarettes for smokeless tobacco and other products that do not deliver nicotine by smoke. Ream more »

At Halloween and all year-long, kid-friendly flavors, colorful packaging and scheming marketing campaigns target young people, while masking the harmful tendencies of tobacco.

Believe it or not tobacco companies are still selling candy-flavored tobacco products. Even though candy flavored cigarettes have been banned by the FDA, our local youth are still trying flavored cigars, cigarillos and smokeless tobacco products.
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Voters in this quiet, northern Colorado college town will decide Tuesday whether or not to ban the city’s 21 exisiting medical marijuana centers.

The contentious battle over Question 300 pits a coalition of well-funded shopowners against a group of concerned citizens, led by a retired police officer and former city mayor, Ray Martinez.
“It goes right to the issue of what is the true character of this community?” Martinez told FOX31 Denver last week. “What do we want the make-up of the community to be?” Ream more »

The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) is expected to approve anti-smuggling measures of the Directorate General Intelligence and Investigation to check illicit trade of counterfeit cigarettes of foreign/locally manufactured premium brands in tribal areas and rural areas of Punjab and Sindh, causing annual loss of Rs 9.5 billion to the national kitty.

Sources told Business Recorder here on Monday that the FBR has decided to convene a meeting on Tuesday, November 1, at FBR House here to finalise proposals of the directorate for taking anti-smuggling measures under relevant provisions of the Customs Act 1969. Ream more »

Police on Monday warned women not to be alone on a popular walking and biking trail in Durham after four incidents of indecent exposure occurred within eight days on the trail.

The reported flashing incidents occurred on Oct. 23 and again Friday, Saturday and Sunday on the American Tobacco Trail in southern Durham, police said. The description of the culprit is fairly similar in all four cases – a white man in his 30s or 40s and about 6 feet tall.
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