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Tobacco and oil pay for climate conference!
Article 2008, 2006!

No constitutional right to smoke in public!

List of excerpted articles on this web page

“Neither the Constitution of the United States nor the Ohio Constitution creates a fundamental right to smoke in public.” Quoted in The Enquirer, March 12, 2008.

Letter to the Editor, The Virginian-Pilot, March 20, 2008, headlined, "Suit's smoking legacy", writer, Hilton Oliver, Virginia Beach.

... those upset at the failure of proposed smoking bans should not blame the legislature, since the full Senate passed four solid bills.

Del. Terrie Suit is totally responsible for the fate of these measures. As committee chairwoman, she insisted on assigning them all to the same pro-tobacco subcommittee that killed such bills the last two years. She then refused to order a full committee vote.

Twelve separate bills on smoking were introduced this session, and Czarina Suit denied all of them a full committee hearing.

On Nov. 3, 2009, voters of Virginia Beach's 81st District should show Del. Suit the door.

Letter to the Editor, The Bristol Herald Courier, February 21, 2008, headlined, "Tell delegates to give ban a vote", writer, Hilton Oliver, Executive Director, Virginia GASP, Group to Alleviate Smoking in Public.

I recall learning in elementary school that we lived in a democracy of the people, by the people and for the people. The Virginia House of Delegates has made a mockery of that notion.

For the third straight year, the House leadership has used sleazy political maneuvering to kill widely popular bills to restrict public smoking. The bills have been intentionally routed to the illogical six-member subcommittee on Alcoholic Beverage Control and Gaming because those legislators are all known to be pro-tobacco. For three consecutive years, six delegates have prevented 100 delegates from even voting on this legislation.

Speaker William J. Howell, who is awash in tobacco contributions, opposes the bills and has sadly abused his power to circumvent the democratic process. His stooge is Delegate Terrie Suit, the new General Laws Committee chairwoman, who supported Gov. Tim Kaine’s effort at smoke-free restaurants last year but just coincidentally reversed her position after Howell made her committee chair. The bills obviously belong in the Health Committee anyway, but the speaker knows that committee would approve them.

Our legislators are plainly terrified that the clear will of Virginians could prevail over the will of Big Tobacco. The Senate passed four strong bills by a wide margin which would protect non-smokers. Unless the people of Virginia express their outrage, Howell and Suit will certainly spit on them again. Please demand that these bills receive a full and fair vote.

Bloomberg, 3/27: Altria dims as overseas spinoff gets Marlboro growth
Preventive Medicine, 2/9: Active & passive smoking & depression among Japanese workers
The Associated Press, 3/26: Maine House votes to ban smoking in cars with child passengers
The Sun, 3/19: Harry Puffer and the cigs curse
The Enquirer, 3/12: Judge upholds smoking ban [Ohio]
The Daily Tribute, 3/12: Study: Smoking ban benefits bar business [Wisconsin]
The Irish Times, 3/10: Drop in smoking illnesses welcomed (see also Italy)
Nicotine & Tobacco Research, March: Exposure to secondhand smoke in Germany
The Independent, 3/9: Tobacco and oil pay for climate conference

Related to this is a September 19, 2006 article in The Guardian, an extract from the book Heat by George Monbiot

Reuters, 3/5: Finnish women sue tobacco companies (Philip Morris, BAT) over lung disease
American Journal Public Health, 2/08: Secondhand smoke exposure among women & children, Evidence from 31 countries
American Journal Public Health, 2/08: Tobacco use & secondhand smoke exposure during pregnancy ... 9 developing nations

Bloomberg, 2/27: US Supreme Court won't question West Virginia tobacco suits
The Globe and Mail, 2/27: Ban on smoking near kids [in cars] catch on
Circulation, 2/11: Effect of the Italian smoking ban on acute coronary events (See also Other Countries)

In memory of Mitch Van Yahres

Washington Post, 2/8: WHO unveils global effort
TriCities.Com 2/11: ETSU expands [tobacco] ban
Business Week, 2/10: UTexas Bus. Sch., Saying NO to Tobacco Money
Bloomberg, 2/6: German government pushes anti-smoking
Boston Herald, 2/3: Monsters in the Boardroom
Washington Post, 2/6: Hit songs/Substance abuse
Bristol Herald Courier 2/1: Smoking restricted, Bristol Motor Speedway

Oregon Supreme Court decision, 1/31: Reinstating punitive damages against Philip Morris
CDC, 1/25: Global Youth Tobacco Surveillance, report
American Journal Industrial Medicine, 1/15: Waitress dies of secondhand smoke
Comment, In Memory of Heather Crowe
Le Devoir, 1/12: Protests on 100th anniversary Imperial Tobacco

OBJECTIVE: To assess the relation of passive and active smoking to depressive symptoms in 1839 men and 931 women working in a suburb of Tokyo in 2002.

METHOD: Self-reported smoking history and exposure to passive smoking (no, occasional, or regular) at work and at home. Depressive symptoms according to the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, with a cut-off point of 16.

RESULTS: Compared to never smokers unexposed to passive smoking, never smokers reporting regular and occasional exposure to passive smoking at work had increased depressive symptoms. ... Current smokers had significantly increased depressive symptoms ... but former smokers had only marginal increases of depressive symptoms .... Gender did not modify the effects of active/passive smoking on depressive symptoms.

CONCLUSION: Passive smoking at work and current smoking appear associated with higher levels of depressive symptoms.

EXCERPTS from Bloomberg, March 27, 2008, headlined, "Altria Dims as Overseas Spinoff Gets Marlboro Growth", writer, Chris Burritt.

For anyone anticipating the outcome of the spinoff of Altria Group Inc.'s Philip Morris International tomorrow, the best part may be the worst part.

Philip Morris International, the biggest chunk of the Marlboro cigarette franchise, provides 75 percent of Altria's revenue and two-thirds of the profit and is "a pretty easy choice," said Donald Yacktman, who oversees $1 billion as president of Yacktman Asset Management in Austin, Texas. The firm owned 61,704 Altria shares as of Dec. 31.

The spinoff's goal is to grab more smokers in developing markets, where the habit [web editor's note -- addiction] is on the rise and increasing wealth is spurring purchases of Marlboro, the world's top-selling brand.

"If you have a 5- to 10-year view, the stock you'd want to own is Philip Morris International," says Brian Barish, who manages 4.5 million Altria shares as president of Cambiar Investors in Denver. The firm oversees $8 billion in assets.

"There's growth in big, populous countries like China, India, Indonesia and Thailand," Barish said. "In the U.S., tobacco use has been in secular decline for multiple decades."

Altria's overseas shipments advanced 2.2 percent last year to 850 billion cigarettes and accounted for 16 percent of all the smokes sold worldwide. That contrasts with a U.S. drop of 4.6 percent as smoking bans and higher prices crimped demand. The American side of the company shipped 175.1 billion units.

Philip Morris International will accelerate growth in markets where there are fewer smoking restrictions and anti-tobacco lawsuits than in the U.S., investors say.

The company "won't have to worry about getting pre-approval from the U.S. for things that are perfectly acceptable in foreign markets," said Thomas Russo, who manages more than $3 billion, including 5.7 million Altria shares as of Dec. 31, at Gardner Russo & Gardner in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

As of Feb. 15, the international unit was defending itself against an estimated 133 suits claiming products harmed individuals, Altria said in a regulatory filing.

Altria faced 111 suits on behalf of individuals and 2,622 cases brought by airline flight attendants alleging they were injured by second-hand smoke, the filing said.

Shareholders in Altria will get one share of Philip Morris International for each one they owned March 19. The spinoff will trade under the ticker symbol "PM" starting March 31.

According to Bloomberg data, the overseas company trades at a higher price-to-equity ratio than British American Tobacco Plc, signaling it's fully valued against its European competitors.

The inclusion of the international company in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index may help the stock as fund managers who mimic the index buy the shares, said Giri Cherukuri, who helps manage $1.2 billion at Oakbrook Investments LLC. The Lisle, Illinois- based firm owned 61,100 Altria shares as of Dec. 31.

As the fastest growth goes overseas, the U.S. company plans $1 billion in cost cuts while boosting sales of smokeless tobacco products as Americans consume as much as 2 percent fewer cigarettes a year.

The company, which is relocating to Richmond, Virginia, from New York, makes half of the cigarettes sold in the U.S. It plans to buy back $7.5 billion in stock over the next two years and pay an estimated $5.4 billion in dividends. It projected an annual shareholder return greater than 12 percent.

Over the next two years, Philip Morris International plans to spend about $21 billion on buybacks and dividends. It hasn't forecast a total return to shareholders.

Altria's board approved the timing of the split in January. It comes a year after the company spun off its 89 percent stake in Kraft Foods Inc., the world's second-largest food company.

Barish and other investors favored the breakup, first mentioned by Chief Executive Officer Louis Camilleri in 2004, as a way to focus Altria's Philip Morris USA on boosting Marlboro's 41 percent share of the U.S. market while expanding into snuff and cigars.

A bill to outlaw smoking in cars in which children under 16 are present won an initial vote of approval Tuesday in the Maine House of Representatives after supporters defended it as a children's health measure that would save money.

The bill, which faces further House and Senate voting, advanced on a 92-46 tally. It would authorize $50 fines for violations, but only after the first year. In the meantime, warnings would be issued.

Speaking in support, Rep. Sheryl Briggs said the bill would protect children from the effects of secondhand smoke in enclosed areas that could lead to ear infections and aggravate asthma and other respiratory ailments.

The bill emerged with a 12-1 vote of support from the Health and Human Services Committee. The dissenter, Rep. Robert Walker, urged against "legislating common sense."

"Is the long arm of government once again reaching into people's lives, into people's homes and now in people's cars?" asked the Lincolnville Republican, who is a physician.

Rep. Sean Faircloth, the assistant House Democratic leader, said the bill defends the rights of children who are strapped in the enclosures of cars "and forced to breathe in carcinogens."

"As a civil libertarian, I am forced to support this bill," said Faircloth.

Another Bangor Democrat, Rep. Patricia Blanchette, had supported a city ordinance that was the state's first and became a model of a legislative bill she sponsored earlier on. But on Tuesday she called for rejection of the pending measure, saying it had become too watered down in committee. Among the changes Blanchette opposes are lowering the age in the original bill, which applied to those under age 18, to those under 16 instead.

Maine's bill is similar to those that have been enacted in other cities, counties and states and are under consideration or enacted in Canadian provinces.

As of Tuesday, it will be against the law in Nova Scotia to smoke in a vehicle while children under 18 are present. The fine will be $394.50.

A group of bar and restaurant owners who argued in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court that Ohio’s smoking ban is unconstitutional lost their bid to overturn the law.

Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Fred Nelson tossed the lawsuit out Friday, upholding the “Smoke Free Workplace Act,” which voters passed in November 2006.

The law makes it illegal to smoke in bars, restaurants and most places of employment. Violators can be fined.

“Neither the Constitution of the United States nor the Ohio Constitution creates a fundamental right to smoke in public,” Nelson wrote. He pointed out the Ohio Supreme Court has determined the Ohio General Assembly has the authority to enact smoking laws.

Nelson echoed sentiments he made last May when he refused to block enforcement of the ban.

“A law may be thought ill-advised, paternalistic and generally obnoxious and still not be unconstitutional,” he wrote.

Nelson’s decision is the first upholding the law, according to Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann’s office.

Dann applauded the decision Monday “as landmark support of Ohio voters.”

Attorney Scott Nazzarine, who represents the Buckeye Liquor Permit Holders, the group that filed the lawsuit, said he is meeting with his client Tuesday to discuss whether to appeal.

“I’m not sure about whether we’ll appeal, but my guess would be yes,” Nazzarine said.

Similar smoking bans in other states have been challenged and upheld.

The Buckeye Liquor Permit Holders filed a lawsuit against the Ohio Department of Health in 2006 to stop enforcement of the ban. The group argued that privacy and property rights in the Ohio and U.S. Constitution’s protected citizens’ right to smoke.

A new study published by a public interest group finds the smoking bans passed in cities across the state have had a neutral or even positive impact on the bar business.

These findings refute similar studies published by tobacco companies and commercials paid for by the Wisconsin Tavern League that claim a ban would cost businesses and employees money.

WISPIRG, a nonprofit group based in Madison, found that in Madison and Appleton, which have had bans for a few years, the tavern industry is going strong.

Requests for liquor licenses are up in Madison and Appleton. There is a waiting list in Appleton for a license. Employment in the service industry in Madison increased by 15.5 percent from 2005 to 2006.

WISPIRG firmly supports a statewide ban, but had no biases going into this study, said Bruce Speight, a public interest advocate.

"Tobacco companies have said that a statewide ban would be bad for business and the state's economy, but our findings was that a ban has either a neutral or positive effect on the bar business," Speight said.

WISPIRG did not tabulate sales figures for bars and restaurants before and after a ban was enacted. Still, Speight said the study is conclusive.

"It seems like in communities that are now smoke-free, people have adapted. They are still going to bars, and the industry isn't hurting," Speight said.

Stevens Point has been smoke-free since 2005 in restaurants with seating for more than 50. There is no hard data on how the hospitality industry in the city has fared since the ban.

Bruce Woboril, the owner of the Elbow Room in Stevens Point, disputes WISPIRG's findings. He and about 900 members of the state tavern league were in Madison to lobby lawmakers last week. He said many bars in Madison have closed since the ban and small taverns like his would be hurt by a statewide ban.

The village of Park Ridge enacted its own smoking ban in 2006. At the Silver Coach restaurant, business in the dining room is steady, said co-owner Rob Tuszka.

"(The ban) hurt our bar a little bit, but not terribly," Tuszka said.

A state Assembly committee heard testimony last month on a statewide smoking ban proposal. A similar bill in the state Senate stalled.

... figures ... indicate public smoking bans in Europe have reduced heart attacks and heart-related strokes.

The information, published a week ago by the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), showed a 15 per cent fall in patients admitted to hospital for myocardial infarction strokes in France since the ban on was imposed.

The public smoking ban was introduced there in February 2007 and received unprecedented support.

The ESC recorded an 11.2 per cent drop in acute coronary events, such as angina, in Italy where the smoking ban has entered its third year.

Ireland led the way in Europe when the government introduced a full smoking ban in workplaces, pubs and restaurants, in 2004.

Irish Heart Foundation medical director Dr Brian Maurer said: "These figures are very welcome as they confirm the positive impact of smoking bans on public health."

Dr Maurer said the move had been "recognised internationally as a pioneering step" to reduce heart illness caused by smoking and passive smoking.

The ESC urged other European governments to take action in response to their findings by implementing a smoking bans across Europe.

ESC senior cardiologist Prof Daniel Thomas, said: "The most striking aspect in this study is the reduction of pollution inside cafes and restaurants by over 75 per cent between December 2007 and January 2008.

"Passive smoking has been shown to increase the risk of coronary heart disease, and the recent smoking ban is obviously having a beneficial effect on both smokers and non-smokers."

This study quantified exposure to secondhand smoke in German restaurants, bars, and entertainment venues by determining the concentration of respirable suspended particles measuring 2.5 µm or less (PM2.5) in indoor air. The measurements were taken using an inconspicuous device placed on the investigator's table in the venue. The concentration of particulate matter in the indoor air was measured for a minimum of 30 min.

A total of 39 restaurants, 20 coffee bars, 12 bars, 9 discotheques, and 20 restaurant cars in trains were visited throughout Germany from September 30 to October 31, 2005. The readings disclosed a median PM2.5 of 260 µg/m3 and an arithmetic mean PM2.5 of 333 µg/m3. Median values were 378 µg/m3 in bars, 131 µg/m3 in cafes, and 173 µg/m3 in restaurants. The highest medians were measured in discotheques and restaurant cars, with values averaging 432 µg/m3 and 525 µg/m3 PM2.5, respectively.

This study was the first to show the magnitude and extent of exposure to secondhand smoke on such an extensive scale in Germany. The contaminated air due to smoking is a human carcinogenic and major health hazard, which would be prevented most effectively and completely by implementing a ban on smoking. This study is important for the ongoing national debate in Germany as well as for debates in all countries without smoke-free air legislation, which includes most countries around the world.

The first international conference designed to question the scientific consensus on climate change is being sponsored by a right-wing American think-tank which receives money from the oil industry.

The same group has tried to undermine the link between passive smoking and health problems and has accepted donations from a major tobacco company.

The 2008 International Conference on Climate Change in New York appears to be a conventional exchange of ideas on the science of global warming. Yet it is organised by the Heartland Institute of Chicago, which has opposed much of the science of climate change and passive smoking.

Exxon, the oil giant, and Philip Morris, the tobacco company, have both donated money to it ... It is believed to be the first time that a direct link has emerged between anti-global warming sceptics funded by the oil industry and the opponents of the scientific evidence showing that passive smoking can damage people's health.

The Heartland Institute claims no money from energy companies is being used to support the conference. But one of the co-sponsors, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, has received funds from Texaco.

For years, a network of fake citizens' groups and bogus scientific bodies has been claiming that science of global warming is inconclusive. They set back action on climate change by a decade. But who funded them? Exxon's involvement is well known, but not the strange role of Big Tobacco. In the first of three extracts from his new book, Heat, [published by Allen Lane] George Monbiot tells a bizarre and shocking new story:

ExxonMobil is the world's most profitable corporation. Its sales now amount to more than $1bn a day. It makes most of this money from oil, and has more to lose than any other company from efforts to tackle climate change. To safeguard its profits, ExxonMobil needs to sow doubt about whether serious action needs to be taken on climate change. But there are difficulties: it must confront a scientific consensus as strong as that which maintains that smoking causes lung cancer or that HIV causes Aids. So what's its strategy?

The website Exxonsecrets.org, using data found in the company's official documents, lists 124 organisations that have taken money from the company or work closely with those that have. These organisations take a consistent line on climate change: that the science is contradictory, the scientists are split, environmentalists are charlatans, liars or lunatics, and if governments took action to prevent global warming, they would be endangering the global economy for no good reason. The findings these organisations dislike are labelled "junk science". The findings they welcome are labelled "sound science".

Among the organisations that have been funded by Exxon are such well-known websites and lobby groups as TechCentralStation, the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation. Some of those on the list have names that make them look like grassroots citizens' organisations or academic bodies: the Centre for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, for example. One or two of them, such as the Congress of Racial Equality, are citizens' organisations or academic bodies, but the line they take on climate change is very much like that of the other sponsored groups. While all these groups are based in America, their publications are read and cited, and their staff are interviewed and quoted, all over the world.

By funding a large number of organisations, Exxon helps to create the impression that doubt about climate change is widespread. For those who do not understand that scientific findings cannot be trusted if they have not appeared in peer-reviewed journals, the names of these institutes help to suggest that serious researchers are challenging the consensus.

This is not to claim that all the science these groups champion is bogus. On the whole, they use selection, not invention. They will find one contradictory study - such as the discovery of tropospheric cooling, which, in a garbled form, has been used by Peter Hitchens in the Mail on Sunday - and promote it relentlessly. They will continue to do so long after it has been disproved by further work. So, for example, John Christy, the author of the troposphere paper, admitted in August 2005 that his figures were incorrect, yet his initial findings are still being circulated and championed by many of these groups, as a quick internet search will show you.

But they do not stop there. The chairman of a group called the Science and Environmental Policy Project is Frederick Seitz. Seitz is a physicist who in the 1960s was president of the US National Academy of Sciences. In 1998, he wrote a document, known as the Oregon Petition, which has been cited by almost every journalist who claims that climate change is a myth.

The document reads as follows: "We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind. There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."

Anyone with a degree was entitled to sign it. It was attached to a letter written by Seitz, entitled Research Review of Global Warming Evidence. The lead author of the "review" that followed Seitz's letter is a Christian fundamentalist called Arthur B Robinson. He is not a professional climate scientist. It was co-published by Robinson's organisation - the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine - and an outfit called the George C Marshall Institute, which has received $630,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998. The other authors were Robinson's 22-year-old son and two employees of the George C Marshall Institute. The chairman of the George C Marshall Institute was Frederick Seitz.

The paper maintained that: "We are living in an increasingly lush environment of plants and animals as a result of the carbon dioxide increase. Our children will enjoy an Earth with far more plant and animal life than that with which we now are blessed. This is a wonderful and unexpected gift from the Industrial Revolution."

It was printed in the font and format of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: the journal of the organisation of which Seitz - as he had just reminded his correspondents - was once president.

Soon after the petition was published, the National Academy of Sciences released this statement: "The NAS Council would like to make it clear that this petition has nothing to do with the National Academy of Sciences and that the manuscript was not published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences or in any other peer-reviewed journal. The petition does not reflect the conclusions of expert reports of the Academy."

But it was too late. Seitz, the Oregon Institute and the George C Marshall Institute had already circulated tens of thousands of copies, and the petition had established a major presence on the internet. Some 17,000 graduates signed it, the majority of whom had no background in climate science. It has been repeatedly cited - by global-warming sceptics such as David Bellamy, Melanie Phillips and others - as a petition by climate scientists. It is promoted by the Exxon-sponsored sites as evidence that there is no scientific consensus on climate change.

All this is now well known to climate scientists and environmentalists. But what I have discovered while researching this issue is that the corporate funding of lobby groups denying that manmade climate change is taking place was initiated not by Exxon, or by any other firm directly involved in the fossil fuel industry. It was started by the tobacco company Philip Morris.

In December 1992, the US Environmental Protection Agency published a 500-page report called Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking. It found that "the widespread exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) in the United States presents a serious and substantial public health impact. In adults: ETS is a human lung carcinogen, responsible for approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths annually in US non-smokers. In children: ETS exposure is causally associated with an increased risk of lower respiratory tract infections such as bronchitis and pneumonia. This report estimates that 150,000 to 300,000 cases annually in infants and young children up to 18 months of age are attributable to ETS."

Had it not been for the settlement of a major class action against the tobacco companies in the US, we would never have been able to see what happened next. But in 1998 they were forced to publish their internal documents and post them on the internet.

Within two months of its publication, Philip Morris, the world's biggest tobacco firm, had devised a strategy for dealing with the passive-smoking report. In February 1993 Ellen Merlo, its senior vice-president of corporate affairs, sent a letter to William I Campbell, Philip Morris's chief executive officer and president, explaining her intentions: "Our overriding objective is to discredit the EPA report ... Concurrently, it is our objective to prevent states and cities, as well as businesses, from passive-smoking bans."

To this end, she had hired a public relations company called APCO. She had attached the advice it had given her. APCO warned that: "No matter how strong the arguments, industry spokespeople are, in and of themselves, not always credible or appropriate messengers."

So the fight against a ban on passive smoking had to be associated with other people and other issues. Philip Morris, APCO said, needed to create the impression of a "grassroots" movement - one that had been formed spontaneously by concerned citizens to fight "overregulation". It should portray the danger of tobacco smoke as just one "unfounded fear" among others, such as concerns about pesticides and cellphones. APCO proposed to set up "a national coalition intended to educate the media, public officials and the public about the dangers of 'junk science'. Coalition will address credibility of government's scientific studies, risk-assessment techniques and misuse of tax dollars ... Upon formation of Coalition, key leaders will begin media outreach, eg editorial board tours, opinion articles, and brief elected officials in selected states."

APCO would found the coalition, write its mission statements, and "prepare and place opinion articles in key markets". For this it required $150,000 for its own fees and $75,000 for the coalition's costs.

By May 1993, as another memo from APCO to Philip Morris shows, the fake citizens' group had a name: the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition. It was important, further letters stated, "to ensure that TASSC has a diverse group of contributors"; to "link the tobacco issue with other more 'politically correct' products"; and to associate scientific studies that cast smoking in a bad light with "broader questions about government research and regulations" - such as "global warming", "nuclear waste disposal" and "biotechnology". APCO would engage in the "intensive recruitment of high-profile representatives from business and industry, scientists, public officials, and other individuals interested in promoting the use of sound science".

By September 1993, APCO had produced a "Plan for the Public Launching of TASSC". The media launch would not take place in "Washington, DC or the top media markets of the country. Rather, we suggest creating a series of aggressive, decentralised launches in several targeted local and regional markets across the country. This approach ... avoids cynical reporters from major media: less reviewing/challenging of TASSC messages."

The media coverage, the public relations company hoped, would enable TASSC to "establish an image of a national grassroots coalition". In case the media asked hostile questions, APCO circulated a sheet of answers, drafted by Philip Morris. The first question was:

"Isn't it true that Philip Morris created TASSC to act as a front group for it?

"A: No, not at all. As a large corporation, PM belongs to many national, regional, and state business, public policy, and legislative organisations. PM has contributed to TASSC, as we have with various groups and corporations across the country."

There are clear similarities between the language used and the approaches adopted by Philip Morris and by the organisations funded by Exxon. The two lobbies use the same terms, which appear to have been invented by Philip Morris's consultants. "Junk science" meant peer-reviewed studies showing that smoking was linked to cancer and other diseases. "Sound science" meant studies sponsored by the tobacco industry suggesting that the link was inconclusive. Both lobbies recognised that their best chance of avoiding regulation was to challenge the scientific consensus. As a memo from the tobacco company Brown and Williamson noted, "Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the 'body of fact' that exists in the mind of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy." Both industries also sought to distance themselves from their own campaigns, creating the impression that they were spontaneous movements of professionals or ordinary citizens: the "grassroots".

But the connection goes further than that. TASSC, the "coalition" created by Philip Morris, was the first and most important of the corporate-funded organisations denying that climate change is taking place. It has done more damage to the campaign to halt it than any other body.

TASSC did as its founders at APCO suggested, and sought funding from other sources. Between 2000 and 2002 it received $30,000 from Exxon. The website it has financed - JunkScience.com - has been the main entrepot for almost every kind of climate-change denial that has found its way into the mainstream press. It equates environmentalists with Nazis, communists and terrorists. It flings at us the accusations that could justifably be levelled against itself: the website claims, for example, that it is campaigning against "faulty scientific data and analysis used to advance special and, often, hidden agendas". I have lost count of the number of correspondents who, while questioning manmade global warming, have pointed me there.

The man who runs it is called Steve Milloy. In 1992, he started working for APCO - Philip Morris's consultants. While there, he set up the JunkScience site. In March 1997, the documents show, he was appointed TASSC's executive director. By 1998, as he explained in a memo to TASSC board members, his JunkScience website was was being funded by TASSC. Both he and the "coalition" continued to receive money from Philip Morris. An internal document dated February 1998 reveals that TASSC took $200,000 from the tobacco company in 1997. Philip Morris's 2001 budget document records a payment to Steven Milloy of $90,000. Altria, Philip Morris's parent company, admits that Milloy was under contract to the tobacco firm until at least the end of 2005.

He has done well. You can find his name attached to letters and articles seeking to discredit passive-smoking studies all over the internet and in the academic databases. He has even managed to reach the British Medical Journal: I found a letter from him there which claimed that the studies it had reported "do not bear out the hypothesis that maternal smoking/ passive smoking increases cancer risk among infants". TASSC paid him $126,000 in 2004 for 15 hours' work a week. Two other organisations are registered at his address: the Free Enterprise Education Institute and the Free Enterprise Action Institute. They have received $10,000 and $50,000 respectively from Exxon. The secretary of the Free Enterprise Action Institute is Thomas Borelli. Borelli was the Philip Morris executive who oversaw the payments to TASSC.

Milloy also writes a weekly Junk Science column for the Fox News website. Without declaring his interests, he has used this column to pour scorn on studies documenting the medical effects of second-hand tobacco smoke and showing that climate change is taking place. Even after Fox News was told about the money he had been receiving from Philip Morris and Exxon, it continued to employ him, without informing its readers about his interests.

TASSC's headed notepaper names an advisory board of eight people. Three of them are listed by Exxonsecrets.org as working for organisations taking money from Exxon. One of them is Frederick Seitz, the man who wrote the Oregon Petition, and who chairs the Science and Environmental Policy Project. In 1979, Seitz became a permanent consultant to the tobacco company RJ Reynolds. He worked for the firm until at least 1987, for an annual fee of $65,000. He was in charge of deciding which medical research projects the company should fund, and handed out millions of dollars a year to American universities. The purpose of this funding, a memo from the chairman of RJ Reynolds shows, was to "refute the criticisms against cigarettes". An undated note in the Philip Morris archive shows that it was planning a "Seitz symposium" with the help of TASSC, in which Frederick Seitz would speak to "40-60 regulators".

The president of Seitz's Science and Environmental Policy Project is a maverick environmental scientist called S Fred Singer. He has spent the past few years refuting evidence for manmade climate change. It was he, for example, who published the misleading claim that most of the world's glaciers are advancing, which landed David Bellamy in so much trouble when he repeated it last year. He also had connections with the tobacco industry. In March 1993, APCO sent a memo to Ellen Merlo, the vice-president of Philip Morris, who had just commissioned it to fight the Environmental Protection Agency: "As you know, we have been working with Dr Fred Singer and Dr Dwight Lee, who have authored articles on junk science and indoor air quality (IAQ) respectively ..."

Singer's article, entitled Junk Science at the EPA, claimed that "the latest 'crisis' - environmental tobacco smoke - has been widely criticised as the most shocking distortion of scientific evidence yet". He alleged that the Environmental Protection Agency had had to "rig the numbers" in its report on passive smoking. This was the report that Philip Morris and APCO had set out to discredit a month before Singer wrote his article.

I have no evidence that Fred Singer or his organisation have taken money from Philip Morris. But many of the other bodies that have been sponsored by Exxon and have sought to repudiate climate change were also funded by the tobacco company. Among them are some of the world's best-known "thinktanks": the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Hudson Institute, the Frontiers of Freedom Institute, the Reason Foundation and the Independent Institute, as well as George Mason University's Law and Economics Centre. I can't help wondering whether there is any aspect of conservative thought in the United States that has not been formed and funded by the corporations.

Until I came across this material, I believed that the accusations, the insults and the taunts such people had slung at us environmentalists were personal: that they really did hate us, and had found someone who would pay to help them express those feelings. Now I realise that they have simply transferred their skills.

While they have been most effective in the United States, the impacts of the climate-change deniers sponsored by Exxon and Philip Morris have been felt all over the world. I have seen their arguments endlessly repeated in Australia, Canada, India, Russia and the UK. By dominating the media debate on climate change during seven or eight critical years in which urgent international talks should have been taking place, by constantly seeding doubt about the science just as it should have been most persuasive, they have justified the money their sponsors have spent on them many times over. It is fair to say that the professional denial industry has delayed effective global action on climate change by years, just as it helped to delay action against the tobacco companies.

Heather Wipfli 1*, Erika Avila-Tang 1, Ana Navas-Acien 2, Sungroul Kim 2, Georgiana Onicescu 1, Jie Yuan 2, Patrick Breysse 1, Jonathan M. Samet 1
1 Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Department of Epidemiology
2 Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Department of Environmental Health Sciences
Abstract
Objectives. We sought to describe the range of SHS exposures among women and children living with smokers in countries around the world.

Methods. In 2006, we conducted a cross-sectional exposure survey to measure air nicotine concentrations in households and hair nicotine concentrations among nonsmoking women and children in convenience samples of 40 households in 31 countries.

Results. Median air nicotine concentration was 17 times higher in households with smokers (0.18 µg/m3) compared with households without smokers (0.01 µg/m3). Air nicotine and hair nicotine concentrations in women and children increased with the number of smokers in the household. The dose–response relationship was steeper among children. Air nicotine concentrations increased an estimated 12.9 times (95% confidence interval=9.4, 17.6) in households allowing smoking inside compared with those prohibiting smoking inside.

Conclusions. Our results indicate that women and children living with smokers are at increased risk of premature death and disease from exposure to SHS. Interventions to protect women and children from household SHS need to be strengthened.

Abstract
Objectives. We examined pregnant women’s use of cigarettes and other tobacco products and the exposure of pregnant women and their young children to secondhand smoke (SHS) in 9 nations in Latin America, Asia, and Africa.

Methods. Face-to-face surveys were administered to 7961 pregnant women (more than700 per site) between October 2004 and September 2005.

Results. At all Latin American sites, pregnant women commonly reported that they had ever tried cigarette smoking (range: 78.3% [Uruguay] to 35.0% [Guatemala]). The highest levels of current smoking were found in Uruguay (18.3%), Argentina (10.3%), and Brazil (6.1%). Experimentation with smokeless tobacco occurred in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and India; one third of all respondents in Orissa, India, were current smokeless tobacco users. SHS exposure was common: between 91.6% (Pakistan) and 17.1% (Democratic Republic of the Congo) of pregnant women reported that smoking was permitted in their home.

Conclusions. Pregnant women’s tobacco use and SHS exposure are current or emerging problems in several low- and middle-income nations, jeopardizing ongoing efforts to improve maternal and child health.

Three Finnish women with lung disease are claiming 348,000 euros ($527,900) in damages from two tobacco companies in a case that could set a precedent in Europe.

The women, aged 64, 58 and 52, are suing the Nordic unit of British American Tobacco (BAT) and Finland's Amer, which manufactured cigarettes until 2004 under licence from Altria's Philip Morris.

Both companies deny the charges.

"This is about consumer protection and product responsibility," Erkki Aurejarvi, the plaintiffs' lawyer, told the district court of Helsinki on Monday.

"Tobacco and nicotine are addictive. Despite our efforts, we haven't been able to get Amer or BAT to admit that."

The plaintiffs argue they were not aware of the dangers of smoking when they started in their teenage years, and that the tobacco companies hid and publicly denied that cigarettes cause various diseases, including lung cancer.

Two of the women have had lung cancer and all three have been diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Their lawyers also argue that tobacco companies have since the 1970s marketed light cigarettes as a healthier option. A European Union directive in 2002 banned the description of cigarettes as "mild" or "light".

"Amer has not in its production or marketing of tobacco broken in any way such a duty, ban or order it should have followed during the time in question," Amer said, according to court documents.

BAT said the manufacture and sale of tobacco had been and is a legal activity in Finland in all relevant times in the case.

Tobacco litigation cases in Europe have not been as successful as in the United States, and the only major case in Britain, the McTear case in May 2005, was won by the tobacco industry.

The widow of Alfred McTear, a man who died from lung cancer, failed in her bid to sue British tobacco company Imperial Tobacco Group Plc.

Aurejarvi, who is representing the Finnish plaintiffs free of charge, said tobacco companies had strived to cause addiction by their nicotine research and manipulation. "It is the science they do in the closed laboratories," he said.

The hearings are expected to last until May with a decision due later in the year.

Cigarette advertising has been banned in Finland since 1976.

Daniel Radcliffe ... — just 18 — has been nicknamed Harry Puffer on the set of the new Hogwarts movie after rushing to light up whenever the director yells “Cut”.

A source confirmed last night: “Daniel has recently been smoking up to 20 cigarettes a day.

“Every time they call ‘Cut’, he lights up. It’s disgusting.

“Friends and co-stars including Rupert Grint have been warning him about the dangers of smoking. But he doesn’t take any notice.”

Producers fear the actor’s habit could ruin his schoolboy image — and have now warned him not to be seen puffing in public.

a compassionate man who put people before politics, Mitch worked tirelessly in supporting health by helping pass the Virginia Indoor Clean Air Act in 1990, and protecting it thereafter. He was a delegate from the Charlottesville, Virginia area. His death at 81 is a loss to us all. His obituary notes: he "tended trees for a living and people for a lifetime."

The tobacco industry lost a U.S. Supreme Court bid aimed at limiting damage awards in more than 700 West Virginia lawsuits filed by smokers who say cigarettes gave them cancer and other diseases.

The justices, without comment, today left intact a trial plan that Altria Group Inc.'s Philip Morris USA unit and other cigarette makers said will lead to unconstitutional awards of punitive damages. The approach calls for a jury to consider common issues, including the availability of punitive damages, before separate trials are held on individual cases.

"Defense counsel will be wholly unable to defend against plaintiffs' amorphous claim for punitive damages," the cigarette makers argued in their unsuccessful appeal, filed in Washington. In addition to Philip Morris, Reynolds America Inc.'s R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and Loews Corp.'s Lorillard Tobacco Co. urged the Supreme Court to intervene.

The rejection clears the way for sick smokers to seek millions, if not billions, of dollars in damages. Lawyers for the smokers say the trial plan is a valid way to ensure that claims against cigarette makers can move forward quickly.

"An inefficient trial plan would practically deny a substantial portion of these terminally ill plaintiffs their day in court," lawyers for the West Virginia smokers argued in court papers. The first phase of the case is scheduled to go to trial March 18, according to court papers.

Under the West Virginia trial plan, the first jury will determine liability questions that affect all the defendants. That same jury also will decide whether punitive damages are appropriate and, if so, establish a "multiplier" that would be used to assess punitive damages once compensatory damages are measured for each smoker.

West Virginia's highest court, known as the Supreme Court of Appeals, in November refused to question the trial plan. In 2005 that court rejected the tobacco industry's contention that the approach was unconstitutional under a 2003 U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

In their latest appeal, the tobacco companies pointed to that ruling and a 2007 decision in another Supreme Court case involving Philip Morris. Those decisions establish that "punishment must be narrowly focused on the defendant's conduct toward the plaintiff," the appeal argued.

The smokers' lawyers said the 2007 decision made clear that juries can consider the impact of a defendant's conduct on other people.

"Philip Morris admitted and this court held that evidence of harm to others is relevant to the determination of a punitive damages multiplier," they argued.

Before last November, Wolfville, N.S., was best known as a university town and quaint tourist destination.

But all that changed when it became the first municipality in Canada to pass a bylaw to ban smoking in cars carrying anyone younger than 18.

Now, the community has become the centre of a national movement against lighting up in cars with children, the latest anti-smoking campaign that is sweeping across Canada and picking up considerable political willpower along the way.

Since Wolfville adopted the historic bylaw less than four months ago, the entire province of Nova Scotia has moved to ban smoking in cars with kids under a law expected to take effect in the near future.

British Columbia's government promised to create a ban in its Throne Speech earlier this month, while Summerside, PEI, recently adopted a motion to prohibit smoking in cars carrying kids. A spokesman for Ontario Minister of Health Promotion Margarett Best said the government is considering a ban, and a private member's bill is currently making its way through the province's legislature. Numerous other provinces including Manitoba, New Brunswick and Newfoundland say they're considering similar action.

"I'm optimistic that in 2008 we're going to have several provinces join Nova Scotia. We now have unstoppable momentum on this issue," said Rob Cunningham, senior policy analyst at the Canadian Cancer Society.

Few public health issues have attracted such attention and triggered such rapid political change in recent years as the issue of smoking in cars with children. For instance, drivers can still talk freely on their cellphones in most parts of the country, despite years of urging from medical experts to ban the practice and mounting evidence it can increase the risk of collisions.

The speed and success of the move to ban lighting up when kids are in the car shows how an aggressive campaign by powerful advocacy groups, public fear for children's health, an increasing taboo on smoking and the political domino effect have combined to create a major public policy change.

"If we were to look six months ago, no one would have predicted that things would have moved so quickly on this issue," Mr. Cunningham said. "It's an issue whose time has come."

Although the idea of a smoking ban in cars has been floated in the past, particularly after some U.S. states and Australia passed laws on the issue, most observers credit a small grassroots organization in Wolfville as the catalyst for change in Canada. The group, called Smoke Free Kings, found significant support when it approached town council with the idea of a ban several months ago. But they didn't anticipate how fast support would grow from there.

"I have never seen anything happen so quickly," said Lila Hope-Simpson, the group's administrative co-ordinator. "It snowballed. It went faster than anybody was expecting."

When the ban was adopted, major organizations including the Ontario Medical Association, the Canadian Lung Association, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada and the Canadian Cancer Society seized the momentum by launching focused campaigns designed to win public support and pressure politicians to take action. For some of the large non-profit organizations, that meant taking advantage of individual chapters throughout the country to help spread the message.

"Clearly [the campaigns have] been a factor," Mr. Cunningham said. "This is an issue that resonates with people."

Earlier this month, the Ontario Medical Association published a report showing that children can be exposed to 60 times the concentration of secondhand smoke in cars compared with less confined indoor spaces.

"It's very concentrated, the dose and the concentration of the toxins, and the time they have to spend in close proximity [to secondhand smoke]," said Janice Willett, president of the association.

Provinces such as Alberta and Quebec are holdouts, saying they're not ready to consider a ban on smoking in cars with kids.

Regardless, Dr. Willett said that focusing public attention on the dangers of smoking in cars will serve a larger purpose by reminding people not to smoke in front of children and to consider quitting.

One leading smoking cessation expert said the medical community has long known about the health hazards of lighting up in the car when kids are present. But the rapid response from various provinces is a prime example of how quickly politicians can be prompted to move on an issue that has won popular support, said Roberta Ferrence, executive director of the Ontario Tobacco Research Unit at the University of Toronto.

"It makes an idea seem more generally acceptable" when a city becomes the first to take action on a potentially controversial issue, she said.

Similarly rapid political movement occurred several years ago when Canadian cities began to ban smoking in public places, Dr. Ferrence said.

"It was kind of a domino effect."

Wolfville's ban and subsequent support from other parts of the country have attracted some opposition from civil liberties and smokers' rights groups, who argue that the government shouldn't be able to dictate whether people can smoke in the semi-private space of their car.

But the resistance has failed to gain much traction, an indicator of how strong public support for smoking restrictions has become in recent years, particularly when children are involved, according to Ms. Hope-Simpson.

"There aren't too many people, even if they believe it, [who are] going to say 'I want to smoke in my car with my kids in there.' "

Authors Giulia Cesaroni MSc, Francesco Forastiere MD, PhD*, Nera Agabiti MD, Pasquale Valente MD, Piergiorgio Zuccaro PhD, and Carlo A. Perucci MD
From the Department of Epidemiology (G.C., F.F., N.A., C.A.P.), Local Health Unit ASL RME, and Istituto Superiore di Sanità (P.V., P.Z.), Rome, Italy.

Noting here the "Background" and the "Conclusions" from the Abstract:
Background—Several countries in the world have not yet prohibited smoking in public places. Few studies have been conducted on the effects of smoking bans on cardiac health. We evaluated changes in the frequency of acute coronary events in Rome, Italy, after the introduction of legislation that banned smoking in all indoor public places in January 2005.

Conclusions—We found a statistically significant reduction in acute coronary events in the adult population after the smoking ban. The size of the effect was consistent with the pollution reduction observed in indoor public places and with the known health effects of passive smoking. The results affirm that public interventions that prohibit smoking can have enormous public health implications.

One billion people may die of tobacco-related illness this century, almost all of them in developing countries, the World Health Organization warned yesterday as it rolled out an unprecedented global campaign to limit the spread of smoking.

The effort provides the first comprehensive look at tobacco use, as well as smoking control and taxation policies, in 179 countries. It also lays out six strategies to reduce tobacco use, many used by rich countries in recent decades, although far from fully deployed even there.

Tobacco use is a risk factor for six of the world's eight leading causes of death, and causes about one in every 10 deaths of adults now. That toll is expected to rise steeply as tobacco companies target new customers, particularly women, in low-income countries, WHO officials said.

"What we're saying is that we don't want to let that happen," said Douglas Bettcher, director of the WHO Tobacco Free Initiative. "We want to see the operating environment of the tobacco companies become as difficult as possible in the near future."

"In many countries, money spent by the poor on cigarettes is taken away from what they could spend on health and education," said Patrick Petit, a WHO economist who helped produce the 329-page report accompanying the initiative's launch in New York.

Margaret Chan, WHO's director-general, said the compilation of data is itself a powerful tool for change. "I truly believe that what gets measured gets done," she said.

WHO is using marketing techniques reminiscent of the tobacco companies'. It has branded the campaign MPOWER -- each letter represents one of six strategies -- and is eschewing scare tactics in favor of the theme "fresh and alive." Press materials came with a box that looks like a pack of cigarettes and contains a pad and pens describing the elements of the campaign.

The six strategies are: monitoring tobacco use and control policy; protecting people by enforcing "smoke-free" laws; offering smokers nicotine replacement and counseling programs; warning on cigarette packs about smoking's hazards; enforcing bans on tobacco advertising and promotion; and raising the price of tobacco through taxes.

Numerous studies have shown that raising the price of cigarettes is by far the most powerful strategy. For every 10 percent increase in price, cigarette consumption drops about 4 percent overall and about 8 percent in young people.

While some cities, states and provinces employ the strategies in a coordinated fashion, no countries do so, the WHO report said. Uruguay employs the most of any nation -- three: graphic pack warnings, a ban on smoking in public buildings and free smoking-cessation help. The United States employs two, at least to a degree: national monitoring and a national ban on many forms of tobacco advertising.

Only 5 percent of the global population is protected by laws to curb smoking; only 5 percent live in countries that completely ban tobacco advertising and event sponsorship; and only 6 percent live in places where cigarette packs carry pictorial warnings of smoking's hazards. (In Brazil, some packs feature a man with a tracheotomy, a breathing hole created in the front of the neck after treatment for throat cancer).

Nearly two-thirds of the world's smokers live in 10 countries, with China accounting for nearly 30 percent. About 100 million Chinese men now under 30 will die from tobacco use unless they quit, the report said.

In India, which is second to China in the number of smokers, tobacco control is complicated by the fact there are two types of cigarettes that are priced and taxed differently.

In 2006, Indians smoked about 106 billion conventional cigarettes and 1 trillion "biris." The latter are loosely packed combinations of tobacco and flavorings such as chocolate or clove, wrapped in a leaf of the tendu tree.

WHO's campaign was put together with financial help from a philanthropy run by New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, a billionaire businessman. He is giving $125 million over two years for global tobacco control and helped pay for the country-by-country survey that provided baseline data for the campaign.

In New York, he created one of the most comprehensive anti-smoking programs in the country. His advocacy of higher tobacco taxes has pushed the average price of a pack of cigarettes there to $6.20, and he is seeking another 50-cent increase.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in June that the percentage of adult New Yorkers who smoke fell from 22 to 18 from 2002 to 2006, with the steepest drop in people 18 to 24 years old.

... East Tennessee State University President Dr. Paul E. Stanton Jr. announces that ETSU is expanding its current Smoking and Tobacco-Free Workplace Policy, established in 1997, to limit all use of tobacco products to private vehicles.

Stanton said, “In recognition of our commitment to provide for everyone a clean, healthy environment conducive to working, learning and living, East Tennessee State University will officially become a ‘Tobacco-Free Campus’ on Aug. 11, 2008, six months from today. Smoking and all other tobacco usage will be permitted only in private vehicles.”

Reiterating what he initially noted more than a decade ago, Stanton pointed out that ETSU is the flagship health sciences university in the entire Tennessee Board of Regents system, and, as such, the issue of tobacco use has even more significance.

“We set an example for the rest of the state in 1997 by banning the use of tobacco in all university buildings,” Stanton said. “Revising our policy to reflect increasing health concerns about smoking and the use of other tobacco products is an appropriate response for ETSU regarding these ongoing issues.”

The university began the process of strengthening its policy at the behest of the ETSU Faculty and Staff senates, as well as other personnel and students. The Tobacco-Free Campus Policy addresses expressed concerns regarding personal health issues and campus environmental aesthetics, and further notes that “failure to address the use of tobacco products on campus would constitute a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Vocational Rehabilitation Act and Tennessee law.”

ETSU is sensitive to the importance of tobacco in the Northeast Tennessee, Southwest Virginia and Western North Carolina region, and Stanton said he is confident that researchers will continue to explore alternative uses of tobacco that would benefit the economy and health care. For example, such beneficial uses might include vitamins and other pharmaceuticals.

The Tobacco-Free Campus Policy is in effect 24 hours a day year-round and applies to the main campus in Johnson City as well as all other university sites, ETSU-affiliated off-campus locations and clinics, and ETSU facilities on the campus of the James H. Quillen Veterans Affairs Medical Center at Mountain Home. Tobacco use is also prohibited in all state vehicles.

Over the next several months, the university will post signs and banners to ensure that visitors and members of the ETSU community are aware of the Tobacco-Free Campus Policy and the restriction to private vehicles.

Stanton said, “And, in understanding the addictive nature of tobacco products, we are offering current information about available resources for the benefit of persons who wish to stop using tobacco, at http://www.etsu.edu/humanres/smokingcessationresources.htm.”

In November of last year, the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin instituted a new policy regarding the school's relationship with tobacco companies: It would no longer accept money from them. This ban covers contributions to student organizations, career fairs, faculty research projects, and research centers.

Was this a difficult decision? We certainly knew it would be controversial as well as unprecedented for an American business school. However, after careful deliberation, it was a decision we believed was right for our school and our students. The school's leadership joined me in believing it is not ethical for us to continue to accept donations from tobacco companies, since those gifts come from revenue generated through the sale of a product that has damaging health consequences for its consumers.

This is not to say we did not fully consider all the arguments against instituting this policy. I respect and understand these different viewpoints. The most prominent argument against such a ban is the "slippery slope" one. A few of the negative letters I received from alumni addressed this point. What will be next? Banning donations from fast-food companies? From alcohol companies?

For me, this argument doesn't hold up. It is evident that tobacco has been a unique product in American history, and extensive research has shown it is highly addictive and harmful. While there are other legal products that can be misused by some, such as alcohol, tobacco is different in that it is damaging no matter how it's used.

Many universities and schools that have debated similar bans on tobacco money, such as the University of California system, have received pushback from faculty who consider it an incursion on academic freedom. We considered this as well. I would have been concerned if we had faculty research projects that were dependent on funding from tobacco companies, because banning those funds could have infringed on the freedom of those faculty members to pursue their research. However, all of the research at the school that was supported by tobacco donations could continue without that funding.

As for the students, to their credit, the organizations that have lost funding have been supportive and respectful of the decision.

Under the new policy, tobacco companies will still be allowed to recruit prospective employees at our school. I believe that as a public university, we do not have the right to prohibit recruitment activities by lawful companies. Therefore we will continue to provide them with the same placement support given to other companies. ...

At McCombs, we have put ethics at the core of our mission in educating the next generation of business leaders. In the final analysis, I simply felt that accepting money from an industry that has caused so much harm to so many without any redeeming qualities was incompatible with this mission.

The German government, encouraged by country-wide smoking bans in bars and restaurants ... [urged] German smokers ... to sign up for the campaign, which calls for nicotine addicts to go smoke-free from May 1-29 and encourages abstinence from tobacco afterward, the government said in an e-mailed statement today.

"Joining in is worth it, for smokers and for society," German Health Minister Ulla Schmidt said in the statement.

The Health Ministry cited a survey showing that one in seven smokers has considered giving up after a ban was introduced in public buildings and restaurants. As many as 140,000 Germans die a year because of smoking-related illness, it said.

The ministry said attempts are fruitful: the proportion of young smokers fell to 18 percent in 2007 from 28 percent in 2003.

The anti-smoking movement in Germany gained attention last month when former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, 89, drew a possible criminal charge when he and his wife, Loki, 88, lit up at a New Year's reception in Hamburg, according to the Bild-Zeitung. The charge was later dropped and Schmidt abstained when he turned up at another public event later in the month.

The makers of Marlboro cigarettes, Altria Corp., plan to spin off a company to make and sell cigarettes overseas, beyond the reach of American law, courts, regulation and public opinion.

What creates not just a place in hell for these people, but a special place in hell, is that many of the cigarettes they plan to sell will be even more dangerous than today’s.

One such cigarette is “Marlboro Mix 9,” a high-nicotine, high-tar smoke offered in Indonesia since July. According to The Wall Street Journal, the new company will be particularly interested in expanding sales in China, whose 350 million smokers prefer “the stronger taste of full-tar cigarettes.”

Or how about this clever little coffin nail, “Marlboro Intense,” half an inch shorter than the regular kind. It reportedly is aimed at giving “seven potent puffs apiece” to “customers who, due to indoor smoking bans, want to dash outside for a quick nicotine hit but don’t always finish a full-size cigarette.”

How long such a company can stay in business is anybody’s guess, but apparently the organizers believe it will be worthwhile. ... it will be only a matter of time before the rest of the globe wakes up to the enormous health costs of ... smoking ... and seeks to reduce them.

What would we think of a company that arranged to sell foreigners some harmless but addictive little pleasure (think gumdrops) daily but 20 years later for some, 25 for others, 30 for still others and so forth, coerced gumdrop-eaters into taking a revolver loaded with one bullet, spinning the cylinder, putting the muzzle to their temples and pulling the trigger?

We’d think it was a moral offense of the worst kind. This is not an exact statistical analogue to the dangers of a lifetime of smoking, but the risks are in the same ballpark.

We fail to see how Altria executives can be distinguished from such monsters.

About one-third of hit songs -- including three-quarters of rap songs -- have some form of explicit reference to drug, alcohol or tobacco use, a new study found.

"Overall, 116 of the 279 unique songs (41.6 percent) had a substance use reference of any kind. Ninety-three songs (33.3 percent) contained explicit substance use references," wrote the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researchers.

Just under 3 percent of the songs mentioned smoking, but almost 24 percent touched on alcohol use, close to 14 percent depicted marijuana use and 11.5 percent depicted other or unspecified substance use, the researchers noted.

The researchers did their study by analyzing Billboardmagazine's 279 most popular songs of 2005.

The overall rate of references varied widely by musical genre. One or more references to substance use were found in 48 of 62 rap songs (77 percent); 22 of 61 country songs (36 percent); 11 of 55 R&B/hip-hop songs (20 percent); nine of 66 rock songs (14 percent); and three of 35 pop songs (9 percent).

Of the 93 songs with explicit substance use references, the behaviors were frequently associated with partying (54 percent), sex (46 percent), violence (29 percent) and/or humor (24 percent). In these songs, substance use was most often motivated by peer/social pressure (48 percent) or sex (30 percent).

"Only four songs (4 percent) contained explicit anti-use messages, and none portrayed substance refusal," the study authors wrote. "Most songs with substance use (68 percent) portrayed more positive than negative consequences; these positive consequences were most commonly social, sexual, financial or emotional."

"Children and adolescents are heavily exposed to substance use in popular music, and this exposure varies widely by genre. Substance use in music is frequently motivated by peer acceptance and sex, and it has highly positive associations and consequences," the study authors concluded.

BRISTOL, Tenn. – Once inside the racing cathedral that is Bristol Motor Speedway, fans are subjected to the deafening roar of engines, screaming fighter jets flying overhead and cheers that make decibel levels dance.

Smoking is now banned in all seating areas, terraces and restrooms, and smokers will be asked to extinguish cigarettes and cigars when spotted.

The same goes for Bristol Dragway.

"We’re not going to have the smoking police out there, we’ll just be trying to adhere to the laws," said Kevin Triplett, BMS vice president of public affairs. "We have reserved seating where a ticket-holder doesn’t have a choice of where he or she will sit. Knowing that, we decided to err on their behalf and go ahead with this."

Triplett said the speedway has fielded many calls about the change.

"Some are happy; some are upset," he said.

The change is the result of a Tennessee law that took effect on Oct. 1. The General Assembly approved the "Non-Smoker Protection Act" in May.

The law prohibits smoking in most public facilities, including "sports arenas."

Guests at the speedway and dragway can still light up in the concourses.

"I don’t smoke, myself," said Alfred Hawkins, who has attended several races at the speedway. "But if a person wants to smoke, they should be allowed to, especially while they’re watching the race. I’ve got some friends that smoke and go to the race all the time. I don’t know how they’re going to take this."

Joh