January 2012

It appeared that a smoking ban was passed by the Indianapolis city council last night however the Mayor has said that he plans to veto this bill.&nbsp; We hope he does veto and stands firm on his convictions.&nbsp; We are sure he is being bullied right now&nbsp;&nbsp; sometimes you must smack that bully down!<br />
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Meanwhile on the state level:&nbsp; State representatives voted 61-34 Tuesday to pass House Bill 1149, sending the legislation to the opposite chamber&mdash;where Senate President Pro Tem David Long has promised full debate.&nbsp; The House has approved a statewide smoking ban at least five times in recent years, but those measures died before a Senate vote.<br />
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Let’s hope the Senate understands economics and freedom of choice.<br />
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There is a bill in Utah which would, once again, discriminate against the poor who smoke. Republican Rep. Paul Ray has proposed that could become a first-in-the-nation state law imposing a higher co-payment for tobacco-using residents enrolled in Medicaid.<br />
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The American Lung Association opposes the proposed co-payment. There is no evidence that it would encourage smokers to quit, said Jennifer Singleterry, the association’s manager of cessation policy. Instead, low-income smokers on Medicaid would just have to pay more. &quot;We feel that this is a punitive measure for smokers,&quot; she said.<br />
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Funny,&nbsp; they don’t seem to have any problem with promoting and lobbying for $1.00 or more in taxes on a pack of cigarettes in all 50 states.&nbsp; These people just can’t get it together,&nbsp; it is alright to discriminate if they get a chunk of the money but if the States reap the benefits they aren’t interested.&nbsp; This has never been about health it is about control.<br type="_moz" />

<p>Last week, Hawaii’s state legislature introduced&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="http://www.change.org/petitions/stop-hawaii-bills-hb2557-and-sb2819-from-being-signed-into-law">two bills</a>&nbsp;that would ban the sale of e-cigarettes to minors and tax the devices at 70% of their wholesale price, the same rate as tobacco products. Like similar state proposals designed to regulate the smoking alternatives, Hawaii’s effort is well-intentioned but misguided. The state’s proposal is based on bad science and creates several unintended consequences.<br />
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The Hawaii legislature has put forth many bans on tobacco, if any of them pass, it will be a state that smoker’s can cross off thier list of &quot;places to visit&quot;.</p>

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, weighing in on a lawsuit over graphic cigarette warning labels, says the federal government has no legitimate authority to take space on a tobacco company&rsquo;s packaging or advertising to persuade consumers not to buy the product.

<p class="inside-copy">Editorial from USA Today.&nbsp; On Jan. 1, Baylor went a step too far: It <a target="popup729" href="http://media.baylorhealth.com/pages/baylor-smoke-free-policy-2012#9">stopped hiring</a> anyone who smokes at work &mdash; or anywhere else. Treating smoking, in essence, like illegal drug use takes Baylor and an increasing number of other employers down a dangerous road, one that extends far too deeply into the private lives of prospective workers.<br />
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21 states do not have laws that protect smokers from discrimination.&nbsp; The ACLU has taken the lead on preventing discrimination against using a legal product,&nbsp; they still have more work to do.&nbsp; </p>

Rhonda Storms, is a republican state senator, who believes that &quot;unhealthy&quot; foods should not be covered by food stamps. <br />
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That sense of unfairness, plus a concern about the health of needy children, is the motivation behind a bill Storms sponsored that would prohibit people from purchasing &quot;nonstaple, unhealthy foods&quot; with funds provided by the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.&nbsp; Unhealthy foods in her mind are cookies, soda and potato chips.<br />
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The Government has no business telling people what they can eat especially people who are in need of government assistance in this dreadful economy.&nbsp; <br />

The Washington Legal Foundation has published a paper titled &quot;Health Warnings on Consumer Products: Why Scarier is not better.&quot; by Dr. Patrick Bansham and Dr. John C. Luik.<br />
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This <a href="http://www.wlf.org/publishing/publication_detail.asp?id=2293">paper </a>thoroughly debunks the notion that graphic labels on any product work.&nbsp; <br />

Del. David Englin (D-Alexandria) introduced a bill to explore the tax revenue possibilities of marijuana. Englin merely wants Virginia to study how much tax revenue our state could pull in when it&rsquo;s cutting budgets everywhere and our roads are in a shambles.&nbsp; The estimate of this bill is that it would generate $500 million dollars in revenue.&nbsp; <br />
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He has also introduced a bill to ban smoking in public parks.&nbsp; Where is the logic in this?&nbsp; Can’t smoke tobacco outdoors, if he had his way, but you could smoke marijuana outdoors?<br />

Audrey Silk, the founder of New York Citizens Against Smoker Harassment, has been given regular column space in the Huffington Post. &nbsp;A retired career police officer from Brooklyn, Ms. Silk has been an outspoken supporter of Free Choice and Smokers’ Rights since the late 1990s. &nbsp;Her column will not always be about smoking issues, but will likely feature them frequently.&nbsp; She’s an articulate and forceful writer on our side!&nbsp; <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/audrey-silk/cuomo-budget-tobacco_b_1220363.html">Click here to read her column.</a>

Nearly 500 Minnesota bars and restaurants have closed since smoking bans were enacted in the land of 10,000 lakes.<br />
This State of Minnesota official report found that one year after the statewide smoking ban, revenue was down on average 31.9% in bars and taverns.<br />
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Bans are bad for business, this is one more example!<br />
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