Tobacco-free policy proposed for campus

Ohio State could be the first Big Ten school to become a tobacco-free campus, according to Danielle Grospitch, a graduate student in public health. Tobacco-free means no smoking of any kind and no smokeless tobacco.
Grospitch has been spearheading the campaign, Buckeyes Against Butts.
"Our ultimate goal … is to implement a 100 percent tobacco-free campus, which involves indoors, outdoors and any campus-owned property," Grospitch said.
There are 586 colleges and universities in the United States that have enacted smoke-free campuses, according to the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation's website. OSU would be the eighth school in Ohio on this list. With this plan, additionally, OSU would not allow chewing tobacco.
The current smoking policy at OSU mimics the state law, which states there will be no smoking indoors or within a 25-foot area around building entrances, exits or windows. There are no regulations regarding smokeless tobacco.
Chris Swonger, a second-year in engineering, thinks the tobacco-free policy would be a good idea if it were enforced.
"I see the (no smoking) signs where there is that overhang at the (Science and Engineering Library) and everyone is just smoking there anyway," Swonger said. "If there were people to enforce it, I think people would listen. But when it's just those signs sitting up and no one comes by to say anything, then who cares?"
For this policy to be adopted, Grospitch and others involved in the campaign plan to conduct research, meet with all departments at the university and draft a policy with implementation and enforcement plans.
"We still need to do a lot of work for this," Grospitch said. "It's still in the very, very, very early stages. Right now, we're just sketching out, in pencil, a plan."
Grospitch thinks OSU could become a tobacco-free campus as early as Autumn Semester 2012.
"It would take at least a year to get that going," Grospitch said. "Knowing Ohio State and knowing how hard policy creation and implementation is for any agency, but alone the size of Ohio State, a year is very fast."
President E. Gordon Gee told The Lantern in April 2010 that he was in favor of eliminating smoking on campus.
"A smoke-free campus is not at the top of my priority list, but if someone came to me with a proposal and we could make that happen quickly, I would be the first in line," Gee said.
Grospitch has decided to "divide and conquer" the efforts to fast-track this project. She is working with Kunal Parikh, a fourth-year in chemical engineering, to help reach out to the undergraduate community.
"What we decided to do is that I will take the section of working with human resources, faculty and staff," Grospitch said. "And (Parikh) will work with students because he is an undergraduate, he has that better pulse on students' wants and needs."
Parikh's interest sparked when he saw a previous article from The Lantern about smoke-free campuses and has been passionate about this effort ever since.
"We pride ourselves as being the greatest university in the nation," Parikh said. "This is obviously a huge factor that Ohio State students are developing healthy habits that they're going to carry for the rest of their lives."
Implementation cost is not yet known but Parikh said it's insignificant compared to what OSU will save.
"The other way to look at this is productivity in the workplace and healthcare costs, the cost of implementing this program is really negligible compared to that," Parikh said.
Swonger thinks OSU will benefit from the switch to be tobacco-free but smokers will likely suffer.
"I think it's a good idea to help keep campus cleaner but, personally, if I was a smoker, I probably would be irritated," Swonger said. "Especially with how large campus is, there's a good chance you'd have to walk quite a bit to get off campus to smoke."
With the deadly consequences of tobacco use and second-hand smoke widely known, Grospitch stressed the importance of this policy for the environment.
"It takes a major toll on the environment when people litter tobacco products," Grospitch said. "Cigarette butts take several years to disintegrate and they still carry 69 carcinogens that soak into our soil which soaks into our water which then we drink."
OSU could be the leader in the effort to have a tobacco-free campus in the Big Ten, Grospitch said.
"The fact that Ohio State could wear that badge of honor, I think would be awesome," Grospitch said. "We could say, ‘We care about each other. We care about our school. We care about our environment.'"

Group pushes tobacco-free campus

A University of Minnesota student group is restarting its push to make campus tobacco-free by January 2013.

The Student Health Advisory Committee is vigilantly working to gather support from other student groups on campus, SHAC co-chairwoman Michelle Volz said. They also set up an online petition for students and faculty to sign in support of the policy.

“With a campus as large as ours, there’s so much risk for exposure to second-hand smoke,” Volz said.

SHAC is trying to add the Twin Cities campus to a growing list of colleges across the state that have enacted similar policies.

The University’s Duluth campus went tobacco-free in September 2007. Minnesota State University Moorhead followed suit in 2008, as did the University’s Crookston campus in 2009. Mankato will have a tobacco-free campus beginning 2012.

Across the country, 587 colleges and universities have enacted 100 percent smoke-free campus policies — up from 160 in 2008, according to the American for Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation.

According to a 2010 survey by Boynton Health Service, 17.7 percent of University students on the Twin Cities campus said they had used tobacco in the past month.

SHAC is looking for new University President Eric Kaler’s support in making the campus tobacco free.

“We’ve got to get on this,” said David Golden, director of public health and communications at Boynton.

Kaler hasn’t yet made clear his intentions about the proposed policy.

“It’s obviously a very complicated question,” Kaler said. “What I don’t want to do is put in place policies that we cannot enforce.”

SHAC first brought the subject to former President Bob Bruininks in 2008, Golden, SHAC’s adviser, said. He said he thought Bruininks didn’t implement the policy because of concerns about its enforceability.

Those conversations in 2008 got the ball rolling with a survey conducted through the provost’s office assessing the student, staff and faculty reaction to the possibility of a tobacco or smoke-free campus policy.

According to that survey, 90.1 percent of students and 84.9 percent of faculty and staff say they have been exposed to second-hand smoke on campus, with walking across campus listed as the number one place where students are exposed.

The size of the Twin Cities campus compared to other Minnesota campuses is an impediment, said John Finnegan, dean of the School of Public Health. He stressed the importance of a smoke-free campus for the safety of students and staff.

The enormity of the campus just means the University needs to talk realistically about enforcement, Finnegan said.

“We don’t want [University police] going around looking for smokers,” Finnegan said.

Instead, he said the hope is that the policy would create an atmosphere where smoking is discouraged. Students could enforce the policy themselves, Finnegan said.

UMD health educator and smoke-free policy co-chairwoman Dori Decker said she’s seen more students and faculty following the campus policy in her three years at the school.

“We’re seeing a bit of a culture change,” she said.

UMD’s SHAC created the Breathe Free campaign in spring 2010 geared toward increasing peer enforcement of the policy. The volunteer group made up of students, faculty and staff provides “reminders in a non-confrontational and informative way,” said Decker.

Finnegan and Golden both emphasized that a policy on the Twin Cities campus would also give a push to smokers that want to quit.

'Govt must restart tobacco tax hikes'

A new report says hiking taxes on tobacco in the next and subsequent Budgets could help thousands of people to live longer.

It also claims that flawed analysis by the Government on the impact of tobacco tax on cigarette smuggling has cost the taxpayer up to €200 million over the last two years, which calls into question recent Budget decisions not to increase the price of tobacco.

A study carried out for the Irish Heart Foundation (IIHF) shows that a €1 tax increase on a packet of 20 cigarettes in the next Budget would bring in €68 million in extra receipts and a further €28 million in indirect public finance benefits.

The IHF says this directly contradicts claims that further tobacco tax increases would actually reduce net tax take because of the tobacco smuggling issue.

The Foundation points that this flawed analysis by the Government and Revenue Commissioners led to no increase in tobacco prices in the last two Budgets.

The IHF has called on Finance Minister Michael Noonan to institute a new policy of regular tax increases above inflation starting with a €1 hike in the forthcoming Budget.

These tobacco tax increases would also result in some 30,000 people quitting smoking in Ireland, the IHF claims.

Given that roughly one in two smokers ultimately die from the habit, this single action would help up to 15,000 people countrywide to live longer, it said.

“This report proves that a tobacco tax increase is a Budget no brainer – it will save lives on a huge scale and bring in significant extra income that will help reduce pressure on the public finances,” said IHF Chief Executive, Michael O’Shea.

Big tobacco 'abusing' FOI process

The federal health department is considering taking action against big tobacco for lodging "vexatious" Freedom of Information (FOI) claims as part of the industry's fight against Labor's plain-packaging push.

Health department secretary Jane Halton says the department is being "swamped" with FOI requests as part of a deliberate campaign by cigarette manufacturers.

"This is a very specific and deliberate attempt to divert resources," Ms Halton told a Senate estimates hearing on Wednesday.
"There will come a point where we will have to consider what to do about that."

Ms Halton said there was a provision in the FOI legislation relating to vexatious applicants.

"We are intending to take advice on that," she said.

"It is being discussed."

The health department has received 63 FOI requests in total from big tobacco. Some 35 are still being dealt with.

The Gillard government wants to force all cigarettes to be sold in drab olive-brown packs from mid-2012.

Cigarette manufacturers have threatened to challenge the world-first laws in court after they pass the Senate later this year.

Ms Halton said on Wednesday big tobacco's FOI requests had cost the department "an awful lot". Industry is disputing some of the charges.

The department secretary said she supported the principle of openness but "the way the current FOI laws are written there are huge opportunities for people who wish to abuse process to do so".

The amount the department can charge for processing requests "goes nowhere near meeting our costs", Ms Halton said.

It can only charge $15 per hour for search and retrieval and $20 an hour for decision-making time. The staff doing the work can earn up to $50 an hour.

"So we are hardly talking reasonable recompense for the amount of time and energy it's taking," Ms Halton said.

British American Tobacco Australia (BATA) argues it's been forced to rely on freedom of information applications because Health Minister Nicola Roxon refuses to consult industry.

BATA has lodged 15 FOI requests with the health department in the past 18 months and is currently waiting on six to be finalised.

"Documents (already obtained) from the government show they have concerns about the need to pay compensation to the tobacco industry for removing our intellectual property, the growth in illegal tobacco once all packs look the same and an increase in smoking rates due to cheaper cigarettes," BATA spokesman Scott McIntyre told AAP in a statement.

An April 2010 briefing note from the government body which administers Australia's intellectual property rights system states plain packaging would impinge on trademark rights.

But, IP Australia points out, that might not be a problem if it serves the public interest.

Greens health spokesman Richard Di Natale says big tobacco is using every tactic possible to derail plain packaging.

"They have resorted to trying to clog up the health department with vexatious FOI requests," he said in a statement on Wednesday.

"The tobacco industry should halt their campaign of mischief and let the health department do its job protecting the public's health."

Under Australia's FOI laws an applicant can be declared "vexatious" by the information commissioner.

Smoking ban enforcement questioned before town hall debate

The University Senate will host a town hall next Monday for students and faculty to debate a campus-wide smoking ban, but it’s still unclear whether the current rules are being enforced effectively.

The current smoking ban prohibits smoking within 20 feet of buildings, and new signs have been posted around building entrances this fall. But some involved in the smoking ban debate say that the policy remains unclear to most students.

Student senator Alex Frouman, CC ’12, who helped develop the 20-foot rule in the senate last year, said the ban’s implementation has been ineffective.

“Facilities have moved ashtrays. Sometimes these have been moved back. Signs have been put up,” Frouman said. “It has not been effective because it has not been communicated with a centralized voice to every member of the community.”

Business School professor and senator Mark Cohen, who has led the push for a full campus smoking ban, agreed that the current policy has had little effect on campus.

“It has not been particularly apparent,” Cohen said.

But Vice President of Student and Administrative Services Scott Wright, who has worked on the policy’s enforcement across campus though he is only responsible for the residence halls and Lerner Hall, said it has been implemented effectively by moving ashtrays and putting up the new signs.

“One of the ways I felt I did communicate it in spring was through Spec and Bwog and campus email,” he said.

Wright added that he has noticed some “change in behavior” on campus, especially a notable decline in smoking on the plaza outside the International Affairs Building.

“I have yet to have a single person say to me, ‘What 20-foot rule?’” Wright said. “I’m not sure I agree with people not knowing about 20-foot rule because I don’t see people violating it where there are signs.”

But Wright said that he supports Cohen’s effort to ban smoking from campus entirely, saying he always viewed the 20-foot compromise as a stepping-stone to a full ban.

“I definitely support a full ban—not only smoke-free but tobacco-free campus,” Wright said.

The town hall to debate a full ban will be held Monday at 4:30 p.m. in 104 Jerome Greene Hall. The USenate will likely vote on Cohen’s proposal for a full ban at its Oct. 14 plenary meeting.

The senate passed its 20-foot rule in December, but even then, Cohen was pushing for a full ban.

It’s unclear how much support he has in the senate, but in a straw poll of 39 senators remaining at the end of a plenary last year, 27 were in favor a full ban, with 10 opposed and two abstentions.
There are 108 senators, although only about half tend to show up to the typical plenary.

“The core issue is that secondhand smoke is deadly,” Cohen said. “It’s not a hypothesis on my part or a presumption.”

But Frouman said that Cohen has little support outside the senate—a vote of all Engineering Student Council and Columbia College Student Council members, he said, showed 45 members opposed to a full ban, with only two in support. Another student senator, Ron Mazor, CC ’09, Law ’12 and a strong opponent of a full-campus ban, said that Cohen’s proposal would not work any better than the current policy.

“The notion of restricting personal behavior based on laws is never going to be effective,” Mazor said.

Cohen disagreed. “Compliance with mandates which restrict—like traffic lights—is mostly voluntary … I would suggest that the evidence where this has been done would suggest that most would comply,” Cohen said.

Cohen also argued that a full ban could save the University money. Wright agreed, although a recent report from The College Fix indicated that the University of Michigan, on a very large campus, has already spent nearly $240,000 implementing a smoking ban it approved in July.

Marijuana dispensary back open, facing scrutiny

The first and only medical marijuana dispensary in Murrieta has re-opened after winning a temporary court victory, a move that has been met by the city with thousands in fines and heavy police surveillance.
A Riverside County Superior Court justice ruled on Friday that Cooperative Medical Group, on Madison Avenue, could re-open until its case is decided. Murrieta, which has had an ordinance banning storefront marijuana collectives since 2005, is seeking a court order to shut down the dispensary.
Since re-opening on Saturday, the owners of the dispensary say they’ve been “harassed” by the police and the city’s code enforcement department. They have been fined $2,500 every day for operating without a business license.
Murrieta police cruisers have been parked outside the business for hours at a time, pulled over patients seen leaving the collective and have repeatedly asked to inspect the property, co-owners Beth Burns and Charles Thompson said.
Medical marijuana patient Calvin Tucker, 20, of Temecula, said he was pulled over on consecutive days immediately after leaving the collective. Both times the stop was made ostensibly for an expired registration, but the officers were more interested in asking questions about the collective’s business practices and searching the car for marijuana, Tucker said.
Tucker, who was seeking at job at the collective, said he was cited for drug possession after police found two marijuana stems and a pipe in his backpack. He said he was not given a ticket for the expired registration.
Murrieta police Lt. Tony Conrad acknowledged the police were conducting “high-visibility enforcement” at the collective because they believe medical marijuana businesses attract crimes. Police are concerned the dispensary will attract burglaries, drivers operating under the influence and illegal drug sales, he said.
The collective was broken into during its first stint in the summer.
“High-visibility enforcement is a patrol tactic law enforcement uses on any location, business, neighborhood, etc. that is considered to be a target for crime … this is not uncommon,” Conrad wrote in an e-mail.
Police and code enforcement officers have been to the property every day since it opened, Thompson said. On Wednesday, an investigator stopped by to inquire about the business’ workers compensation policy, he said.

Set up anti-tobacco body by year-end

The Bombay high court on Wednesday directed the central government to expedite the setting up of the proposed regulatory authority for implementation of the anti-tobacco norms by December 31, 2011.

The state informed the HC that all civic bodies in Maharashtra have been asked to incorporate provisions of the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition) Act in the licence agreements of restaurants eating joints which ban sale of tobacco and related products.

The court was hearing a PIL challenging the circular issued by the BMC banning of the sale of tobacco and tobacco-related products. like cigarettes and hookahs.

Disposing of the petition, the judges directed magistrates to decide cases within two months after prosecution is launched.

Tobacco industry ropes in teen smokers

Only because the industry has been forced to concede its deception in court battles has it had to change its ways in the U.S. Let’s not forget, though, that there are other markets around the world they are focusing on, and the primary market now is Asia, where Big Tobacco has free reign to addict youth at will. Anyone familiar with the culture can attest to the prevalence of smokers in those countries.

For Paige Magness to say that the industry does not “want kids to be able to buy or use any tobacco products” is a flat-out lie, and Magness needs to be held accountable to that statement.

How else does the industry intend on selling its products — to an older, more educated demographic that is well aware of the dangers of smoking, as well as the deceptions the industry has perpetrated on the public for generations?

In his book, “The Tipping Point,” Malcolm Gladwell shows how making larger, more “threatening” warning messages on tobacco products actually promotes teens to try smoking. Why? Because teens typically are drawn to try things that society says are dangerous or taboo.

Sound familiar to anyone who was a teen once?

The tobacco industry knows this and are the ones who helped draft these “changes” that were supposed to inhibit smoking among teens. Take a look at any recent tobacco ads and you’ll notice how large the warnings have become over previous years.

So when Paige Magness goes on to say that “we encourage states to enforce their laws … selling tobacco to minors,” she means it in the most sincerely ironic and, again, deceptive way.

Tobacco industry for Hamirpur opposed

The government plan to allow rolling beedi and cigarette units in Hamirpur district has not gone down well with all in the state. HP Voluntary Health Association, an NGO in the forefront of anti-tobacco campaign in the state, has decided to opposed it.

"This is unacceptable. On one hand, government supports a tobacco free society and on the other, it is has approved a tobacco unit recently," said HPVHA president PR Ramesh. "We will not allow the gains made over the last few years to wither away," added Sirinivas Joshi, a consultant with the organization. Expressing his disappointment at chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal's claim that he was unable to launch a state-wide smoke-free campaign, he said even the World Health Organization has recognized their work in the field of anti-tobacco. "In July, HPVHA was the only one (NGO) in the country to be awarded by WHO for its drive for a smoke free society," he claimed.

After learning about the government's approval for tobacco manufacturing unit for the region, "we have reached out to officers and lawmakers for withdrawing the permission", he said.

The NGO has also released a baseline survey report about smoke-free places in the state, conducted at all district headquarters.