AMERICAN CITY SHARON TO DISCOURAGE TOBACCO USE

Monday, August 5, 2013 

 

 

Signs at Baxter Memorial Library tell visitors not to smoke on the library's grounds in Sharon, Vt. on August 4, 2013. The library installed the signs following the passage of Sharon's new anti-smoking law. Valley News - Elijah Nouvelage Purchase photo reprints »

 

 

Sharon (USA)— A new policy that recently went into effect is meant to discourage the use of tobacco around town, Sharon officials said.

The policy, which extends to all tobacco products and began on Aug. 1, prohibits its use on all town-owned properties and inside vehicles. It was passed unanimously at a Selectboard meeting in mid-July, said Paul Haskell, the board’s chairman.

According to Haskell, the town-wide policy was a way of combining several disparate and ad hoc policies formed over the years.

“We decided it would be prudent to elevate our thoughts about helping folks quit smoking if they are, and keep folks from smoking, if they aren’t,” Haskell said.

Besides prohibiting smoking on town-owned properties, the policy also states that the town will refer employees and officials who smoke to tobacco cessation programs. In addition, it will reach out to businesses to join the anti-tobacco cause, and promote the cause at events such as Town Meeting.

The issue with the passing the policy is how to enforce it, Haskell said.

“That’s always the $9 million question,” he said. “To be perfectly candid, the town is not going to hire smoking police.”

However, he said, if a town employee were to violate the policy, the Selectboard would look to the town’s personnel plan to sanction him.

That doesn’t mean the town is expecting to hand out several penalties to town employees, Haskell said, considering not all that many town employees smoke or use other forms of tobacco.

To put the plan in place, the Selectboard worked with Cathy Hazlett, the executive director of Health Connections of the Upper Valley, which is based in North Pomfret. Hazlett has pitched anti-tobacco plans to several towns, utilizing grant money from the Vermont Department of Health.

“I think part of our success in Sharon is that the Selectboard in Sharon was right on board with understanding the public health concerns,” Hazlett said. “It’s really important to send the message out, particularly to young people: There is no safe, or safer, type of tobacco product.”

Other towns have been reluctant to adopt such a policy.

Members of the Royalton Selectboard expressed worries about enforcement and the potential for it to infringe on individual rights, according to minutes from last December. Messages left for board members in Royalton were not returned yesterday.

In Sharon, several small signs, all bearing the phrase “Thanks for Keeping This a Smoke-Free Zone,” have sprung up at town landmarks, such as Baxter Memorial Library on Route 14. In fact, the library has two — one stuck to the side of the building, and another in the entryway of the gazebo behind it.

They join several signs that have long been posted at Sharon Elementary School by Health Connections of the Upper Valley.

Judy Tyson wondered if the signs had been put up recently when she ventured onto the gazebo to read yesterday.

“I’m entirely supportive of it,” said Tyson, who lives in Sharon.

She said she was a fan of the inoffensive qualities of the signs, which use a playful-looking, colorful font and background and don’t threaten fines or prosecution.

“That’s a very nice way of doing it,” Tyson said. “It doesn’t offend anybody.”

The policy, said Hazlett, is meant to be a proactive one, to discourage something that isn’t terribly prevalent in Sharon but might one day be.

At the playground of the nearby Sharon Elementary yesterday, resident Kali Livingston agreed.

“That’s good,” Livingston said of the new policy. She watched her 21/2 -year-old daughter, Zowie, play on the nearby blacktop. “I think that anywhere that children are around, there shouldn’t be smoking.”

 LINK: 

          1. http://www.vnews.com/home/7934496-95/sharon-selectboard-passes-policy-to-discourage-tobacco-use

'RUSSIANS HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT CHAINS OF SMOKE'

'RUSSIANS HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT CHAINS OF SMOKE'
Moscow, 22 October:

The Russian government is preparing an anti-smoking law and has enlisted the prime minister and badminton lover Dmitry Medvedev to support it, which he did in a video appeal calling for people to kick the habit.

The legislation will be discussed in parliament by the end of October.

Medvedev stated that this was a very important bill for non-smokers as well. “For non-smokers this law cannot come soon enough. Some smokers call it an attempt to curtail their right to do whatever they want with their health. But I am sure that the bill serves the interests of our country’s residents,” he said.

Russia among leaders for smoking

As of today, the prime minister said, Russia has one of the highest levels of smoking in the world.

“Forty-four million of our citizens depend on daily doses of nicotine – just think about it, it’s a third of the country, including children! And we are the second largest [smokers] in the world after China.”

In 2011, Russians spent more than 600 billion rubles on cigarettes, the state secretary and deputy health minister, Sergei Velmyaikin, told RIA Novosti.

Medvedev said the market is divided between the four major foreign cigarette companies, all of which came to Russia in the early 1990s. “Unfortunately, then, in the 1990s, the state did not consider the risks of foreign tobacco investment in the Russian economy.”

Numbers rose over 20 years

He said the number of smoking women tripled in that period – from 7 to 22 percent – and the age of first-time smokers fell from 15 to 11.

“Currently two-thirds of Russian teenagers from 13 to 16 years old have smoked, and a third smokes regularly. Annually, in Russia, 400,000 pupils aged 10 to 13 try smoking, and almost a third are active smokers.”

He added that Russia loses almost 400,000 people a year to smoking, a number equivalent to the number of residents of Tver.

“So, every year a large city disappears from the map of the country due to tobacco use, and this is a long and painful death from cancer, emphysema, or a sudden one from heart attack or stroke,” the prime minister said.

Gradual ban

The prime minister explained that the anti-smoking bill provides for a complete ban on smoking in playgrounds, government buildings, schools, and universities – and from 2015, in cafes and restaurants as well.

The measures would be introduced gradually, and by Jan. 1, 2015, smoking would not be allowed in any public buildings. Taxes on tobacco would also be raised and advertising cut down.

The extra money from increased taxes on tobacco will be spent on healthcare, he said.

Not discrimination

Medvedev contradicted the idea that the bill is discriminatory against smokers, noting that “today, nearly 60 percent of adults and all children, including infants, are subjected to discrimination on the part of smokers: they are forced to inhale the poisonous cigarette smoke, even though they did not choose to be smokers.”

“I would like to emphasize one simple thing: the government or the state is not at war with smokers, but we are against smoking,” he stressed, adding that over 80 percent of Russians, including two-thirds of regular smokers, support the fight against smoking.

“Let’s free our country from tobacco,” he concluded.

LINKS:

http://indrus.in/articles/2012/10/21/pm_calls_for_nationwide_smoking_ban_18521.html

INCREASING MENACE OF TOBACCO CONSUMPTION IN ARAB WORLD

GCC TO CURB SMOKING THROUGH HEAVY TAXATION 

October 6, 2012


  About 40 per cent of teenagers in the GCC (Gulf Co-operation Council) countries  smoke some form of tobacco. In Saudi Arabia, nearly a quarter of children between 13 and 15 smoke regularly. Teenagers in the UAE consume tobacco at roughly the same rate. And this, despite constant warnings that tobacco use is a leading killer of adults in the Arabian Gulf.
  GCC states have, collectively and on an individual basis, tried to combat this deadly habit for years. In 1995, the countries agreed to impose a 100 per cent increase in taxes, and banned production in member states. In recent years, smoking has been banned in many places - from malls to parks to most public spaces. And still, consumption rates continue to climb.
  Gulf finance ministers meeting in Riyadh today are once again discussing a proposal to tackle this problem - by increasing the tobacco tax by 150 per cent. Experts say the step would reduce youth tobacco consumption by making tobacco too expensive for many.
   Such a dramatic tax increase will face opposition from producers. In 2001, the 6 states rejected a similar proposal on the grounds that any hike would lead to increased smuggling, a reasonable worry. Ministers then suggested alternative ways to combat smoking, such as reducing nicotine content in tobacco and producing tobacco locally. But clearly, these measures have failed. A renewed anti-smoking initiative through out the GCC - starting with a steep tax hike - is essential.
    Enforcement of anti-tobacco laws has been delayed regionally due in part to pressure from businesses and producers that worry the ban will cut into their profits. In January, Dr Mahmoud Fikri, the undersecretary for health policy at the Ministry of Health, said the law was in the final stage of approval but "there are a lot of interests" to appease.
Companies may threaten to cut ties on an individual basis, but passage of a GCC-wide measure would send a strong signal that producers and retailers could not ignore. As Dr Fikri noted, "our main concern is to have legislation in agreement with all countries".
Costlier legal tobacco products will encourage black markets to emerge. That is all but certain. But smuggling can be policed. Any solution that reduces the prevalence of smoking, and discourages children from starting, is worth consideration.