Kenya’s besieged tobacco industry is toying with the idea of covertly sponsoring dozens of litigants to sue city and town councils who have banned smoking in public areas for infringing on their constitutional right to smoke, even as more towns line up to impose similar bans.

Some industry players are, however, concerned that a vigorous fight-back by the sector will be counter-productive, attracting international attention to the issue.

Last week, Kenya’s capital Nairobi became the latest urban area to outlaw public smoking, following in the footsteps of the smaller municipalities of Nakuru, Kangundo and Mombasa. Nakuru, Kenya’s fourth largest city, pioneered the bans three months ago.

Other Kenyan cities expected to pass smoking curbs in the next two weeks include Eldoret and Kisumu. Uganda’s tobacco control lobby welcomed the Kenyan bans, pointing out that they were in line with those in such cities as New York, London and Dublin.

“The Environmental Action Network (TEAN) highly commends the city and municipal councils of Nairobi, Mombasa, Kangundo and Nakuru for their recent by-laws to ban smoking in public places,” said the organisation’s spokesperson Phillip Karugaba last week. “The new bans are in line with the fact that Kenya was the first country in the region to ratify the World Health Organisation’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).”

Kenya ratified the FCTC in June 2004, while Tanzania and Uganda ratified this year, in April and June respectively.

According to the city of Nairobi ban, those found smoking in public areas, including the streets, will face a fine of Ksh2,000 ($30) or a six-month jail term for a first offender and Ksh3,000 ($45) or a nine-month jail term for a repeat offender. Within 24 hours of announcing the ban on Tuesday, 10 offenders were arrested and fined a total of Ksh20,000 ($300), sparking protests from the tobacco industry.

“This all-encompassing ban on smoking is unconstitutional and is without due regard to the right of smokers,” said Mastermind Tobacco Ltd spokesman John Kirimania. “By approving these by-laws, the Local Government Minister and the respective town clerks have misdirected themselves.”

Those sentiments were supported by BAT Kenya, the country’s largest tobacco company with a turnover of Ksh12.1 billion ($178 million) and a pre-tax profit of Ksh1.8 billion ($26.5 million) in the last financial year.

Between themselves, Kenya’s tobacco companies sell an estimated 7 billion cigarettes to a market that Ministry of Health officials say includes an estimated one million minors. The ministry says that it spends more than the estimated Ksh7 billion ($103 million) the tobacco industry pays in compounded taxes to “mop up” the health effects of smoking.

The bans by the Kenyan town and city councils are the second prong of a strategy devised by the country’s tobacco control activists, who have long complained that the enactment of national control legislation has been blocked by vested interests for more than six years.

As a result, Kenya’s Tobacco control Bill has been published every year since 2001, but has always lapsed and never been passed into law. Last week, however, the Bill went through its second reading and indications are that it will be passed before parliament goes on recess in August.

Source: Nation Media

Steven Shainberg, director of the speculative Diane Arbus bio, Fur, has a story:

“I was developing a project for a studio, and the character was this totally messed-up guy. He was in his mid- to late 20s; he frequented whores; he took an enormous amount of Ecstasy, and in many, many scenes he would smoke.

“Well, the studio was obsessed with him not smoking. And I used to say, `The guy’s doing all these other crazy things, you’re worried about him smoking?’”

Very worried.

Last week, the Motion Picture Association of America announced that cigarettes will now be a factor in movie ratings. In a statement, the body responsible for those parental advisories - the PGs, PG-13s, Rs and NC-17s accorded for scenes of sex and violence, for profanity, drinking and drugs - noted that “depictions that glamorize smoking or movies that feature pervasive smoking outside of a historic or other mitigating context may receive a higher rating.”

Fine, smoking kills. Studies from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have linked movies to teen smoking, and health organisations, youth advocacy groups and outfits like Morality in Media have long lobbied Hollywood to kick those butts off screen. (Morality in Media wants any film featuring a lit cigarette to get an automatic R.)

“Think about it,” wrote consumer advocate and activist Ralph Nader in a Tobacco and Hollywood editorial. “The movies are glamorous, and they portray smoking as glamorous, whether or not it is a good guy or bad guy lighting a cigarette.”

With that kind of logic, it was only a matter of time before Hollywood officially ceded.

“Smoking is increasingly an unacceptable behavior in our society,” Dan Glickman, president of the MPAA, said in his statement last week. “No parent wants their child to take up the habit. The appropriate response of the rating system is to give more information to parents on this issue.”

OK. But where is all this going? What’s next - an R rating for a scene of grade-schoolers scarfing trans-fat doughnuts? What about a movie that offends vegans - stars chomping on meat, wearing mink, stopping the Mr. Softee truck for a vanilla cone? And who’s going to protect the moviegoing public from all the other potentially destructive, addictive activities “glamourised” in the movies?

Source: The Star

As Maryland State lawmakers close-in on a statewide smoking ban, restaurants are expecting changes on their end.

Warren Custis of the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) in Salisbury says bars and restaurants will miss out on a major part of their business.

“It’s wrong to try to tell someone where to smoke at,” said Custis.

Custis also mentions that businesses spend lots of money installing smoke eaters. This device sucks up the smoke when its in the air allowing for separate smoking and non-smoking sections.

“Restaurants and bars have them, now it’s useless,” said Custis.

“They tell me they’re expensive to run, some places run them and some don’t,” said Don Kersey.

The statewide smoking ban includes bars, restaurants, and private clubs. Lawmakers tentatively agreed to the ban last week, a formal agreement may be reached Monday. The bill then heads to Governor Martin O’Malley, who plans to sign it.

Maryland would join Washington D.C. and Delaware with statewide smoking bans.

Source: WBOC

An anti-smoking activist has lost his casino job at the Tropicana Casino and Resort after 26 years.

Vince Rennich, a table games supervisor, doesn’t buy the argument that his dismissal was part of a larger staff reduction as the new owners reorganize the property.

“They threw me under the bus,” the Somers Point man said Monday. “They took the opportunity to get rid of me.”

A Tropicana spokeswoman declined comment on the reason behind the layoff. But since Columbia Entertainment took over for Aztar Corp., a couple hundred employees have been let go.

“This is not an easy thing. We’re sensitive to the people who work here,” said Tropicana president and CEO Fred Buro The casino offered a six-week severance package, Rennich, 49, said.

Rennich sued the Tropicana last summer, alleging failure to protect employees against secondhand smoke on the casino floor. Rennich, a nonsmoker, was diagnosed with lung cancer two years ago and had part of his lung removed.

Rennich said he never saw the firing coming.

“I didn’t think they had the nerve to do it,” he said. “How can you do that to someone. I’m devastated. I have no job, no benefits. Health insurance will cost me $800 month. Who’ll hire a guy with lung cancer who is suing the casino industry?”

He also ruled out going to court to get his job back at the Tropicana “I don’t want them if they don’t want me,” he said.

Rennich said he will continue the fight for a full smoking ban on the casino floor. “This is not about me. It’s what’s happening in Atlantic City. It’s not OK for us to die.”

Last year, the state enacted a smoking ban, but exempted the casinos for fear of an economic downturn. Atlantic City council introduced its own ordinance to close the loophole, but last month backed off, approving an amendment to permit separate smoking areas on 25 percent of the casino floor. Plans for the separation must be submitted to the state Department of Community Affairs by mid-September, five months after the ordinance takes affect April 15.

The state has since revisited the exemption. Last week, the Senate Health Committee approved a measure to ban smoking on the gaming floor. Rennich testified at the hearing.

Tropicana’s Buro last week said the casinos would likely go smoke-free by installing gaming-free smoking lounges.

“That seems to be the most practical way,” he said.

Rennich supports the move. “We pitched that idea to them. This is all about worker’s safety. We’re not trying to get people to stop smoking. But no one should have to die to earn a paycheck,” he said.

Source: Courier Post

Consumers are confused about details of the impending smoking ban in England and Wales.

Nearly six out of 10 people do not know when the restrictions come into force, according to trade magazine The Publican.

A survey of nearly 1,000 people found 41 per cent thought smoking would still be allowed in private members’ clubs. And 19 per cent believed the ban would not apply to pubs which did not serve food.

The ban comes into force on April 2 in Wales, April 30 in Northern Ireland and July 1 in England.

The ban will affect virtually all enclosed workplaces and public places, including pubs, restaurants and membership clubs.

The ban is likely to have some positive benefits for the pub trade, the survey showed. One third of the non-smokers questioned expected to visit pubs more often as a result. Some 37 per cent of all respondents - and 51 per cent of non-smokers - were more likely to eat in a pub.

Daniel Pearce, deputy editor of The Publican, said: “There is an urgent need for more information otherwise pubs will have to face up to unhappy customers when they discover they can no longer smoke in their local.”

Source: The Bolton News