Generally speaking, the federal government is in the business of protecting public health. It works hard to ensure that medicines are safe before they can be sold to the public. It issues recalls when toys pose choking dangers to small children. Last year, it got expanded power to regulate the tobacco industry so it could do more to discourage smoking, especially among kids. So why not protect the 7 million people who live in public housing by banning smoking in those complexes? That’s the question posed by a pediatrician and two lawyers who focus on the public health consequences of smokin ... Jump to full article >>

Winters city officials have taken a proactive step by passing a resolution encouraging the housing complexes designate at least half of their property as smoke-free. The city is the second municipality in Yolo County to pass this resolution, following Woodland which passed it in April 2008. As many California cities debate laws to ban smoking in outdoor and indoor spaces, more and more Yolo County multi-unit housing complexes are going smoke-free. At least 16 Yolo County multi-unit housing complexes restrict smoking in at least 50 percent of individual units according to the Smoke-Free Apartme ... Jump to full article >>

Tens of thousands of children in the UK every year get asthma, chest infections and ear problems because they are exposed to smoke from their parents’ cigarettes, doctors reveal today. Secondhand smoke causes 15,400 children between three and 16 to develop asthma, gives 20,500 two or under a chest infection and 121,400 under-16s an infected middle ear, a report from the Royal College of Physicians warns. Another 600 under-16s get meningitis, 7,200 babies start wheezing and 40 children die of sudden infant death syndrome owing to passive smoking, the study says. In total 165,000 children ... Jump to full article >>

Some 29.8 million Filipinos are exposed to cigarette smoke inside their homes, a national survey said, prompting health authorities to campaign against smoking even inside homes and in public places. The first Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) revealed that “almost half of Filipinos,” or 48.8 percent of those who were surveyed, are inhaling tobacco smoke inside their dwellings while 54 percent, representing 32.9 million of the population reported that someone smokes inside their homes. The GATS 2009 gathered a total of 9,705 individuals 15 years old and above living in rural and urban are ... Jump to full article >>

Cigarettes to be sold in plain, grey, logo-free packets Sale of tobacco from vending machines to be banned Smoking to be banned at entrances to buildings Plans to cut the number of smokers by pressurising them not to light up at home and in cars have been unveiled. The Government’s ‘tobacco control strategy’ also proposes banning smoking at entrances to buildings and selling cigarettes in plain grey packets as part of a series of policies aimed at halving the number of smokers by 2020. The plans were dismissed as ‘ meddlesome’ and ‘unworkable’ by critics. But Health Secretary A ... Jump to full article >>

An official in California wants his county to ban smoking in all apartment buildings and parks and to bar drugstores from selling cigarettes. Ken Yeager, the newly elected president of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, made his proposals Tuesday in his State of the County address, the San Jose Mercury News reported. At least two California towns have banned smoking in apartments, and a third is considering it. San Jose, the Santa Clara County seat and biggest city, has already made smoking in parks illegal. Under Yeager’s proposal, condominium buildings and townhouses with con ... Jump to full article >>

A dispute between neighbors is headed to the courtroom as they quarrel over cigarette smoke wafting over one backyard fence into an Albuquerque couple’s house. The nuisance lawsuit pits one woman’s right to smoke against her neighbors’ right to breathe clean air. The Martinezes have called a house in the North Valley their home since 1962, and it’s where they plan to retire. For the past two years, Linda Garcia has lived in the building right behind them, and the Martinezes say when she smokes in her back yard, they have to breathe it. Charles Lakins, lawyer for the Mar ... Jump to full article >>

The Little Rock Housing Authority has banned smoking at one of three city-run apartment complexes as part of a plan to make all of its properties smoke-free by 2012. The ban on smoking at Cumberland Towers in downtown Little Rock began Friday, and similar bans at Parris Towers and Powell Towers will go into effect in 2011 and 2012, respectively. Housing Authority Director Shelly Ehenger says the regulatory agency has been working on its smoke-free plan since 2008. The apartment complexes are for low-income families, senior citizens and those with disabilities. To live at Cumberland Towers or P ... Jump to full article >>

A new year usually means new resolutions for many people. And for the tenants of Little Rock’s Cumberland Towers, if it includes quitting smoking, the housing authority is trying to help them. The city announced the no-smoking policy for the apartment complex on Friday. They say the move is to promote a healthy and productive lifestyle for their tenants but the initiative is not sitting well with some of the community members. A few times since she started smoking 44 years ago, Julie McCoy has tried and tried to quit and as always she’s found that it’s easier said than done. ... Jump to full article >>

Mechanical stress to alveolar walls may cause progressive damage after an early-life insult such as exposure to environmental tobacco smoke (ETS). This hypothesis was examined by using data from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA), a population-based cohort aged 45–84 years, free of clinical cardiovascular disease, recruited from 6 US sites in 2000–2002. The MESA-Lung Study assessed a fractal, structural measure of early emphysema (”alpha,” lower values indicate more emphysema) and a standard quantitative measure (”percent emphysema”) from cardiac comp ... Jump to full article >>

The war against tobacco industry and simple smokers has reached a new climax when officials introduced a measure to prohibit children adoption by people who smoke. Opponents already named the bill a huge violation of human rights. In conformity with the regulation currently pending in the Manchester City Council, smokers could be stripped of the possibility to adopt, foster or tutor any infant aged less than 2 years old.. Thus, according to the bill, local social services would have to reject adoption requests from families, where at least one member smokes. If such family is willing to adopt ... Jump to full article >>