Steamboat Springs — This fall, six women graduated from “Baby and Me — Tobacco Free,” a program to keep women from smoking during and after pregnancy. Funded by a grant and led locally by Hope Cook, the prenatal coordinator for the North­west Colorado Visiting Nurse Association, the program gives expecting and new moms incentive and motivation to quit smoking and stay smoke-free. Missy Chotvacs was one of Cook’s fall graduates. She le ... Jump to full article >>

The end of a 15-year annual decline in the U.S. adult smoking rate proved disturbing to federal officials and anti-tobacco advocates. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated yesterday that 20.6 percent of adults — or 46 million Americans — smoked in 2008. The data came from the 2008 National Health interview survey of almost 22,000 adults. The peak of U.S. adult smokers was 53.5 million in 1983, or at 32.1 percent, a ... Jump to full article >>

The state ban on smoking in public places that has been delayed by a legal fight is going to get its day in court this week. A trial is set for today and Friday in Pierre over Secretary of State Chris Nelson’s decision to invalidate 8,845 petition signatures, which denied opponents of the state smoking ban the chance to put a referendum on the 2010 ballot and let voters decide whether the prohibition should stand. The smoking ban was appro ... Jump to full article >>

FALMOUTH — Voters at last night’s town meeting gave a big thumbs down to those who like to light up on the town’s public beaches. Smoking is no longer allowed on any of the town’s 11 public beaches, following a 128-60 vote that makes Falmouth the third community on the Cape to snuff out smoking on municipal beaches. Proponents of the ban cited litter in the form of errant cigarette butts in the sand, as well as the harm cause ... Jump to full article >>

No smoking around your daughter. That was a Warren County court’s order to a mother last December – and now an appeals court has sided with that ruling, taking the unusual step of using “judicial notice” to conclude that second-hand smoke is a danger to a child. In a decision that could apply to many other child-custody and visitation cases, the Ohio 12th District Court of Appeals in Middletown upheld the Warren courtR ... Jump to full article >>

To The Daily: Some members of the Decatur City Council still fail to understand the reason behind the smoking ban: Reducing second-hand smoke in public places allows the citizens of Decatur to live longer. Period. The idea that a business owner “has a right to choose” completely misses the point that a smoking ban protects not just customers, but also employees. While businesses have tried for years (usually unsuccessfully) to segregate smok ... Jump to full article >>

Smoking bans are getting out of control, but the electronic cigarette is quickly becoming the dominant alternative to those who are suffering from them. At one point, you could justifiably expect to be restricted from smoking on public forms of transportation or in your office but nowadays bans are extending far beyond the confines of public buildings. Some North American cities even prohibit smoking in parks or on city streets. So what does ... Jump to full article >>

Researchers have uncovered copies of sensitive internal documents destroyed by a Canadian tobacco company that could boost efforts by provincial governments suing the industry over health costs linked to smoking. The documents destroyed by Imperial Tobacco Canada reveal the firm had scientific data decades ago showing that cigarettes were addictive and caused cancer. “This evidence suggests that the industry wasn’t sharing absolutely ... Jump to full article >>

Imperial Tobacco Canada destroyed up to 60 early studies that linked cigarettes to addiction and carcinogens, according to a review published Wednesday in the online Canadian Medical Association Journal. The internal studies, done from 1967 to 1984, were destroyed in 1992 on orders from head office at British American Tobacco in the United Kingdom to avoid “exposing the company to liability or embarrassment,” the authors of the revi ... Jump to full article >>

Damn the facts. Climate change is not happening, just like smoking doesn’t cause cancer. We all know the long history of Big Tobacco and their attempts to kill bans on second-hand smoke and their hire-a-scientist strategy to delay regulatory impact on their pocketbooks. My all-time favorite line: “I got a BA in kicking ass and taking names.” Many of the same people who worked on the tobacco front shifted gears to the issue of c ... Jump to full article >>