Ipswich more progressive than Brisbane (!!!!)

I almost died of shock when I read this. While Campbell Newman is happy for pregnant women, babies, small children and the 80% of the public who don't smoke to suffer the ill-effects resulting from being forced to breathe other peoples' used carcinogens at bus stops, taxi ranks and in Queen Street Mall, Ipswich of all places has decided to enact a smoking ban in its central mall, as well as at bus stops and taxi ranks. Ipswich. Wow. Go Ipswich.

Ipswich aims to become Queensland's first city to ban smoking at taxi ranks and bus stops, as well as the city's central mall.

The decision by the southern Queensland regional city follows the introduction to state parliament last week of new legislation giving councils additional controls over public smoking.

Ipswich council's policy board spokesman Paul Tully said the move would be welcomed by most residents who were unhappy with smoking in busy public places.

Lots of butts, little evidence: mental health advocates oppose smoking ban

Some people in mental health groups are jumping up and down about the smoking ban in psychiatric facilities just imposed by NSW Health. They claim that being deprived of cigarettes, even though nicotine replacement therapy is being offered free of charge, will lead mentally ill smokers to turn violent.

A spokesman for the Mental Health Council of Australia, Simon Tatz, said forcing a nicotine addict to endure withdrawal symptoms while battling an acute episode of mental illness may impose a disproportionate level of suffering on people who were already suffering enough.

Yeah, never mind the fact that the two thirds of mentally ill people who don't smoke are being forced to breathe in the smokers' carcinogens. If these people were addicted to an illegal drug would Tatz being yapping about how 'destabilising' it is to give them treatment/replacement therapy rather than allowing them to continue their habit? Smoking, however, is one of the few drug habits where the health impact arising from use of the drug is inflicted on unwilling victims. Why should anyone, mentally ill or not, be allowed to do that?

Besides, despite the bleatings of smokers in the system, there is apparently no evidence whatsoever to suggest that there is any increase in violence when a smoking ban is implemented in a mental health care setting:

A review of 26 bans in psychiatric settings worldwide published in the Australian And New Zealand Journal Of Psychiatry in 2005 found there was "no increase in aggression, discharge against medical advice or increased use of as needed medication" linked to smoke-free policies.

Smokers deserve rubbishing

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a meeting with my favourite lecturer from my undergrad degree, who is interested in starting a research group on a topic that relates to my thesis. Because I got there a bit early, I was going to sit in the lovely park between the Public Health building and the Royal Children's Hospital. As I approached a bench, however, the sight of so many cigarette butts on the ground turned me right off the idea- I opted to sit in a dark, air-conditioned room over sitting outdoors on a beautiful sunny day, because being literally surrounded by cigarette butts simply grossed me out.

Ugh. Smokers are disgusting.

As if the smokers at the Royal Children's Hospital- staff members and disgusting parents* alike, couldn't get any grosser, here's something I walked pass on my way from work to the bus the other day:





* When I say disgusting parents, I mean the ones who take their kids (bald, intubated, disabled, infants, the whole gamut of serious childhood illnesses) for a walk up and down the footpath in their wheelchair or stroller so mum and/or dad can have a cigarette. I've never seen any of them pay any particular attention to stopping the clouds of cigarette smoke from engulfing their sick children. People like that don't deserve children.

ClubsNSW told to suck eggs, not cigarettes

I was so glad to see this little piece of news, even though I don't live in NSW.

Basically, when the NSW government finally got around to introducing anti-smoking laws for pubs and clubs, they included a loophole that allowed any area that was at least 25% open to the outdoors to be classified as 'outdoor' and therefore exempt from the smoking bans.

Now, the slimy bastards have been slapped down by a sensible judge, undoubtedly to the relief of non-smokers and their lungs:

PUBS and clubs have wasted as much as $750 million on outdoor spaces designed to counter the indoor smoking ban, after a landmark decision in the Supreme Court yesterday classified them as smoke-free areas.

ClubsNSW had challenged the NSW Health Department in the Supreme Court after health inspectors threatened to prosecute Dubbo RSL for breaching smoking regulations in its "outdoor gaming terrace" and "TAB outdoor area", which are partially sheltered by roofing.

[...]

ClubsNSW estimated its members had spent $450 million, and the NSW Australian Hotels Association said pubs had spent at least $300 million.

"The industry has spent millions of dollars in good faith to meet the current ambiguous regulations," said Sally Fielke, the chief executive of the NSW hotels association.

Good faith my arse. Those 'ambiguous regulations' were deliberately made ambiguous at the behest of the hotels associations in NSW, so they could get around the laws.

Sucked in. May every public space Australia-wide soon be made smoke-free.

Funds over lungs: AEU takes aim at kids' health

AEU Victoria state president Mary Bluett

I cannot believe the position that the Australian Education Union has taken on a Victorian government proposal to ban smoking on school grounds. Astoundingly, the AEU is against the proposal, on the basis that all smokers are good role models for kids and never smoke in front of them (seriously!), and that in the event of a smoking ban, everyone who rents school halls for functions will suddenly decide not to. Here are the words of wisdom of AEU state president Mary Bluett:

"Overwhelmingly schools are smoke-free. People who need to smoke go off school grounds out of sight of students. They're very aware of their role model status," Ms Bluett said.

"Many schools have halls that are rented out for functions and while the hall itself has to be smoke-free if you don't have the capacity for people to smoke outside, it will impact on that school hall being part of a community resource, and in some cases an income stream for the school."

[...]

Anti-smoking body Quit Victoria has released new data from the Cancer Council showing 95 per cent of Victorians believe the habit should not be allowed on primary or secondary school premises.

I remember a teacher at my primary school, clearly very aware of his role model status, used to kick my group of friends out of a particular area of the playground so he could smoke 'out of sight of students'. We used to stand around and watch him so we could go back and play when he finished. 'Smoko' Turner, we used to call him. I think that cigarette smoking is more of a taboo these days than it was back then, so teachers are unlikely to present a problem when it comes to smoking around students. It's the parents that are the biggest problem. And the idea that most parents who smoke are so aware of their status as a role model that they hide their habit away is bullshit. Some do, but very few. Most of them think nothing of smoking all over their own children, let alone other peoples'.

What Mary Bluett and the AEU are saying is that they are just fine with giving irresponsible smokers the right to smoke on school grounds, exposing kids to their carcinogenic second-hand smoke. They are just fine with people being allowed to smoke all over kids on school grounds, with no responsible school employee having the right to approach them and say "I'm sorry, but we don't allow smoking on school grounds. You'll have to put out your cigarette."

The AEU seriously needs to re-think their position on this one. They are dead wrong.

Blowing Smoke Up Your Arse

Healthy lung left, smoker's lung right

What is it about smoking that brings out the most infantile attitudes? Any attempt to restrict the ability of smokers to smoke when and where they like is bound to bring out the silliest self-serving nonsense. Case in point is the BCC's latest move to restrict smoking on Queen Street Mall. The idea that I shouldn't have to partake of someone else's smoke just because I want to go shopping elicits comments like these:

City worker Leah Nesbit said she was more concerned about the plans to ban smoking in cars if there was a child in the car
....

She said the changes would affect her smoking and driving.

"I would stop and pull over and then smoke," she said.

Bad luck if you're Ms Nesbit's child I suppose. A potential lifetime of asthma and impaired neurological development could be in your future.

City News worker Warren Burton said he believed any toughening of anti-smoking legislation would drive some people from the mall.

He suggested "sectioning off" an area of the mall for smokers.

"In one way it would would mean that we would lose customers out of it," Mr Burton said.

No Warren, no one is allowed to smoke in stores anyway, anyone who couldn't visit the mall because they're so addicted to ciggies wouldn't be able to stop smoking long enough to enter a store anyway.

"Why don't we section an area off," he asked.

"And put in proper bins and smoking trays."

Mr Burton said one problem in the Queen Street Mall at present was burning cigarette butts setting rubbish in bins alight.

"What people really object to is the butts lighting up," he said.

I don't see why the tax payer should be forced to pay for arson proof bins. I manage to not set my bin on fire on a daily basis, it shouldn't be too hard for other people. Also a sectioned off area for smokers means smokers, people who make a PERSONAL CHOICE to smoke, get to enjoy the whole mall while people who do not want to smoke are forced to take part in someone else's habit if they want to enjoy the entire mall.

And finally:

Smoker Mark Bahnisch said he understood that passive smoking was a problem, but believed most people were responsible smokers and stood clear of people while they smoked.

"I think we need to draw a line somewhere," Mr Bahnisch said.

"Because it is an addiction and if you stop people smoking here, then you will just get more smokers in a smaller area.

"And then you just have to ask how ridiculous is it in terms of people's personal freedoms."

BT

How precious. Personal freedoms are not synonymous with getting to do whatever you want to other people. I didn't choose to smoke, someone else did. Why should I get to smoke too? Maybe I should spray bug spray in his face* and tell him how ridiculous his objections are in terms of my freedom to spray a toxic product freely available from supermarkets where I like. Is this one of the guys from Larvatus Prodeo? Sarah reckons it is. If it is, how disappointing. My right to not breathe your smoke trumps your right to enjoy your cigarette. Why? Because you can still smoke, at home, at other private places and, god help us, public designated smoking areas.

My right to not stink of cigarette smoke and feel like I'm gargling gravel can be upheld by you simply NOT smoking. You made the choice to increase your risk of dying from something horrible, I didn't, should I share that risk just for being in public? You don't have to do anything special or stop smoking altogether. If I don't choose to smoke I shouldn't be forced to do so simply by being in freaking public. You're not forced to drink alcohol if you go to a bar, an establishment specifically for the consumption of alcohol, so why the hell should I be forced to smoke because I'm in public and some dude wants to indulge in their habit because they feel oppressed?

I've gotten to work with people who have wound up with smoking related diseases. They all vehemently and vocally regretted it and wished they could have chosen differently. A few of them expressed disbelief at how younger people were STILL taking up smoking despite the new warnings and information they'd never had. Still, just because it's a stupid risk to take doesn't mean I think people should be stopped from taking it. I just don't want to go along for the ride because I'm queuing for the bus or walking down the mall.

* Clearly I wouldn't do this. But smokers do this to non-smokers every day.

Butt-tossers at the SMH can't resist a pro-smoking headline

I get sick of seeing all these "pub smoking bans may harm kids" headlines. The BBC website is very fond of them, and today we get one in the SMH, courtesy of some visiting economist from London. I had a feeling I'd blogged about something similar before, and I was right. Also in the SMH a couple of years ago was 'smoking bans lead to butts on streets' or something equally ridiculous.

Let's get this straight: if some arsehole can't smoke at the pub and consequently smokes more all over their kids than they usually do then they're a sorry motherfucker who can't put their child's health over their own addiction. It's not MY fault for not wanting to be smoked on everywhere I go, and it's not the government's fault that their relatively limp-wristed anti-smoking measures mean that smokers can't smoke everywhere they'd like to; only almost everywhere they'd like to and quite a few places they're not allowed to but there's no one to catch them so fuck-youse-all-I'm-lightin'-up.

And while I'm bitching, I'd like to have a whine about the fact that of all the parents I see pushing a pram or a wheelchair along the footpath near the hospital, they are almost without exception smoking all over their child. What the fuck, people?! Your child is sick, quite possibly a condition caused or exacerbated by your smoking, and you continue to show utter disregard for your child's health by blowing carcinogenic smoke all over them. Fucking disgrace.

Oh and meanwhile, the cost of tobacco use to taxpayers is $31.5 billion.

Western cigarettes pushed in China

International tobacco firms, spurned in the West, have made developing countries their target. Among the countries they are greedily eying is China. China's population doesn't have any cultural taboos against men smoking, and the addiction is widespread. Cigarette companies are also increasingly pushing their products on women.

One of our chinese former flatmates, Ken, was a smoker. His girlfriend Taylor (who lived with us for 2 years) was constantly at him to quit. He kept promising he would, then finding himself unable to keep the promise. While he was living with us, his uncle (also a smoker) died of lung cancer, a few months after being diagnosed. He was in his 40s. Still, Ken found himself unable to quit. When he went back to China it was even harder. Their primitive laws allow smoking in workplaces, so with all his workmates smoking it became even more difficult. I haven't talked to Ken or Taylor in a while (they married at the beginning of this year) but I presume Ken still smokes. And I presume Taylor would still like him to quit.

Hopefully Ken won't be one of the estimated one in three young chinese men who, it is estimated, will die of smoking-related disease. However, the way things are going in China, Western and Chinese governments and the tobacco companies that wield influence within them will do their best to ensure that he and millions of other chinese citizens do so. Our governments are finally getting their act together not because of concern for the wellbeing of the public but out of fear of the massive cost of smoking related diseases. They are all too happy to foist the problem onto foreign countries and allow cigarette companies to reap profit at the cost of human life.

Queen Street Mall sucks

Queen Street Mall: the dream vs. the reality

Gam and I walked to the city today for my orthodontist appointment. Afterward, we went to Rebel Sport, seeking some size 14 football boots. As we wanted to shop around (despite the fact that it's almost impossible to get hold of a size 14 pair at the best of times) we walked to the Footlocker and the Zelus store.

This probably isn't the first time I've bitched about Queen St Mall being the favourite meeting place of every bloody smoker in Brisbane (maybe it is for this blog, but believe me when I say I complain every time I have to go there!), but today we had to run the gauntlet of a line-up of so many seated smokers that the air was hazy and grey, clearing only once we got past the line of seats. It was gross.

Even worse, I could still smell the smoke 'following' me as we took the escalator back to the Rebel Sport store. I thought I was being paranoid when I sniffed my hair, but my suspicion was confirmed: it smelled as if I'd spent hours in a smoky nightclub. Just from walking through Queen St Mall. Disgusting.

Of course, that's not as bad as seeing parents with babies forced to carry their babies through all that smoke. Passing through Queen St Mall might be a health hazard for an adult, but it must be even worse for a tiny baby's lungs.

Gam pointed out that while it's illegal for the diners in the kiosk cafe/restaurants in the mall to smoke, it's perfectly legal for people to walk right past the table and smoke all over the diners. Enticing...

Queen St Mall: Welcome to Brisbane's biggest ashtray!

Smoke bans lead to idiotic reporting

Suck it up...

The headline of this story in the SMH caught my eye earlier in the week- 'Smoke bans lead to butts in the streets'.

As if smoking bans are to blame for the presence of cigarette butt litter. Smokers lead to butts in the streets (and bums in the streets, if the hordes of addicts standing in gutters outside pubs and restaurants sucking down their nicotine on a Friday night is anything to go by) . Even prior to the ban on smoking in pubs and nightclubs in Queensland I witnessed countless occasions where a smoker would finish their cigarette while standing mere metres from a bin- many with a dedicated ash tray- and throw it on the ground. At uni, at bus stops, in parks, outside workplaces- the places that smokers gather turn into a stinking ash-tray. Until it rains and washes the cigarette butts into the drains and eventually into the river.

What's needed is not more bins but more people to hand out fines for littering and smoking in 'smoke-free' zones. I read on a Queensland government website before the full ban came into effect that they have only 80 of these officers to police the whole of Queensland.

When Gam and I were last at Southbank some months ago we lined up to buy ice-cream at the New Zealand Natural store. We were waiting in line next to a pretty, fresh-faced girl, probably 10 years old. While we were in the queue I smelled cigarette smoke. That wouldn't be out of the ordinary at Southbank, except they had recently enacted smoking bans; there were 'no smoking' signs everywhere. I turned around, and standing at the tables behind us- tables with a big 'no smoking' sticker stuck right smack bang in the middle- was some crusty middle-aged guy mindlessly puffing away on a cigarette. The little girl paid for two ice-creams and trotted over to the smoker- he was her dad. He dropped his cigarette on the ground next to the table, ground it out with his thong, and they left. Another man lit up at the next table (similarly signed) as they were leaving.

We don't need people blaming 'the smoking bans' for the litter problem, absolving the smokers of the act of littering. They're adults, for christ's sake- have them take some responsibility for the problems they create.

Meanwhile, research just published in the Archives of Dermatology reveals that smoking doesn't just give you a saggy-baggy face and cat's-bum lips- it makes you saggy all over. Mmm, attractive thought!

Bob Morris- what a wanker!

Wikipedia, I love you!

I read as far as the second sentence of this piece in the New York Times before my jaw dropped.

I have always wondered how some people can stretch their conscience around blithely lighting up a cigarette around their children (or someone else's), but this guy goes so far as to openly proclaim his vice- almost to celebrate it- while dismissing the protests of the kids exposed to second-hand smoke as being a symptom of their upbringing in a "transfat-banning, nanny-state culture".

This wanker has the hide to complain that his 12-year-old nephew's expressed discomfort about being smoked on amounts to 'bullying'.

I explained firmly that his father and I are social smokers, who like the occasional cigarette, and that secondhand smoke isn’t an issue outdoors on the water.

[...]

Call me a crabby old baby boomer, but I’m tired of parents who let children commandeer every conversation. And should they be allowed to bully us with their concerns?

This guy makes the claim that "secondhand smoke isn't an issue outdoors", which is an absolute falsehood. Sure, it's not as bad as dragging the kid into a smoky bar, but if the kid can smell the smoke, he's breathing it in. Unbelievably, the kid's father backed him up.

How many parents would support someone grabbing their kid by the hair and pouring scotch down their throat? How about if the scotch was mixed with water? Is that any better?

How many people would agree that if someone were to show up with a can of bug spray at a bus stop and spend a couple of minutes spraying it into the air that the other people at the bus stop really shouldn't have a problem with the action? After all, they're outdoors!

Lighting up around other people is practically an assault. Many other forms of drug-taking don't directly impact on the health of people around the user. Smoking does, indoors and outdoors. Lighting up around kids should be considered child abuse.

Bob Morris- massive wanker.

Permanent link to article.

South Australia: the progressive state

Stub out smoking around kids.

Finally a state government has the balls to start cracking down on parents who smoke in the car with their kids present. Well done SA!

Bedtime Stories

Say hello, kiddies! While you still can!

Why restrain a 'graphic' anti-smoking advertisement from being shown on TV before 9:30pm?

What's the matter? Don't want to scare the kids?

This smoker is 32 years old.

More bed time reading here.

Next chapter: The One Where They Chop Out Part of Your Intestine and Use It To Replace Your Cancer-Riddled Pharynx.

Childhood passive smoking link to bladder cancer

Would you like to supersize your kid's chance of dying of cancer?

It's a fairly safe bet that smoking and being exposed to second-hand smoke increases a person's risk of just about every kind of cancer imaginable, but scientists keep plugging away and chronicling the ever-mounting pile of evidence for a link between smoking and various cancers.

This time it's bladder cancer. And they've found a link between exposure to cigarette smoke during childhood and the risk of developing bladder cancer as an adult.

So when are we going to see smoking around children (or anyone else) made illegal? I've asked this question time and again, but no-one with any capacity to legislate seems to want to make the connection: I'm pretty sure a person who made their toddler chug on a bottle of Jim Beam in a public place would be in some fairly serious shit with the law, so why not someone who forces their kid (or anyone else's) to breathe cigarette smoke?

All smoking in public should be banned, and anyone found to be exposing their kids to cigarette smoke should be forced to attend parenting classes and watch video footage of operations on patients with diseases caused by smoking.

Oh, and while I'm at it, smokers should be banned from getting IVF, too. I was really surprised to read about a Spanish study on heavy smokers undergoing IVF. Anyone who isn't willing to give up their drug habit for the sake of a healthy pregnancy and the health of their baby shouldn't be given special facility to have one. Especially when it's likely the smoking that is affecting their fertility in the first place.

You can't stop a smoker

... from harming their own child:

The news that one in six pregnant Australian women smoke fits nicely with a little incident I witnessed yesterday on the stairs leading down to the City Cat (ferry) stop at North Quay:

A young woman and a lady who was presumably her mother were carrying a stroller containing the woman's sleeping toddler down the stairs. There is a cruddy looking ramp that adds about 30 seconds to the walk to the City Cat, but I think a lot of people barely realise it's there.

The young woman was holding on to the stroller with only one hand, grasping a lit cigarette with the fingers of the other. The stroller twisted in her grip and almost tipped her child down the stairs. The grandmother hurried to steady the stroller, as the woman with the cigarette tried to adjust her single-handed grip without having to drop her half-smoked cigarette. It looked as if she was just as concerned about dropping the cigarette as dropping her child.

Among pregnant teenagers who gave birth in 2003, the rate was 42.1 per cent, compared with 10.9 per cent of mothers aged 35 and older.

Among Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander mothers, it was over half - 52.2 per cent. Figures for 2004 showed that 24.8 per cent of all women aged 15 to 44 smoked.

I was listening to an interview on NewsRadio yesterday morning regarding this report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare in which the interviewer asked whether smoking around children should be considered a form of child abuse, given the well-known and wide-ranging impact on the health of children exposed to cigarette smoke. The answer given by the person being interviewed (I forget who) was somewhat indirect, but gave the impression that more and more health professionals are leaning in that direction.

I sincerely hope that's the case. If parents won't put a priority on their childrens' health then the government should.

One more reason to ban public smoking

From the BBC:

Harvard School of Public Health researchers looked at over 14,000 men and pre and post-menopausal women in rural China.

The scientists measured hip bone mineral density, and recorded non-spine fractures and smoking history.

Second-hand smoking was defined as living with one or more people who smoked each day.

Pre-menopausal non-smoking women who lived with one smoker had more than double the risk of osteoporosis compared to those who lived with none.

And those who lived with two or more smokers exposed to second-hand smoke were found to have a threefold greater risk of the condition.

They also had a 2.6 times greater risk for a non-spine fracture, compared to non-smokers.

Dense bone

A separate study by Gothenburg University researchers looked at 1,000 men aged between 18 and 20-years-old .

It was found that smokers' bone density in the spine, hip, and body as a whole, was lower than in their non-smoking peers.

A CAT (Computer Tomography) scanner was used to obtain 3D images of bone.

The researchers say smoking appeared to primarily affect a specific type of bone called cortical bone, by reducing its thickness.

This very dense bone forms a layer, similar to the enamel on teeth, around softer, spongy bone.

While this passive smoking study only included the partners of smokers, no-one should have to be exposed to another person's cigarette smoke at any time. The health risks are diverse and very serious; just because a person suffers less damage to their wellbeing from passive smoke if they don't actually live with a smoker doesn't mean the damage that does occur from being exposed to cigarette smoke in public spaces should be ignored. It's still a huge problem.

Ahhh, Fresh Air!

The weather here over the past few days has been grey and... soggy. Just awful. It cleared up this afternoon though, having taken all the nasty particles out of the air and leaving it smelling fresh and clean on our way to meet up with some friends at the Red Room- the uni bar.

Gam and I arrived 10 minutes before polls closed for the student union elections and were accosted by 3 different people from 'Thrive', 'Last Chance' and 'Jolt' as soon as we set foot on uni grounds. The parties change their names every bloody year, so it's hard to keep track of which one is affiliated with which political party, but we knew 'Jolt' is the Young Liberals. The only one who would admit to a political affiliation was Ms Last-Chance, who admitted to being an ALP member.

What was interesting was that when we asked the individuals from each party questions on their policies, 'Thrive' and 'Last Chance' both claimed to be preparing for what they saw as the inevitability of VSU. Ms Last-Chance said that one of their policies was to cut the salaries of various Union positions to save money. Something that probably should have been done a long time ago, yeah, but I like that.

Ms Jolt, however, said to us "Well, VSU hasn't come in yet" and proceeded to tell us how Jolt would force the businesses on campus to cut the price of a bottle of Coca Cola from $2.00 to $1.70. I'm the wrong person to talk to about cheap Coke, because I don't drink the stuff, but not only that- this chick is a member of the party who is forcing VSU upon us and yet she refused to say how her party were going to fund their policies under VSU.

Needless to say we both put Jolt last on our ballots.

I'd only been to the Red Room once- walk in, walk out. It was early when we got there, about 4pm, but it quickly filled up with campaigners after the polls closed. The place sells only 4 kinds of beer, none of them good, but the entire inside area is non-smoking. This was the first time in my life I've been able to sit in a bar, have a beer with friends and walk out not smelling of stale cigarette smoke. Damn it was good.

Cannabis Less of a Cancer Risk

From the BBC.

The article confirms what many people have long suspected: that smoking cannabis doesn't seem to be anywhere near as bad for you as smoking cigarettes.

I almost laughed out loud at this sentence, though:

"Cannabis remains the most commonly-used drug in the UK with one in 10 people using it in the last year"

So fewer than one in 10 Brits smoke or drink alcohol, I take it?

Lessons in Ethics from Kim Jong Il & BAT

2 billion cigarettes for 22 million people? Hey kids, if you don't starve to eath before you turn 10, BAT can give you lungs like these!


There's nothing a tobacco company won't do for a buck. They've been killing people and lying about it for almost a century, and now it turns out that British American Tobacco have been in bed with North Korea for the last four years. Funnily enough, BAT's annual accounts have never mentioned that they have a factory in Pyongyang producing more than 2 billion cigarettes per year. Don't worry though, the ever-trustworthy people at BAT assure us that those 2 billion cigarettes are only for the North Korean market. That previous incident where they were busted smuggling tobacco was just an accident!

Asked about North Korea's human rights record, the spokeswoman said: "It is not for us to interfere with the way governments run countries." She said BAT could "lead by example" and assist the country's development by meeting internationally accepted standards of businesses practice and corporate social responsibility.

Any country following the example of a tobacco company would be a pretty damn scary place to live, I think.

From the 'Duh' Files: Smoking Ban Improves Workers' Health

Banning smoking everywhere is the right thing to do for public health.

At the a-league games we've been to, people light up before and immediately after the match, right under the big 'NOBODY SMOKES HERE ANY MORE' signs, in quite a few cases blowing smoke all over their own children. That's one of the things that sickens me most; sure, a smoker may not care about exposing strangers to their carcinogenic stench, but their own children? That's fucked up. That should be illegal (as it should for those animals who light up right next to other peoples' children).

Anyway, a study assessing the effects of the nationwide smoking ban in Ireland has shown that particulate matter in the air in pubs has declined by 70%, and the lung function of the non-smoking male bar workers had improved by 30-40%. Of course those who smoked had continuing decline in lung function.

I'll only be satisfied when smoking in any public space, open or enclosed, is banned. If I walked up to someone with a can of bug spray and sprayed it in their face it would be an assault, but if a smoker blows out cigarette smoke into my face I'm expected to hold my breath and just deal with it. Not fair.

Smoking ban improves workers health

September 20, 2005 - 8:14AM

Ireland's nationwide ban on smoking in all workplaces has not only cleaned up the air in pubs and restaurants, it has also improved the health of the people who work there, researchers say.

Since Ireland became the first country in the world to impose the ban nationwide in March 2004, other countries and cities have followed its example.

Professor Luke Clancy, an expert in respiratory disease at Trinity College, Dublin, has shown that particulate matter in the air, which is a feature of smoke pollution, in pubs has decreased and workers are breathing better.

"This is the first time that we have measured the pollution and measured the effects," Clancy said in an interview.

"We found a dramatic decrease in particles. There is something like a 70 per cent decrease in particles in the pub and that makes it quite similar to outdoor air in Dublin, which is quite good."

Clancy and his colleague Dr Patrick Goodman measured particles in more than 40 pubs before the ban was enforced and a year afterwards to gauge its impact.

In research presented at the European Respiratory Society meeting in Copenhagen, they said levels of two types of particles, PM2.5 and PM10, had fallen by 53 per cent and 87.6 per cent over the course of a year.

They also recruited 81 male bar workers and measured their lung function before and a year after the ban became law. The men also answered a questionnaire about their health and smoking habits.

"We found a 30-40 per cent decrease in symptoms, both respiratory and irritant," said Clancy, referring to shortness of breath, coughs and water eyes.

Lung function in the non-smokers also improved but it continued to deteriorate in smokers.

A study in Norway, in which restaurant and bar workers were interviewed on the telephone, showed similar improvements in health after a smoking ban was introduced there.

Opponents of the Irish ban had warned that the law would put Ireland's famous pubs out of business, but their fears have not materialised.

Smoking, a leading risk factor of lung cancer and other illnesses, is the biggest cause of preventable death. Research has shown that second-hand smoke, or passive smoking, kills more than 600 people each year in Britain alone.

Sweden, Italy, Malta, Cuba, New Zealand and Bangladesh have also introduced bans on smoking in public places. Other countries have announced plans to curb smoking.