Tobacco.org

Antismoking people sometimes make interesting choices 

Smoker-firing bill dies  

• Louisiana Senate committee rejects bill allowing employers to discriminate against smokers  

Legislative labor committees shot down an effort to allow companies to discriminate against employees who smoke but gave approval to a bill expanding whistleblower protections Thursday. Senate Bill 113 would have repealed a two-decade-old law prohibiting companies from taking into account tobacco use when hiring, firing, promoting or considering any other employment action.

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House passes smoker's ban  

Expanded no-smoking zones passed by House 

Smoking would be banned within 25 feet of handicapped ramps and entrances to public and private buildings where smoking is already outlawed inside, the House said Monday. Representatives voted 81-12 for House Bill 378 by Rep. Frank Hoffmann, R-West Monroe, sending it to the Senate for more debate.

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Hoffmann bill bans smoking near buildings  

Brief: “Tobacco business healthy in colleges, survey shows”  

April 5, 1940

A survey completed in the 1940s by the Student Opinion Surveys of America showed that the smoking habits of college students provided tobacco companies with great business. According to this survey, more than half of the student body (58.7 percent) reported to be smokers, with less than a third identifying as smoking regularly. Women, however, reported to show little interest in the habit, with more than half of female students across the nation reporting they would never think about buying or smoking cigarettes (only 21.6 percent of female students declared to be habitual smokers). The most popular brand of cigarettes back in the 1940s was reported to be Lucky Strike, with 12.1 percent of students marking it as their favorite.

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VIDEO: Smoking Ban Talks  

Lafayette program to publicly commend bars that go smoke-free attracts no interest  

Meetings proposed to discuss smoking 

LAFAYETTE — A city-parish program to publicly commend bars that go smoke- free has attracted no interest, prompting the councilman who proposed it to consider “town hall” meetings on the issue.

Councilman Kenneth Boudreaux proposed the recognition program about a month ago after hearing from residents who hope for a local ban on smoking in bars.

“Basically, what I was doing was using it as an assessment tool,” Boudreaux said of the recognition. “I’m one who believes that businesses should have the opportunity to take action on their own, but none have stepped forward.”

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Roll-your-own cigarette shops facing costly legislation 

Roll-your-own cigarette shops facing costly legislation 

Smoking ban would extend to within 25 feet of building entrance, if lawmakers back bill  

SmokingWords talks air quality  

SWEENEY: The Philibuster: Culture of cigarette acceptance different  

Smoking kills. The facts speak for themselves. One need not speak on their behalf.

And to do so is, quite plainly, an affront to Americans’ freedom of choice.

Americans have been educated. Americans have been informed. Butt out, in other words. Let Americans choose for themselves.

Whereas the decades-long decline in American tobacco consumption has leveled since 2007, the percentage of University undergraduate smokers has actually increased, according to Sylvester.

Given Americans’ — and Louisianians’ — notorious aversion to arm-twisting and coercion, anti-smoking zealotry might thus be the problem, not the solution.

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

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