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GOLDEN AGE OF STOGIES 

Best Bet Casino owner fined for smoking ban violations 

Double-amputee featured in anti-smoking ads 

MSU campuses going smoke free this fall 

Owner of Best Bet Casino violated smoking ban, jury decides  

A jury Monday found a Helena casino owner guilty of three violations of Montana’s Clean Indoor Air Act, in the first jury trial involving the indoor smoking ban.

Sandy Jones, owner of Best Bet Casino at 1225 Euclid Ave., was found guilty of failing to enforce the indoor smoking ban three times in 2010, according to court documents. The offenses are misdemeanors, with maximum fines of between $100 and $500 per infraction. Jeremy Gersovitz, a deputy Lewis and Clark County attorney, said Jones may face a fine of up to $800 at the sentencing, which is yet to be scheduled.

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EDITORIAL: Gazette opinion: You snus, you lose: Smokeless habit hurts  

Cool packages, bright colors, new flavors — all these factors help market new products to teens.

Unfortunately, when the products contain nicotine and tobacco, the marketing campaign may overwhelm Montana’s recently reduced tobacco-use prevention efforts.

As Gazette reporter Cindy Uken told readers Monday, snus — tiny packets of smokeless tobacco — is a fad among young tobacco users. Some Billings students reportedly have used “toe-bacco,” placing snus between their toes to absorb a nicotine hit. . . .

Then the 2011 Legislature slashed the tobacco prevention budget by 30 percent, shifting proceeds of a national lawsuit against cigarette manufacturers and revenues from tobacco taxes to general government.

That budget decision leaves our youth more vulnerable. Like cigarette smoking, smokeless tobacco is a habit established before adulthood. Nearly half of Americans using smokeless tobacco were under age 18 when they first used, according to surveys reported by the CDC. The rate of usage has been increasing among U.S. males ages 12 to 25. Few people start using smokeless tobacco after age 25. Parents and public health officials must appeal to teens’ common sense. Tell your kids: Tobacco is an unhealthy, unattractive, expensive habit, and for people under 18, it’s illegal. Don’t let yourself be manipulated by slick marketing or peer pressure. Live tobacco free.

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• Youth find creative ways to fuel cravings for nicotine  

A Skyview High School wrestler was caught in school this month — one day before the state wrestling tournament — with a $4.55 can of Copenhagen. The penalty resulting from the ill-conceived decision was priceless.

He was suspended from school for three days and prohibited from participating in the state tournament. The student athlete also was required, per school policy, to complete a drug and alcohol class, according to Skyview wrestling coach Rich Malia.

"It was pretty traumatic for both him and his parents," Malia said.

The incident underscores the ongoing and growing issue of tobacco use among youth in Montana. Montana males, both adults and kids, are using smokeless tobacco at alarming rates — about twice the national average, according to the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids.

In Montana, 13.5 percent of students in ninth through 12th grades reported using smokeless tobacco, according to the 2011 Montana Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Additionally, 5.2 percent of students in seventh and eighth grades reported using smokeless tobacco.

The popularity of smokeless tobacco coincides with the tobacco industry's creation of an array of smokeless-tobacco products in response to the nation's move toward clean indoor air policies and laws.

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Billings gaming industry rebounding from smoking ban, evolving for future  

Casino owners and others in the industry blame a poor economy and one other major factor.

"The smoking ban was the biggest hit," states Roma.

Montana Gaming Advisory Council Member Tim Carson, agrees.

"The numbers show it," Carson says. "It was 18 to 20-percent and some locations were hit much harder."

But like most industries, Montana's gambling businesses had to figure out how to make a comeback. Part of that plan rolled out two months ago when line games were introduced to casinos across the Treasure State.

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Montana Supreme Court Defies Citizens United Decision, Upholds State Ban 

Montana's 1912 Corrupt Practices Act blocks certain political speech by corporations;  plaintiffs in the case sought to have the century-old law declared unconstitutional. Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock, who represented the state in defending the ban, said the case was the first to examine state laws and elections.

Montana has "a compelling interest" to uphold its campaign-finance laws that include both restrictions and disclosure requirements, the court held, according to the Great Falls Tribune. The state Supreme Court overturned a lower state court ruling, saying it couldn't find that current laws unfairly impeded corporate owners from engaging in political activity.

The court also said political corporations like American Tradition Partnership, which brought the suit challenging the 1912 law, "act as conduits for anonymous spending by others and represent a threat to the 'political marketplace.'" Corporations can remain politically active by forming voluntary political action committees, which are subject to disclosure requirements, the court said.

"With this ruling, the Montana Supreme Court now sets up the first test case for the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit its Citizens United decision, a decision which poses a direct and serious threat to our democracy," John Bonifaz of Free Speech For People, a group that seeks to return corporations to being economic, rather than political, entities, said in a statement.

American Tradition Partnership Executive Director Donald Ferguson said in  a statement the Montana Supreme court showed "contempt" for the law of the land and "thumbed its nose at the United States Supreme Court."

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• 'Citizens United' Backlash: Montana Supreme Court Upholds State's Corporate Campaign Spending Ban 

The Montana Supreme Court has put itself on a collision course with the U.S. Supreme Court by upholding a century-old state law that bans corporate spending in state and local political campaigns.

The law, which was passed by Montana voters in 1912 to combat Gilded Age corporate control over much of Montana's government, states that a "corporation may not make ... an expenditure in connection with a candidate or a political party that supports or opposes a candidate or a political party." In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court, in its landmark Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision, struck down a similar federal statute, holding that independent electoral spending by corporations "do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption" that such laws were enacted to combat. . . .

To reverse the Montana Supreme Court, however, the justices would have to extract themselves from a quandary of their own making, noted professor Rick Hasen of the University of California-Irvine Law School on his popular Election Law Blog. "If the Court were being honest in Citizens United," Hasen wrote, "it would have said something like: We don't care whether or not independent spending can or cannot corrupt; the First Amendment trumps this risk of corruption."

But by "dress[ing] up its value judgment ... as a factual statement," continued Hasen, the U.S. Supreme Court must now explain why the Montana Supreme Court was not correct to consider the factual record when it came to justifying corporate spending limits in campaign finance laws.

By a 5-2 vote this past Friday, the Montana Supreme Court declined to recognize the common understanding that Citizens United bars all laws limiting independent electoral spending. Instead, Chief Justice Mike McGrath, writing on behalf of the majority, called on the history surrounding the state law to show that corporate money, even if not directly contributed to a campaign, can give rise to corruption.

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Autopsy shows Whitefish nursing home resident, 93, died before cigarette set apartment ablaze 

An investigation into a Christmas Eve fire at a Whitefish nursing home concluded that a 93-year-old resident died of natural causes before her lit cigarette set her apartment on fire, authorities said Tuesday.

Mae Thompson was found deceased in her Mountain View Manor apartment Saturday after firefighters responding to a fire alarm at about 7:30 p.m. saw smoke coming from beneath the door of one of the nursing home's apartments.

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Great Falls business wrestles with indoor smoking law  

When the Montana Clean Indoor Air Act went into effect, several bar and casino owners in Great Falls saw a 25% drop in business.

Now, Great Falls company M.C. Inc. believes that it's found a solution that allows comfortable smoking rooms which comply with state law - but public health officials don't see it that way.

After two years of cutting expenses and barely breaking even, the owners of M.C. Inc. have found a way to cater to their smoking clientele and get the business back on track.

K.C. Palagi noted, "Anything is going to help right now, to make them more comfortable and keep them there longer, you know, that's the name of the game."

The game is gambling and a preferred accompaniment is smoking.

Palagi and his business partners thought the mixture of the two was terminated with the implementation of the MT Clean Indoor Air Act in 2009, but after spending almost a year reviewing gaming and smoking laws, they found a solution in the creation of a smoking patio.

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Great Falls business wrestles with indoor smoking law 

When the Montana Clean Indoor Air Act went into effect, several bar and casino owners in Great Falls saw a 25% drop in business.

Now, Great Falls company M.C. Inc. believes that it's found a solution that allows comfortable smoking rooms which comply with state law - but public health officials don't see it that way.

After two years of cutting expenses and barely breaking even, the owners of M.C. Inc. have found a way to cater to their smoking clientele and get the business back on track.

K.C. Palagi noted, "Anything is going to help right now, to make them more comfortable and keep them there longer, you know, that's the name of the game."

The game is gambling and a preferred accompaniment is smoking.

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After Accepting $290,000 from Tobacco Industry, House Conservatives Push 'Cigarettes For Children' Amendment 

Last week, the House Appropriations Committee approved an amendment by Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-MT) that would immunize the tobacco industry against many FDA regulations preventing them from making tobacco more addictive and marketing it to children. According to a joint statement by the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, the American Heart Association and the American Lung Association and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids:

[T]he amendment would curtail the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) authority to regulate the contents of tobacco products. It would severely limit the kind of evidence FDA could consider in regulating tobacco and other products and eliminate the FDA's ability to stop tobacco companies from adding ingredients that make their products more attractive to children and minorities, or more addictive and more difficult to quit using. [...]

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Montana Rep. Denny Rehberg's Gift to Big Tobacco  

The House Appropriations Committee voted to approve an amendment introduced by Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Montana) that would immunize the tobacco industry against U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rules stopping them from making cigarettes more addictive and marketing them to children. Among other things, Rehberg's amendment restricts FDA's authority to regulate the use of menthol in cigarettes. An FDA Scientific Advisory Committee concluded last March that menthol added to cigarettes makes them more attractive of children, increases the number of kids who start to smoke and reduces the number of smokers who can successfully quit. The Rehberg amendment also blocks FDA from regulating ammonia in cigarettes, which tobacco companies add to speed the the bodies' absorption of nicotine. Rehberg's amendment is aimed at weaking the landmark 2009 law giving FDA authority over tobacco products. Members of the Appropriations Committee who voted in favor of Rehberg's amendment together accepted $289,927 in tobacco industry campaign contributions in the last election cycle compared to just $10,000 taken by those who opposed the amendment -- a 20-fold difference.

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