When considering the occasion of past Great American SmokeOuts, my thoughts turn to the challenges of quitting smoking and my heart goes out to those who struggle with nicotine withdrawal and freedom from smoking. I know because I quit smoking a thousand times.
By now we all know there are personal health reasons to stop, and about the dangers of second hand smoke.
Sometimes it helps to look past the personal, to see ourselves and our actions in a larger context. Here are a few facts that go beyond the nasty pictures of scarred lungs, that may give even the most dedicated smoker pause to consider stop smoking alternatives and their choices otherwise. For example:
Not Smoking Alone: Think smoking is on the way out? The World Health Organization says there are 1 billion smokers in the world. The tobacco industry is thriving despite efforts to regulate it.
Suffering Farmers: In addition to the health hazards for smokers, there are substantial health risks for tobacco farm workers, from inhalation of pesticides and tobacco dust and from "Green Tobacco Sickness" caused by handling the plant's wet leaves.
Crime Spree: Cigarettes are the world’s most widely smuggled legal consumer product. In 2006, about 600 billion smuggled cigarettes were sold.
Emitting Pesticides: As much as ten percent of the pesticide applied to the tobacco crop can appear in the secondhand smoke and side stream smoke. The tobacco industry uses some 25 million pounds of pesticides a year. This means over 2 million pounds of pesticides in the air around us.
How Much Is That Professor in the Window? Tobacco companies fund university and lab researchers to study the effects of everything from stop smoking products to tobacco advertising to cancer drugs. Do you feel comfortable that results will be unaffected by the hand signing the check?
Hard on the Land: Pesticide and fertilizer runoff contaminate water resources, and the curing of tobacco leaf with wood fuel leads to massive deforestation. An often-cited, in-depth study shows that an estimated 200,000 hectares (about 772 square miles) of forest/woodland is lost to tobacco farming each year.
They Want Our Kids: Advertisers use Hollywood movies to target children and youth around the world to glamorize smoking, forget any quit smoking images you would like to see.
Women Are Being Used! Doctor Thomas Glynn of the American Cancer Society notes the targeting of women by tobacco companies in an interview with Voice of America: "As an example, in China, about 4… 5… 6 percent of women across China are using tobacco," he says. "But yet in places like Shanghai where tobacco companies are focusing, we are starting to see figures like 20 or 25 percent."
You Wanna Smoke or Eat? Tobacco replaces potential food production on almost 4 million hectares of the world’s agricultural land, equal to all of the world’s orange groves or banana plantations.
Quitting smoking is tough, but by rejecting an industry that is harming people and planet in the name of profit, you will be contributing to a healthier you and to a healthier world. Good luck to all the potential ex-smokers out there….you can do it! Whether you quit smoking or cut back on the amount of cigarettes you smoke …. the effort is worth the fight.
Leonardo DiCaprio has revealed that he is struggling to stop smokiing.
The Shutter Island actor admitted that he has tried using nicotine replacement patches, but they have caused him severe sleep problems as part of way to overcome the urge to smoke.
"When I use nicotine replacement patches I have blood curdling nightmares of murder. Mass murders," Contactmusic quotes his as saying.
"I wake up in the middle of the night and have to take them off. I don't really remember my dreams that much apart from then. I don't know what that means about me from a psychological point of view but that's the truth."
DiCaprio recently revealed that he spends time with his friends as "therapy" to find freedom from smoking.
Shutter Island opens in the US on February 19 and in UK cinemas on March 12.
I know I have the Freedom of Choice anytime to start cutting down on amount of cigarettes I smoke and still gain from it. I can even have the choice to quit smoking when ever I Freedom From Smoking.
I also know that no one can force me to stop smoking right now if I’m not ready to make the decision to quit smoking today.
Any of my future plans give me my own time line for freedom from smoking when I choose to stop smoking!
In the meantime I know I have a product like to get me through times when the urge to smoke is nagging.
With that in mind I can relax and enjoy my freedom without being told how or when. Now I just smile because my new plan is simple.
I take the time prepare meals properly.
I take an energetic walk.
I leave some time to relax at the end of the day.
My product tastes great and is the only product available with the health benefits of dark chocolate to help me to overcome the urge to smoke when I choose
You can too.
Do you know why you still smoke?
Good, Bad, or Indifferent the Social Smoking and Economic Costs associated with smoking effect everyone’s smoking or quitting decisions.
One of life’s little indulgences, it could be, think about it? Nicotine could be just that! We know that in moderation tobacco provides relaxation and improves cognitive function.
Smoking is and should remain a matter of choice and that choice is not necessarily Freedom From Smoking for one group as long as adverse consequence of doesn’t impose health risk on others.
Whatever the reasons it is more and more apparent that admissions by smokers about why they smoke is changing. And it has little or nothing to do with the consequence of smoking. Truth be told this is the likely a backlash against all the stop smoking no smoking quit smoking regulations. Today many smokers today simply smoke for psychological and emotional reasons. There motivation to quit smoking may not be what it once was. This Truth may even eclipse the scientific support for nicotine addiction being the sole reason that people smoke and don’t want to quit. Physical addiction is one thing, but many smokers don’t want to quit and presumably they understand why, when and where they smoke, and are very willing to challenge some of the old school smoking cessation thinking that goes along with quitting or continuing to smoke.
Workplace, travel and other no-smoking restrictions have turned smokers not ready to quit into pseudo criminals as they “sneak one in’. This “criminal activity” has become a smoker's challenge in light of, or in spite of the controversy over stopping smoking.
Second hand smoke may have been the mantra of those attempting to prohibit and form of smoking. However, with restrictions in place it is no longer valid.
The natural fact is that many smokers started smoking cigarettes in high school when it was “cool”. Nowadays, (even though it is politically incorrect to admit to it) many smokers enjoy a cigarette.
Oh my God shame on them! Isn’t it crazy that smokers have become condemned to the worst of the worst environments to takes that five-minute their smoke breaks?
Baby its cold outside! And really, does spewing carbon monoxide into the environment as you drive to work instead of using public transit so you can smoke in the privacy of your car really provide any kind of green or ecological sound advantage?
It's tough to be a hard-core chain-smoker these days. And it's not necessarily the dangers of smoking or secondhand smoke that are leading that charge
Half of the U.S. population could care less about the consequences of smoking but are more interested in when and where they can light up because they live in areas where smoking is banned in workplaces, bars and restaurants.
More than 70% of Americans don't allow smoking in their homes, including about half of current smokers.
So forget your urge to smoke, that nicotine withdrawal, or quit smoking cravings the rules for finding your freedom from smoking have changed.
Did you crave a cigarette in church on Sunday? That urge to smoke doesn't make it a sin!
You don't have to smoke like your going to hell before you get to church. Nicotine Side effects and nicotine withdrawal? Why go through it just because there is so much pressure from the choir.
How sin free do you think they can be as they preach the virtues of freedom from smoking?
If you ask any former smoker about “quitting smoking” they will probably tell you that it stopping smoking was one of the hardest things they have ever done because of the effects of nicotine withdrawal. November 19, 2009 marks the 34th American Cancer Society’s Great American Smokeout – a day for smokers to practice what life would be like without cigarettes.
The Great American Smokeout was developed to encourage smokers to stop using tobacco for one day, in hope that they would be inspired to quit altogether.
The goal is to remind people that “tobacco use remains the single largest preventable cause of disease and premature death in the U.S.” And that that they can reduce tobacco's harm by quitting smoking or even cutting back on the amount of cigarettes they smoke, and as smokers find freedom from smoking they can increase their life expectancy dramatically. This fact is even more relevant today as the government debates about health care reform and encourages Americans to live a healthier lifestyle.
The Cancer Society also recognizes the addictive nature of the nicotine in tobacco, and there are many alternatice products to quit smoking. New natural products including dark chocolate based products can help smokers develop a plan that will help them to deal with smoking, cutting back on tobacco products or just plain putting their cigarettes away forever.
Remember when smoking was everywhere? There were blue plumes of cigarette smoke curling up inside movie theaters and over lunch counters. Remember restaurants where your parents would no more leave without having coffee and a cigarette to quelch that momentary nicotine withdrawal than slip out without a tip?
Remember how it felt to hold a cigarette? How it fit between your fingers just right? This made me think of when my father would take us to the woods to shoot his gun, to show us the right way to handle firearms and make sure we respected what they could do. I remember the way the gun felt in my hands, Smoking was cool and hip intensely powerful, seductive with no thought given to the consequences of smoking.
Today it is terrifying when you factor in the danger of smoking and secondhand smoke.
Today it is easy to join the crowd and become one of those annoying anti-smokers. The world has become annoyingly anti-smoking, too demanding our participation as "Freedom From Smoking Fighters. Once quit smoking cravings permeated our brains and inhaling secondhand smoke was a pleasure that couldn't hurt you. Today maybe it is more about being forced to live with other peoples mandates and not all about personal choice.
New laws forced office smokers to huddle under overhangs in the rain and banished restaurant smokers to patios, not that we anti-smokers didn't sigh about them, too. You could see patients standing outside hospitals hooked to IVs, getting their nicotine fixes.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that while smoking rates have stayed steady in recent years — about 20 percent of us still puff away — states with smoke-free laws have the lowest rate of adult smokers. So maybe it's working. Me, I'm glad it's no longer a smoker's world and that we chide even the president for it, and not just because it leaves the rest of us with stinking clothes and hair.
Because here's the trick for the anti-smoker: How do you keep from sounding like you know what's best for the rest of the world? How do you explain that you might actually understand how tight the grip, how powerful the seduction, how personal the choice?
Do you want to quit for a moment? ... or forever? If you haven't made up your mind give smokerzchoice a try. Right now you can get a sample for FREE. Go to www.smokerzchoice.com.
Report: Reynolds eyes co that helps smokers quit smoking
(AP) – 1 day ago
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Reynolds American Inc., maker of Camel cigarettes, is in talks to buy a Swedish company that develops and markets nicotine replacement products helps people quit smoking, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting online Monday that the second-largest U.S. tobacco company is eyeing Niconovum AB, which sells such nicotine-replacement products as stop smoking gum and stop smoking spray outside the U.S.
David Sweanor, a Canadian law professor and tobacco expert, said he was briefed by people close to the talks and the deal could be worth $44.5 million, according to the report.
Karl Olov Fagerstrom, an expert on smoking cessation and nicotine dependence, formed the company in 2000, according to its Web site.
Sweanor and Niconovum did not immediately return calls seeking comment.
Reynolds American spokesman David Howard declined to comment, calling the report speculation.
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Research published ahead of print in Tobacco Control reports that smokers seeking a smoking alternative may find that when switching to a low tar, "lite" or "mild" brand of cigarette have about a 50 percent lower chance of stopping smoking or quitting smoking in general.
Around 84 percent of US market share for stop smoking alternative that are supposed to abate some of the consequences of smoking is now made up of these so-called low tar cigarettes. However, when smoked, these cigarettes deliver amounts of tar, nicotine, and other substances that are similar to "regular" cigarettes.
The research and its findings on quitting smoking among switchers are based on almost 31,000 US smokers. In 2003, they answered a questionnaire about whether they had switched to a milder/low tar brand, and their reasons for doing so.
They were also asked if they had attempted to stop smoking altogether during the previous twelve months. They also had to answer whether they had managed to continue.
More than 29,000 people were included in the total sample. They were current smokers and almost 2,000 had given up for at least ninety days.
Overall, 12,000 people (38 percent) had switched to a lighter brand that they perceived would provide a degree of freedom from smoking. One in four cited flavor as the primary reason. Earlier research has indicated that smokers deduce that reductions in flavor strength are reductions in harm from the nicotine side effects.
However, almost one in five (18 percent) said they had switched for a combination of better flavor, wanting to smoke a less harmful cigarette, and the intention of giving up smoking altogether.
In general, 43 percent gave reasons for switching that included a desire to quit smoking altogether. Those who switched brands were 58 percent more likely to have attempted to have stopped smoking between 2002 and 2003 than those who stayed with their brand. But the "switchers" who attempted to quit smoking were in fact 60 percent less likely to be successful.
In addition, those who switched for reasons that included the objective to give up smoking had the lowest chances of actually doing so.
In the whole study group (including those who tried to quit and those who did not) the overall odds of giving up smoking were 46 percent lower among those who switched to a "lighter" cigarette for any reason, than they were among those who remained with their brand.
The authors suggest that despite the apparent greater motivation to give up, switching may in fact establish smoking behavior. This therefore cuts the chances of succeeding.
Another possible explanation is that smokers who find it the most difficult to quit, imagine a lighter brand is better for their health and a good enough smoking alternative to giving up completely.
Just who's freedom from smoking is it anyway? Stop smoking bans have been popping up across the United States for over a decade now. There is evidence on both sides regarding the harmful affects of secondhand smoke. Some studies show that secondhand smoke is detrimental to those around the smoker and some studies have shown that with proper air ventilation, secondhand smoke is not an issue.
Smoking bans are just disguised as ways to take away the freedom to smoke, but also present a great problem to the free market where these bans are literally dictating what a business owner can and cannot do in their own private business. These bans are beginning to filtrate into private homes and cars.
Smoking is an adult behavior. Just as drinking alcohol and engaging in sexual activity are considered adult behaviors. But as we have learned over the years, shielding children from being educated in making responsible choices once they become adults, only causes children to make irresponsible choices while they are children.
So what do smoking bans really accomplish? Do they really accomplish a greater sense of public health? Do they create a distaste for “big government”? Are smoking bans backwards? Do they really help you to quit smoking?
Let’s look at the history of smoking bans, in a nutshell of course. At first, anti-smoking advocates were against smoking inside because of the compact conditions and poor air movement quality. Their concern was that non-smoking workers and patrons could not get away from secondhand smoke as it does have a tendency to “sit” in the air. The argument was that workers do not have a choice of where they work so they need to be protected from side effects of smoking and nicotine. So they fought to have all smoking pushed outside.
It is here that the private business owners began to feel an infringement upon their rights. The local government is now telling them that they can’t allow the use of a legal product in their privately owned, adult only business.
Smoking then went outside. And business owners reluctantly complied, setting up smoking areas for their patrons, outside and at their own expense.
Then, a few years later, these same advocates were tired of having to walk through the smoke to get into non-smoking establishments so they decided to go after smoking outside. Now, not only are private business owners lacking in their rights, but smokers were also being told that as a smoker, somehow their rights are not equal to those who are non-smokers.
Now, for the non-smoking advocate who may be reading this, please don’t get upset. We definitely see your side of this. Why should someone who has no desire to be engulfed in cigarette smoke have to put up with secondhand cigarette smoke? Why should parents have to run quickly through clouds of smoke with their children in order to get past the front doors of one establishment? And for those who have quit smoking and struggle every day with the urge to smoke and to stay on the wagon, why would one want to be subjected to such temptation? Recovering alcoholics are lucky because if they don’t want to go into a bar, they simply don’t have to.
But what would have happened if the anti-smoking advocates had done the exact opposite? What would have happened if their original smoking bans were to restrict all smoking on public streets and only to allow smoking in private businesses that had proper ventilation systems and were physically marked on the entrance that this is a “smoking establishment”? Would we be having the heated debates today that we are? As for the workers in such an establishment; in America they have the right to choose where they work.
Study: More than 30 Million U.S. Workers Lighting Up
Research Summary
About 33.5 million full-time employees ages 18 to 64 reported smoking in the past month, with the highest rates of smoking found in the food-preparation and service-related industries, according to a new study by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).
Researchers studied data collected from 2006 to 2008 on 73,000 full-time workers who participated in SAMHSA's National Survey of Drug Use and Health. Among the 22 industries represented, workers in food-preparation and serving-related jobs were most likely to smoke: 44.7 percent reporting having smoked in the past month. Construction workers and miners ranked second, with 42.9 percent current smokers.
The lowest smoking rates were found in the education, training and library fields, with only 12.3 percent of these workers reporting having smoked in the last month.
Among all full-time workers, the 18- to 25-year-old age group had the highest past-month smoking rates. Overall, more full-time employed men reported smoking in the past month than their female counterparts.
"The study provides important insight and updated information that can be used to assist in the developing or refining existing alternatives to nicotine efforts to specific workplace groups," said Eric Broderick, the acting administrator at SAMHSA. "The workplace is an ideal location for programs to educate employees about the risks of smoking and programs to promote smoking cessation to reduce risks of illnesses such as heart disease and cancer." Some forms of dark chocolate provide relief from nicotine withdrawal during the work day and provide health benefits as well.
The consequences of smoking at work go beyond the need to suppress nicotine withdrawal. Even 2, 3 or 4 breaks taken during the work day to satisfy the urge to smoke cost billions of dollars in non-productive labor.
There are many smoking alternatives available to provide freedom from smoking in the work place. Look at dark chocolate's rewards and benefits when you want to smoke but can't.
Blog 8 14 09
Consider Anti Smoking Rhetoric Carefully
Virtually anything that produced by anti-smoker groups always has been subject to consideration as propagandized versions of junk science when it relates to smoking, stop smoking, smoking cessation or nicotine addiction let alone second hand smoke. It is sad to say this, but the most government funded Office for National Statistics (ONS) surveys are no more than a measure of how well anti-smoking propaganda, half truths, exaggerations and underhand tactics etc have succeeded in brainwashing the people. The lobbyists for the anti-smoking groups lost their bearing a long time ago in their one time honest efforts to get smokers engaged in stop smoking and quit smoking programs. They now seem to be spending more and more of their time and effort - not in tackling the diseases they claim to be fighting but in smoker de-normalization and discrimination, in effect abrogating their true responsibility. The ONS appears to have joined their ranks!
And so the debate on the consequences of smoking in social smoking environments continues.
In a recent survey ONS is quoted as saying that smokers are in 75% agreement with the blanket bans on smoking - this is simply NOT TRUE - it is merely the best worst option – The survey was purposely constructed to arrive at this best worst option. All ONS did was remove the only decent options of reasonable restrictions, disingenuously claiming that these options were no longer relevant, and left the public with an all or nothing choice -all smoking or all non-smoking - The public DO NOT want that - only a very small minority of anti-smokers do. Almost ALL surveys done, before the smoking ban, clearly showed that 75% of the public DO NOT WANT A BLANKET SMOKING BAN. Even the ONS own surveys prior to 2007 showed that only 33% supported a blanket ban!!
The survey document is full of these half truths, misinformation, skewed facts etc - far too many to outline here, all intended to MAKE the public believe that the smoking ban is 'successful' - It is not and it never will be despite (or because of) the present frantic measures to couch it as a freedom from smoking, point to the "dangers of smoking" and nicotine as a way to maintain the initiative.
EVERYTHING that the anti-smoking groups have tried to get the public to believe to date has now been discredited - AND the public are becoming wiser by the day to this fact - They are no longer happy to accept their intelligence being insulted by a small set of fanatics, nut jobs and puritans.
It is your right to smoke just the same as it is to choose not to smoke
The smoking ban is doomed to failure - as is any social engineering project based on lies, half truths, unethical or pseudo science and the like! It is only a matter of time before this is widely known and this despicable social manipulation project is laid to rest - hopefully with those who perpetrated the deception called to account and suitably punished
Communist Housing Complex Bans Indoor Smoking
RUSH LIMBAUGH:
"We finally have a communist idea that's not coming out of Washington. This is from the Leader-Telegram. I'm not sure where this is. Oh, it's in Wisconsin. It's not just indoor public places in Eau Claire where lighting up is prohibited. OH the bane of the Secondhand Smoke will kill you advocates. Now residents of a south side, owner-occupied housing complex will have to snuff out smoking (does this mean stop smoking?) in their homes, the most recent sign of public anti-smoking sentiment that forces people to quit smoking. Members of the Fairfax Parkside Homeowners Association [last] Wednesday voted to outlaw social smoking inside residences that are part of the 34-unit development. The ban also prohibits smoking in shared spaces, such as porches and garages, but does allow it in yards and on patios. Now, stop and think of this. Freedom from smoking? Or interventionist lobbying by government bent on using the danger of smoking as a way to promote a political agenda? This is not a way to help you quit smoking.
A homeowners association is making you quit smoking inside your own house and pushing a "not to smoke" message. It's a communist idea that's, finally, not coming from Washington. That's how this stuff is spreading. But you can smoke outside. HA! Now, which is more likely to reach your neighbors and kill them? Secondhand smoke inside your house? Remember, now, we're talking Wisconsin. In wintertime the windows and doors are going to be closed. You can go outside and smoke all you want. What's more likely to drift around and kill your neighbors, the secondhand smoke, from inside or outside? Not to mention the fact... (laughing) Do you realize what the budget deficit is going to be if they actually succeed in snuffing out smoking everywhere? We are going to see tax increases like you can't believe. You don't know what the tax on secrets is if you don't smoke, the tax on cigars if you don't smoke. It's outrageous, and the money is being used to pay for health care "for children," the S-CHIP program and so forth."
FDA Issues Suicide Warnings on the Stop Smoking Drugs Chantix, Zyban
Patients seeking products to quit smoking should think twice when taking the stop-smoking drugs Chantix and Zyban/Wellbutrin. They should be closely monitored for symptoms of serious mental illness that could lead to the risk of suicide, according to a new directive from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The New York Times New reported July 2 that FDA officials stressed that patients should not be discouraged from taking the drugs to quit smoking. "Stopping smoking is a goal we should all be working towards," said FDA official Curtis J. Rosebraugh. "We don't want to scare people off from trying a medication that could help them to find alternatives in their fight to quit smoking. But they should just be careful."
FDA announced plans to add a stronger warning to Chantix packaging, and drug maker Glaxo will add the warnings currently on Wellbutrin to Zyban -- both formulations of the drug buproprion.
Sales of smoking-cessation drugs have declined in recent years. Chantix, made by Pfizer, controls about 90 percent of the quit smoking drug market, with $846 million in annual sales. Still, the drug has fallen short of sales expectations, in part because of prior safety concerns.
CHEERS to another big pharmaceutical whose sole mission in helping smokers to quit smoking and find freedom from smoking is greed and making a profit.
While they won’t be voting on it, Conroe City Council members will today “revisit” an ordinance to prohibit smoking in public places that originated in 2006 but went nowhere. Now the pressure to quit smoking is back on the table.
According to agenda information for today’s workshop meeting, Mayor Webb Melder requested the istop smoking issue be brought back before council. No action, however, will be taken during Thursday’s regular council meeting.
City Attorney Marcus Winberry has included three no smoking ordinance draft proposals from 2006 with council members’ meeting information “in order to pick up the discussion,” according to the information.
Neither Melder nor Winberry returned calls for comment, and members of Breathe Free Conroe, who requested the smoke free ordinance in 2006, say they have “no idea” where the request to bring stopping smoking back up or where it came from.
“It just showed up out of the blue,” said Dr. Mark Stephenson, a Conroe dentist who brought concerns to the council in November 2006. “I’m excited about it.”
The first of the three no smoking ordinance proposals from 2006 would have banned smoking in most enclosed public areas, including all restaurants; a second would have permitted smoking in designated areas of restaurants, so long as they were separate and enclosed and served by a separate HVAC system that directed exhaust from the smoking area to the outside.
The third proposal would have stopped smoking only in buildings owned or operated by the city.
After initial discussion of the proposal prohibiting smoking in all restaurants, council members in 2006 were prepared to vote on former Mayor Tommy Metcalf’s recommendation that the proposal allow restaurants and other businesses to establish their own guidelines. The council, however, declined to adopt any of the three proposals.
Members of Breathe Free Conroe plan to be at today’s workshop meeting, Stephenson said.
“They (members) were asking me, ‘Was this your idea?’” he said. “I said ‘No.’
Stephenson, whose father died of cancer caused by second-hand smoke, said “many, many studies” have been done testing the blood of nonsmoking restaurant patrons who go into a restaurant that allows smoking.
“They come back out and test their blood and find second-hand smoke in their blood,” he said. “I have surveyed pretty much all the restaurants in town. They would like the City Council to put the ordinance in.
“In every restaurant I ask, the no-smoking section is never full and the waiters and waitresses hate it. They come out smelling like smoke.”
But John Phillips, owner of Dixie’s Bayou Victuals, understands why some restaurants allow smoking.
“The competition (for small restaurants) is so stiff,” Phillips said. “We’re fighting an uphill battle every day.”
He banned smoking in his restaurant for several months after his wife was diagnosed with and died from lung cancer two and a half years ago, he said. The ban, however, caused him to lose loyal customer who do not choose to quit smoking.
“I lost so many customers who said they didnt want to quit smoking and if they couldn’t smoke they wouldn’t come here,” he said. “It was significant enough to have me reverse my decision.
“It was a difficult choice, but when you’ve got kids to feed, your choices become very limited.”
Phillips does, however, feel an ordinance affecting all restaurants in the city would level the playing field.
“I don’t see smoking as a moral issue, some smokers dont want to quit smoking, but I would never allow people to smoke around my kids,” he said. “I do believe second-hand smoke is dangerous, but in what concentration, I don’t know. There are people who are sensitive to second hand smoke and are looking for freedom from smoking. If those people wouldn’t come to my restaurant because we allow smoking, that bothers me a lot.”
Not allowing smoking in his business from the day it opened did initially hurt business at the Corner Pub in downtown Conroe, owner Rodney Pool said.
But “Joyce (his wife) and I decided we would open it as a nonsmoking establishment,” he said. “I felt like there are a lot of people who like a place to go where they can enjoy good food and good music and not walk out smelling like smoke.”
Wanting to compensate smokers, Pool does put tables outside the Pub where smoking is allowed, said Pool, who called his decision to quit smoking 25 years ago “one of the smartest things I ever did.”
“It’s what your customers get used to,” he said. “I would make the same decision if I had to do it today.”
An effective ordinance is “truly needed,” said Chrissie West, chair of Breathe Free Conroe.
“An ordinance that would truly protect all workers is the heart of the issue,” she said.
She would like to see an ordinance that prohibits smoking in all public establishments, she said, including bars.
“It’s a health issue,” she said. “There are often economic concerns, but statistics show prohibiting smoking increases revenues.
“It’s good for health, it’s good for business and it’s good for the public.”
BLOG 5 30 2009
MEMORIAL DAY
I guess there is a lot that I could blog about today, but blogging about my products and how stopping smoking can save your life seems unimportant in the face of those who have made that ultimate sacrifice in the name of freedom. So it's not about freedom from smoking today. It's just simply about freedom.
Today is Memorial Day nd I think the most important thing we could think about today is those who fought and died defending our country freedoms and values. They did so without question. They served out country no matter what party was in power and would have done so no matter is our President was red or yellow or black or white. They deserve special consideration. Honor them today.
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