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June 10th, 2016:

New E-Cigarette rules come into effect September 1st

http://www.news1130.com/2016/06/10/new-e-cigarette-rules/

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – E-cigarettes will soon be treated the same as regular cigarettes when it comes to where you can smoke them. Rules promised last spring are coming into effect in B September 1st.

Under the Tobacco and Vapour Products Control Act, you won’t be able to vape inside a public place like a restaurant. No vaping on school or health authority grounds. Minors can no longer buy E-cigarettes and there can be no more retail displays kids might see.

Health Minister Terry Lake says it’s fairly simple. “If it’s not legal to smoke cigarettes or cigars in that location, E-cigarettes would fall into the same category. That’s to protect those members of the public that don’t want to inhale the vapours from the e-cigarettes. There are still a lot of unknowns in terms of what is in these products and out of an abundance of caution, we want to make sure people, particularly young people are protected.”

He says there was some push back from people who use E-cigarettes to quit smoking, but he says they may not be any better for you. “We don’t have enough data and quality control over what is in the juices that are vaporized.”

There’s one exception for vaping in public indoor spaces. Customers can sample the products inside shops, but only customers per shop at one time.

Kim Jong Un-acceptable? North Korean leader seen flouting anti-smoking push

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/variety/2016/06/10/Kim-Jong-Un-acceptable-North-Korean-leader-seen-flouting-anti-smoking-push.html

joon-smoking

North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Un has been seen smoking – during a national anti-smoking campaign.

In a photo released by the state news agency on June 4, the grinning leader can be seen standing outside a children’s center, lit cigarette in hand, flanked by officials scribbling into notepads.

Last month, the agency reported a national anti-smoking drive, announcing that state-sanctioned cigarette makers would be required to put health warning notices on packaging.

Campaign ads warning of the dangers of smoking had encouraged many citizens to quit, state media said.

Large numbers of North Koreans are known to smoke, and cigarettes cost only 27 cents a pack.

Since coming to power three years ago after the death of his father Kim Jong-il, Kim has regularly been seen smoking in official pictures – even at the site of a rocket launch.

According to the former sushi chef of Kim’s late father Kim Jong-il, the now-supreme leader has been fond of smoking since his youth.

Japanese national Kenji Fujimoto recalled in a book that young Kim would sometimes ask him for one of his luxury Yves Saint Laurent cigarettes – but kept the habit a secret from his father.

Kim Jong il, was also believed to be a heavy smoker, and was seen puffing on a cigarette on state media in 2009, some two years before his death of a heart attack. However, he was said to have given up cigarettes – and his beloved French cognac – on doctor’s orders back in 2000.

In 2014, Kim Jong-un reportedly banned his aides and officials from smoking foreign cigarettes, insisting that local ones were good enough. It is not known which brand he smokes.

More power

North Korea announced Thursday it will convene a rare parliamentary session late this month, when it may confer a new title on leader Kim Jong-Un as he further tightens his grip on power.

“The fourth session of the 13th SPA (Supreme People’s Assembly) will be convened in Pyongyang on June 29”, the official KCNA news agency said.

As usual, it gave no other details, including on the session’s agenda.

The Supreme People’s Assembly meets only once or twice a year, mostly for day-long sessions to rubber-stamp budgets or other decisions made by the ruling communist party.

At a congress of the Workers Party of Korea last month, the first event of its kind for more than 35 years, Kim was elected as party chairman.

The parliamentary session may also grant Kim a new state title to replace his current one as “first chairman” of the powerful National Defence Commission (NDC).

He was stuck with the awkward title as North Korea had named Kim’s predecessor and father, the late Kim Jong-Il, as permanent chairman of the NDC.

“At the parliamentary session, the North may come up with a new state organ, for example, a supreme national council, and make Kim its head,” professor Yang Moo-Jin of the University of North Korean Studies told AFP.

At the party congress in May, Kim stressed he would push through with his signature policy of Byungjin — building up the North’s nuclear arsenal and developing the economy simultaneously.

He then unveiled a five-year economic plan, with a particular focus on increasing energy output.

The upcoming parliamentary session is expected to approve government policies and legal changes aimed at carrying out those policies and approve personnel changes within government agencies.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF TOBACCO IN AMERICA

http://daily.jstor.org/a-brief-history-of-tobacco-in-america/

Over the past 50 years, the portion of Americans who smoke dropped has dropped from 42 to 15 percent. The precipitous decline could mean the end of the fascinating story of tobacco in the United States. In a 1990 paper, R. T. Ravenholt traces the way we’ve used, and thought about, tobacco over the centuries.

Ravenholt starts the story in 1492, when Columbus and his crew noticed the residents of the island now known as Cuba using the plant. In the 1580s, tobacco made its way from Virginia to Queen Elizabeth’s court. One account noted that smoking quickly became fashionable and that “Elizabeth herself was as familiar with a tobacco pipe as with her scepter.” By 1600, smoking was common in all of Europe’s maritime nations, and their colonial empires soon carried tobacco all over the world.

Various Native American nations from Canada to Brazil had long used tobacco for medicinal, ceremonial, and intoxication purposes, and some Europeans adopted it as cure-all. One physician wrote in 1718 that it “cleanses, purges, vomits, stupefies the brain, resists poison,” and, when used in poultices or drops, could cure toothaches and tumors, beautify the skin, and help deafness.

On the other hand, Ravenholt writes, after Queen Elizabeth’s death in 1603, James I pushed to stop the use of tobacco in England. He wrote of tobacco’s dangers to the brain and lungs, in a passage that combined a prescient warning about the drug’s health risks with intense racism. “What honour or policie can move us to imitate the barbarous and beastly manners of the wild, godlesse, and slavish Indians, especially in so vile and stinking a coustome?” he wrote.

In the US, chewing tobacco—made by mixing molasses with the leaves—was the main way to consume the plant through the nineteenth century. But Americans also began adopting cigarettes, which had first caught on in Europe. The invention of the cigarette rolling machine in 1881, and the introduction of portable “safety” matches around the turn of the century, turned smoking into a major domestic industry.

As tobacco use grew in the country, medical studies found clear links to various cancers and other health problems. But for decades few doctors took notice. Smoking boomed in the first half of the twentieth century, thanks to heavy advertising and the inclusion of cigarettes as part of soldiers’ rations during the two world wars. Cigarette consumption grew from 54 for each adult in the country in 1900 to a peak of 4,345 in 1963.

In the years that followed, heavily publicized medical findings made it impossible for the public to ignore the dangers of tobacco. Cigarette companies fought back, disputing the medical science and intensifying advertising campaigns in print media and on billboards. But, as the latest numbers show, the anti-smoking forces have continued to win out. Then again, with many Americans now trying vaping—using liquids laced with nicotine extracted from tobacco—it may be too soon to declare the plant’s era over.

Electronic Cigarettes: Not All Good News?

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New Tobacco Laws Passed In California: Minimum Smoking Age Is Now 21 Years Old, E-Cigarettes Banned In Public Areas

http://www.parentherald.com/articles/48718/20160610/new-tobacco-laws-passed-in-california-minimum-smoking-age-is-now-21-years-old-e-cigarettes-banned-in-public-areas.htm

18-year-olds can’t legally buy tobacco in California starting yesterday. A new legislation signed by California Governor Jerry Brown changes the minimum smoking age from 18 years old to 21. The move to cut smoking doesn’t end there as a new law was also passed that disallows e-cigarette smoking on public areas.

The said laws are projected to decrease the population of smokers. According to Institute of Medicine as per USA Today, if all states change the minimum age to 21 years old, the smoking U.S. population would be reduced by 12 percent.

Aside from banning e-cigarette smoking in public places, vapor products would be classified, from now on, as traditional cigarettes (via USA Today). The new regulations are also celebrated by health advocates who had continuously warned about the danger of e-cigarette smoking.

Parent Herald reported a CDC study that found out increased exposure to e-cigarette smoking ads and stores leads nonsmokers to start smoking at an early age. According to another Parent Herald article, e-cigarettes are also dangerous to health as it contains nicotine and is a threat to children who can get poisoned from exposure to them.

As per Independent, e-cigarette supporters, however, are not in favor of the new rules. According to them, e-cigarettes are a safer alternative and the new restrictions would just further increase the stigma against e-cigarette smoking.

On the positive side, the bills were backed by advocacy group, Save Lives California, as reported by USA Today. Save Lives California is composed of medical practitioners including members of American Lung Association, American Cancer Society, and California Medical Association. According to the coalition, the bills pertaining to smoking that the government passed “protect our kids” and “stand up to big tobacco.”

California is the second state to raise the minimum age of smoking to 21 years old. Hawaii raised its smoking age to 21 on January 1 of this year, banning 20-year-olds and younger to buy tobacco, including e-cigarettes. The bill aims to make e-cigarette “less attractive” and “less accessible” among Hawaii residents (via USA Today College).

Do you think that increasing the minimum age allowed to purchase tobacco would cut down smoking in the U.S.? Share your thoughts in the Comments section below and follow Parent Herald for more news and updates.