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Tue, 22 May 2018
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Use of anti-smoking app expands in Turkey


Daily Sabah
Sun, 20 May 2018 00:25 UTC
Anti-smoking app in Turkey
© Daily Sabah
The head of the Green Crescent, which focuses on combating tobacco and alcohol addiction, said the Green Detector application they developed allowed concerned citizens to notify relevant authorities about the use of cigarettes at banned locations.

Şavaş Yılmaz said they viewed smoking as the most dangerous addiction to chemicals. "In the past year, 100,000 people died due to diseases linked to smoking," he said, adding that the figure for the world was closer to six million.

"I came out and said something cost 100,000 lives a year; whether it be terrorism, natural disaster an accident, there would be a huge reaction. However, when it comes to cigarettes, we just ignore it."

Comment: See also:

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Microscope 1

Protein found in tobacco plant has potential to fight infectious diseases


Medical Express
Thu, 17 May 2018 16:24 UTC
Tobacco peptide
© La Trobe University
A team of scientists from Melbourne's La Trobe University has shown a protein found in a tobacco plant has the potential to fight life-threatening infectious diseases.

The scientific discovery, published in the prestigious journal Nature Communications, could lead to the development of a new class of antibiotics and meet the challenge of rising antibiotic resistance.

Dr. Mark Hulett and Dr. Marc Kvansakul from the La Trobe Institute for Molecular Science said their team had demonstrated the peptide NaD1 found in the flowers of the ornamental tobacco plant Nicotiana alata has infection-busting qualities.

"Infectious diseases are a major global health problem, accounting for more than one in eight deaths and mortality rates are predicted to skyrocket over the next 30 years," Dr. Hulett said.
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Smoking

Republic of Georgia imposes 25 smoking fines in one week

Thea Morrison
Georgia Today
Thu, 10 May 2018 19:52 UTC
No smoking sign
© Zest Magazine
12 individuals and 13 legal entities were fined in a week by the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) for violation of the new tobacco regulations which entered into force on May 1.

On May 5, two persons were arrested in a bar in Georgia's western town of Kutaisi for refusing to obey the law.

A total of 46 calls were made to the MIA regarding violations of the smoking ban from May 1 to May 8. Up to 2000 police officers have been assigned to monitor the execution of the law.

Smoking of tobacco, including electronic cigarettes and hookah, is prohibited in all enclosed areas, with the exception of houses, psychiatric clinics, penitentiary facilities and casinos.
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Smoking

Ireland smoking ban to be extended to outdoor areas where food served

Sarah Bardon
The Irish Times
Tue, 24 Apr 2018 00:05 UTC
Ireland smoking ban
© Sean Dempsey/PA Wire
The Government is to extend the ban on smoking where food is served to include outdoor areas.

Fine Gael Senators have tabled a private members motion calling on the Minister for Health Simon Harris to change legislation or issue directions via a statutory instrument to address the gap in current legislation.

Mr Harris is to ask for Cabinet approval at Tuesday's meeting to accept the proposal.

The initiative was spearheaded by former minister for health James Reilly, who has said it should no longer be acceptable for people to smoke where others are eating.
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Smoking

Bill banning smoking in cars fails in Tennessee Senate


WKRN
Thu, 19 Apr 2018 03:53 UTC
Tenessee car smoking ban
© WKRN
A bill that would have barred adults in Tennessee from smoking in a vehicle with children appears dead for the year after lawmakers voiced concerns that it gave the government too much power over citizen freedoms.

The measure failed to clear the Senate Wednesday.

The bill was sponsored by Knoxville Republican Sen. Richard Briggs. It would have made it an offense to smoke in a vehicle with children under the age of 14, regardless of whether the windows in the car were rolled down.

Briggs cited the dangers of smoke to children in a confined space as small as a vehicle. But some lawmakers questioned whether it was too much of an overreach. Sparta Republican Sen. Paul Bailey said lawmakers couldn't legislate the morality of Tennesseans.
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Smoking

Canadian governments target illegal tobacco with new funding

Molly Hayes
The Globe and Mail
Fri, 30 Mar 2018 20:56 UTC
cigarettes, open cigarette pack
© Frank May / Global Look Press
The federal and provincial governments are planning to put more money into the fight against contraband tobacco − a thriving black market that is rife with organized crime, costing billions of dollars a year in lost tax revenue.

In Ontario, it's believed that roughly one third of cigarettes are from an illicit source, OPP Detective Sergeant Luc Bouvier of the Contraband Tobacco Enforcement Team said.

His small unit - which falls under the OPP's broader organized crime enforcement bureau - has spent the past two years investigating the smuggling and trafficking of contraband tobacco across Ontario.
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Smoking

How the new FDA policy to take nicotine out of cigarettes will fuel terrorism

David Marcus
The Federalist
Mon, 19 Mar 2018 20:44 UTC
American Spirit cigarettes
© The Federalist
The United States has never been a rich market for terrorists' international tobacco trafficking. A new FDA policy will make it one

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the head of the Food and Drug Administration, has announced plans to reduce to non-addictive levels the level of nicotine in cigarettes sold in the United States. The hope is that without the chemical that produces the pleasure of smoking, these cigarettes will appeal to fewer people, and therefore fewer people will smoke.

It is a terrible idea for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that it deprives adults of the choice to use tobacco as they see fit. But there are other unintended consequences to this policy that must be seriously considered, perhaps most importantly the effect on cigarette smuggling in the United Sates.

By making all sales of effective cigarettes with normal nicotine levels illegal, the FDA will be opening a huge illegal cigarette market in this country that has barely existed before. Among the prominent groups profiting off global illicit cigarette trade are Islamic terror organizations.

Comment: See also:

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Smoking

Austria scraps smoking ban in the name of freedom of choice


thelocal.at
Wed, 21 Mar 2018 20:41 UTC
Café guests smoke cigarettes with their drinks in Vienna on March 22nd 2018.

Café guests smoke cigarettes with their drinks in Vienna on March 22nd 2018.
Austrian MPs on Thursday scrapped a smoking ban in bars and restaurants that was due to come into force in May, despite a petition in its favour collecting 545,000 signatures.

The overturning of the ban, introduced by the previous government, was approved by lawmakers from the ruling coalition of the conservatives and the far-right.

In an attempt to assuage critics, they also voted to extend the minimum age for smoking to 18 as well as to ban smoking in vehicles if a minor is on board, effective from 2019.

Scrapping the ban was a key campaign pledge last year by the cigarette-loving leader of the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ), Heinz-Christian Strache, 48.

Comment: With its newly elected government Austria has been one of the few countries openly defying the diktats coming out of Brussels, although all over Europe we're seeing a rise in support for parties opposed to the undemocratic EU project. Also check out SOTT radio's:

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Smoking

Canadian MP tells committee that illegal tobacco sales financed 1993 WTC attack

Marie-Danielle Smith
National Post
Fri, 02 Mar 2018 18:43 UTC
Diane Finley
© 2015 Fred Chartrand/The Canadian Press
Diane Finley
Former Conservative cabinet minister Diane Finley told a parliamentary committee this week she believes contraband tobacco sales financed "the blowing up of the Twin Towers," as she argued against a government bill that would implement plain packaging for cigarettes.

Though Finley clarified to the National Post Friday that she was referring to the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, not the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a leading terrorism researcher characterized it as a "conspiracy theory."

"Illegal tobacco has been named as the key contributor financially to the blowing up of the Twin Towers. This is how serious this is. And whether people like to believe that or not, it has been proven to be a fact," Finley said during a meeting of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health Wednesday.
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Smoking

Smoking rooms in bars, restaurants banned in the Netherlands

Janene Pieters
NL Times
Tue, 13 Feb 2018 13:30 UTC
Smoking rooms banned in the Netherlands
Restaurants, bars and cafes in the Netherlands may no longer have smoking areas, the court in The Hague ruled on Tuesday in a lawsuit filed by non-smokers association Clean Air Nederland (CAN), RTL Nieuws reports.

The Netherlands banned smoking in restaurants and the like in 2008, but added an exception for specially designated smoking areas that must comply to certain rules. The court now ruled that this exception for smoking rooms is contrary to the World Health Organization's rules on combating tobacco use.

The ruling is a hard blow for the catering industry, which used smoking rooms to still attract smokers to their cafe or restaurant.
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