Pascagoula City Wants a Smoking Ban in its Parks

Pascagoula city, Jackson County, Mississippi, is considering to pass an ordinance which prohibits smoking in its parks. In 2013 the city already banned tobacco use on workplaces, restaurants and indoor public places. Now local authorities want to make recreationa zones smoke-free. Soon lighting cigarettes up at Beach Park in Pascagoula city may be illegal and

University of Alaska Anchorage Considers Smoking Ban

The University of Alaska Anchorage wants to adopt an anti-smoking policy which would prohibit use of tobacco on all university property. It is proposed to ban use of cigarettes, e-cigarettes and other tobacco products. The proposed policy will be discussed this week by the University of Alaska Board of Regents at its meeting in Anchorage.

Research on tobacco usage at San Jose leads to campus change

Change is coming to San Jose State University's campus, with President Mohammad Qayoumi issuing a directive Nov. 20 to make San Jose State a smoke- and tobacco-free place by Aug. 1, 2015. There are many smokers in the university who oppose the ban. All of them choose cheapest cigarettes http://www.cigarettestrade.com/buy/blood

This directive was based on research and a survey that Milpitas High School class of 2009 graduate Isra Ahmad worked on as part of Campuses Organized & United for Good Health, or COUGH, at San Jose State while she was a student. The research involved asking students, staff and administration about their attitudes toward smoking and whether they would support a smoke-free campus. She said 65 percent of the 2,300 participants favored a campus without smoke.

In January 2013, shortly after graduating as a health science major, Ahmad was named one of four youth activism fellows for Legacy, a national nonprofit dedicated to reducing tobacco usage among youth and helping smokers quit.

Since then she has been working to gauge student, staff and faculty opinion and awareness of new and emerging tobacco product usage on campus. Between April and June 2014 she returned to San Jose State and worked with COUGH to question students and staff using paper and online surveys.

The data collected from 1,160 individuals on the campus of 23,881 undergraduates indicated that hookah, a waterpipe used to pass charcoal-heated air through a tobacco mixture and a water-filled chamber, and electronic cigarettes, are growing in popularity.

Of those polled, 9.85 percent said they smoked cigarettes; 6.33 percent smoked small cigars/cigarillos; 8.79 percent said they smoked hookah (water pipe, shisha); and 10.73 percent said they smoked e-cigarettes.

About 40.72 percent of respondents said they used tobacco products because they are experimenting; 36.49 percent said they used it for flavor; 33.76 used it as a stress reliever; 11.10 percent used it because of peer pressure; and 3.95 percent used it because of family influence.

University of Delaware Banned Smoking on Its Campus

The University of Delaware, located in Newark (state of Delaware), told that all its campuses are going to become tobacco-free starting from this month. The initiative came from students who want to have a healthy environment on their campus. The new policy, which came into action on August 1, bans the use of all tobacco

Children more exposed to secondhand smoke in U.S. rural areas

Secondhand smoke is the leading cause of childhood illness and premature death, especially in rural areas, University of Kentucky researchers say. Study co-author Ellen Hahn, a professor at the University of Kentucky College of Nursing and director of the Kentucky Center for Smoke-free Policy, said elimination of the source of tobacco smoke is the only way to completely protect non-smokers, including children, from secondhand smoke.

Hahn said the study used data from an Internet-based panel survey administered to 400 to 500 Kentucky residents per year from 2007 to 2012. Most of the participants were women ages 35 to 54 with at least some college education. Almost half of the participants lived in a county with a comprehensive smoke-free law -- all workplaces and public places totally smoke-free -- and 14 percent of the participants lived in a county with a moderate or weak law, with some places excluded from the law.

The study, published in the journal Nicotine & Tobacco Research Journal, found respondents living in urban counties were nearly two times more likely to report a smoke-free home than rural dwellers. Controlling for smoking status and other personal characteristics, those who responded to the survey in the last two years of the study were more likely to have a smoke-free home compared to those in 2007, the study said.

"The good news is that more and more Kentuckians have made their homes smoke-free since 2007," Hahn said in a statement.

"The bad news is that having children at home does not necessarily mean the home is smoke-free. Our local health departments are in desperate need of funding to promote smoke-free homes especially in rural areas, with smokers, and those with less education. Otherwise, the next generation of Kentuckians is doomed to a life of early death and disease."