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Information Secondhand Smoke
Virginia's current
no-smoking
law, will be expanded on December 1, 2009 by
prohibiting smoking in all
restaurants as of Dec. 1, 2009, unless the
restaurant owner
constructs a separately ventilated room preferably with an outdoor
entrance. Hopefully, most restaurant owners will prefer to have
no-smoking rather than construct a separate smoking room where
employees would still be exposed to deadly secondhand and even
thirdhand (particulate
matter, nicotine residue, etc.) smoke.
Virginia -- 2009 Election for
Governor
--
EXCERPTS from The Richmond Times-Dispatch,
November 4, 2009, headlined, "Analysis:
GOP sweep shows policies, not parties, are paramount in Va. politics",
writer, Jeff E. Schapiro.
A
year after tipping Democratic for president for the first time since
1964, Virginia fell to Republicans in a dramatic statewide sweep that
is a historic reminder of its enduring competitiveness -- but may not
be a model for a national GOP comeback.
"It's not a red state," said Jay
Timmons, chief of staff in the governorship of George Allen, whose
victory in 1993 led the last Republican resurgence.
"It's a highly competitive state,
where voters expect those they elect to be in tune with pocketbook
issues, create jobs, and promote growth in the economy. Party is not an
issue -- it's who they believe will support the right policies."
Gov.-elect Bob McDonnell easily
dispatched the lackluster R. Creigh Deeds, pulling in Republicans for
lieutenant governor and attorney general and padding the party's
majority in the House of Delegates, by playing to voters' economic
anxiety. ...
In the first Republican sweep since
1997, the double-digit wins by McDonnell; Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, who
sought a second term; and Attorney General-elect Ken Cuccinelli suggest
that independents shunned their time-honored practice of
ticket-splitting.
To Paul Goldman, former state
Democratic chairman, this is a reminder of a constant in Virginia
politics: wooing conservative-to-moderate independents. They narrowly
favored Barack Obama last year in his successful presidential campaign.
"Back out the Obama votes, and this is
basically a 50-50 state," Goldman said.
... McDonnell's triumph came in a
comparatively thinly attended election. With yesterday's turnout
hovering at 39 percent -- down from a record 74 percent last year, when
3.7 million of nearly 5 million voters cast ballots ...
"They have not expanded the party,"
said Larry J. Sabato, an analyst at the University of Virginia who has
followed the state's politics for four decades. "They have just
motivated their base to show up."
Deeds, outspent about 2-to-1 in
television advertising by McDonnell and his allies, had no such luck
with Democrats.
His emphasis on McDonnell's law-school
thesis in 1989, in which McDonnell made observations about working
women, unmarried couples and gay people that 20 years on would seem
politically incorrect, proved an ineffective parry to the Republican's
economic thrust.
In a stunning reversal from 2008,
Democratic turnout fell sharply -- a consequence of party fatigue after
a long winning streak and Deeds' inability, despite two visits by the
president, to harness the more than 500,000 new voters, many of them
young or minorities, who flocked to Obama.
"This was always a big task that lay
in front of them; it was always going to be hard," said Kristian Denny
Todd, communications director for Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., in his 2006
upset of GOP incumbent Allen.
"It was a personal vote for Obama,"
she said of last year's win.
BIG
TOBACCO and Republican Robert McDonnell, the next governor of Virginia
--
Big Tobacco poured FIVE
times as much money into Republican Robert McDonnell's
2009 campaign, as they gave to Democrat Creigh Deeds. McDonnell
supported Big Tobacco in 2009, opposing legislation to require
restaurants to be no-smoking. But Deeds supported Health in
2009,
voting for the legislation which passed.
Robert
McDonnell (Republican) accepted $304,921 from TOBACCO, of which
$150,000 is
from Altria (Philip Morris) and its CEO. In
January 2009, McDonnell said
he would NOT support Virginia legislation to require restaurants to be
totally no-smoking. Philip Morris agreed, and apparently
has rewarded
him. Will McDonnell listen
to the people or to Philip Morris, when he considers continuing Gov.
Timothy Kaine's (Democrat) executive
order requiring all state workplaces to be no-smoking?
Big Tobacco gave Creigh Deeds,
the Democrat, and a Virginia state senator who voted for Health, $65,850 of which
$42,500 is from Altria (Philip Morris). In
the January and February 2009 Virginia legislative session,
Deeds voted for
health, supporting legislation to make all restaurants no-smoking,
and voting with the majority of Senators to reject House amendments
which were tobacco industry sponsored
ones. The no-smoking legislation passed and was signed into law
by the current governor. Big Tobacco had lobbied against this
legislation.
The no-smoking in restaurants legislation will ultimately save
lives, and save money at all levels.
Here's the information from vpap.org
Virginia Public Access Project, on the tobacco related finances.
McDonnell
received
$304,921 from Tobacco
$125,000
Altria
$46,543
S & M Brands Inc
$25,000
Michael E Szymanczyk, CEO of Altria
$25,000
Universal Corp
$12,000
Reynolds American
$10,902
Star Scientific Inc
$10,500
US Tobacco
$10,000
Malcolm L Bailey
$10,000 David
R Beran
$10,000 Allen
B King
$3,000 John R
Nelson
$2,500 Howard
A Willard, III
$2,000 Harold
W Hamlett, Jr
$1,500 Denise
F Keane
$1,000 Nancy
Brennan
$1,000 James
Dillard
$1,000 Henry H
Harrell
$1,000 Craig
Johnson
$1,000 Edward
Kratovil
$1,000 Miguel
Martin
$1,000 Peter P
Paoli
$1,000
Jacqueline Walker
$500 Wallace L
Chandler
$500 Everett W
Gee, III
$500 John Hoel
$250 Brandie
Davis
$250 David H
Driver
$250 Kristin
Reif
$200 Joseph
Amado
$200 Gary Ruth
================================
Deeds received
$65,850 from tobacco
$42,500
Altria
$17,000
S & M Brands Inc
$5,250
Universal Corp
$750 Linda I
Caldwell
$250
Reynolds American
$100 Olga
Sherman
Virginia 2009
Legislative efforts to free
people from secondhand smoke, and 2009
News items about the legislation.
March 9, 2009 -- Governor
Timothy Kaine signed the no-smoking in restaurants, bars
legislation, 2 pm at Croc's 19th Street Bistro in Virginia Beach, Va.
Governor
Kaine noted that when he signed an executive order in 2006 banning
smoking in state buildings and vehicles, he did not hear a single
complaint.
Delegate
David Englin (D) said: "Knowing that workers in restaurants that
allow smoking are twice as likely to develop lung cancer, this new law
is a real victory for public health."
Dr.
Thomas Eppes, Medical Society Virginia remarked: "The knock in
pediatrics is children exposed to secondhand smoke get sick at twice
the rate."
On
the passage of a restaurant, bar smoking ban in Virginia, to be
effective December 1, 2009:
[Governor] Kaine ...
called passage
Thursday “a very significant accomplishment” .... He said he ranks it alongside the
administrative ban on smoking he imposed on all state buildings in
2006, shortly after he took office. Associated
Press article.
** Breast
Cancer linked --
again -- to 2ndhandsmoke
How Much is a Life Worth,
to the tobacco companies, to society?
October 15, 2009, News Release, Tobacco Products Liability Project,
Edward L. Sweda, Jr.
Appeals Court
Upholds California Jury’s Multi-Million Dollar Verdict against R.J.
Reynolds and Philip Morris.
The family of Leslie
Whiteley, a smoker who smoked her first cigarette in 1972 at age
13, was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1998 and who died in July 2000 at the age of 40,
won a major victory on Wednesday when the Court of Appeal of the State
of California, First Appellate District, Division Two, upheld the
jury’s awards, rendered in 2007, for her estate: $225,000
(for past economic damages); $2,345,964 (on wrongful death claims); and
$250,000 (in punitive damages against R.J. Reynolds on the false
promise cause of action). The jury also awarded Leonard Whiteley,
Leslie’s widower, $30,000 for pre-death loss of consortium.
October 19, 2009
Massachusetts' high court today
rewrote state law and ruled that cigarette maker Philip Morris may have
to pay for diagnostic chest exams so smokers can get early warning they
have developed lung cancer. ...
Justice Francis X. Spina of the Massachusetts Supreme
Judicial Court in allowing a 2006 lawsuit filed against Philip Morris
to move forward, noted,
"Our tort law developed
in the late 19th and early 20th centuries …We must adapt to the growing
recognition that exposure to toxic substances and radiation may cause
substantial injury which should be compensable even if the full effects
are not immediately apparent."
Judge Sarokin comments on
tobacco company lawsuit so they can tell the truth to customers:
Judge H.
Lee Sarokin, The Irony in the Tobacco Companies Suing
So That They Can Tell the "Truth" , Excerpt from, The Huffington Post,
September 4, 2009
... the nation's largest tobacco companies
have sued to stop a federal
law which curtails their marketing and forces them to print graphic
warnings on their packages. (NYTimes, 9/1/09) The companies are
insisting on their right to communicate truthful information about
their products to adults who have the right to receive such
information. It is the industry's desire to protect its right to speak
the "truth" under the protection of the First Amendment that I find so
ironic.
First, I think some disclosures are in
order. I was the presiding judge over the first two major tobacco cases
-- Cippolone and Haines. After numerous tries, the cigarette companies
were finally successful in having me removed from the cases because of
the following, single paragraph in one of my many opinions in these
cases:
All too often in the choice between
the physical health of consumers and the financial well-being of
business, concealment is chosen over disclosure, sales over safety and
money over morality. Who are these persons who knowingly and secretly
decide to put the buying public at risk solely for the purpose of
making profits and who believe that illness and death of consumers is
an appropriate cost of their own prosperity! As the following facts
disclose, despite some rising pretenders to the throne, the tobacco
industry may be the king of concealment and disinformation.
The history of tobacco advertising and
public relations demonstrates that it was aimed at getting people to
smoke by making it appear fashionable and safe; encouraging them to
continue by debunking its risks; asserting the ease of quitting and
denying the existence of addiction and finally encouraging the young to
take it up to replace those who were quitting (with great difficulty)
or dying from the product or other unrelated causes.
The companies decry their right to
discuss and publicize their potential "reduced harm" products. Most of
you are too young to remember when cigarette advertisements proclaimed,
by way of someone posing as a doctor, that a particular brand was good
for your "T Zone" -- somewhere, as I recall, around your chest and
lungs. I don't consider anyone to be a greater advocate of free speech
than I. Furthermore, I note that Floyd Abrams represents some of the
companies. There is no greater expert nor anyone for whom I have
greater respect in this field. I make no prediction as to the outcome
of the litigation. But if history is any teacher, I can think of no
industry more deserving of scrutiny and strict government regulation
consistent with their free speech rights guaranteed by the First
Amendment.
Limits on free speech in the
commercial world must be narrowly construed and directly advance a
substantial government interest. Those limits should be imposed with
great hesitancy, but if ever an industry deserves them based upon prior
conduct, it is the tobacco industry.
Second Jury fnds against tobacco companies
for addicting
& killing customer -- this time it is the Vector Group
(Chesterfield cigarettes) --
No other manufacturer treats their
consumers this way -- addicting them, killing them, blaming the victim
for becoming addicted and dying, and the tobacco companies have never
apologized, never repented, never agreed to stop doing this. If
the FDA legislation passes, tobacco companies will be able to expand
their nicotine cartel to put nicotine in almost everything.
Jury
finds against Philip Morris in smoker's death -- PM must pay $8
million
-- how much is a life worth to the nicotine cartel?
From news
articles: "The jury that
decided a 40-year chain-smoker was helplessly addicted to
nicotine must now decide whether tobacco giant Philip Morris owes his
family potentially millions of dollars for his death from lung cancer.
..."
and
"They
are
co-conspirators with other major corporations regarding the health
effects and dangerous nature of smoking," another of Hess' attorneys,
Gary Paige, said. "There's no more of a sinister act than that."
and
"It
certainly
is a very bad sign for Altria that this first of the potentially up to
thousands of cases has gone against them so dramatically and so
emphatically," [Edward] Sweda said.
and
Alex
Alvarez, an attorney for Elaine Hess, said, "She's a 110-pound
elementary school teacher, and she went up against Philip Morris, one
of the most powerful companies in the world, and won."
March 16, 2009: Massachusetts Supreme
Judicial Court allows trial to go forward in
Aspinall, et al. v. Philip Morris, et al. regarding light cigarette scam
Ohio judge
-- no constitutional right to smoke in public!
Review of selected 2008
Entries -- health vs. tobacco
Review of the selected entries for 2007
The Face
of Evil
![[Virginia GASP logo]](smallvag.gif)
![[VirginiaGASP]](iconvag.GIF){kind=small}
Updated 4 November 2009