Smoking prphibition at its finest around kids in cars (MD)

>>>>If deemed a primary offense, would Maryland officers be authorized to stop vehicles if they observe a couple of kids gasping beneath a cumulus cloud of Marlboro Lights?

I neva gasped under a cumulus cloud of Marlboro Light smoke when ME was a kid. Wha makes kids gasp under a cloud of cig smoke in a car now? LOL!!!

People do a good job of making smokers sound like murderers when dey around kids. Dat makes child abusers/molestors sound like innocent people compared to smokers around kids.

I wonder what a MD authority would do if he saw an under-18 person smoking in the car too. LOL

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http://www.examiner .com/x-9913- Maryland- Statehouse- Examiner~ y2010m1d29- Its-back- -MD-lawmakers- again-seek- prohibition- fines-for- smoking-in- cars-carrying- kids

Third in a seemingly never-ending series of sheer legislative silliness and chutzpah

In what is perceived to be just another in a long line of attempts to legislate people’s behavior, Delegate Ben Barnes (D – Anne Arundel and Prince George’s County) today introduced HB 438, a bill that would prohibit the driver of a motor vehicle from smoking a tobacco product in a car in which a child younger than 8 years of age is present.

Children nine and older – one would presume - would be issued a state-approved respirator.

While current language would also prohibit any passengers in the vehicle from lighting up – and calls for a fine of up to $50 – there is no wording declaring the level of offense such a law would carry.

If deemed a primary offense, would Maryland officers be authorized to stop vehicles if they observe a couple of kids gasping beneath a cumulus cloud of Marlboro Lights?

If the offense is to be considered not serious enough to warrant a traffic stop, will the offending puffer only be cited when coinciding with a stop for a moving violation or traffic accident?

Will electronic interstate signboards that currently encourage us to report suspicious activity result in an explosion of 9-1-1 emergencies reporting those parents who choose to use a legal product in the privacy of their vehicles – regardless of the lack of common sense in making such a decision?

California (ban applies to children under 1, Arkansas (motor vehicle carrying a child under age six years old who weighs less than 60 pounds and is in a car seat), Louisiana (allows police to ticket drivers who are smoking in vehicles with children 12 and younger), and Maine (smoking is banned in any car when a person under the age of 16 is present) have passed laws outlawing smoking in cars with children.

Ten other states are considering similar laws.

Delegate Barnes introduced a similar bill during last year’s session (HB 966), but it received an unfavorable report and never made it out of the Environmental Matters Committee.

Delegate: you can’t fix stupid any easier than you can legislate intelligence. Smoking is a disgusting, harmful habit. And if one is already brimming with the kind of parental brainpower that leads to strapping a kid into a poorly ventilated tin box and chain-smoking Camels, HB 438 won’t reduce the idiocy.


Use the Assembly resources link to contact your legislators and view bills and hearing schedules

Nebraska officials want court to enforce smoking ban

I dunno how anyone expects a court to enforce a smoking ban. Aint dere more serious issues out here dat courts need to be worried about?

Asking a court to enforce a smoking ban is like someone expecting a court to act as a nanny. If people are smoking in bars or any hospitality joint, it ain't the end of the world.

A court shouldn't be business owners' nanny. Owners can make their own f'kin decisions on how to keep their customers happy.

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http://www.business week.com/ ap/financialnews /D9DEQTNO0. htm



State officials have asked a court to step in and force a thrice-cited Broken Bow bar owner to comply with a statewide smoking ban.

Although the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services has received dozens of complaints of smoking-ban violations since the law took effect June 1, officials say this is the first time they've resorted to such enforcement measures.

Sylvester's Bar & Lounge owner Henry "Fred" Schumacher is accused of violating the Nebraska Clean Indoor Act, which bans smoking inside all public buildings and private businesses, including bars and restaurants.

Schumacher declined to comment on the case and refused to identify his attorney to speak on his behalf. Custer County District Court officials say Schumacher doesn't have an attorney on file.

A Feb. 4 hearing is set in the case.

Statewide, officials have received 134 complaints of smoking-ban violations through Friday, including 45 complaints received in June alone.

Most of the complaints came from outside Omaha, Lincoln, Grand Island and Humboldt, where smoking bans were previously in effect, HHS spokeswoman Marla Augustine said.

Eight complaints have been received about Sylvester's Bar, she said. They led to three citations for Schumacher. Court documents show Schumacher was fined a total of $500.

Cigar bars, some hotel rooms, tobacco-only retailers, facilities that research the health effects of smoking and private homes are exempt from the law.

Those exemptions are at the center of arguments made by the owner of an Omaha pool hall, who has a pending lawsuit against the state. Among other things, an attorney for Big John's Billiards owner Will Prout argues the exceptions make the ban unconstitutional.

In June, a Lancaster County district judge denied Prout's initial request to stop the law from taking effect.

Supreme Court rules against NYC in internet cig sales

I'd like to think if it's illegal for one state to collect taxes from online cig sales, then it's illegal to say people can't buy cigs online period (ala, the PACT Act).3

Trying to collect tobacco taxes from online cig sales (as well as the PACT Act itself) is all about greed, As long as youbuy tobacco offline, do you think politicians give a sh!t about your health?

If a politician doesn't care about what smoking does to me he/she also shouldn't care where I buy my cigs. And BTW, smoking hasn't done anythang to my clear lungs!

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http://online. wsj.com/article/ BT-CO-20100125- 709969.html? mod=WSJ_latesthe adlines

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that New York City could not use federal racketeering laws to sue out-of-state Internet tobacco retailers that don't file reports on city residents who buy cigarettes online.

The city wants the reports so it can collect cigarette taxes directly from residents who purchased tobacco products online. The retailers are not required to collect the taxes.

The case before the high court centered on New York's allegations that New Mexico-based online retailer Hemi Group committed racketeering offenses of mail and wire fraud by allegedly failing to submit reports on its New York City customers to state tobacco administrators. The city, which said it lost millions of dollars in cigarette tax revenues, said federal law required Hemi to submit the reports.

But the Supreme Court, in a 5-3 opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, ruled that the relationship between Hemi's alleged actions and the city's inability to collect taxes was too indirect to establish racketeering liability against the online retailer.

Roberts said the direct cause of the alleged fraud against the city was not Hemi's conduct, but the refusal of residents to pay their taxes for online cigarette purchases. "The city, therefore, has no RICO claim," Roberts wrote.

Justice Stephen Breyer said in dissent that the city made a sufficient racketeering connection to Hemi's alleged conduct. Had Hemi filed the reports, the state would have been able to obtain a significant share of the taxes it was owed, Breyer said.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor did not participate in the case because she had participated previously as an appellate judge when the case was before the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Property Rights Newsletta

The Property Rights Newsletter January 22, 2010 - Issue #554 "The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't." - Douglas Adams

Gary Nolan, national director for Citizens Freedom Alliance, a group that fights for property rights, challenged proponents to a debate on the issue of whether secondhand smoke is harmful. "Instead of making a brief presentation, let's have a real honest debate on this subject," Nolan said. "It is an affront to the property rights of restaurant and bar owners to pass a smoking ban. It is their property and they should be making that decision," Nolan said. He said the decision of whether to go into a restaurant or bar with or without smoking should be a decision of the individual. "Allow them to continue to have a choice," Nolan said. From The International Mailbag Canada: Butt ban for teens? Convenience stores want teenagers banned from possessing tobacco, a call timed to coincide with National Non-Smoking Week. France: Smoking Ban? The French Light Up Again in Public. UK: Joe Jackson's New Year message. I fear we are moving closer and closer to a sort of Soviet existence where authority is simply accepted and only grumbled about around the kitchen table - which is where all the parties are going to be anyway, with no pubs left! From The USA Mailbag DC: Council Smoking Ban Proposal for 25 feet from doors. GA: Outdoor Smoking Bans Spread Without Science. According to the Athens Banner Herald, “the county commission and the state legislature both considered extending the ban to 25 feet outside doorways but abandoned the idea. KS: Store Owners Say "No" to Governor’s Proposed Tax Hikes. SC: Cayce Smoking Vote Puts Heat on West Columbia. SC: York County Council chambers packed with people fuming over smoking ban. Council to discuss whether to exempt private businesses from ban. WA: Proposed Washington State Tobacco Tax Increase Causes Committees to Clash. HB2493. USA: FDA to Study Cigarette Ingredients to Determine if They Pose Any Danger. "If we can just get our politicians to be sleeping with each other rather than with industry, then they can be doing to each other what they're currently doing to us." Health Big Benefits Are Seen From Eating Less Salt. In a report that may bolster public policy efforts to get Americans to reduce the amount of salt in their diets, scientists writing in The New England Journal of Medicine conclude that lowering the amount of salt people eat by even a small amount could reduce cases of heart disease, stroke and heart attacks as much as reductions in smoking, obesity and cholesterol levels. Fat: Call for obesity action as new links to heart disease emerge. The researchers called for increased efforts to reduce people's weight to prevent them dying from cardiovascular diseases. Studies don't show smoking kills people. By Thomas Laprade. Air ventilation can easily create a comfortable environment that removes not just passive smoke, but also and especially the potentially serious contaminants that are independent from smoking. Vehicle exhaust fumes linked to severe pneumonia in seniors. "We postulate that there might have been effects on the innate immune system, that is these air pollutants would affect the ability of the lungs to clear pathogens," he said in an interview from Hamilton.

Watch Phil Williams Anti smoking home goal Anti smoking home goal 2 Wherever smoking bans are introduced we see a growth in smoking rates, especially amongst the young. Thank you anti smokers for making smoking cool again, and congratulations for your service to the tobacco industry.

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