International e-mail campaign supports Delaware smoking measure

DOVER - The arrival of the state's new clean indoor air bill on Gov. Ruth Ann Minner's desk has been accompanied during the past few days by an extraordinary e-mail campaign supporting the legislation.

The e-mails, individual in content but mass-produced and generated through the Internet, come from across the United States and from other countries.

They number in the hundreds and include copies, as well as faxes, to the state's 59 lawmakers and news media.

"I look forward to you signing the law making Delaware smoke-free,'' writes Andi Weiss Bartczak of Catskill, N.Y.

"How nice that we will have a smoke-free state to visit on this coast. And I hope that Delaware's example will pressure my county and state to also protect the health of workers and customers.''

"I am tremendously moved and elated by this show of support,'' Sen. McBride said. "I've gotten about 180 of these so far and they're all legitimate.''

He said he is trying to personally answer as many of the messages as possible. Although there are no guarantees, he said he thinks the mass-Internet mailing can't help but strengthen the bill's future.

"I believe it has had an absolute effect,'' Sen. McBride said. "I think it's refreshing and helpful to the General Assembly. It helps us to gauge and sense what others across our borders are thinking about Delaware right now.''

"Our goal is to facilitate communication between smoke-free advocates and key decision makers,'' said Joseph W. Cherner, president of SmokeFree Educational Services Inc.

"The tobacco cartel has forever bought its way into the offices of the key decision makers. We can't compete on a dollar basis. There is $1 million in tobacco cartel money for every $1 of smoke-free money.

"But there are one million smoke-free advocates for every tobacco cartel scum.''

Mr. Cherner's Web site - www.smokefree.org - makes writing personal e-mail letters to public officials and other "decision makers'' very easy.

A simple click on the "E-Z letter'' link provides already-supplied names and e-mail addresses of officials involved in smoke-free issues. All the writer has to do is sign on, type in a message, and the rest is automatic. Users even have the option of sending copies to other mailboxes.

Mr. Cherner has been battling what he calls tobacco smoke pollution in the workplace for a decade. He says the power is in the people.

"We can only win if key decision-makers hear from the people,'' he said. "That's all we try to do - allow people to communicate with the decision-makers.

"I quit in 1974 and had a little relapse in the '80s,'' he said. "My daughter asked me one day why I smoked. I was not able to give her an answer. So I quit one day cold turkey.''

Sen. McBride said he asked Gov. Minner if she would sign the state's new smoke-free legislation into law on Friday, May 31, to coincide with World No Tobacco Day.

"I think it would be nice to have it on that day and I have made that request,'' he said.

Gregory Patterson, a spokesman for Gov. Minner, said an announcement would be made early in the week as to when and where a signing ceremony will occur. He said Sen. McBride's suggestion sounded like a good idea.

Ok! Here we go:

Dallas Winslow wrote back to me:

I disagree with your viewpoints. Time will tell. The bill passed today with my support. I intend to continue visiting Maine however despite any similiar laws. I love Maine and especially Sugarloaf.

Dallas

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Thought you might be interested in what the folks in California are telling us.

SACRAMENTO--Restaurant smoking bans have not hurt tourism in California and other states or cities that adopted tough restrictions, according to a new study disputing a key tobacco industry argument against such laws.

The report by two UC San Francisco researchers, to be published today in The Journal of the American Medical Assn., found that hotel revenue in about half the states and cities actually jumped after strict smoking laws were enacted.

The study also concluded that tourism from foreign lands--where smoking often is more accepted than in the United States--was not curtailed by restaurant restrictions.

"Before many of these laws were passed, there were very specific predictions of catastrophe voiced all over the country by the tobacco industry and their dies," said Stanton A. Glantz, the UC San Francisco medical professor who conducted the study. "Those dire warnings simply were not true."

Smoking advocates quickly attacked Glantz, who has long jousted with the tobacco industry, and dismissed the study as a biased report intended to hem in smokers by spreading the gospel of anti-cigarette laws.

"Once again, we've got an advocacy piece masquerading as research," said Thomas Humber, president of the National Smokers Alliance.

The study by Glantz and research associate Annemarie Charlesworth marks the third time in the last five years that Glantz has produced a study playing down the economic effects of smoking restrictions.

A 1994 Glantz study found that smoking bans do not cause economic chaos for restaurants, while his 1998 report disputed the effect of smoking prohibitions in bars. The tobacco industry characterized both reports as slanted.

The tobacco industry has attempted to block anti-smoking campaigns or soften existing laws by voicing concerns that tourism could be hurt.

To determine if that had occurred, the researchers looked at hotel revenues to measure the effect of anti-smoking laws on tourism in California, Utah and Vermont as well as Boulder, Colo., Flagstaff and Mesa, Ariz., New York City, Los Angeles and San Francisco. California and the two other states saw an increase in hotel receipts after smoking laws took effect, as did San Francisco, the study found. Four other cities, including Los Angeles, had no significant change. Only Flagstaff experienced a significant slowdown in the rate of increase for hotel revenues.

The study also showed that international tourism rose in California, with an increase in visitors from Japan. New York City saw a jump in European visitors despite restaurant smoking restrictions.

Such results should be of no surprise to tobacco companies, Glantz said. He said that tobacco giant Philip Morris commissioned a 1989 study, kept secret until recently, that found people in 10 European countries were more accepting of smoke-free restaurant ordinances than were Americans.

Glantz and Charlesworth conclude that efforts to restrict smoking elsewhere should not be deterred by tourism worries. "Indeed," they suggest in the study, "these ordinances may even be beneficial for business."

That was hardly the conventional wisdom as California launched a 1995 ban on restaurant smoking. Last year, restrictions were extended to bars. Tourism officials worried about the effect. "It certainly looked like smoking bans could have serious impacts, particularly on visitors from Europe or Asia where there's a preponderance of smokers," said Rick Lawrance, executive vice president of the California Lodging Industry Assn. Instead, Lawrance said, reports from lodging operators seem to back the Glantz study. Visitors have continued to come, and have willingly segregated themselves into smoking or nonsmoking rooms.

But smoker rights advocates such as Humber say the inability of authorities to tightly regulate the smoking ban undermines the credibility of the Glantz study, making the law largely irrelevant and the impact on tourism is negligible. "Enforcing these laws is about as easy as enforcing prostitution," Humber said.

Glantz said the study demonstrates that the tobacco industry's dire predictions for tourism were "a fig leaf" for their real motivation--maintaining profits.

"At some point people are going to stop believing the industry since every claim they've made about smoking laws has been proven wrong," he said.

Source:

ERIC BAILEY, LA Times

Staff Writer

Thanks for your note. I have gone skiing in Maine for the last 7 years (Sugarloaf), and was delighted when Maine enhanced the Clean Indoor Air Act there. The last two years have been especially enjoyable, and our group has grown with the improved indoor conditions.

Your comment about "blood money" was very funny, in light of the history of the tobacco companies in this country. They have given federal and state officials large sums of money, so they could continue to kill without any consequences. They also tesified before the US Congress, after putting one hand on The Bible, and raising their other hand, that they did not think tobacco caused illness, they did not manipulate levels of nicotine to make their product more addictive, they did not market to children, and second hand smoke was not dangerous. On each of these counts we now know, from insider testimony, that they openly lied. In fact, they had some of the best data imaginable, which in the end convicted them in the Mississippi case leading to the Tobacco Settlement, and led to their defeat in the Flight Attendent lawsuit.

Dave Sokola

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To which I wrote back to DAVE:

The tobacco industry didn't lie. And why did Koop and Keesler refuse to testify once they found out THEY had to swear to tell the truth??!! Because they COULDN'T!

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