Stop Smoking Way

Parker, 33, was spotted smoking several cigarettes this week as she strolled the streets of San Juan, Puerto Rico, where she is attending the wedding of “Without a Trace” star Roselyn Sanchez. “She hates to be photographed smoking,” the New York Daily News quoted X-17 owner Frank Navarre as saying.

“But we get her once in a while,” he added.

But Parker is not the only actress, who tries to hide her smoking habit, joining her is “The Hills” star Lauren Conrad, who goes to great lengths to hide her habit. “She avoids it,” Navarre said of Conrad.

A Wausau restaurant owner can’t get around the city’s smoking ban by creating a “sham” private club with a $1 membership, a Wisconsin appeals court ruled Tuesday.

The 3rd District Court of Appeals upheld the constitutionality of Wausau’s law that bans smoking in restaurants and said restaurant owner Zack Jusufi was properly cited in 2005 for failing to enforce it.

“There is a rational basis for the ordinance’s classification and differential treatment of restaurants and private clubs,” the three-judge panel said.

State health officials urged Michigan lawmakers to vote today in favor of a ban on smoking in public places, even if casinos and cigar bars would be exempt.

Nearly 80% of the public is behind the ban, said Greg Holzman, chief medical executive of the Michigan Department of Community Health. And with the final 2008 legislative session just weeks away from ending, acting now would still save most of Michigan from second-hand smoke.

“To me, it’s disconcerting because it’s still putting people at risk who work in the casinos, but to protect the majority of Michigan’s population — I’m not going to lose that,” Holzman said Tuesday.

We’ll spare you the lecture. (Seriously, though. Stamp out that butt and flush the pack, already.) Tobacco use, namely cigarette smoking, is the chief cause of preventable death in the United States. Left unbridled, smoking could kill more than a billion people this century, according to the World Health Organization. That equals the number who would die if a Titanic sank every 24 minutes for the next 100 years, as former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop so starkly put it at a March press conference.

Most smokers already know that they can help preserve their health, hygiene and personal relationships by kicking the habit, and that holds true across the country.

But in strictly financial terms, smokers in Delaware stand to save the most cash by quitting. That’s because in Delaware, where a pack of cigarettes costs about $5.39, residents smoke more than in any other state–just over 185 packs per year. That comes out to $998.23 spent individually on smoking every year.

Puffing a cigarette at a park is already illegal in Belmont and unincorporated San Mateo County but the habit could soon earn you a ticket in Redwood City, too.

The city’s parks and recreation commission will consider on Wednesday recommending that the city make all of its 32 parks smoke-free.

City officials say smoking is already banned in parts of some parks because of laws that prohibit smoking within 20 feet of parks facilities or rest rooms and within 25 feet of any play area or sports field.

Groups that once fought on opposite sides of a proposed statewide smoking ban have united to oppose proposed changes to that ban.

Restaurant owners and anti-smoking groups, including the American Cancer Society, are fighting legislation in the Ohio House and Senate that would permit loopholes in the ban.

A Senate bill would allow smoking at certain family-owned businesses and private clubs while a House bill would exempt stand-alone bars from the ban.

The Ohio Restaurant Association says it wants a level playing field for all businesses.

Cancer society lobbyist John Hoctor says the bills if passed would open up smoking in thousands of businesses.

THE Government faces a major battle over its plans to ban the display of cigarettes in shops and remove the logos from cigarette packets.

Despite initial hints from David Cameron that he supported it, both the Tories and Liberal Democrats are now planning to block the move when it comes before Parliament on the grounds that it will have no effect on sales to children and will cost retailers thousands of pounds.

Ministers are also planning to ban vending machines in pubs and to stop manufacturers selling packs of ten – measures which a growing band of critics say are draconian.

The Tories said there was “no evidence” that banning the display of tobacco products in shops would help people stop smoking.

Shadow health minister Mike Penning said ending displays and removing branding and logos could drive local shops and newsagents out of business.

And he claimed banning packs of 10, in an attempt to make it too expensive for many children to smoke, could lead to some adults smoking more.

Mr Penning was speaking about a Government consultation on further measures to try and prevent a habit which kills 87,000 people each year in England alone.

A new UCLA School of Nursing study is the first to reveal the devastating consequences of smoking on the nursing profession. Published in the November-December edition of the journal Nursing Research, the findings describe smoking trends and death rates among U.S. nurses and emphasize the importance of supporting smoking cessation programs in the nursing field.

“Nurses witness firsthand how smoking devastates the health of their patients with cancer and respiratory and cardiovascular diseases,” said principal investigator Linda Sarna, D.N.Sc, a professor at the UCLA School of Nursing. “Yet nurses struggle with nicotine addiction like the rest of the 45 million smokers in America. We are concerned that nurses who smoke may be less apt to support tobacco-control programs or encourage their patients to quit.”