Regional Meetings for Virginian's for a Healthy Future

Virginians for a Healthy Future Coalition will be hosting a series of regional meetings throughout the Commonwealth in June. Below please find a list of the dates and locations of the meetings.

We encourage anyone interested in making Virginia's public places smoke free to come to the meeting in your area. Please join us to learn more about our campaign plans but also to help us to

Virginia Beach
Thursday, June 19th
10:00 am
Sentara Princess Anne – Community Room Suite 210
1925 Glenn Mitchell Drive
Virginia Beach, VA 23456

At the meetings we will discuss:
Our grassroots and legislative strategies to advocate for smoke free legislation
How we can mobilize Virginians to contact their legislators
What tactics you think will work in your community

If you plan to attend the meeting – please RSVP to Nicole Pugar, Coalition Organizer at (804) 225-5828 or nicole@vfhf.org by Monday, June 16. Please visit our website at http://www.healthyvanow.org/ for more information about the Smoke Free Virginia Now campaign.

Ban on Restaurant smoking update

Study: Restaurant tobacco bans influence teen smoking
By STEVE LeBLANCAssociated Press Writer
A Massachusetts study suggests that restaurant smoking bans may play a big role in persuading teens not to become smokers. Youths who lived in towns with strict bans were 40 percent less likely to become regular smokers than those in communities with no bans or weak ones, the researchers reported...
Click here to read the rest of the article.

Iowa & Kansas City, Missouri, Deliver Big Wins for Smoke-Free Air

Great news in the Midwest – a new smoke-free state AND smoke-free city!! Congrats to everyone who made these wins a reality!
The Iowa Legislature and Kansas City, Missouri, voters on Tuesday delivered victories for health and the public’s right to breathe clean air by enacting measures to make most workplaces, including restaurants and bars, smoke-free. Governor Chet Culver has indicated he will sign the Iowa legislation into law, making Iowa the 24th state to pass a strong smoke-free law that includes restaurants and bars. The law will take effect July 1.

American Lung Association Update

Big Tobacco's Guinea Pigs: How an Unregulated Industry Experiments on America's Kids and Consumers - This report details how tobacco companies manipulate their products to recruit new youth users, create and sustain addiction, and discourages users from quitting

Hope for smoking ban bill

Gov. Kaine holds out hope for smoking ban bill
Reported by: Shannon Sims 05:52 PM EST on Wednesday, February 20, 2008
http://www.wvec.com/news/topstories/stories/wvec_local_022008_smoking_ban_bill.10ae9499.html

Help Revive Smoking Ban Bills

Please read the full page ad in todays Virginian Pilot (below).

Clearing Air on Smoking Politics (Last gasp on smoking ban)
The Virginian-Pilot© February 20, 2008
http://hamptonroads.com/2008/02/last-gasp-smoking-ban

Ad aims to revive bill on smoking ban
The Virginian-Pilot© February 20, 2008
http://hamptonroads.com/2008/02/ad-aims-revive-bill-smoking-ban

If you chose to take individual action, you can do so using the following information:
DelTSuit@house.state.va.us Phone: (804) 698-1081 Fax: (804) 786-6310
DelWHowell@house.state.va.us House Speaker Phone: (804) 698-1028 Fax: (804) 786-6310
DelMGriffith@house.state.va.us House Majority Leader Phone: (804) 698-1008 Fax: (804) 786-6310

Younger Smokers May Have More Success at Quitting

Want to help people quit smoking? A new study from the Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego, suggests getting to smokers when they're younger may produce the best results. "Most previous studies focused on smokers aged 35 and older who have smoked for 20 years or more," said John P. Pierce, Ph.D., director of UC San Diego's Cancer Prevention and Control Program. "That has led to an overemphasis on drug treatments to help cessation, whereas this study emphasized the importance of implementing a smoke free home if a smoker wants to quit successfully." The study appears in the January 2, 2008, edition of the American Journal of Public Health.

Read the full article at:
http://cancer.ucsd.edu/AboutUs/News/
stories/Pierce_YoungSmoke.asp