Smoking

Hernias are a common ailment among Americans; more than 4 million people develop the painful condition. And although both men and women develop hernias, female patients may be harder to diagnose. Doctors and patients may not realize the abdominal pain a woman is feeling is because of a hernia. Dr. Hien Nguyen, assistant professor of surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said the pain can be mistaken for other conditions with similar symptoms, such as adhesions from prior surgery, endometriosis, fibroids and ovarian cysts.

A veteran Anne Arundel County police officer who admitted placing a camera in a boys bathroom at Glen Burnie High School told investigators that he was trying to deter smoking of marijuana and cigarettes there, according to police reports. The officer was identified in the reports as the school resource officer, Allen Marcus, a 14-year veteran of the department. He had been placed on administrative leave during the investigation and has been reassigned to a patrol unit, according to a spokesman.

It is well known that HPV (human papillomavirus) can lead to deadly cervical cancer in women, but the virus is causing cancer in men as well. Throat cancers caused by HPV are showing up typically in men with little or no history of smoking, said Dr. Kevin J. Cullen, an oncologist who specializes in treating head and neck cancers. Cullen, the director of the University of Maryland's Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Cancer Center, talks about the growing cases of HPV-related throat cancers.

A report of smoke coming from the roof forced a brief evacuation of Southampton Middle School in Bel Air Tuesday. Around 2:30 p.m., the Harford County 911 Center dispatched fire equipment to the school in the 1200 block of Moores Mill Road to investigate a report of smoke coming from the roof. The Bel Air Volunteer Fire Company responded; however, the first emergency responder to the scene reported no fire or smoke evident upon arrival, according to monitored broadcasts. Meanwhile, students and staff were evacuated and stood outside in the warm afternoon sunshine, while a fire crew climbed around on the roof but found nothing.

It's been 11 days without a cigarette in Building A at the maximum security prison for women in Jessup. Back and forth from the commissary, women carry brown sacks filled to the brim with Sugar Daddies, lollipops and Tootsie Rolls. Candy sales have doubled. Food consumption is up 25 percent. There's a run on Slim Fast. Inside the stark cell block, women in jeans and loose shirts emerge from their rooms holding mops and brooms. Anything to keep their hands busy. Forty percent of the state prison population smokes.

In regard to your editorial recommending Congress raise the cigarette tax ("Where there's smoke…" July 9), just observe how motorists have limited their auto use when gas was almost $4 per gallon - none at all. Or just look in Baltimore's alleys, streets and sidewalks to see how cigarettes are now smoked right down to the filter to save money, making the experience more toxic than ever. Or see how more and more people smoke outdoors and in their homes because smoking is not allowed indoors in all places.

Washington's best-known chain smoker is Speaker of the House John Boehner. Its best-known sneak smoker is President Barack Obama. Mr. Boehner is tired of being queried about his habit, saying to Chris Wallace of Fox News, "Why is this a topic? Leave me alone. " The White House, on the other hand, has been adhering to a policy of trying to keep the presidential puffing from being a topic by ignoring questions about it. However, on Tuesday, First Lady Michelle Obama ignited more talk about her husband's reputed five-cigarette-a-day habit by saying he has stopped smoking.

In Steve Kilar's article "Families, neighbors mourn lives cut short" (Jun 15) about the deaths of teenage friends Courtney Angeles and Emerald Smith after they were struck by a hit-and-run driver, he states "Outside Courtney's home, mostly young mourners smoked cigarettes to calm their nerves. " There is no medical proof that cigarette smoking in young teens calms nerves. Implying this may cut other young teens' lives short, though. And trust me, they won't be dying calmly. G.P. Webb

The North Point Library is offering a free six-week course to help smokers quit. Greta Brand, a health consultant, will lead the weekly one-hour sessions that start at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday. The class, paid for with a grant from the Tobacco Restitution Fund, includes free nicotine gum, patches and lozenges. Registration is requested. The library is at 1716 Merritt Blvd. Information: 410-887-7255. mary.gail.hare@baltsun.com Text NEWS to 70701 to get Baltimore Sun local news text alerts

Gov. William Donald Schaefer's recent announcement that he intends to ban smoking in executive-branch offices is an overdue recognition of the health hazards posed by tobacco smoke in the work place. Maryland's high cancer death rate inevitably is linked to such known cancer-causers as cigarette smoking.The governor's move is, indeed, a healthy step toward persuading smokers to limit or cease their consumption of tobacco while also providing a less polluted working environment for tens of thousands of non-smoking state employees.

A former leader of a youth group of a church in Severn is facing charges that he brought marijuana on a group trip and smoked it with two teenage boys while on an overnight camping trip, Anne Arundel County police said Monday. Benjamin James Siggers, 31, a former substitute teacher in Anne Arundel County Public Schools, was charged with two counts each of possession of marijuana and contributing to the condition of a child, according to court records. He was issued a summons. Police said they and the Department of Social Services began investigating Siggers Feb. 19 in connection with the Severn United Methodist Church group activities.

At Camden Yards on Friday, baseballs, the scent of sizzling hot dogs and a beautiful blue sky were in the air as the Orioles played the Minnesota Twins in their home opener. The smell of cigarette smoke was not, though, as the Maryland Stadium Authority began the enforcement of a smoking ban at the Camden Yards Sports and Entertainment Complex, which includes Camden Yards and M&T Bank Stadium. Friday's game was the first since the smoking ban was put into effect. It prohibits smoking or carrying lit tobacco products - including cigarettes, cigars and pipes - within 25 feet of the stadium and the Warehouse, as well as in the outdoor space along Eutaw Street between gates A and H. Camden Yards was one of 10 Major League Baseball ballparks that had designated smoking areas within the ballpark last season, according to the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation.

If you're heading to Camden Yards for today's opener and you want to smoke during the game, you're going to have to leave the stadium to light up. Orioles fans will be able to smoke only in a designated area just outside of Gate E1 on the third base side of the ballpark. On March 4, the Maryland Stadium Authority's smoking ban went into effect at the Camden Yards sports complex, which includes Oriole Park and M&T Bank Stadium. The new code “prohibits smoking or carrying lit tobacco products (cigarettes, cigars and pipes)

Among the 85 calls the Arbutus Volunteer Fire Department received for medical and fire-rescue service during the period March 3-10 were the following: Frederick Road, 6300 block, 3:00 p.m. March 15. Crews from the Arbutus and Violetville volunteer stations and Catonsville, Halethorpe, Randallstown, Westview and Woodlawn career stations responded to the report of a building fire in Catonsville and found smoke, but no fire. Interstate-695 between exits 12 and 13, 7:45 p.m. March 14. Crews from the Arbutus volunteer station and Catonsville career station responded to the report of a brush fire on the Baltimore Beltway in the Catonsville area near the Wilkens Avenue and Edmondson Avenue exits and extinguished the fire.

Roman Catholic cardinals went into a virtual news blackout Tuesday as they began to elect a new pope, but that has only heightened interest in what's happening behind the closed doors of their conclave. "I just had 'smoke cam' on my screen," said Monsignor Stuart Swetland, a professor and vice president for Catholic identity at Mount St. Mary's University in Emmitsburg who was watching CBS News' online "Vatican Smoke Cam" to see what color smoke emerged from the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City.

Thousands of fifth-graders around Harford County have pledged never to try tobacco by signing their names on banners that will be exhibited on National Kick Butts Day March 20. Harford County Health Department's Cigarette Restitution Fund Tobacco Program School Health Specialist, Dottie Ruff, teaches students of all ages, throughout the county about the dangers of tobacco, while empowering them to make healthy decisions to refrain from using tobacco...

Under a bill introduced by state Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr., the state would block local governments from passing their own rules on public smoking areas. Supporters of the proposal, which would not affect existing local laws, say it would promote uniform smoking legislation. The measure also would make it a crime for anyone under 18 to possess tobacco products and require every business with 50 or more employees to adopt a written policy about smoking.Should the state pre-empt local governments from passing no-smoking laws?

Beginning in June, smoking will be prohibited inside any enclosed mall in Howard County. Howard is one of the first jurisdictions in the nation to ban smoking in private malls. The legislation, passed this week by the County Council on a close vote, calls for both civil and criminal penalties against violators.The Evening Sun would like to know what you think. Should smoking be banned in enclosed malls? Does a government have the right to ban smoking in a private mall or should such restrictions be up to the owners of the shopping center?

As their church's cardinals gathered in Vatican City to select a new pope, Catholic schoolchildren in the Baltimore area joined the worldwide buzz over the secret balloting process in an online chat with a fairly well-placed source: Archbishop William E. Lori. "I'm not going to predict who the Holy Father is going to be," Lori told eighth-grade students at 20 schools in the Baltimore Archdiocese on Monday. "But what we can't miss is that at least two of the American cardinals have been spoken about as possible candidates.

The Maryland Stadium Authority's decision to prohibit smoking at both Camden Yards and at M&T Bank Stadium is great news for sports fans ("State Authority bans smoking at M&T Stadium, Oriole Park," Feb. 26). Secondhand smoke causes serious disease and premature death among nonsmokers, and there is no safe level of exposure. A study conducted at the University of Maryland Baltimore County found that even outdoors, nonsmokers up to a distance of 23 feet away or more are still exposed to carcinogens.