Smoking

He's made a career of putting out political fires -- or starting them -- and now he's turning to smoke.Or, more precisely, to smoking.William A. Fogle Jr., the state's secretary of licensing and regulation, says his responsibility for worker health and safety compels him to take action.He has become the first state official in the country to issue a smoking ban, using regulatory authority derived from occupational and health laws.Because he has headed the department for almost eight years, and because smoking is not a new threat, he concedes the last-minute nature of his action.

BOSTON -- You have to hand it to the tobacco moguls. These guys really know their business. Which is, of course, the advertising business.After the Senate deep-sixed the tobacco bill, I let my fingers do the walking through pages and pages of cigarette ads. Guess what? The young and the ecstatically happy are still doing their "woman thing" with Virginia Slims. The rich and the thin are still lighting Parliaments by the pool. The addicted and delighted have even gone on a hot air balloon adventure with Dorals.

Carroll commissioners have adopted a no-smoking policy for all county buildings effective Friday.

Smoking should be banned in enclosed shopping malls, say a majority of 600 callers to SUNDIAL, who favor the idea by a vote of 320 to 280 (53 percent vs. 46 percent).However, only 259 of 598 callers, or 43 percent, agree that government has the right to ban smoking in private malls. Most of the respondents, 339, or 56 percent, say smoking restrictions should be up to the mall owners.

The Maryland lacrosse team might light up the scoreboard this spring, but fans won't be lighting up at their seats in Byrd Stadium.Effective immediately, the school has banned smoking in the seating areas, rest rooms, press box and the new football complex. Smoking will be permitted on the concourse that surrounds the top of the 45,000-seat stadium.

A House of Delegates committee voted last night to weaken Maryland's landmark workplace smoking ban, one of the toughest in the nation. After three hours of debate, the Environmental Matters Committee voted 16-5 for a bill that exempts bars, hotels, restaurants with liquor licenses and clubs.Committee members agreed to require hotels and restaurants to set aside 60 percent of their space for nonsmoking sections.The anti-smoking regulation, scheduled to take effect on March 27, would continue to ban smoking in offices, factories, stores and restaurants that do not serve alcohol.

Lobbyists for the tobacco and restaurant industries aren't about to quit fighting legislative attempts to ban public smoking. Still, they must feel more and more these days that they're engaged in a losing battle.Smoking's deadly effects on smokers have been widely known since the landmark mid-'60s report of the United States Surgeon General. Only in the past several years have both the public and private sectors come around to the idea that smoking harms non-smokers as well and should be banned in many public places.

Infants whose mothers smoked during pregnancy have significantly less lung capacity than infants of non-smoking moms, a new study from Harvard University Medical School shows.The damage maternal smoking does to a newborn's lungs also maybe related to increased cases of asthma, respiratory infections and even lung disease later in life, according to Dr. John P. Hanrahan.Among 80 infants two weeks to six weeks old, lung-function tests of those whose mothers smoked during pregnancy were as much as 50 percent below normal, Dr. Hanrahan reported.

It's difficult to truly appreciate smoking restrictions on cruise ships until you've sat in the late-night dance club on an Italian ship packed to the ceiling with 300 chain-smoking Italian high school students. The dance floor had a fog machine, but it was completely unnecessary. Just two years after I witnessed that scene, however, the world is a different -- and increasingly smaller -- place for smokers. Public buildings in the United States, cafes in Paris and pubs in Dublin, Ireland -- all post signs forbidding cigarettes.

A proposal to ban smoking in almost every business in Maryland - including bars, restaurants and pool halls - was killed yesterday by a Senate committee. The vote by the Senate Finance Committee to reject the Clean Indoor Air Act ends what had been an intense debate between health advocates and the restaurant and liquor industry. The measure would have given the state one of the strictest anti-smoking laws in the country. Supporters said the bill was necessary to protect people, especially servers and bartenders, from the effects of secondhand smoke.