Latest news with #smokingban
CBS News
11 hours ago
- Health
- CBS News
Mayor Johnson signs executive order to curb smoking on CTA trains and buses
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson on Tuesday signed an executive order to elimiate smoking on the Chicago Transit Authority system. Smoking is already banned on the CTA, and a group of Chicago alderpeople last month called for enforcement of the ban. On Tuesday, the mayor signed an executive order directing the Chicago Police Department, the Chicago Department of Family and Support services, the Chicago Department of Public Health, and the mayor's office to work with the CTA to end smoking on public transit and improve public safety. "Smoking on our public transit system has got to stop, and I am directing our city's agencies and the Mayor's Office to work together to put an end to this activity," Mayor Johnson said in a news release. "Our public transit system is for all Chicagoans. We have parents taking their young children to school in the morning and seniors with respiratory issues who are inhaling smoke. This executive order calls for the same full-force-of-government approach that has resulted in historic reductions in crime to tackle this critical issue." The order directs city departments to partner with the CTA to "explore possible areas of collaboration," including deploying the Chicago Department of Public Health Crisis Assistance Response and Engagement teams and the Department of Family and Support Services Homeless Outreach and Prevention teams to curtail smoking on trains. In the order, the mayor also calls for exploring whether a team could be assembled, possibly including community violence interrupters and mental health professionals, to engage with people found smoking on the CTA system and offer "on-site counseling, smoking cessation resources, and long-term treatment." Johnson's announcement of the the order focused more on the health risks of smoking and the dangers of secondhand smoke than the nuisance issue of smoking specifically on 'L' trains and other CTA property. Complaints have made headlines in recent years about people smoking cigarettes, marijuana, and other substances on the CTA. But while referring generically to "smoking," the focus of much of the release on the mayor's order was on the health risks of cigarettes. CTA officials released some statistics about the issue in 2023, when it said more than 6,300 citations for smoking were issued. That same year, a CBS News Chicago investigation found more than 90% of those smoking fines went unpaid. According to a recent survey from the Regional Transportation Authority, four out of five riders who use CTA, Metra, or Pace say they've experienced cigarette and marijuana smoking or drinking on Chicago buses and trains, on platforms, and in stations. Noting the CTA is facing a major budget shortfall in 2026, some aldermen last month argued a concerted effort to decrease smoking on trains and buses could increase ridership, and boost revenue.
The Independent
16-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
X Factor winner Leona Lewis to be made an OBE at Windsor Castle
Pop singer Leona Lewis and the former health secretary who oversaw the 2007 indoor smoking ban are to be honoured in an investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle. X Factor winner Lewis will be made an OBE for services to music and charity. Ex-Labour politician Dame Patricia Hewitt, who as health secretary pushed forward the ban on smoking in enclosed public spaces, will be made a Dame Commander of the British Empire (DCB). Former Conservative schools minister Sir Nick Gibb will receive a knighthood. Presenter and singer Myleene Klass, a former member of the group Hear'Say and runner-up in the 2006 series of I'm A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!, will be made an MBE for services to women's health, miscarriage awareness and charity. Lewis, 40, won the third series of The X Factor in 2006 and went on to achieve success with singles including Bleeding Love, Run and Better In Time. The British singer-songwriter from Islington, north London, became a seven-time Brit award nominee and was nominated three times for a Grammy award. She has also carried out charity work with a number of organisations including the Prince's Trust, the Teenage Cancer Trust and WWF. Dame Patricia, previously the chairwoman of NHS Norfolk and Waveney Integrated Care Board, is being honoured for services to healthcare transformation. The former MP for Leicester West served as health secretary, trade and industry secretary and minister for women during Tony Blair's government. The Australian-born politician stepped down from cabinet in June 2007 when Gordon Brown took over as prime minister. Sir Nick was first elected as Conservative MP for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton in 1997 and was first appointed as school standards minister in 2010, before being removed from the post two years later. He was brought back as minister for school standards in 2014 and remained in the role until the reshuffle in September 2021 when he was sacked by then prime minister Boris Johnson. The veteran schools minister, who is being honoured for services to education, returned to the Department for Education (DfE) in October 2022 and stepped down from Government in 2023. During his tenure he oversaw curriculum and exam reforms and was an advocate of phonics as a method of teaching children to read. Klass, 47, has campaigned for paid bereavement leave to be extended to those who experience a miscarriage. The mother of three suffered four miscarriages and has spoken openly about the psychological effects of baby loss on women. She is an ambassador for the pregnancy and baby charity Tommy's and fronted the Bafta-nominated documentary Myleene Klass: Miscarriage And Me in 2021, in which she met women around the UK to hear their experiences.
Daily Mail
14-07-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
Fuming French stub out Macron's smoking ban: The smokers ignoring crackdown on lighting up in public places as Emmanuel bids to create tobacco-free generation
French smokers are still grappling with new laws introducing a blanket ban on smoking in public places. The ban, covering beaches, parks, public gardens and bus shelters, is aimed at protecting children from the harms of second-hand smoke. But it continues to divide opinion, with just 62 per cent supporting the move, according to a survey conducted before it took effect on July 1. Smokers on the Plage des Catalans in Marseille were reminded of their obligations by loudspeaker last week when told to move on to a raised concrete area off the beach. But one retired brasserie owner said she was promptly told to move by police who seemed not to understand the scope of the new rules, The Times reports. The ban is not supposed to outlaw smoking on pavements or highways. Conversely, those working on the beaches say people are still lighting up by the sea regardless, despite local bans having been in place for years. A lifeguard told the outlet that he had stopped a handful of people during a short patrol. Marseille has been fining smokers for lighting up on beaches since 2019, clearly marking out affected areas with signs. The lifeguard told The Times that the problem was people still 'didn't respect it'. But those violating the ban now stand to be fined €135 (£117) - three and a half times the €38 fine initially floated in Marseille. France has its work cut out in trying to move away from glamourised cinema portraits of artists, philosophers and movie stars smoking cigarettes and sipping coffee against the Paris skyline. When France brought in its new law, it excluded café terraces from the ban. And government crackdowns on tobacco use have already met resistance. 'In France, we still have this mindset of saying, "This is a law that restricts freedom,"' Philippe Bergerot, president of the French League Against Cancer, told the Associated Press. The ban aims 'to promote what we call denormalisation. In people's minds, smoking is normal,' he said. 'We aren't banning smoking; we are banning smoking in certain places where it could potentially affect people's health and ... young people.' The rules extend a ban on smoking in entertainment venues brought in around the time Britain also introduced its comprehensive smoking ban. In 2008, France outlawed smoking in establishments like restaurants and nightclubs. The country had planned to introduce widespread measures to extend this to public places last year, but the decree needed was never adopted. Some 1,500 municipalities brought in their own rules banning smoking on public beaches instead. Data still varies. A report by the French League Against Cancer found that almost 80 per cent of French people support a ban on smoking in public places like beaches and terraces. While more than 30 per cent of French adults still smoke cigarettes, most of them daily, the government is aiming to move towards a 'tobacco-free generation' from 2032. The Health Ministry is particularly concerned that tobacco remains popular among young people, citing public health statistics showing that 15 per cent of 17-year-olds smoke. Black market cigarette trading is common. Noting that 90 per cent of young people start smoking before the age of 18, France is taking measures to limit the flavours of vaping products and reduce the level of nicotine allowed in them. And France has banned the sale, manufacture and distribution of single-use vapes. E-cigarettes are, nonetheless, exempt from the ban. A notice announcing the ban online reminds citizens: 'Tobacco use kills 75,000 people in France every year, or more than 200 deaths a day.'
Times
12-07-2025
- Politics
- Times
The biggest problem with Macron's new smoking ban: the French
With modest fanfare, one of the world's most tobacco-addicted nations introduced one of the world's boldest smoking bans this month. In France it is now illegal to smoke on beaches, in parks, at bus stops, near schools and at the entrances to libraries and sports centres. President Macron's stated goal is to produce a tobacco-free generation by 2032 and he is doing everything he can to stamp out public smoking in any place where children might be present. There is, however, one factor that his government appears to have overlooked: the French. This is a country with a historic disregard for authority where a third of working-age adults still smoke, just under a quarter of them every day. Casual smoking is creeping up and more French women smoke now than 50 years ago. In western Europe, cigarettes have become an increasingly rare sight, but between the Channel and the Mediterranean smoking remains a fact of life. At least five French mayors went on record within days of the ban to say it was unenforceable. An afternoon at a packed beach in the south of France last week showed why. Smokers dotted the Plage des Catalans in Marseille, while greater numbers simply avoided the ban by smoking on its the fringes: from rocks, café terraces opposite the beach and a stretch of concrete beside the loos. Everyone was aware of the new rule, the first of its kind in Europe. No one, including the police, seemed to know exactly what it meant. A loudspeaker boomed out a clear instruction, in French and then English: 'For those of you who want to smoke, you have to go on the concrete side of the beach.' Confusion reigned. When retired brasserie owner Léa Abzar, 67, sat smoking on the concrete with her pet chihuahua, police arrived to tell her she had to go somewhere else. 'They told me that even up there you're not allowed,' she said, pointing to the promenade and street above the beach. 'Which means these days we're allowed to smoke at home, and that's it.' (The gendarmes seemed to be misinformed about this: there is nothing in the new law that bans smoking on pavements or highways.) 'It won't decrease anything at all,' she added, of the new restrictions on smoking. 'I can guarantee you. Even diseases don't make it decrease. I find it a shame that these people who lead us waste time making these kinds of laws when there are much more important things to deal with.' Naïm Bessah, a lifeguard, told me that in 20 minutes on patrol he had stopped 'three or four' people smoking on the actual beach. Smoking had already been banned on Marseille's beaches anyway, he said, though people 'didn't respect it'. He added: 'Since the new ban, if we see it, we stop people. But it's not our job.' His heart really didn't seem to be in it. Two minutes later I spotted him near the men's loos with his yellow lifeguard's T-shirt off, cigarette in hand. Under the new law fines for infractions rise from €135 (£117) to €750 for repeat offenders, but I saw no fines at all being imposed by police on the beach. The closest shave was when a policeman dashed off towards a woman on the sand fiddling with a suspicious-looking object: a suspected cannabis joint. The woman claimed it was a cigarette and that she wasn't going to smoke it there. The police moved on. Aurore Faust, 46, a carer from Marseille, stood with a cigarette just off the sand near steps to the road. She has been smoking for 20 years, is now on four or five a day and has no plans to quit. 'We will not stop, never,' she said — although she could see the merits of the beach ban because it will protect children. Campaigners say the restrictions need to go further. François Torpart, from the National Committee Against Smoking, said it had pushed for café terraces to be included, a move that surveys show a majority of French people would actually support. Torpart said in time the current 'first step' would make a difference. He cited the ban on smoking in restaurants and public transport in 2007, a year when Britain did the same. 'There were some of the same reservations, the same hesitations, such as how to enforce the regulations, [people saying] we cannot have the police intervene everywhere, etc,' he said. 'But the fact is that it worked well.' In France it proved less effective than in other countries, though. Britain is currently bringing in some of the strictest anti-smoking rules in the world, in the form of Sir Keir Starmer's Tobacco and Vapes Bill now going through the Lords. It will ban children born since January 1, 2009, from ever buying cigarettes. It also includes a ban on smoking outside schools, hospitals and playgrounds, similar to the French law, although beaches are not included. As it stands, however, France has all the same restrictions as Britain, but almost three times the number of smokers. France is now joining the ranks of the few countries to have nationwide bans on smoking in certain outdoor public spaces. Mexico is one (beaches and parks), Singapore another (parks, bus stops, playgrounds and other locations). Finland bans smoking in areas primarily used by minors, such as daycare facilities and schools. Many Australian states and Canadian provinces have bans at beaches (Bondi Beach is smoke-free). In Spain and Italy, western Europe's next most smoker-full countries, lots of local councils have banned smoking on beaches. Some French ones already had, too. Since the new ban came into force, it has been criticised by several local elected mayors, who in France have powers over policing. Dominique Cap, mayor of Plougastel-Daoulas, a peninsula community in Brittany, called the ban an 'absurd and very Parisian' decision. In Marseille too, it looked that way, at least for now. 'If people want to smoke, they smoke,' said Remi Cozzolino from behind the counter of his tobacconist-newsagent facing the sea in front of Plage des Catalans. Had the ban affected business? 'Not at all.'
Yahoo
12-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
IVF changes to tighten up smoking and vaping rules
Male partners in couples who want NHS-funded fertility treatment could be banned from taking part if they smoke or vape. Planned changes across Merseyside and Cheshire that aim to equalise eligibility for IVF treatment would see rules around tobacco use made stricter in Liverpool. Currently, only the female partner in heterosexual couples seeking IVF has to be smoke-free, but if the changes go ahead, men in Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, Sefton and St Helens will also need to quit. "This is because of the impact of treatment outcomes, and the increased risk of complications in pregnancy," a report put before health chiefs in Liverpool said. The rules on smoking already exist in other parts of the region, but a number of other changes under the plans will have an impact on couples in different boroughs. Currently, depending on where people live, they are eligible for between one and three rounds of IVF. But women aged between 40 and 42 across all boroughs are only allowed one round. If the changes are made, only one NHS-funded round will be available for anyone up to the age of 42. There would also be other significant changes in specific parts of the region relating to couples who already have children, and men who are overweight. Couples registered with GPs in parts of Cheshire East and Cheshire West are currently not exempt from IVF if either partner has living children, but this will change to fall in line with other parts of the region. And in Wirral, men will no longer have to have a maximum body mass index (BMI) if they are to be allowed to take part. The current rules in the borough are that both men and women should have a BMI of between 19 and 29.9 to begin treatment. But this will change so that men will only be "advised" to lose weight… to improve their chances of conceiving". "This would not necessarily be a barrier to the couple accessing NHS fertility treatment," a report on the consultation said. "The NHS faces significant financial challenges, necessitating careful balancing of population needs, clinical risk and commissioning decisions to address health inequalities," the report added. It said the aim of the changes was to "prioritise the most pressing needs of the population, [to recognise] the potential for increased demand in areas like mental health, urgent care and community services, whilst addressing unwarranted variation and the need for a consistent offer". About 734 first rounds of IVF treatment are given each year on Merseyside and in Cheshire. The consultation, which comes amid nationwide changes to IVF eligibility, is due to end on 15 July. Listen to the best of BBC Radio Merseyside on Sounds and follow BBC Merseyside on Facebook, X, and Instagram. You can also send story ideas via Whatsapp to 0808 100 2230. IVF births now represent one child in every classroom, data suggests 'Our IVF baby joy at hospital where it all started'
