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Members of the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, lashed out at chief health inspector Gennady Onishchenko, who threatened to initiate house dissolution proceedings if it watered down the draft antismoking law.

The Russian Cabinet of Ministers approved a draft bill on Thursday that would ban smoking in public places, raise tobacco excise duties and ban tobacco advertising. Onishchenko said on Monday that if the Duma does not adopt the bill as drafted by the Health Ministry, he would, as a citizen, raise the issue of the Duma’s dissolution.

The ruling United Russia party responded by suggesting that Onishchenko be dismissed. “I believe that after such remarks Onishchenko should be fired immediately,” party member Andrei Makarov said, adding that he backs the bill. His position was echoed by Communist Party deputy Nikolai Kolomeitsev, who called Onishchenko’s comments inappropriate.

“If the head of a federal agency wants to go into politics he should leave government,” Kolomeitsev said, adding that under the Constitution, only the president can dissolve the Duma. Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin said he intended to meet with Onishchenko to explain the ABCs of the country’s public institutions to him.

“Evidently Gennady Grigoryevich [Onishchenko] has some gaps in his understanding of the fundamentals of the rule-of-law based state, of how its institutions are formed and function,” Naryshkin said. The bill envisages a gradual ban on smoking in public – from state buildings, educational and cultural sites, to sports stadiums and transport systems.

Smoking would also be prohibited in bars, cafes and other public spaces, including playgrounds and train stations. The draft bill would also ban cigarette sales in counters, the display of tobacco products, and images of smoking in any form of media for children, as well as raise tobacco duties and introduce a minimum price for cigarettes.

The Vision for Alternative Development (VALD) has called on the media to help propagate the dangers involved in the use of tobacco. Speaking at a media workshop in Accra, yesterday, the Executive Director for VALD, Mr Issah Ali, disclosed that one out of every ten adults, worldwide, died from the intake of tobacco.

The workshop was organised by VALD, in collaboration with the Corporate Accountability International, on the topic ‘The tobacco industry— threats to public health’. Mr Ali said death from tobacco use deprived families, bread winners and nations of a healthy workforce, not to mention the high public health cost of treating tobacco-caused diseases.

In a presentation on the World Health Organisation’s (WHO’s) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control(FCTC), Mr Ali said the objective of the FCTC was to protect present and future generations from the devastating health, social, environmental and economic consequences of tobacco consumption and exposure to tobacco smoke. According to Mr Ali, the FCTC obligated every country to develop, implement, periodically update and review comprehensive multi-sectoral national tobacco control strategies, plans and programmes.

He was of the view that government should increase the price and tax on tobacco importation into the country and that there should always be graphic health warnings attached to the packaging and labelling of tobacco products so as to reduce the high demand for tobacco. The Programmes Director for VALD, Mr Labram Musah Massawudu, noted that most of the activities of tobacco smokers posed a great threat not only to the smokers but also to those around them as they also inhaled the smoke.

“The challenges involved in preventing tobacco use will be minimised if we can eliminate activities of the tobacco industry through the passage of the tobacco control bill into law,” he indicated. Mr Masawudu noted that government had taken steps to implement the FCTC through the Ministry for Health’s Tobacco Control Directives of 2007 while the tobacco control bill had passed through the due process.

Mr Masawudu expressed the hope that the Public Health Bill would be finally passed into law to help make their work easier as well as help save more lives.

Earlier, DCO Noorul Amin Mengal told the court that all places other than private residences were public places, and smoking was prohibited at all public places. The chief justice, unsatisfied with the answer, directed the DCO to submit a detailed reply on the question at the next hearing on November 5. He also directed the DCO to consider whether an open space within the premises of a cafe or restaurant constituted an public place. The DCO also accused cafes of serving drugs to customers.

The petitioners have accused the city government of launching a selective crackdown on smoking in public by targeting sheesha cafes, while making no effort to stop other kinds of smoking at restaurants, government offices and transport terminals.

Shehzad Shaukat, the counsel for sheesha cafe owners, submitted that the government crackdown had badly hurt their businesses. He said that there was no evidence that sheesha smoking was harmful for health, nor was sheesha tobacco a prohibited substance.

He said there was no justification for taking action against the petitioners. He said that the cafes had designated smoking areas, some of them outdoors. He said if sheesha smoking was not allowed at cafes, smoking was not allowed at the court buildings and the office of the advocate general. Yet there had been no effort to penalise smokers there. “Why does this ban start at cafes?” he asked.

Shaukat asked the court to direct the government not to act against sheesha cafes. A lawyer for the provincial government said that sheesha smoking was harmful for health, especially for young people. He said that sheesha, apart from harming their health, was also harming the morals of young people. He said that smoking was banned at all public places including cafes and restaurants.

Sometimes no matter how slick, clever or expensive an advertisement, the tone just doesn't seem to click. That's how I feel about the ANZ ads featuring the actor from the TV show The Mentalist, Simon Baker.

I've never watched the show, so perhaps that's why I don't really get the concept of having a man make creepy and inappropriate approaches to women in cafes and parks. No doubt there's a lot of clever stuff going on that I'm just missing, but for me the overriding message seems to be: We have no personal boundaries and we like to jump to conclusions about you. I have a similar reaction to the ad about smoking in cars.

You know the one - a children's sports coach starts to give a friendly wave to a child's parent waiting in a car, only to change her look to one of stern disapproval when she sees the woman is smoking. The mother looks shamefully at her cigarette, as though she'd never considered smoking to be bad before, but will now think again. The tag line could well be: "Smoke in your car and sporty people will judge you."

Smoking in cars with children is the next target on the battle to stamp out smoking altogether, with a proposal to introduce a ban. Fair enough. Inhaling second-hand smoke is harmful, and a car is a nicely enclosed space where the smoke can be very easily breathed in by someone else - especially someone too young to object.

If there are parents who chose to ignore what the world knows about the effect of cigarette smoke, then yes, someone should step in. It's a no-brainer. What I get a queasy feeling about is the kind of social-engineering campaign that aims to alienate smokers. I'd rather we stuck to informing about the facts. As a non-smoker, I'll never know how hard it is to quit, so finger-wagging judgment seems unfair.

The University of Oregon is nearly two months into a complete tobacco ban on campus and with the transition, students are getting free access to resources to kick the habit. Since the tobacco ban took effect on September 1st, 2012, the University of Oregon it's contacted about 50 to 60 people who've taken advantage of the free tobacco cession help.

Through the campus health center, the University’s “Peer Health” program offers a six week supply, or three boxes, or six weeks worth of either tobacco replacement patches or gum. Students taking part also have to create a “quit plan” detailing the barriers in the way towards quitting. Students can also take place in free counseling sessions too. The big push now is to see how effective it is. The UO is trying to keep track of how many people in the program are able to quit.

So far, the program has been a positive help, according to student leaders. “Nicotine replacement therapy can run up to 50 dollars per box, and since we're providing the students with up to three boxes of nicotine replacement therapy, that's about 150 dollars they're saving by coming to us instead. So I'm just glad that we're able to provide that to them and help them in the transition,” says Josh Buehler, the student cessation program coordinator for the University of Oregon “Peer Health” Program.

The cessation program has enough money to keep running for at least the next year, possibly two years. All of the money to fund it comes from the UO student government, or ASUO, which gets most of its money from student fees.

As for enforcement of the "no tobacco" policy, the University has posted signs all over campus about it. Many are in different languages too, as many international students smoke. UO Police can write $30 citations. However, right now, they’re mostly just trying to inform people about the policy.