Sarasota County announced today a new tobacco-free hiring policy. ...more

May 19, 2008

Carrie Nation Redux Regarding "A Reasonable Solution" (Letters, Feb. 19): In a letter to Mother Trib, one of the advocates of sin taxes suggested another tax be placed on cigarettes of $1 per pack. Regardless of those advocates against tobacco, people in our country are still free to make choices in their lives and live with the consequences of those decisions. ...more

February 25, 2008

SEBRING — About 400 middle and high school students met regularly to plan activities on spreading the word about the dangers of tobacco and smoking. That was five years ago before a funding cut in 2003 severely curtailed, or at some schools ended the Students Working Against Tobacco (S.W.A.T.) program. With a federal grant to fund it, the Highlands County Health Department proposes to reinstitute the program in the county's high schools. Active S.W.A.T. membership in the county has dropped 70.8 percent since the year 2000, according Donna Noel Stayton, Health Department tobacco prevention specialist. About 28.1 percent of the high school students in Highlands County reported using tobacco within the last 30 days of taking the 2006 Florida Youth Tobacco Survey . ...more

January 22, 2008

As Churchill Downs goes, so goes Louisville, according to a circuit judge who struck down a citywide smoking ban citing an exemption for the famed horse track. ...more

December 22, 2007