Good news everyone … teen smoking reported at lowest point ever

professor farnsworth

This is such good news, I’m actually having difficulty believing it at face value. (Too good to be true syndrome…).

According to a federal study (called the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics), the rate of teen smoking has dropped dramatically from 18 percent in the 1990s to 5 percent in 2012. That’s how many high school sophomores smoked a cigarette daily in the past 30 days.

Wow, 5 percent. That teen smoking rate was stubbornly stuck at 15 to 25 percent for 10 years, long after Joe Camel was forced into retirement … mostly because the tobacco industry was still finding subtle ways to market cigarettes to kids, and mostly because Hollywood stubbornly continued to show smoking in a “cool” light.

220px-DinosaurJrGreenMind

Numbers have also dropped for high school seniors and 8th graders.

“According to the report, 2 percent of 8th-graders, and 9 percent of high school seniors said they smoked daily in 2012. Compare that data to the survey’s peak smoking years in the mid-1990s, when those numbers were 10 percent for 8th graders, 18 percent for high school sophomores and 25 percent for high school seniors.”

This has really been my No. 1 priority personally over the last 10 years I’ve been into this issue … somehow finding a way to get fewer kids to start up smoking. Just telling them it’s bad for them doesn’t do it.

Not sure why those numbers are so dramatic, but I would give some credit to cigarette taxes and the cost of cigarettes going way up in the last 20 years. $6 for a pack in most places, compared to about $3 a pack 20 years ago. I also think less smoking in movies plays a role (no pun intended.).

The other good news, and a bit more scientific (this first study was based on surveys among kids, which has its merits), is that fewer kids are being exposed to secondhand smoke.

LA Times:

The percentage of nonsmoking kids ages 4 to 11 whose blood had a detectable level of cotinine, a breakdown product of nicotine, fell from 53% to 42% from 2007-08 to 2009-10.”

That’s the result of fewer people smoking overall and more smoking bans.

Keanu Reeves does not approve of you smoking!

From the new movie “Generation Um”

Hah, I actually saw something like this about 10 years ago, in which a drunk chick threw a massive temper tantrum for being told a bar was a non-smoking establishment and she stomped out of the bar, after vandalising her table.

Reeves was also in “Constantine,” a few years back, probably the most blatantly anti-tobacco movie I’ve ever seen.

 

Oops, “Smokers’ glitch” means smokers won’t pay more for “Obamacare” coverage — for the moment

smoking coverage photoHah, OK, this is actually kind of funny. An example of government bureaucracy at its best.

Under the Affordable Care Act, smokers were looking at paying up to 50 percent more than non-smokers through government insurance plans sold to small companies or individuals.

BUT, the ACA also allows insurers to charge three times more to older workers than what they charge to younger workers. That limit is set in stone — 3X more than the lowest premium is the most an insurer can charge. So, the problem is for an older person who smokes, the formula should be 4.5X more than the minimum premium amount … but that conflicts with the 3X maximum.

So, in short, the Obama administration had to scrap the whole smokers’ surcharge for the time being until they can figure out a new formula to fix this. What I’m buffudled by is … no one thought of this or noticed it until now….? Really? They didn’t think of it when they wrote the bill to begin with?

So, possibly for another year, smokers getting insurance through ACA programs won’t see higher premiums than non-smokers, but in the long run, they will.

Smoking ban relaxed in Casper

casper

Here’s something you don’t see very often. A town actually remove or relax a smoking ban.

Late last month, Casper, Wyo., removed its smoking ban on bars because some bar owners complained to the city that the ban was hurting their business (the ban is still in place in restaurants.).

Smokefree advocates are now collecting signatures for a voter referendum to restore the smoking ban. Not sure how such a referendum would do in such a Libertarian/conservative state like Wyoming, but it would be interesting to see.

Wyoming has no statewide smoking ban and likely will NEVER have a statewide smoking ban as it is one of the most anti-regulation, conservative states in the nation. I know Cheyenne and Laramie have smoking bans, and Jackson, Wyo., attempted to implement a smoking ban, but that ban was tossed by a Wyoming court because the wrong agency implemented it (a county health board). Casper is the second-biggest city in Wyoming next to Cheyenne.

Interesting, bar owners claimed the ban hurt their business, but according to this Casper article from April, there didn’t seem to be any effect in the bars. I’ve always thought some bar owners exaggerate some these claims, but of course, without looking at their books, who knows? At the very least, with the ban in place for only two or three months, business owners and more importantly, the city council, did not give the ban a legitimate chance.

I’ve seen this happen before. It only takes a handful of “squeaky wheels” to get a small town government council to respond (I’ve seen three or four loud parents talk school boards into sneaking intelligent design into their curricula, etc.). Again, I’m not that dogmatic about bar smoking bans, but I hate to see a small town council NOT give their new regulations a chance to succeed, and I hate to see a small town council cave to a small  and likely loud group of complainers.

Interestingly, they held a referendum to get rid of a smoking ban in Springfield, Mo., and Missouri is a pretty conservative, anti-regulatory state … the referendum failed with the pro-ban side getting 64 percent of the vote.

I wish the petitioners luck and I’ll be keeping an eye on if it succeeds.

Sexy e-cigarette advertising

blu-cig-e-cigarette-ad (2)

I noticed this beginning a couple of months ago — a sexy new ad campaign for an e-cigarette called Blu.

I first saw an ad on TV and was shocked to see a cigarette ad on TV, then realized it was for an e-cigarette. However, it was using the same techniques used in old cigarette ads — hip, young, sexy people using their product looking cool.

The TV ad features B-movie actor Stephen Dorff (remember him as the evil vampire in “Blade?”) talking about how e-cigs have freed him from being a “human ashtray” and allows him to “enjoy smoking without infecting the people around me.”

“C’mon, rise from the ashes,” Dorff concludes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZishwAt_RM

You’ve probably seen Dorff in a bunch of magazine ads. Sports Illustrated and many other magazines have them every week. Cool, sexy-looking, using retro B&W photography (with the Blu e-cig standing out in blue). This Business Insider article is pretty critical of the whole campaign for employing ancient cigarette advertising techniques.

Here’ is Joe Rogan’s really funny take on the Dorff commercial, mashing it up with a really bad Brad Pitt Chanel No. 5 ad to create the “douchiest ad ever.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmIwTLLDj1I

The Blu commercials are very careful not to tout their product as an aid to quitting smoking. They’re more about how to avoid smoking. E-cigs don’t have a good reputation for helping people quit. Every single person I’ve ever talked to who has used them has told me they were no help at all. (If you don’t know much about e-cigs, they’re not cigarettes at all, they give the user a little jolt of nicotine-laced steam to curb their nicotine cravings. Relatively harmless and totally harmless to people nearby.)

What I noticed is that Blu and other e-cig companies are using techniques mastered by cigarette companies — make their product appear sexy by using young, smart-looking sexy people to promote the product.

Check it out. 1970s-era cigarette ad:

o-CIGARETTE-AD-facebook

Now, e-cig ads from a company called Ever Smoke

Smokers cost employers an average of $5,800 a year

US-businesses-pay-about-6000-extra-for-workers-who-smoke

Yoiks, I can only imagine the comments at the old Smokers’ Club (I haven’t a clue if that is even around anymore. It’s been years since I looked.) on this story!

According to an Ohio State University researcher — between absenteeism caused by added health problems and lost productivity due to smoking breaks, smokers cost companies on the average of $5,800 a year and possibly up to $10,000 a year.

Let me do some math on that smoking break thing. Say a smoker, not too heavy of a smoker, takes four smoking breaks during an eight-hour shift. Say each break takes 10 minutes. That’s 40 minutes a day in lost productivity. That’s 200 minutes a week. That’s 10,000 minutes a year.

10,000 minutes = 160 hours a year. Say a smoker makes a relatively modest wage, $15 an hour, that comes up to $2,400 a year in lost productivity in of itself.

Here’s the OSU numbers. Pretty close to what I did in my head:

The OSU researchers’ calculations show low productivity due to excess absenteeism costs employers, on average, $517 a year per smoking employee and working while sick cost $462. Smoking breaks tack on $3,077 and excess healthcare another $2,056.

There is a LOT of data showing smokers increase everyone’s insurance premiums, which is why many employers now add a premiums surcharge for smokers and some companies won’t hire smokers, period. So, I think that $5,800 a year number, while it sounds surprising, is totally plausible.

The study was published in Tobacco Control.

Starbucks bans smoking within 25 feet of doors

This is an interesting story that a lot of people are misinterpreting.

Starbucks announced this week that they are banning smoking within 25 feet of their entrance ways. This sparked a lot of heated debate online about how they can’t ban smoking on sidewalks and streets, etc.

Well, not so fast. Basically, all Starbucks is doing is banning smoking within its own outdoor seating areas, regardless of what state laws are. Some states already ban smoking within 25 feet of a business, other have no rules about outdoor smoking. Starbucks is saying, “we don’t care. You’re on our property no smoking.” They can’t actually ban smoking on a sidewalk or street.

This could still cause some headaches for them. I’ve seen restaurants get into knockdown drag-outs trying to convince patrons they can’t smoke on an outside deck. And I’ve seen a brewpub that is fighting with a bar next door because all the bar’s customers go outside to smoke right in front of the brewpub.

New York to restrict candy-flavoured cigars?

Candy-flavoured cigarettes have long been banned, but candy-flavoured cigars are still legal.

The American Cancer Society is pushing to limit the sales of candy-flavoured tobacco products — cigars, chewing tobacco and loose tobacco leaf for water pipes — mostly because it’s well-known that these sweetened products are marketed not-so-subtly to teens. These sugary tobacco products are also suspiciously cheap (as in trying to be the gateway tobacco for kids.).

Honestly, I didn’t realize they made candy-flavoured chewing tobacco. I knew about Swisher Sweet cigars.

The state couldn’t ban candy-flavoured cigars, but they could ban them from convenience and grocery stores and mandate that they could only be sold in tobacco shops.

candy cigarettes

I have no idea if this will go anywhere, but if it does, New York would be the first state to restrict the sales of these products. New York is one the leading states in fighting tobacco. The state’s tobacco taxes are among the highest in the nation and New York City has the toughest anti-smoking laws in the country (partly because Mayor Michael Bloomberg is a health nut and anti-smoking zealot; I’m not sure I’m 100 % comfortable with all his proposals and tactics — such as trying to ban large sodas.)

Russia “doomed” by smoking ban

Haven’t posted in a while. Have three interesting updates.

The first is a smoking ban in all places — Russia — one of the heaviest smoking countries in the world.  It’s not a particularly strict smoking ban — no smoking in hospitals, on public transit or in schools (nothing about restaurants or bars).

Not very strict, but a big deal in a country where a whopping 55 percent of men smoke daily (compared to about 25 percent in most Western countries).

Bans were also put in place by Russia on advertising and marketing of cigarettes. It affects this Soviet-era cartoon of a smoking wolf named Wolf the Hooligan, which can only be shown at night now because the main character chain smokes.

(Is this music from Speed Racer?)

With the ban, Russia joins most of Europe in having some sort of smoking bans (I believe some Balkan and Eastern Europe countries still have no bans).

As you know, I’m not that dogmatic about smoking bans, but I accept them as part of the changing world. I feel more strongly about the ban on marketing and advertising.

A great article from MSNBC on the latest country to have a smoking ban. Some people are happy, some are mad.

Haruko’s 2013 baseball extravaganza … for Steve Lardy

Ichiro Suzuki, overrated or one-dimensional?

ichiro_suzuki--300x300We have a friend who is a huge Mariners’ fan who hated Ichiro Suzuki as a player. He kept telling us Ichiro was overrated and he was part of the reason the Mariners sucked offensively. His gripe was that for a guy with speed, Ichiro didn’t use his speed and was a very passive baserunner for a guy who stole 30+ bases a year, who often didn’t take an extra base when he maybe could’ve nor did he come home on shallow flies when he likely could have scored. And that Ichiro didn’t do a lot of the little things to help the Mariners win, like move guys over or hit sac flies, etc.

I decided to take a look at Ichiro’s stats, and I found out, he does put up some very weird (and even freakish in some ways) numbers. I don’t think I would use the word “overrated,” but “one dimensional.” Ichiro is a very good example of how batting average is a very overrated statistic. Ichiro started in MLB at the age of 27, but he will easily get to 3,000 hits. He has also won numerous Gold Gloves, steals a lot of bases, is the best Japanese-born player in the history of baseball and will easily and deservedly make the Hall of Fame on his first ballot, but he is also a very good example of how batting average isn’t the most important statistic. Ichiro is the anti-Moneyball.

Plainly put, Ichiro is a lifetime .322 hitter, but he doesn’t do nearly as much damage offensively, especially for a leadoff hitter (though he doesn’t bat leadoff anymore, but did bat leadoff for the bulk of his career), as you would think — for two reasons. 1) He doesn’t hit extra base hits and 2) he doesn’t walk. For a .322 hitter, his on-base percentage is an above-average but unspectacular .365.

For an example of how “meh” .365 is … that is ranked No. 348 all time in MLB history. Ichiro’s career on-base percentage is lower than guys like Steve Kemp, Mickey Tettleton, Phil Bradley, Jeff Cirillo, John Jaha and Brian Downing. It’s even lower than Adam Dunn’s on-base percentage. Yeah, that Adam Dunn, the guy that bats .200 every year.

In Ichiro’s rookie season in 2001, he was second in the AL in runs scored, but since then, he has never finished higher than 6th and has not been in the top 10 in runs scored since 2008. This is a guy who averages 670 at-bats a year and 215 hits a year hitting leadoff … never higher than 6th in in the AL in runs scored since 2001. That pedestrian on-base percentage is part of the reason. His preponderance of singles is the other.

The other odd thing is, Ichiro does have power. He averages just under 9 home runs a year, which is decent for a leadoff hitter. But, he doesn’t hit doubles hardly at all, and he doesn’t hit a lot of triples for a guy with so much speed (about 6.5 triples a year). He simply seems content to slap the ball through the infield for easy singles. It means he has a really high batting average, but he isn’t doing that much harm to the other team.

Let’s compare Ichiro to other Hall of Fame leadoff hitters. I should stress that these are SINGLES hitters. Guys that didn’t hit a lot of home runs. But you can see that other than one guy, Ichiro’s numbers are not as good, when you add on-base percentage, slugging percentage and OPS (On base + slugging). Again, to reiterate, none of these players are home runs hitters and they batted leadoff for much of their careers.

.                            BA          OBP       SLG        HR (career)          OPS

Wade Boggs       .328       .415       .443       118                         .858

Tony Gwynn       .338       .388       .459       135                       .847

Rod Carew          .328       .393       .429       92                          .822

Pete Rose            .303       .375       .409       160                       .784

Ichiro                    .322       .365       .418       104                       .783

Lou Brock            .293       .343       .410       149                       .753

Wade Boggs is the best of this bunch. An incredible hitter who walked more than 87 times 9 times in his career. He also hit more than 40 doubles eight times (playing in Fenway helped). Tony Gwynn didn’t walk that much, but hit more than 760 extra-base hits. Pete Rose hit 40 or more doubles 7 times and walked 86 or more times 6 times (and his OPS numbers declined dramatically his last five years in baseball because he hung around until his mid 40s trying to catch Ty Cobb’s hit total — Rose only hit 6 home runs in his final 7 seasons, which really hurt his overall career OPS.). Lou Brock played in a deadball era in the 60s and early 70s and didn’t have an especially great batting average (.293), 29 points lower than Ichiro’s.

Ichiro has never hit 40 doubles, in fact, he’s never once even hit 35. He average 25.6 doubles a year and 41 extra base hits a year (Ichiro will assuredly get to 3,000 hits, but will barely crack 400 doubles — Craig Biggio has more than 600 doubles and Pete Rose more than 700). This is from a guy who averages an astonishing 670 at bats a year (and that is a freakish number), so that means Ichiro is hitting an extra base hit (double, triple or home run) about once every 16 ABs. Roughly … twice a week. Ichiro also averages 43 walks a year and has only walked more than 51 times once in his career. This is a leadoff guy, whose job it is to get on base.

Let’s look at Ichiro’s numbers now compared to some other good leadoff hitters, some of whom didn’t hit for average. Guys that walked and hit with some power (ie, did a lot of damage offensively).

.                                         AVG.      OBP       SLG        HR          OPS

Derek Jeter                        .313       .382       .448       255        .829

Rickey Henderson             .279       .401       .419       297        .820

Paul Moliter                       .306       .369       .448       234        .817

Craig Biggio                       .281       .363       .433       291        .796

Ichiro                                   .322       .365       .418       104        .783

Rickey Henderson wasn’t an especially great hitter (.279 career), but he walked an incredible amount (16 seasons 80 or more walks) and hit with power, and thus caused a lot more damage than Ichiro, as weird as he was as a player. Biggio for a .281 lifetime hitter scored an incredible number of runs (6 times 113 or more runs). Some of that was because of Jeff Bagwell hitting a ton or home runs behind him, but some of that was because Biggio hit more than 1,000 extra-base hits. By comparison, Ichiro has 492 extra-base hits.

Here’s Ichiro’s weaknesses illustrated. Look at these numbers. Difference between batting average and on-base percentage and percentage of hits that are singles. None of these players are even especially close to Ichiro.

.                                          Batting average/On-base percentage                      % of hits singles

Craig Biggio                                                     .82                                                               66.9%

Paul Moliter                                                     .63                                                              71.2%

R. Henderson                                                   .122                                                            71.4%

Lou Brock                                                         .50                                                              74.3%

Derek Jeter                                                      .69                                                              74.4%

Wade Boggs                                                    .87                                                                 74.9%

Pete Rose                                                         .72                                                                 75.3%

Tony Gwynn                                                     .50                                                               75.7%

Rod Carew                                                       .65                                                                  78.7%

Ichiro                                                                 .43                                                                81.1%

Wow, a whopping 81.1 percent of the time Ichiro gets a hit, it’s a single. None of these other players are even close. Only 18.9 percent of his hits are a double, triple or home run.

So, our friend had a point. Ichiro was likely part of the reason the Mariners were not a good offensive team the last few years. He fits a style of baseball that appeared prevalent in the 1880s, and probably fit Japan well, but in modern American baseball, he seems out of place. What I would call Ichiro is the greatest singles hitter in Major League Baseball since maybe Wee Willy Keeler. But, I would take Wade Boggs, Paul Molitor or even Craig Biggio as my leadoff hitter over Ichiro any day.

Last year, I missed a couple of guys who could get to 300 wins

tim_hudson  A few months ago, I wrote an article about four players who conceivably could get to 300 wins (after Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser said it was IMPOSSIBLE — IMPOSSIBLE — for any player today to get to 300 wins). The four I mentioned were CC Sabathia (191 wins, age 32), Justin Verlander (125 wins, age 29), Roy Halladay (199 wins, age 36) and Mark Beurhle (174 wins, age 34).

There were two guys I should have mentioned. I missed them because they both had way more wins than I realised.

The first is Tim Hudson. I can be forgiven for forgetting him, because he had a six-year stretch in which he only won 68 games. But, in the last three years, Hudson has won 49 games (16.3 wins a year) and sits at 197 wins at the age of 37, within range of 300. Hudson has won 16 or more games 8 times, so he is a workshorse. He would have to average about another 17 wins a year for the next six years (retiring at age 42) or he would have to average 14.8 wins for another seven years (retiring at age 43). He is a longshot to get to 300, but he is pitching for a good team in Atlanta and has been healthy for four years, so it is not impossible. In fact, I would say Hudson has a better chance than Halladay, who appears to be injured and breaking down.

felix-hernandez

The other pitcher I should have mentioned is Felix Hernandez. Hernandez is only 27 and has already won 99 games, which surprised me. He has only won more than 14 games in a season once (19 wins), but he is a workhorse and doesn’t have a lot of injuries and pitches a lot of innings.

I would say he has a legitimate shot, except Hernandez pitches for Seattle, which is one of the worst offensive teams in baseball.  In fact, over the last five years, Hernandez’ ERA is under 2.90 and he has only won 68 games (13.6 wins a year), pitching for a bad team, and in particular a bad offensive team. In fact, the year Hernandez won the Cy Young, he only went 13-12, with an ERA of 2.27.

Honestly, I do not think Hernandez can possibly get to 300 continuing to pitch for the Mariners. Like I said, he has won more than 14 games once in his career and he would have to average 16.8 wins a year for the next 12 years to get to 300. He will simply lose too many 2-1 and 3-2 games pitching for that team. I was shocked he signed a seven-year extension to stay with them because they’re not going to be any good offensively any time soon, I don’t care if they moved the fences in 15 feet. (The dimensions of the park isn’t why the Mariners hit .234 as a team last year.)

Will Jeter catch Pete Rose?

derek-jeter-picture-1When Jeter was one of the youngest players to 3,000 hits in 2011, a lot of people talked about him perhaps catching Pete Rose at 4,256. At the time, I thought it was impossible, but then Jeter had a great year last year, hitting 216 hits and putting him at 3,304 hits at the age of 38. I thought he had a valid chance of catching Rose.

However, Jeter badly broke his foot last October and will likely be out until May this year, perhaps even June. I think that puts a serious dent in him attempting to catch Rose, because who knows how well he will be able to play when he comes back?

Jeter needs about 950 hits to catch Pete Rose. To do that in five years (retiring at the age of 43), he’d have to average 190 hits a year. If he averaged about 155 games a year, he’d have to bat about .317 (190-for-600 average per year). I think that’s impossible, for a guy 41, 42 and 43 years old to average 600 at-bats a year and a .317 average. The 2013 season, I seriously doubt Jeter will reach 500 ABs.

To do it in 6 years (retiring at 44), Jeter would have to average just under 160 hits a year. If he averaged about 145 games a year, he’d have to bat about .286 (160-for-560 AB average per year). Again, that’d be pretty difficult. And this is all assuming that his ankle will be OK. I predict Jeter will reach 4,000 hits, but he will come up a couple of hundred hits short of Pete Rose.

To get to 4,000 hits, say Jeter plays another five years. He’d have to average about 140 hits a year, and perhaps a .280 average (averaging about 130 games a year and 500 AB  a year). Very, very doable, I believe, if he is healthy.

Here comes the Scruffy Sox

jonny gomes

I’ve been having fun making fun of the Scruffy Sox. Almost all of their players have beards and even though the Red Sox have a fairly big salary, their team seems to be full of scrappy underachievers. I’ve been told the beards and long hair thing is some tradition that goes back to Bill Lee.

No matter how well they do (and who knows, they’ve started 3-1, which is encouraging), they should be fun to watch this year at least, especially considering the miserable season they had in 2012 with bigmouth Bobby Valentine and having to dump bad attitude Josh Beckett. First of all, the Sox seem to have gotten rid of all their jerks. Lackey has a history of being a bit of a jerk, but maybe being a lousy pitcher for two years, then spending another year on the IR has humbled him.

jackie bradley jr.

I would like to see Jacoby Ellsbury stay with the Sox, but I suspect they will trade him. He and Sox haven’t liked each other for a while, ever since Jacoby broke his ribs in a collision with Adrian Beltre, then left the team to rehab. I’ll cheer for him no matter where he plays!

The Sox’s new guys are (and I love this name) Jackie Bradley Jr. It totally sounds like a made-up name. But, he was their best player in spring training and played himself right into the everyday line-up. Remember that name … Jackie Bradley Jr.