Nearly three-quarters of people believe smoking in households with children should be banned, a poll suggests. The survey, by Developing Patient Partnerships, found 72% of respondents, including 65% of smokers, were in favour of a ban. However, it also found many people were unaware of the full negative impact of smoking around children in the home. ...

With a wink and a smirk, D.C. Council member Carol Schwartz (R-At Large) introduced legislation yesterday to ban alcohol in the District. Schwartz, the leading opponent of a proposed smoking ban in District bars and restaurants, applied the same arguments made by anti-smoking activists to defend an alcohol ban. ...

GIVE D.C. COUNCIL member Carol Schwartz (R-At Large) an A for ingenuity in coming up with a novel way to tweak supporters of a proposed smoking ban in District bars and restaurants. Yesterday, Mrs. Schwartz, a vocal opponent of smoking bans who is also chairman of the Public Works and the Environment Committee, which oversees such legislation, introduced a bill to ban all alcohol in the District of Columbia. ...

Local tavern owner William Delaney, who has served up suds in Toledo for the past 20 years, yesterday became the first bar owner to be convicted for violating the city's law banning smoking in public places. ...

Fifty years after British researchers published the first study firmly linking cigarette smoking to lung cancer, the same scientist following the same group of subjects has reported the most detailed and long-term results ever of the health effects of smoking. His stark conclusion: A life of cigarette smoking will be, on average, 10 years shorter than a life without it. ...

Federal antitrust enforcers yesterday cleared the proposed $3 billion merger of two of the nation's three largest tobacco companies. The Federal Trade Commission voted 4 to 0 to close its investigation of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings Inc.'s proposed acquisition of Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., the U.S. unit of British American Tobacco PLC. Reynolds is the nation's second-largest cigarette firm; Brown & Williamson, the third-largest. ...

American trade officials have intervened on behalf of U.S. tobacco companies to stop South Korea from imposing new requirements on foreign firms seeking to sell and manufacture cigarettes in that country. The U.S. interventions appear to mark a shift in the federal government's position on whether to help the tobacco industry expand in foreign markets. The Clinton administration typically declined to intercede for tobacco companies in similar matters because of concerns about the public health consequences of smoking, former officials said. ...

The son of a woman who died of lung cancer is planning to sue the cigarette maker that gave her free samples when she was a girl, contending the giveaways were aimed at black children. The lawsuit against Lorillard Tobacco Co., maker of Newport cigarettes, is thought by legal experts to be the first to accuse a tobacco company of targeting black children. It is to be filed Monday in Suffolk Superior Court, The Boston Globe reported in its Saturday editions. ...

A few weeks ago a multibillion-dollar buyout for U.S. tobacco farmers was a critical piece of a delicate legislative package that included giving the Food and Drug Administration reasonable regulatory authority over tobacco products and did not cost the public a dime. House Republicans have managed to transform this worthy public policy into an expensive corporate handout, paid for out of the public till and without any public health benefit. ...

British American Tobacco is continuing its two year fight against producing a document that is thought to describe the company's efforts to destroy incriminating records while pretending to preserve them. The so called Foyle memorandum was written in 1990 by Andrew Foyle, a partner in a British law firm representing the tobacco company. "The document was quoted in part in court in Australia but has never been made public," said Richard Daynard, a law professor and chairman of the Tobacco Products Liability Project at Northeastern University in Boston. ...