Tobacco And Cigarettes Information Online

Local smokers save money by rolling own cigarettes

2011-01-18T05:45:00.000-08:00

As people in Southwest Florida keep tight budgets, smokers are finding ways to keep buying cigarettes, but at half the cost. Last month, "Roll Your Own" in Lehigh Acres opened, and stores just like it are gaining a big following.
Just like it sounds, customers roll their own cigarettes with the help of a machine and because they're essentially the "manufacturers," they save big money.
The recession wasn't enough to make these smokers snuff their cigarettes. "I was just kind of in shock about the price because a carton of cigarettes is $50 easy," first-time customer Tracy Barroso said.
Rather than buying pre-manufactured cigarettes, people like Barroso are heading to local cigarette rolling stores, like "Roll Your Own." A carton there costs $24.99, compared to the regular price of $50.
"Oh I like it," Barroso said. "It saves me $25 bucks. Ten minutes worth of work and I'm done."

Of course companies like Philip Morris , producer of Marlboro cigarettes and Reynolds , producer of Camel cigarettes would not agree with this because their profit would be smaller.
It doesn't take long for it to go from tobacco to cigarettes. First, you fill a pitcher with the type of tobacco you want. Then, you go to a filling station and load the filters and tubes, dump the tobacco, and in a few minutes, you have finished cigarettes.
"The community loves it," Co-owner David Casman said. "They think it's a good concept, it saves them a lot of money, and every day it get busier."
Casman said they get around 50 customers a day, and that number is growing. "They're manufacturing in here and there's no shipping of the cigarettes, taxes are less because the people are making their own cigarettes," Casman said.
Every station does display a Surgeon General's warning on the dangers of smoking, and only those 18 and older are allowed inside.
"I think it's great, you get the help the community, you get to help people in the local area and it doesn't have any chemicals. even though you smoke, it's better for you," first-time customer Jordan Eagle said.
Each of those high-speed air compression machines cost about $30,000. It takes them less than 10 minutes to roll 200 cigarettes.

Montana First Nation asks Back for Seized Cigarette Consignment

2011-01-18T05:37:00.000-08:00

It was last week on the 7th of January, when the Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission (ALGC), along with the Hobbema RCMP seized 75,000 cartons of cigarettes from the Montana First Nation. It was stated by the two that the sale of cigarettes was not marked properly in Alberta and was in violation of the Tobacco Tax Act of Alberta.

According to the information available, seized products were valued around $3-million in tax revenue. The operation was carried out in Quonset, Montana First Nation.

However, in response to the seizure, Chady Moustarah, the legal representative of Carolyn Buffalo, the Chief of Montana First Nation said that the consignment was not illegal, as the place where the operation took place did not fall under the provincial government. Moustarah has said that the area was under the federal government and the products were going to be sold in reserves.

Moustarah further informed that the authorities stated, the holders of the cigarettes did not have an appropriate license and that they were not eligible to hold so many cigarettes and that is why they seized them. It was also informed that Montana First Nation did not have to abide by the provincial tax act.

Malaika Arora-Khan will not endorse paan masala anymore

2011-01-11T00:40:00.000-08:00

After successfully ensuring Sanjay Dutt stops endorsing tobacco products, the Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) in KEM Hospital has now converted another Bollywood celebrity.

It had sent Arbaaz Khan and his wife Malaika a letter, requesting her to stop endorsing Chaini Kaini, a paan masala product. “We had sent a letter to Malaika two days ago. If she did not respond in seven days, we had planned to conduct a silent protest outside her house. We are glad she called us within two days,” said Dr Ravikant Singh, president of Doctors for You.

He added, “Gutkha works on surrogate advertisements. When a person goes to buy paan masala, he gets gutkha packets instead. This has been happening for a long time and we are fighting to stop such surrogate advertisements. Children are the major victims of this.”

Arbaaz Khan also promised doctors that no one from the family would endorse any tobacco or paan masala product. The family will also join the medical fraternity in the ‘Tobacco Free School’ campaign.

Doctors for You had also written to the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport, asking it not to telecast advertisements for Chaini Kaini in its buses. Sanjay Potnis, BEST chairman, said,

“Since Chaini Kaini is not a tobacco product, we are not going to withdraw it from our buses. We don’t see any harm in promoting paan masala products.”

Two-Cent Chewing Tobacco Causing Oral Cancer Epidemic Among Indian Kids

2011-01-04T05:14:00.000-08:00

A cheap chewing tobacco product in India, popular among children and young people, has made India the world's leader in oral cancer - and the product's spread may pose a worldwide health risk.

Indian entrepreneurs transformed paan, a 400-year-old tobacco product rolled in betel leaves, into "gutka," a blend of tobacco, areca nut, and spicy fragrances sold for two cents on street corners across the country. Sales are expected to increase from $4.6 billion in 2004 to twice that amount in 2014.

Paan and gutka are both addictive because of tobacco and areca nut, which the World Health Organization (WHO) says is the fourth-most popular psychoactive ingredient in the world, after alcohol, caffeine, and tobacco. Other ingredients in gutka include additional known carcinogens such as chromium, nickel, arsenic, and tobacco-related nitrosamines, the WHO reported in 2008.

The same year, nearly 70,000 cases of mouth cancer were reported in India; in comparison, 23,000 cases of mouth cancers were reported in the United States.

We all know that ral cancer can be caused by smoking cigarettes for many years. Many people smoke cigarette brands like Camel cigarettes or Davidoff cigarettes , but they should know when to stop.

Gutka is frequently sold near schools. "I have seen many children who started chewing gutka when they were 8 or 10 years old and got cancer in their teens," said Pankaj Chaturvedi, a surgeon at Tata Memorial Hospital, the largest cancer treatment center in Asia.

Gutka powder smells spicy and has a gravel-like consistency. As a result, it abrades the lining of the mouth, which speeds up the effects of nicotine and cancerous chemicals, said Dhirendra Sinha in New Dehli, who works for the WHO as a technical officer for tobacco control.

Areca nut causes muscles in the mouth to thicken and become less flexible, leading to oral submucous fibrosis, a pre-cancerous condition that India's Ministry for Health and Family Affairs and the WHO reported in 2004 had become an "epidemic mainly among the youth." According to Bloomberg News, "[p]atients who previously could grab a sizable chunk of an apple in a single bite are able to open their mouth to just about the size of a grape."

Experts are concerned that gutka and its effects may become more than a regional health threat. Researchers at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver wrote in a commentary published last year that, "The practice of areca nut chewing and the presence of oral precancerous lesions are spreading from South Asia to the Western countries, with the potential of becoming a major public health issue."

As smoking bans have spread, tobacco companies like Philip Morris International Inc., Altria Group Inc., and British American Tobacco Plc have turned to smokeless tobacco products and report rising sales worldwide.

Chewing tobacco maker agrees to $5M settlement

2010-12-28T06:00:00.000-08:00

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — The maker of Skoal and Copenhagen smokeless tobacco has agreed to pay $5 million to the family of a man who died of mouth cancer in what is believed to be the first wrongful-death settlement won from a chewing tobacco company.

A legal expert said the case could open the door for more lawsuits against makers of chewing tobacco, an industry that drew fewer legal battles during the 1990s than cigarette manufacturers.

U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Co. will pay the award to the family of Bobby Hill of Canton, N.C., who began chewing tobacco at 13. He died in 2003 at 42.

Attorney Antonio Ponvert III, who represented Hill's relatives, told The Associated Press about the agreement Tuesday. Regulatory documents confirmed the deal.

Steven Callahan, a spokesman for Altria, which acquired U.S. Smokeless Tobacco last year, said the company admitted no liability and does not make any health claims about its products.

Ponvert and Mark Gottlieb, director of the Tobacco Products Liability Project at Northeastern University in Boston, both said the Hill family settlement is the first case of its kind.

Gottlieb predicted more lawsuits targeting smokeless tobacco would follow, calling the settlement "a wake-up call" to plaintiffs' attorneys "that there are a lot of victims of smokeless tobacco use out there, and it's possible these cases can be successful."

Smokeless tobacco companies managed to fend off most previous lawsuits. In the past, lawyers focused more on cigarette makers because of stronger evidence to back up their claims, even though smokeless tobacco is harmful as well, Gottlieb said.

"So this is an unusual instance and runs counter to what had been the sort of the playbook for tobacco litigation," Gottlieb said. The settlement shows that "perhaps there is a new strategy afoot in terms of dealing with some of these types of cases."

But, Gottlieb added, Altria may have simply concluded it was cheaper to settle than risk a larger award at trial.

Callahan said the case involved unique circumstances because it was a settlement offer made before Altria acquired the company.

"And we have no intention of settling cases like this in the future," he said.

Ponvert said his case was bolstered by previously undisclosed letters from the 1980s that the company sent to minors thanking them for their business and offering free samples. The company even sent a can opener to one child to help open the chewing tobacco, he said.

"It was just this unbelievable trail of incredibly damning documents," Ponvert said.

The family's case also was stronger because Hill was a longtime user of chewing tobacco who did not drink or smoke cigarettes, factors tobacco companies point to as causing the cancer, Ponvert said.

Hill's wife, Kelly, filed the lawsuit in 2005 after her husband died of cancer of the tongue, Ponvert said.

Through her attorney, she declined to comment.

Hill had multiple surgeries to remove his tongue. Mouth cancer victims typically lose parts of their mouth, either through surgery or because the tissue wastes away.

"It's a really sad and a really gruesome way to die," Ponvert said.

For many years, smokeless tobacco has carried warning labels. Rules that took effect in June require larger labels listing the risks of chewing tobacco, including cancer, gum disease and tooth loss, and stating that smokeless tobacco is not a safe alternative to cigarettes.

The Altria spokesman said the company supported legislation enacted last year that allowed the FDA to regulate tobacco and required the larger warning labels.

U.S. Smokeless Tobacco was headquartered in Greenwich before being acquired by Altria, which is also the parent of Phillip Morris USA, the nation's largest cigarette maker.

Consumers choose price over branding in tobacco

2010-12-22T05:51:00.000-08:00

Andrew Lansley may want to rethink his support of putting cigarettes in plain packs after The Grocer's annual Top Products survey revealed that price - far more than bright shiny packaging - determines purchasing decisions.

The overall tobacco category grew by 3.8% in value for the year to 2 October, helped by increases in both duty and VAT, but within that there was staggering growth for some of the lower-priced brands, while the most recognisable such as Marlboro, Benson & Hedges and Regal all suffered significant losses.

Imperial Tobacco's budget John Player Special Blue variant experienced by far the strongest growth of any grocery product sold this year up a massive 173.1% to £209.4m.

Rival JTI also enjoyed massive success for its low price brand, Sterling, with King Size up 67.1% and Superkings up 37.9%.

In stark contrast, premium cigarette brands all lost sales Marlboro Gold was down 2.4%, Benson & Hedges Gold was down 4.3% and Regal was down 11.3%. Overall, 632 million fewer cigarettes were sold but this was more than made up for by a 19.5% increase in the sale of roll-your-own tobacco, which smashed through the £1bn barrier with total sales of £1.14bn.

The figures suggest that price is the key factor for smokers in the current economic climate and will cast further doubt over the need for government to introduce plain packaging.

"Making all tobacco products available in the same, easy-to-copy generic plain packaging would potentially lead to a significant increase in counterfeit product," said Imperial Tobacco head of marketing Steve Brock. "Governments need to ask themselves whether they want tobacco products to be sold by a responsible, legitimate business or by organised crime gangs who have no regard for any regulation."

Elsewhere in Top Products, pet food has also had an excellent year, with volume and value sales up 13.3% and 4.4% respectively on the back of consumers trading up to more premium products for their pets.

Now worth £1.6bn, the category owes much to new first-placed Whiskas pouch's strong performance. The Mars product's 12.6% value increase added £19m to sales, boosting them to £169.8m.

Another category that posted strong growth was sports and energy drinks, with sales up £112m to £827.6m, driven by impressive Lucozade performances. Just one brand in this category, Powerade, failed to record value growth.

Cheese also had a good year. Despite constant promotions, particularly on Cheddar, value sales rose £12.7m. Of the big brands, Cathedral City saw its sales rise 8% to £208.7m and Dairylea's were up 5.2% to £106m. Reduced fat brand Low Low, which launched in mainland UK last April, got off to a great start, with sales up by 847.2% to £10.3m.

Other standout brands included Danone Activia, which was up by £22.2m to £237.6m and knocked Müller Corner into second place in yoghurts and desserts. Meanwhile, Kingsmill stood out in a struggling bread category as the only bread brand in value growth, with sales up 7.3% to £358.4m.

Cigarette-Smuggling Gangs Sap Lithuania Budget, Spark Crackdown

2010-12-17T00:42:00.000-08:00

A man in a black wetsuit straps nine boxes to his body in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, wades into the Nemunas River and swims 200 yards to Lithuania and the European Union.

He drops his cargo as officers close in and 4,500 packs of cigarettes sink to the bottom of the river, according to photographs from the state Border Guard Service. The authorities aren’t always so successful, with the government estimating 110 million packs are smuggled into the country each year, costing it 500 million litai ($193 million) in lost taxes.

Lithuania declared war on smuggling to boost revenue in the 2011 budget under review tomorrow after the deficit swelled to 9.2 percent of economic output during the global recession. The so-called grey economy has grown to 30 percent of gross domestic product as people look for bargains and gangs flood the country with untaxed tobacco, alcohol and fuel from Russia and Belarus.

“Everyone must realize that by smoking illegal cigarettes you not only harm your health as it says on the pack but you also harm your parents and your children,” Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius said Nov. 9 in an interview with Ziniu Radijas. “You take away money from the school your children attend or you take away money from the pension your parents get.”

Baltic neighbors Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia experienced the world’s deepest recessions last year. All three border on Russia, while Latvia and Lithuania also share frontiers with Belarus, making them a gateway into the EU.

Prison Sentences

Lithuania plans to collect an additional 1.2 billion litai next year, or about 1 percent of GDP, by curbing illicit activity, according to the draft budget. The government has pledged to cut the deficit to the EU limit of 3 percent of GDP by 2012.

The government on Nov. 17 approved tougher penalties for smugglers, replacing fines with prison sentences of as much as eight years. Lithuania also plans to increase spending on customs enforcement by 15 percent next year, including 8 million litai to install X-ray scanners at border crossings.

The crackdown is fueling tensions. One smuggler was killed and two officers injured in a June shootout. Last month, a border patrolman found a rag doll hanged from a wooden cross stuck in his driveway less than two weeks after his sauna was set on fire, according to the Border Guard Service.

Targeting smuggling may be the easiest avenue left to rein in the deficit after the government implemented austerity measures equal to 14 percent of GDP in the past two years, said Vilija Tauraite, a Vilnius-based economist at SEB AB, the second-biggest bank in the Baltic countries.

“Fighting smuggling is a rather realistic and effective measure, given how widespread the illegal imports are,” Tauraite said. “The illegally imported fuel, tobacco products and alcohol are no secret to anyone living in Lithuania.”

Excise Taxes

The growth in smuggling led to faltering excise-tax income, the second-biggest source of state budget revenue after the value-added tax. Consumption of taxed cigarettes fell 53 percent from a year earlier in the first nine months of the year, according to the Finance Ministry, which missed its revenue target for the excise category by 8.3 percent in the period.

“Alcohol and tobacco consumption are falling,” said Violeta Klyviene, chief Baltic economist at Copenhagen-based Danske Bank A/S. “This doesn’t mean people resolved to healthier lifestyles, but rather shows booming smuggling.”

Tomas, from Klaipeda, Lithuania’s third-largest city, says he buys illegal cigarettes at half price, saving about 180 litai a month, “a very substantial sum” compared with his monthly income of 1,200 litai from self-employment.

“Nobody in my family buys cigarettes from a shop,” said Tomas, 26, who asked to be identified by his first name because buying smuggled goods is a crime. “I don’t remember the last time I filled up my tank at a gas station. You simply pre-order and get Russian products delivered in a day or two.”

‘No Easy Solution’

Forty-nine percent of the cigarettes smoked in Lithuania this year carried foreign-language, mostly Russian, warning labels, according to the Lithuanian Free Market Institute, a Vilnius-based researcher whose motto is “If you don’t create a free market, a black market will emerge.”

In every country the smokers smoke almost the same cigarette brand, starting from well known Winston cigarettes or Pall Mall cigarettes.

The grey economies of the three Baltic states are the biggest in the EU behind Romania and Bulgaria, according to Friedrich Schneider, a professor at Austria’s Johannes Kepler University of Linz, who studies illegal economies.

The shadow economy accounts for about 30 percent of GDP in Lithuania and Estonia and 27 percent in Latvia, Schneider estimates. The EU average is 20 percent.

The growing reliance on smuggled goods makes people more tolerant of the grey economy, raising concern the crackdown won’t work, said Jekaterina Rojaka, a Vilnius-based economist at DnB Nord Bank, the Baltic unit of DnB NOR ASA. About 64 percent of Lithuanians approve of buying smuggled goods, according to a survey of 1,009 people conducted July 28-Aug. 6 by local pollster Spinter Tyrimai.

“There’s no easy solution,” Rojaka said. “To succeed with the plan, the state will have to stitch up the borders and fight.”

Cigarette, bidi cos win a year’s reprieve on warnings

2010-12-17T00:39:00.000-08:00

Giving in to the demand of the tobacco industry, the government on Tuesday decided to retain the existing pictorial warnings on cigarette and bidi packages for one more year. The decision taken at a meeting of the Cabinet comes a week after tobacco majors like ITC and Godfrey Phillips India (GPI) stopped production due to uncertainty.

The Cabinet has decided to retain the current pictorial warnings for one more year, after which it will be reviewed in December 2011, sources said. The existing pictorial warnings —a scorpion on bidipacks and a cancer-affected lung on cigarette packs — were to be replaced by a canceraffected mouth, from December 1 after a notification by the ministry of health and family welfare in May this year. Such warnings are to be rotated every year.

Reacting to the government’s decision, Tobacco Institute of India director Udayan Lall said: “We will abide by the decision the government has taken.”

Godfrey Phillips India (GPI) vicepresident marketing Neeta Kapur said the company will start production of cigarettes at its two units in India “within a couple of days” . An ITC spokesperson said, “We have heard this from the media and can comment only after seeing the notification.”

Tobacco companies, which were under an impression that the timeline for ‘mouth cancer’ warning would get pushed back, had made representations to the health ministry requesting for increasing the number of years for implementing particular pictograms from existing one year to two to three years at least. They reasoned out that existing cigarette stock lying with the retailers could not be withdrawn and re-manufactured and this may account to huge losses to them. There are many tobacco manufacturer which are worried for the tobacco industry for example, there is R.J. Reynolds , the producer of Camel cigarettes or Philip Morris , producer of Marlboro cigarettes.

The manufacturers requested that they be first allowed to sell the previous stock and that if the new warning must come into effect then its duration should be increased to two or three years so that companies do not need to print new packets every year.

Sauk County tops tobacco watchdog’s list

2010-12-02T04:06:00.000-08:00

A state program that surveyed 65 Wisconsin communities says Sauk County retailers were most likely to sell tobacco products to minors.
"I have been doing these investigations for five or six years and have never seen numbers this high," said Jeff Melby, assistant coordinator of the South Central Wisconsin Tobacco Free Coalition.
Melby performs compliance checks for Wisconsin Wins, a state Department of Health Services program that seeks to reduce youth access to tobacco and tobacco-related products. Underage volunteers working with the group walk into businesses and try to purchase tobacco products.
Wisconsin Wins reports that 10 of 32 Sauk County businesses surveyed - about 31 percent - illegally sold tobacco to the volunteers. That was the highest rate out of the 65 communities surveyed statewide during the same time period.
Melby released year-to-date figures Thursday showing that 27 of the 72 businesses he has surveyed throughout all of 2010 sold to minors.
"That's not good," Melby said.
He said some clerks are not aware of less common tobacco products, such as snus - a pouch that users slide under their lip - or dissolvable strips.
"I think they are not watching those sales as carefully," Melby said. "We actually had a situation where a volunteer was trying to purchase snus and one clerk in Sauk County was not even sure that qualified as a tobacco product."
A high rate of turnover at gas stations and convenience stores in the tourism-based Wisconsin Dells could play a role in Sauk County's high numbers of illegal sales, Melby said, adding that employees who are new on the job may not know state requirements when it comes to checking identification.
Melby said greater education and enforcement should help increase compliance with the law.
He also said he would like to see more law enforcement agencies join in the compliance checks and issue citations.
In Reedsburg this summer, Police Chief Tim Becker announced that five sellers who failed compliance checks would receive citations.
The Wisconsin Wins surveys are not scientific, but are intended as educational tools, said Beth Kaplan, spokeswoman for the state Department of Health Services.
She said the state also conducts scientific surveys as part of a federal program called Synar. States must have non-compliance rates of less than 20 percent to qualify for certain federal funding. Just over 7 percent of Wisconsin businesses surveyed in the Synar program in 2009 failed their compliance tests.

170 countries agree to control use of tobacco additives

2010-11-30T02:44:00.000-08:00

More than 170 countries unanimously agreed at a World Health Organization conference that ended Saturday to strengthen controls on the use of menthol and other types of additives in tobacco products.

It is the first time the signatories of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control have discussed regulations on tobacco additives, which critics say can make cigarettes more attractive to consumers, and as a result increase the damage to health.

The agreement to reinforce regulations to ban or limit their use is not legally binding. But Japan, which is the largest donor to the budget for the global tobacco treaty secretariat, is likely to face pressure to proactively take measures in line with the accord.

The treaty’s 172 signatories reached the agreement at the fourth session of the Conference of the Parties held Nov. 15 to 20 in Punta del Este, Uruguay.

According to sources close to the conference, subject to the regulations includes ink and pigments in the papers used to wrap tobacco and additives used to sweeten tobacco products.

The signatories also agreed to promote anti-smoking education and reinforce steps aimed at decreasing the demand for cigarettes.

Regulations on electronic cigarettes were also discussed but conference participants failed to reach a consensus. Some countries were opposed to including products that do not use tobacco leaves in the tobacco control.

The issue will be discussed again at the next Conference of the Parties to be held in South Korea in the latter half of 2012, the sources said.

The WHO estimates that some 5.4 million people die every year from the health damage from tobacco. If no measures are taken to curb smoking, the death toll could rise to more than 8 million in 2030, according to the public health arm of the United Nations.

Prison officer took $5K in bribes, gave tobacco to Rochester inmates

2010-11-24T05:07:00.000-08:00

A 53-year-old Minnesota woman has admitted that, while working as a federal correctional officer, she took thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for supplying inmates with tobacco.

Former officer Cheryl Wheeler pleaded guilty in federal court in Minneapolis last week to bribery of a public official. Wheeler, who worked at the Federal Medical Center in Rochester, admitted receiving about $5,000 from the families of two inmates from mid-2009 until February. She then provided tobacco for the two inmates.

Smoking products, whether they be cigarettes, cigars, pipes, lighters or smokeless tobacco, are banned in the Federal Medical Center. Visitors also cannot bring tobacco products to the center, which provides specialized medical and mental health services to male offenders.

Wheeler faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. Sentencing has yet to be scheduled.

Businesses fail tobacco compliance

2010-11-19T07:08:00.000-08:00

PLAINVILLE — Three business failed compliance checks Wednesday for sales of tobacco products to underage patrons.

The police department and staff members of the state’s Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services Tobacco Prevention and Enforcement Program conducted the checks, visiting 16 businesses in town.

An underage youth employed by the program entered each establishment trying to buy tobacco products.

Thirteen clerks asked for identification, three did not. It is illegal to sell tobacco products to those under age 18.The offending clerks were each fined $200. The Cigarette Dealer License Holder of those establishments will be referred to the state Department of Revenue Services for additional sanctions.

The businesses charged with selling tobacco products to minors are Petra Mini Mart (Valero), 67 East Main St., Paul’s Getty, 301 East St. and Plainville Citgo, 383 New Britain Ave.

Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids

2010-11-10T02:09:00.000-08:00

The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids is a leader in the fight to reduce tobacco use and its devastating consequences in the United States and around the world.
The Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids estimates that more Montanans die each year from smoking than from car accidents, alcohol, drugs, AIDS, suicide, and murders.

At current smoking levels, 18,000 Montana youth who are alive today will die prematurely from smoking-related diseases.

And without the last 10 years of tobacco use prevention in Montana, we would have at least 22,000 more adults who smoke and more than 23,000 of our kids would have grown up to be smokers.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has documented that comprehensive, evidence-based tobacco use prevention programs like the Montana Tobacco Use Prevention Program (MTUPP) help reduce tobacco use.

MTUPP’s community-based programs reach over 95% of Montanans and provide the foundation for reducing and preventing tobacco addiction in Montana.

Gallatin County's community-based program (Gallatin County Tobacco Use Preventon Program) provides extensive support for and implementation of the Montana Clean Indoor Air Act, the free Montana Tobacco Quit Line, reACT/SpeakOUT (our teen-led youth empowerment movement to educate teens about the industry’s tactics to addict youth), and extensive local media outreach.

China Kangtai Cactus Biotech Inc. (CKGT.OB) Poised To Commence Testing Equipment for the In-House Manufacturing of Cigarettes

2010-11-02T01:05:00.000-07:00

HARBIN, China, Nov 01, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- China Kangtai Cactus Biotech Inc. /quotes/comstock/11k!ckgt (CKGT 1.21, +0.01, +0.83%) , a vertically integrated grower, developer, manufacturer and marketer of a variety of cactus-based products in China, announced today that it is ready to commence the pre-production stage of testing the equipment for the in-house manufacturing of their own cigarettes starting November 2010.

Pursuant to a definitive asset purchase agreement signed on June 28, 2010, CKGT made an acquisition that includes certain real property and all improvements thereon, all equipment and fixtures used in connection with the Seller's operations, as well as, the established brands attached thereto located in Guangdong province and Macao for a price of RMB (Renminbi) 35 million (approximately USD $5.1 million).

While the pre-production stage commences in November of this year, full production is expected by March 2011. The estimated production of cigarettes manufactured in-house by CKGT is 55% of the total volume of cigarettes produced for CKGT (with the remaining 45% being outsourced). CKGT's revenue estimates from cigarettes for 2011 will account for 20% of the total revenue. Cactus cigarettes will be a key product of CKGT's full product line.

About China Kangtai Cactus Biotech, Inc.

China Kangtai Cactus Biotech, Inc. is a leading grower, developer, producer, and marketer of cactus-derived products, including nutraceuticals, nutritious food, health and energy drinks, beer, wine and liquor, extracts and powders, and animal feed. China Kangtai controls over 387 acres of plants and maintains an active R&D group that holds 18 product patents and is seeking another 12. China Kangtai's high-quality "green" products are sold throughout China via a distribution network that covers 12 of China's 23 provinces and two of China's four municipalities.

This news release contains forward-looking statements as defined by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements include statements concerning plans, objectives, goals, strategies, future events or performance, and underlying assumptions and other statements that are other than statements of historical facts. These statements are subject to uncertainties and risks including, but not limited to, product and service demand and acceptance, changes in technology, economic conditions, the impact of competition and pricing, government regulation, and other risks contained in reports filed by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission. All such forward-looking statements, whether written or oral, and whether made by or on behalf of the company, are expressly qualified by the cautionary statements and any other cautionary statements which may accompany the forward-looking statements. In addition, the company disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date here of.

Cigarette maker Lorillard third quarter net income rises on higher sales

2010-10-26T00:04:00.000-07:00

In this file photo made Dec. 8, 2009, Newport cigarettes, a Lorillard Inc. brand, are seen on display at Costco in Mountain View, Calif. Cigarette maker Lorillard says its net income rose more than 16 percent as it sold more cigarettes at higher prices. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, file)
RICHMOND, Va. - Cigarette maker Lorillard Inc. said Monday its net income rose more than 16 per cent as it sold more cigarettes at higher prices, beating Wall Street expectations and bucking the trend of declining cigarette volumes.

The maker of Newport, Maverick and True cigarettes reported net income of $274 million, or $1.81 per share, for the period ended Sept. 30. That's up from $235 million, or $1.44 per share, a year ago. Analysts expected $1.64 per share. Lorillard's earnings were helped by 14 cents per share because of a lower number of shares.

The nation's third-biggest tobacco company said revenue excluding excises taxes increased 12.6 per cent to $1.07 billion. Analysts expected sales of $1.01 billion.

Lorillard is "having an outstanding year and as always we will stay focused on growing our business profitably, while at the same time navigating the many external issues that face our industry," chief executive Murray Kessler, who took over in mid-September, said in a conference call with investors.

Lorillard's shares rose $1.29, or about 1.5 per cent, to $85.34 in early trading Monday.

Lorillard, based in Greensboro, N.C., said its cigarette volume grew 5.8 per cent to more than 10 billion cigarettes on gains of 2.9 per cent from its Newport menthol brand and increases of about 30 per cent for its lower-priced brands such as Maverick.

Last week, rivals Reynolds American Inc., producer of Camel cigarettes and Altria Group Inc., producer of Marlboro cigarettes both reported selling fewer cigarettes.

The weak economy and high unemployment have caused many smokers to trade down to cheaper brands during the recession in a bid to save money. Lorillard's Maverick discount brand and Reynolds American Inc.'s Pall Mall cigarettes have been among the beneficiaries.

Most tobacco companies have been raising prices to keep profits up as the recession and declining demand cut into cigarette sales. Tax increases, smoking bans, health concerns and social stigma also have made the cigarette business tougher.

The company's market share increased 1 point during the quarter to 12.9 per cent of the U.S. market. Newport's share of the menthol market grew 0.9 points to 35.9 per cent of the market.

Despite the Food and Drug Administration's ongoing study of the public health impact of menthol, the segment is stronger than regular cigarettes in a shrinking market. Lorillard's top competitors have ramped up efforts to grab some of those sales.

Lorillard, the oldest continuously operating U.S. tobacco company, spun off from Loews Corp. in 2008. It is the last of the country's top tobacco companies to report its third-quarter results.

Last week, Altria, owner of the nation's biggest cigarette maker — Philip Morris USA — said its net income rose 28 per cent to $1.13 billion, partly because its costs fell and it enjoyed a tax benefit but also because higher cigarette prices more than made up for selling fewer smokes. Its volumes declined 2.4 per cent.

Meanwhile, No. 2 Reynolds American said higher prices on cigarettes helped lift its third-quarter net income up five per cent to $362 million, even though it sold fewer smokes than a year earlier. The number of cigarettes the company sold fell 2.6 per cent.

Postal Service set to enforce tobacco ban

2010-06-28T06:01:00.000-07:00

The U. S. Postal Service will institute its ban on the mailing of almost all tobacco products June 29, the agency said in a set of rules that appear to leave Seneca Nation businesses with no loopholes for mailing their tax-free cigarettes.

“Nonmailable cigarettes and smokeless tobacco deposited in the mail are subject to seizure and forfeiture,” the rules say. “Senders of nonmailable cigarettes or smokeless tobacco are subject to criminal fines, imprisonment and civil penalties.”

Under the Prevent All Cigarette

“It’s going to cost us a lot of jobs and a lot of revenue, not only on the reservation but in the surrounding communities.” J. C. Seneca, Seneca tribal councillor

Trafficking Act, which Congress passed and President Obama signed earlier this year, the mailing of almost all tobacco products must be banned.

The rules spelled out by the Postal Service, based on that legislation and released last week, provide for only narrow exceptions.

Tobacco companies can ship products to each other “for business purposes,” or to state or federal agen-

cies “for regulatory purposes.”

Adults can infrequently send lightweight tobacco packages to each other, and intrastate shipments within Alaska and Hawaii are allowed.

Tobacco companies can send cigarettes to adults for consumer testing purposes, and federal agencies can ship tobacco products for public health purposes.

The Senecas, who have built big businesses on the sale of tax-free cigarettes through the U. S. mail, do not believe there is any wiggle room in the regulations that would allow them to continue mailing cigarettes.

“Certainly anybody in this business has to be very aware” of the regulations, said J. C. Seneca, a Seneca tribal councillor and co-chairman of the Seneca Nation’s Foreign Relations Committee. “You don’t want to be held to penalties or charges.”

Opponents of the Senecas’ tax-free cigarette sales are happy with the rules.

“The Postal Service is taking this seriously and trying to do what the law says,” said Eric Lindblom, director of policy research at the Campaign for Tobacco- Free Kids.

Lindblom said he was particularly encouraged that rules allow only a very narrow loophole allowing individuals to mail small quantities of tobacco to each other.

Under the rules, anyone receiving such a package will have to go to a post office to pick it up—meaning postal officials will be able to tell if that person is old enough to buy cigarettes.

In addition to banning the mailing of most tobacco products, the new law requires online cigarette sellers to:

• Pay all federal, state, local or tribal tobacco taxes and affix tax stamps before delivering any tobacco products to any customer.

• Register with the state where they are based and make periodic reports to state tax-collection officials.

• Check the age and ID of customers when they purchase tobacco and when the tobacco products are delivered.

Seneca said the Postal Service regulations are one of several steps that have to take place as the law is implemented. The Department of Justice and its Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also are involved.

Meanwhile, the Seneca Nation Council has authorized $250,000 in funding to the Seneca Free Trade Association to pursue legal action aimed at stopping the law from being implemented, Seneca said.

With any legal action in its formative stages, the Senecas are bracing for a radical change to an industry that has made some of its tribal entrepreneurs wealthy, while providing jobs to many others. The tribe at first said its tobacco entrepreneurs employed 1,000, but later, without explanation, boosted that figure to 3,000.

“It’s going to cost us a lot of jobs and a lot of revenue, not only on the reservation but in the surrounding communities,” Seneca said of the new law.

Crack down on stores selling tobacco to minors

2010-06-23T03:37:00.000-07:00

By Shirley Manzo

I lost my dear dad to lung cancer due to cigarettes. He became addicted at age 12. It breaks my heart to know that in 2010, there are stores in my city that are making cigarettes and other tobacco products readily available for youth.

Earlier this year our coalition, the Azusa Youth Against Smoking, targeted 48 tobacco retailers in Azusa to identify how many were willing to sell to minors without asking for proper identification. Guess what? Twenty retailers out of 48 were willing to sell smokes to minors. That's an alarming rate of 41.7 percent.

I don't think 5 percent, 10 percent or even 15 percent is an acceptable number, but almost half of our city's tobacco retailers are illegally selling tobacco products to our kids. This is shocking!

Our coalition has been encouraging the city to adopt a tough ordinance that would crack down on tobacco retailers selling to minors. In response, the City Council passed a toothless, unenforceable law that won't keep one child in Azusa from becoming addicted to cigarettes.

That ordinance includes fines for those retailers who willfully sell to minors, but it does not require enforcement or compliance checks. Without compliance checks retailers are free to continue selling to children.

Our coalition wants the city to require an annual permit that requires tobacco retailers to obtain a license to sell tobacco, and include an annual fee that would raise funds to pay for an enforcement officer.

Financial deterrents through fines and penalties, including the suspension and revocation of the license, are what make retailers pay attention and follow the law. Using this approach, as dozens of other cities in Los Angeles county already do, really works.

Apparently the city staff doesn't think keeping kids from buying cigarettes is important. One staffer said, "the PD doesn't have time." Another staffer said the city wants to "avoid imposing another fee" on business. These statements don't stand up under examination.

Azusa businesses have not come out in opposition to a strong ordinance, and the Azusa PD does have time if funds are available to pay the officers. A license fee could be that funding source.

Clearly, we believe something more should be done. And so do 500 petition signers.

Two hundred children become addicted to tobacco in our state every day, joining the nearly 4 million current smokers in California. How many more kids have to become addicted before our city leaders step up and do their job?

Shirley Manzo has lived in Azusa for 45 years and is the chair of Azusa Youth Against Smoking, a local coalition of residents, parents, volunteers, students and community organizations committed to protecting the youth of Azusa from the dangers of tobacco use.

New limits on mailing tobacco to take effect soon

2010-06-21T04:46:00.000-07:00

New restrictions on mailing tobacco products are about to take effect.
Under a law signed by President Barack Obama in March, limits will be placed on individuals mailing cigarettes, roll-your-own tobacco and smokeless tobacco.
The rules take effect June 29, the Postal Service announced on Thursday.
Mailing these products entirely within the states of Alaska and Hawaii will still be permitted and cigars will still be allowed in the mail.
In addition, the law will still allow mail shipments of tobacco products between businesses in the tobacco industry and mailings to individuals will be permitted for testing or public health purposes.
Individuals will be allowed to send small shipments of tobacco products occasionally, but only via Express Mail and the age of the recipient must be verified, meaning that — other than APO and FPO destinations — they will have to collect the shipment at a postal facility.

Walgreen Suit Over San Francisco Tobacco Ban Revived

2010-06-18T01:25:00.000-07:00

Walgreen Co., the largest U.S. drugstore chain, can proceed with a lawsuit challenging San Francisco’s first-in-the-nation law banning sales of tobacco products in some pharmacies, a California appeals court ruled.

The ordinance, passed in 2008 on the premise that drugstore cigarette sales convey tacit approval of smoking, barred tobacco sales at drugstores. The law doesn’t apply to grocery and warehouse stores, including Safeway Inc. and Costco Wholesale Corp., that also have pharmacies.

Today’s ruling reversed a San Francisco judge’s decision to dismiss Walgreen’s case. A state appeals court in San Francisco said there’s no rational basis to believe that the message conveyed to consumers by tobacco sales at Walgreen is any different than that from sales at supermarkets or big-box stores.

“We’ve always felt that in order for us to compete on a level playing field, any regulation like that should apply to all pharmacies and retailers with pharmacies equally,” Michael Polzin, a Walgreen spokesman, said in a phone interview.

Walgreen, which claims the city’s law is anticompetitive, can challenge whether the rule violates equal protection rights under the law, the appeals court said in today’s ruling.

San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera “will continue to defend efforts by city officials to protect public health,” Matt Dorsey, Herrera’s spokesman, said in an e-mail. “San Francisco has a legitimate and compelling policy rationale to restrict drugstores from selling cigarettes, which are by far our leading cause of preventable death.”

The law, the first such city ordinance in the country, went into effect in October 2008. Walgreen expected to lose about 9 percent of its non-pharmacy sales in San Francisco to competitors as a result of losing customers because of the rule, said Daniel Kolkey, a Walgreen’s attorney, said at the time.

Cigarette To Blame For Fatal Fire

2010-06-15T04:33:00.000-07:00

Smoking in bed was the cause of a fire that claimed the life of a Taunton woman early Monday morning, according to State Fire Marshal Stephen Coan and Taunton Fire Chief Ronald Nastri.The fire at 1205 Burt St. was discovered at about 4 a.m. when a resident came home from work. The victim, a woman, was found in the kitchen.

Officials said the fire started in a bedroom, and the said the battery had been removed from the smoke alarm in the home."While the number of fire deaths in Massachusetts has been steadily declining, smoking remains the leading cause of fire deaths here and across the nation.

Fire standard compliant cigarettes are helping to reduce fire deaths, but cannot prevent every smoking-ignited fire," Coan said."I urge each and every resident to test their smoke alarms today, and if you can’t recall the last time you changed the batteries, today might be a good time to do so," Nastri said.The victim's name has not been released.

Study Looks at Test Marketing of New Tobacco Products in Indianapolis

2010-06-03T03:00:00.000-07:00

A study of the promotion in the Indianapolis area of R.J. Reynolds' new dissolvable tobacco products found that they are being marketed to current smokers who continue to puff away, but may be looking for an alternative source of nicotine when they can’t light up.

Current smokers who also use dissolvable tobacco may be in effect “doubling up,” said Dr. Laura Romito¸ Clinical Associate Professor of Oral Biology in the IU School of Dentistry’s Department of Oral Biology. They appear to be smoking the same number of cigarettes they smoked in the past and using the new dissolvable products when they are in situations where they can’t smoke.

Given the health risks associated with tobacco, that raises concerns, Romito said.

Tobacco companies view Indianapolis as a good test market for new tobacco products, Romito noted, because of Indiana’s high rate of tobacco use and differing tobacco tastes among Hoosiers.

Dissolvable tobacco products aren’t just new products, they are – as their manufacturer, R.J. Reynolds Co. put it – an evolution in tobacco, Romito said. The dissolvable tobacco simply dissolves in the mouth so that tobacco users no longer have to contend with odor, smoke, spit, or litter.

The dissolvable products are branded as Camel Sticks, Camel Orbs and Camel Strips to denote their three different forms: a toothpick-like stick, a lozenge and an edible strip.
The candy-like appearance of Camel Orbs has led to concerns among health experts who are concerned the products may be attractive to youngsters and lead to early experimentation with tobacco or accidental poisoning among children.

In a field study conducted last January, five undergraduate IUPUI students surveyed how the products were being marketed and where they were being sold in Marion and surrounding counties. They audited a wide variety of advertising media and point-of-purchase displays.
Most of the Camel dissolvable products were being sold in gas stations and convenience stores, with smaller amounts sold in grocery stores, drug stores, tobacco shops and liquor stores.

The students also surveyed about 300 people, including 100 dental hygiene patients, 100 School of Dentistry dental hygiene students, and 100 business school students at IUPUI.
According to the results, few had heard of the new products or knew anything about them, while only three percent had tried them. Most of the respondents didn’t believe the products would be safer to use than cigarettes and only 17 percent thought they would help people quit smoking.
Advertising used to promote the products appeared relatively low-key and not particularly attractive to young people, Romito said.

“What we gleaned from the field study was that so far the new products are not well known to consumers, even when they are smokers,” she said, and sales of the products appeared slow.

Altria to pay $971 million in taxes, interest to IRS

2010-06-02T07:16:00.000-07:00

Reuters) - Altria Group Inc (MO.N) said it will pay $971 million in taxes and interests to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to settle a dispute over the company's tax returns for the years 2000 through 2003.

About $946 million of the payment is related to certain leveraged leasing transactions entered into by Altria's wholly owned unit, Philip Morris Capital Corp, in the 1996 through 2003 taxable years.

The maker of Marlboro cigarettes and Skoal smokeless tobacco will make the payment in the third quarter, it said in a regulatory filing.

The largest U.S. tobacco company said will not revise its 2010 earnings outlook as a result of these matters, it said.

Shares of the company closed at $20.12 in regular session on the New York Stock Exchange.

Ban underage smoking

2010-06-01T06:01:00.000-07:00

World No Tobacco Day is observed every year on May 31, but Pakistan has a long way to go to end the fight against smoking. Currently, 25 million people in Pakistan are smokers according to the Ministry of Health. In an interview to a local daily, the Director-General, Tobacco Control Cell Yusuf Khan stated that over 1,200 children under the age of 18 begin smoking every day in Pakistan.

Although a new ad campaign has been launched which discourages the sale of cigarettes to underage smokers, but whether or not this campaign makes an impact is yet to be seen. One such ad campaign was posted outside a paan khoka/cabin, but when I spoke to the paan wala, he obviously didn’t know much about it. When asked if he does sell cigarettes to underage smokers, he reponded by saying that he hasn’t come across such a case but he would certainly think about it in the future. It is a known fact that children can easily purchase tobacco products from anywhere without any repercussions.

The onus isn’t on the Pakistan Tobacco Company, it lies with the government. By just putting up stickers and posters asking people to not sell tobacco products to underage children is not the solution, the campaign has to be pursued aggressively, with large fines on anyone who does so otherwise.

Octroi collection from tobacco products is on the rise in city

2010-05-31T04:01:00.000-07:00

The percentage of octroi collection from tobacco products like cigarettes and Gutkha in the overall octroi collection of Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has shown a gradual rise over the last few years with a negligible decline in 2009-10.The average figure of octroi collection from tobacco products in last two years, which stands over whopping Rs 14 crore annually, implies towards the bulk arrival of tobacco products in the city limits in proportion to meet the the growing demand.

Octroi can be a key indicator for assessing the import of tobacco products in the city limits, which otherwise can be difficult to measure as tobacco companies found unwilling to share these kind of database.Cigarettes, cigars and piped tobacco received huge demand within city markets during last few years as octroi collection from these products formed the major chunk of total octroi.

The civic body, which had charged seven per cent octroi on these items for last couple of years, generated revenue worth Rs 13.47 crore and Rs 13.89 crore in 2008-09 and last fiscal respectively.Next to it was the Gutkha, scented tobacco and Pan Masala, rated by health experts as the most danger form of tobacco products.

The statistics, available with the PMC octroi department, show that the country have imported cigarettes and cigars also have considerable demand in the city.

Despite measures at government level and by NGOs to spread mass awareness about the ill effects of tobacco intake, the ‘silent killer’ seems to be difficult to get eradicated as a habit.

Frequently asked Questions About Smoking and Smoking Cessation Solutions

2010-05-26T06:41:00.000-07:00

Smoking cessation solutions can help you a great deal even if you have abused your body with years of heavy smoking. A lot of the damage caused by smoking can be undone by smoking cessation products that are available in the form of patches and pills. Some of the frequently asked questions about smoking and smoking cessation products have been answered in this article.

Q - Smoking cessation leads to weight gain. How can I stay slim after quitting smoking cigarettes ?
A - Excess weight is the least of your problems if you are a smoker. Smoking damages your health much more than excess weight does. You can lose weight by eating healthy, exercising more and changing your lifestyle. Do not use smoking to control your weight.

Q - Is it healthier to substitute ‘light’ cigarettes for regular ones?
A - ‘Light’ cigarettes are mot much better than the regular variety. The amount of tar, carbon monoxide and nicotine is about the same, regardless of the kind of cigarette you choose. Complete smoking cessation is the only healthy alternative to cigarettes.

Q - Will I ever achieve normal health after quitting smoking?
A - Yes, you will. You can reverse the damage done to your body by quitting smoking. The benefits of smoking cessation occur within 30 minutes after you have smoked your last cigarette and continue for years. After a few hours of quitting smoking your blood pressure returns to normal levels. Carbon monoxide levels in your body drop and the supply of oxygen in your bloodstream goes up. Within a couple of days of smoking cessation, your nerve endings begin the process of recovery. You regain your sense of taste and smell and your lung functioning returns to normal levels.

Q - What is the best smoking cessation method?
A - There’s no ‘one-size-fits-all’ when it comes to smoking cessation methods. A technique that may work for you may not work for somebody else and vice versa. Some people, for instance, are able to go cold turkey and never look back. But others may find it tough to stick to smoking cessation through sheer willpower alone. Most individuals find it easier to stop smoking with the help of smoking cessation pills, patches and other external aids. You may need to experiment a bit before identifying the best smoking cessation treatment for you.

Q - How can I get my teenage kid to quit?
A - Cigarettes and tobacco products are some of the most heavily advertised products today, and usually focus on attracting young people. Peer pressure too plays an important role in hooking teenagers to smoking. If your teen’s friends smoke, he or she is likely to do so too. Make sure you enlighten your kid to the health hazards of smoking but do not try and pressurize your youngster into quitting. Let them develop awareness about this dangerous habit so that they quit by themselves. Early anti-smoking awareness works better than trying to get them to quit after they are hooked.

Philip Morris Ordered to Pay $8 Million to Widow of Chain Smoker

2010-05-25T07:04:00.000-07:00

A U.S. jury has awarded the widow of a chain smoker $8 million in damages: That's $3 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages. Her lawsuit sought $130 million.

The victory may energize other lawsuits against tobacco companies that knowingly manipulated and sold products designed to addict customers even while it killed them. Interestingly, many of Big Tobacco's historical actions (corruption, deception, bribery, etc.) are now routinely practiced by Big Pharma, which also sells toxic chemicals that kill people.

Oz woman used car’s cigarette lighter to recharge her failing heart

2010-05-24T04:36:00.000-07:00

Melbourne, May 24 (ANI): An Australian woman, who underwent a heart transplant, is said to have used her car’s cigarette lighter to recharge her old failing heart as she drove along.Anne Britten, 43, a mother of two from Wee Waa, was born with her heart on the right side, a condition complicated by her other organs being out of place or facing about.

She had been on the transplant list for “three years, three months and six days” revealed her husband Robert, and she had survived the past two years on her failing old heart thanks to a mechanical enhancement - the Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD).When it required recharging, Britten would, while driving, calmly plug its lead into the car’s cigarette lighter.

In an Australia-first operation performed on Mother’s Day by the St Vincent’s Hospital cardiac transplant team led by Dr Paul Jansz, Britten received a donor heart that was fitted to her left side.

“I’m feeling good,” she said.

“It hasn’t really hit yet. It might when we eventually go home and walk down our main street and it takes two hours because everyone will be pulling me up talking to me.

“The boys have never known me not sick. They’re going to be in for rude shock,” she added about her two children Stephen, 16 and Blake, 14.

Hailing from Manilla - the same town as Fiona Coote, Australia’s youngest heart-transplant recipient - Britten said the prospect of leading a normal and lengthy life is a “bit like pressing the restart button”.“It’s a Mother’s Day present that’s going to be hard to top. Breakfast in bed is just not going to cut it,” Robert stated.

Dr Jansz said the operation was possible only due to the sustaining effect of the LVAD. Before receiving it, Britten was “down to 56kg and deteriorating rapidly”.Dr Jansz said NSW was the only state without government funding for lifesaving mechanical assist devices. (ANI)

Over 17M Filipinos are smokers, study shows

2010-05-21T05:05:00.000-07:00

MANILA, Philippines—About 17.3 million Filipinos aged 15 years old and above are tobacco smokers with at least 13.8 million smoking daily, the Philippine Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) showed.

The survey is the first study on the prevalence of smoking in the country, Health Secretary Esperanza Cabral said Thursday.

Of the 9,705 individuals from rural and urban areas aged 15 years and older (representing 61.3 million Filipinos) polled in 2009, 28.3 percent (representing 17.3 million Filipinos) were tobacco smokers. About 22.5 percent (or 13.8 million Filipinos) of the total number of smokers, smoked every day, the study showed.

This despite that 94 percent of the surveyed smokers said they were aware smoking causes serious illness such as lung cancer, heart attack and stroke.

The GATS is a standardized global survey for monitoring adult tobacco use and tracking key tobacco control indicators. The Philippine GATS is a project of the DoH with the National Statistics Office as its field implementing agency. Technical support was provided by the World Health Organization and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Of the daily smokers 18 to 34 years old, the average age they began to puff on a cigarette was 17.4, the study found.

Almost half of those surveyed, 48.8 percent, said they were exposed to cigarette smoke at home and 54 percent said that someone smokes at least monthly in their homes.

The survey found that 55.3 percent or 28 million Filipinos who used public transport were exposed to second hand smoking, followed by Filipinos who work indoors, 13.9 percent; and those who visited government buildings, 25.5 percent.

Despite the ban against advertisements of tobacco use and smoking, the survey found that about 75 percent of Filipinos notice more and find enticing cigarettes advertisements.

“With the results, we aim to have cigarette manufacturers to put graphic health warnings on half of the packaging of their products, enforce the ban on tobacco advertisements, and work for 100 percent smoke free environments—at homes, public places and indoors,” said Cabral.

“In Germany, Finland and the US, second hand smoke is classified as a Class A carcinogen grouped with asbestos and Radon that mere exposure to it means serious public hazard. Filipinos should be made aware of this, especially those who are smoking at home because not only are you encouraging future smokers, you expose your family to cancer,” said Doctor Susan Mercado, regional adviser of WHO Tobacco Free initiative.

Tobacco is an addiction that can be prevented if there is good implementation of laws coupled with a cessation intervention program to assist those who want to quit smoking, such as those installed in Singapore where only nine percent of the population smoke.

Doctor Soe Nyunt-U, WHO Representative in the Philippines, said that the Philippines, which is among the top 14 countries with high prevalence of tobacco use, must reduce by 10 percent the number of smokers in the country over the next five years.

To do this, he said there is a need for a clear legislation mandating manufacturers to put graphic health warnings on cigarette packs, instead of textual warnings that are less effective in making smokers quit or enforcing warning of the ill effects of tobacco among the young who wanted to try smoking.

He said that by September 2008, the Philippines, as a signatory of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), should have passed the law on picture-based warnings on tobacco products.

“We are against a very strong industry that will use all its resources to prevent legislative advance of this measures, such as the ratification of the FCTC. The manufacturers can comply with these because the products they export to to Thailand, for example, include picture-based health messages on the bad effects of smoking. But they would not do that because they know that it is an effective measure to reduce those who would attempt to smoke and make smokers quit as seen in other countries,” said Soe.

Doctor Maricar Limpin, executive director of non-profit Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Aliance Philippines (FCAP), said there should be strict enforcement of the ban on tobacco ads, which promote smoking among the youth.

“Those ads on sari-sari stores are supposedly banned by 2007. These glamorous ads is playing a big role in the continuous perception of smoking as something ‘in’ or ‘cool’ and lures the youth to try it,” said Limpin.

Limpin challenged the next president to institute measures to reduce the number of Filipino smokers and to pass relevant laws such as the imposition of a uniform taxation scheme on sin products that would discourage smokers from lighting cigarettes.

A side effect of smoking – a tasteless food

2010-05-20T04:14:00.001-07:00

According to the Health of Ukraine, "a new experiment designed to determine the effect of smoking on the human body, showed that the use of nicotine decreases the sensitivity of taste receptors located in the mouth in humans. A study conducted by the Greek experts, lies in the electrical stimulation of the taste threshold. It was attended by 62 people, among whom there were 28 smokers and 34 non-smoking party. If you use electricity in humans there is a metallic taste in the mouth. The degree of sensitivity was determined by the number of current, which needed a man to get a taste sensation.

The study showed that fans tobacco taste sensitivity was worse than non-smokers. At the next stage of the study of the endoscopic method were carried out measurements of taste receptors, so-called mushroom papillae. It turned out that the adherents of habit receptors have a flattened shape and reduced blood supply, which causes a weakening of taste sensitivity.

According to Pavlidis Pavlos, lead author of the study from the University of Thessalonica. Aristotle, the study showed that taste sensitivity in smokers and non-smokers is significantly different, but nicotine can adversely affect the taste buds.

As previously reported, 12.06.2009, the U.S. Senate adopted a bill establishing additional restrictions on the companies that produce tobacco products in the field of advertising their products and possible control of the oversight bodies. Legislators believe that such innovations would reduce the influence of tobacco advertising on youth, as well as savings of $ 100 billion a year on medical services that are available adherents of habit.

According to statistics, in the United States more than 45 million smokers. Each year, the disease caused by smoking, claiming the lives of 400 thousand people. In recent years the number of smokers in the United States is gradually decreasing due to improved awareness of the relationship of smoking and lung cancer.

Electronic Cigarettes Vaporize The Need For Tobacco

2010-05-20T03:55:00.000-07:00

Word has been spreading like wildfire about an innovative new product called the e cigarettes. If you haven't heard about this intriguing new way to both receive nicotine and simulate the very act of smoking itself, it's a fascinating cigarette alternative that isn't just hot air. We had the opportunity to discuss the so-called 'e-cig' with a New York based provider of the product, Electronic Cigarettes Inc. who offer everything you need to know about e cigarettes.

Their representatives explain: "Through the use of micro-atomizing technology the user enjoys a tar-free, tobacco-free, odorless nicotine vapor, which very closely mimics the experience and feel of smoking. It's non-imposing vapor can be used virtually anywhere, without a worry of residual odors or secondhand smoke. It's a simple device that poses no hurdles to operate; it really has opened a world of possibilities for smokers everywhere..."

User-friendly aspects, such as a highly-sensitive micro sensor contained within the unit that allows you to precisely control the size and intensity of each drag, make it a truly interesting experience. You also possess the ability to control the level of nicotine and flavors of your refill cartridges. You can even opt for a nicotine-free vapor; it's all up to you.

"Having been a smoker for the better part of twenty years, I have seen a lot of alternatives to smoking, but the electric cigarette is by far the only one that I have ever tried and chosen to stick with. It's such a pleasure to use because everything I wasn't fond of about smoking, is completely absent here. And my husband isn't complaining either!" -Margarette of PA, who has in the past year made the transition from cigarette to e-cig.

Nicotine vapor is only picking up speed at this point in a world of smokers, and electronic cigarettes Inc. is not unaware of this rapid trend:"We see the same reaction every time a person experiences an electronic cigarette for the first time.. a combination of awe and a feeling of "where has this been for the last decade?". Preference to the e-cig over smoking, even from veteran smokers, is the consistent result and we are dedicated to enabling people to be a part of this revolution that's taking place."

CONTROLLED PRESCRIPTION DRUGS VERSUS MEDICAL MARIJUANA

2010-05-10T04:08:00.000-07:00

The National debate concerning the legalization of marijuana and, especially, of medical marijuana, continues to rage not just within the general public, but also including special groups of people like mothers and Baby Boomers. Within the Facebook community the groups such as “Moms for Marijuana” and “Baby Boomers for Medical Marijuana” have as their primary goal educating people, challenging the preconceived ideas and battling ignorance with the only effective weapon against it – Knowledge.

I worked in addictions for almost 10 years, and my addiction medicine experience encompasses general drug-addiction clinics, methadone maintenance programs and “detox” and “rehab” departments of a general hospital. I am also certified by the American Society of Addiction Medicine since 2004. My addiction medicine education and experience unequivocally indicate that it is a gross scientific fallacy to classify marijuana in the same group with heroin and cocaine. It is also my opinion that marijuana is much safer than alcohol and most controlled prescription drugs. However, when such an “unorthodox” opinion is expressed, people have the right to know what exactly it is based on.

Let’s begin with the known fact that there has never been one single case of a fatality associated with marijuana use, and it has been used by humans for over 10,000 years for both medicinal and recreational purposes. How many substances do we know that fit this characterization? Not many, I assure you, especially when we look among substances used as medicine or even for recreational purposes. Even such over-the-counter remedies as Aspirin and Tylenol can produce severe organ damage and fatal outcomes when the “toxic” dose of these substances is ingested. But there are no known cases of fatal marijuana intoxication because amazingly, the cannabinoid receptors, as opposed to opiate receptors, for example, are quite scarce in close proximity to the vital centers in the brain stem, the centers responsible for breathing and circulation. With marijuana use sleep will supervene long before any dangerously “toxic” effects can take place.

Now let’s look at such dangerous consequences of alcohol, heroin and controlled prescription drugs as physical dependence and associated physical withdrawal syndrome. No one will venture to deny that alcohol, opiates, barbiturates and benzodiazepines produce severe physical dependence with (frequently life-long) methadone maintenance therapy that becomes necessary for opiate addicts and the well-known cycles of the “revolving doors” of “detoxes” and “rehabs” for benzodiazepine addicts. In fact, the benzodiazepine/methadone combination is so dangerous that some physicians (who are, thankfully, in the minority) seriously believe that such a combination is more dangerous than heroin itself, and will deny methadone maintenance to patients using those substances. As we know, benzodiazepine withdrawal is very similar to alcohol withdrawal, and it is characterized by hallucinations, severe anxiety, seizures and even death. Opiate withdrawal is generally not life-threatening, but it sure is brutal. It is easy to see why I so strenuously object to current DEA classification system, and urge my colleagues do the same. It makes no scientific sense at all to classify the substance like marijuana which has neither a documented physical withdrawal, nor any fatalities associated with its use as Schedule I (which totally ignores the remarkable medicinal properties of Cannabis Sativa, but this is another matter), while classifying Codeine as Schedule III and benzodiazepines as Schedule IV. What better ally could I wish for than the American Medical Association itself which now not only recognizes the medicinal properties of the Cannabis plant, but also urges the Government to change its classification from Schedule I drug, while the Canadian veterans already won the right to have this natural remedy paid for by their government!

Let’s look more closely at the main argument that the marijuana “opponents” offered (at least until very recently) as their “trump card” objection to the legalization of that substance. This objection is based upon the so-called “gateway drug” theory that basically states that, even if marijuana is not dangerous in itself, it serves as a “gateway drug” to the use of other, much more dangerous substances. This “theory” is by now discredited by the science of addiction medicine as invalid. Here are the reasons why. There is no “cause and effect” relationship between a substance use and a subsequent addiction to another substance. Most of us have tasted alcohol, consumed caffeinated beverages, eaten sweet foods or even smoked cigarettes, but we have not “progressed” to being cocaine or heroin addicts as a result. As Substance Abuse: A Comprehensive Textbook explains, most people who are addicted to anything became addicted not because they had used some “gateway” drug, but because they are somehow genetically prone to this or that particular addiction, such as alcoholism, for example. People don’t become alcoholics because they may have smoked a joint that “led” them to alcohol abuse, they are alcoholics because they have a genetic predisposition to become dependent on that particular substance. The opiate addicts whom I treated for many years began their addiction careers not because they were exposed to marijuana, but either as a result of a primary exposure to heroin, or as a result of opiates having been prescribed to them by medical professionals. Here we deal with yet another aspect of this story – the substance’s addiction liability, or the percentage of people who develop an addiction-spectrum disorder after an exposure to a particular substance. Marijuana has an addiction liability of 3%, compared with 10% for alcohol, 18% for cocaine, up to 21% for opiates, and between 50 and 75% for nicotine. This is why even our President has such trouble quitting cigarettes out of all the substances that he had “tried” while a young man. This constitutes yet another big reason why the classification of marijuana as the Schedule I substance is nothing short of ridiculous. It was recently discovered that the same brain centers become activated when a person is craving sugar and cocaine. Are we now to consider sugar as a “gateway drug” to cocaine? Well, this would follow if the so-called “gateway drug” theory were valid. But it is not valid. A colleague whom I befriended on Facebook brought up an interesting question; he pointed out that most patients in “detoxes” and “rehabs” smoke cigarettes, and this is very true. This alone would invalidate the “gateway drug” theory in my opinion.

I believe that we, as medical professionals, should not be puppets to the DEA and its outdated and scientifically faulty scheduling classifications. Without brave doctors, and nurses, and researchers who are not afraid to stand up and proclaim the scientific truths we would never have legalized medical marijuana in one single State. Let me point out something more: if marijuana had even a fraction of the dangers caused by alcohol, we would not be having this conversation at all. But we ARE having this conversation, and it is a necessary conversation, just as it was a necessary conversation during the days long passed, when the courageous thinkers of those days asserted, often sacrificing their own safety, that the EARTH IS NOT FLAT.

Smoking mums likely to have obese kids

2010-05-03T04:30:00.001-07:00

Children of women who smoked during pregnancy are more likely to be obese in their teenage years, a new study has found.

Researchers found that those who were exposed to cigarette smoke while in the womb had significantly higher quantities of fat than their non-exposed peers later in life.

These teenagers had a third more fat around their internal organs and 26 per cent more fat directly under the skin.

According Zdenka Pausova, one of the study's two principal investigators, the findings provide another reason for expectant mothers to give up smoking.

"We believe that maternal cigarette smoking during pregnancy plays an important role in the foetal programming of obesity," dailymail.co.uk quoted her as saying.

"Although we do not know the exact mechanisms, we know that nicotine in cigarette smoke, for example, sets into the baby's body and stays there in higher quantities and for longer than in the mother's. Animal studies suggest that nicotine given prenatally could influence certain parts of the brain, including those that control how much and what we eat and how well we burn calories," she added.

Need to inform women about risks of tobacco

2010-04-26T05:27:00.000-07:00

New Delhi, April 26 (IANS) With women comprising about 20 percent of the world’s more than one billion tobacco users, the health ministry Monday called for creating awareness among women about the risks of using tobacco.
“The tobacco industry is now focusing on women as it needs to recruit new users to replace the nearly half of current users who will die prematurely from tobacco-related diseases,” Ministry of Health and Family Welfare joint secretary Jagdish Kaur said.

Kaur said tobacco use is very high in India — 57 percent of men and 10.8 percent of women are tobacco users. Furthermore, 8.4 percent of pregnant women in India use tobacco and the percentage is increasing.

“Since the tobacco industry across the globe is targeting women consumers, it is important to create awareness among women about the risks like reduction in fertility, irregularity in menstrual cycle, early menopause, and various types of cancer,” said Sumita Gupta, president of the awareness wing of the Indian Cancer Society.

The Indian Cancer Society organised a skit competition ‘Gender and Tobacco’ Monday addressing the dangers related to smoking in women. A total of 17 schools from the capital participated.

Several States Attempt to Ban E-Cigarettes - Review Specialist Outraged

2010-04-19T04:40:00.000-07:00

News reports state that several States are attempting to ban the sales of electronic smoking devices, or "electronic cigarettes," as most people call them, and it has one e-cigarette review specialist outraged. Andy Gray, a long-time smoker who made the switch to electronic cigarettes, has been blogging about the topic of smokeless cigarettes for over six months, and in

the process has become a major voice in the e-cigarette movement. His blog and product reviews are read by thousands of people each day, and Gray has become a respected soundboard for people looking to make the switch to a greener alternative to traditional cigarettes.

"I'm absolutely outraged that most people don't seem to understand what this movement is all about. I have read many publications and quotes from people attempting to ban sales of electronic cigarette devices and one is just more uneducated than the other," stated Gray. Gray points out the following associated press release:

"ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) - Anti-smoking advocates are going after tobacco strips that dissolve in the mouth and battery-operated e-cigarettes that deliver puffs of nicotine vapor.

They rally Wednesday at the Capitol for a ban on the sale of the products to youth.

A bill from Democratic Sen. Scott Dibble of Minneapolis would prohibit retailers from selling the products to minors. They also couldn't display the products next to candy or gum, and "little cigars" would be classified as cigarettes and regulated more stringently."

"I don't know of one single electronic cigarette company on the planet that markets or sells their products to 'youth,'" continued Gray. "Never once in my studies, reviews, and interaction with the makers of these alternatives to traditional, harmful-to-the-environment cigarettes have I had an inkling that these companies were promoting their products to minors. I don't know what is going on in Minnesota, perhaps there was an isolated incident I don't know about, but as far as my research shows, not one company has crossed that line," added Gray.

Smoking is obviously harmful to the health of not only the individual who smokes, but also to others who are unfortunate enough to inhale second hand smoke. The odor from cigarettes also remains in people's clothing, and most people will agree it is an unpleasant smell. Electronic cigarettes are not marketed as a healthier alternative by most companies, as there still remains the component of nicotine in the process, which obviously is harmful. However, smoking an electronic version of a cigarette has many advantages.

* No smell or ash
* Several flavors and levels of nicotine
* No tar, no tobacco
* No lingering cloud of smoke
* A huge savings in comparison to traditional cigarettes - up to a 75% savings
* Safe to smoke almost anywhere
* No damage to the environment - traditional cigarettes create garbage

Many States are trying to ban the sale of electronic cigarettes, and of course, Big Tobacco is not happy giving up it's revenues. The Chicago Tribune recently reported that the State of Illinois is trying to ban the sale of electronic cigarettes, citing the lack of approval by the Food & Drug Administration.

"If there are things that are (FDA-)approved to help people curb the habit of smoking, I'm all for it," said sponsoring Sen. Terry Link, D-Waukegan. "Whatever the FDA approves, we will approve."

Lobbyists on both sides of this argument have been active in voicing their opinion in Illinois and other States facing the same issue.

"I'm not trying to create a controversy, nor am I trying to insinuate that electronic cigarettes are completely safe. I am all for the regulation and proper manufacturing of electronic cigarettes. Obviously, if that happens, this innovation will help the environment and go a long way to helping people live healthier lives. I just hope in the meantime everyone who is battling on both sides of this argument come to understand just exactly how these devices work, as well as weight the pro's and con's of their impact on society before making a fast judgment," concluded Gray.

Man fined $1.3M for tobacco

2010-04-15T02:56:00.001-07:00

A 23-year-old Moncton man who got caught in Salisbury with a truckload of more than two million illegal cigarettes has been ordered to pay fines totalling $1,330,600, at a rate of $200 per month.

Trevor Howie Dow appeared in Moncton Provincial Court yesterday in connection with the seizure of more than two million contraband tobacco cigarettes (10,800 cartons).

Dow was arrested on June 4, 2008, by Caledonia RCMP along with Commercial Vehicle Enforcement and Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

Court was told that his vehicle was stopped for a motor vehicle infraction in the Salisbury area.

During the search, RCMP found 10,800 cartons of illegal cigarettes.

He pleaded guilty yesterday to violating federal and provincial laws. He was ordered to pay a fine of $367,200 under the Federal Excise Act, $962,400 under the provincial Tobacco Tax Act and a $1,000 fine also under the Provincial Tobacco Tax Act.

Judge Jolene Richard said the fines are predetermined and agreed with counsel's recommendation that Dow be permitted to pay a minimum of $200 per month toward his fines.

Defence counsel Scott Fowler said that it would take many years to pay the fines at a rate of $200 per month.

A maximum of five years was mentioned but there was no definitive answer on how long he would have to keep up on his payments of $200 per month.

Judge Richard ordered Dow to reappear in one year's time with his income tax forms and other financial statements so his ability to pay the fines would be reassessed. The monthly payments are based on an individual's income and ability to pay.

Indian tax collection to occur later this year

2010-03-29T04:11:00.000-07:00

The state is taking steps toward collecting taxes later this year on cigarettes sold by Indian enterprises to non-Indians, a spokesman for Gov. David Paterson says.

Paterson said during his state budget address on Jan. 19 that he would move forward with an initiative to start collecting the taxes in about six months, after a public comment period.

That public comment period is now taking place, Paterson spokesman Morgan Hook said. After that, the state Department of Tax and Finance will review the comments, he said.

“And then we will enforce,” Hook said.

Paterson’s plan is to put regulations in place to enforce an existing law that calls for tobacco-product distributors to sell the products only if a tax is paid. Coupons would be provided to tribal leaders to allow Indians to purchase tax-free cigarettes.

On Dec. 15, 2008, Paterson stopped by Utica to sign that bill into law. A court injunction followed, and the state backed off the plan.

Hook said the state is appealing, while also attempting to start enforcing the law. When asked for a timeline for the enforcement, Hook said it should happen by the end of the year.

An aspect of the overall effort to collect the taxes had a day in court last week.

The state Court of Appeals heard arguments Thursday regarding Seneca and Cayuga counties’ attempts to enforce the state tax law, according to Madison County Attorney S. John Campanie.

Campanie said Madison and Oneida counties are missing out on millions of dollars per year due to the lack of enforcement on the law.

“The time for equivocating is over,” Campanie said in a news release. “The state can and must take action to immediately collect these revenues to the benefit of New Yorkers statewide.”

Oneida Nation spokesman Mark Emery said in an e-mailed statement that the Oneidas already collect their own taxes for government programs and services for the Oneidas. If the state attempts to collect the tax, it would just result in “more costly litigation,” he said.

“The Nation continues to believe that government-to-government discussions are the best way for Indian nations and states to solve the complex issues confronting them, like the collection of cigarette taxes from non-Indians shopping at Indian-owned stores,” Emery said.

Editorial: Govt’s Blind Eye to Smoking Hurts Indonesia's Youth

2010-03-15T04:03:00.000-07:00

Adam Aliyyi is only 15 years old. He is a high school student, but he is already hooked on a deadly drug. Like millions of other young men and women in Indonesia, Adam is a smoker and he has been since he was 11.

It is crime that the government allows the cigarette industry free reign to target young people like Adam through advertising and sponsoring concerts and events at schools. As Adam freely acknowledges, he lit up because he saw his idols at such events doing the same and because cigarettes were handed out free.

Indonesia has one of the most lax regulations in the world when it comes to promoting cigarettes. Tobacco companies have become masters at targeting the young because they are easily influenced, and once hooked, they become lifelong customers.

A survey by the National Commission for Child Protection (Komnas PA) in 2007 revealed that almost half of teenagers polled had taken up smoking because of advertising. The study also found that tobacco companies had sponsored 1,350 youth-oriented events from January to October in 2007.

Not only are cigarettes harmful to our health and a exert a huge social cost on the nation, they are the doorway to hard drugs. This has been proven beyond a shadow of doubt as once children are addicted to cigarettes, they often move to harder drugs.

If we, as a nation, do not take a hard-line stance against cigarettes, we risk losing an entire generation to drugs. The entire world has moved against smoking. In most developed countries, tobacco advertising has been totally banned and cigarettes made prohibitively expensive.

In Indonesia, however, a child can buy cigarettes by the stick for as little as Rp 5,000 (54 cents).

There can be no arguments against banning cigarette ads and stopping the spread of this corrosive vice. The government has argued for years that moving against tobacco companies could affect the livelihoods of millions of farmers, and tax revenues would fall. But it has been proven that tobacco farmers would rather plant other crops when given a chance, and every year, the country spends more than Rp 100 trillion on tobacco-related health problems, three times more than the income the government earns from tobacco revenues.

We fully understand the reasoning behind Muhammadiyah’s fatwa last week declaring smoking haram, or forbidden, given the health risks. The government can no longer push off the decision to ban tobacco advertising and making it difficult and expensive for young people to buy cigarettes.

We must look beyond the short-term losses in tax revenue and look at the long-term health and future of the nation. It is unacceptable that in this day and age, when the health and social risks of smoking have been fully proven, we continue to allow our young to expose themselves to his deadly killer.

Prisoner slips from Texas unit to get cigarettes

2010-03-09T03:54:00.000-08:00

A convicted burglar slipped out of his prison unit to buy cigarettes, then returned unnoticed a short time later, authorities said, leading to a contraband search and further criticism of Texas prison security.

"It might be funny if it weren't so absurd," said state Sen. John Whitmire of Houston, chairman of a committee that oversees the prison system. "People shopping at a Walmart shouldn't have to worry that the person standing next to them in line is supposed to be in a prison."

Policies regarding trusties and how they are supervised are being reviewed, prison system spokeswoman Michelle Lyons said.

Authorities at the Central Unit in Sugar Land used security video from a Walmart to confirm that Skyler Steddum, 19, was at the store. Steddum returned unnoticed to the fenceless trusty unit, the Austin American-Statesman reported Tuesday.

The Central Unit is now undergoing a search for contraband, including cigarettes, prison officials say. Its camp, outside the main prison yard, houses about 300 minimum-security convicts.

John Moriarty, inspector general for the Department of Criminal Justice, says Steddum slipped out on Feb. 23. Investigators did not learn of his quick trip, allegedly one of dozens made by Steddum in recent months, until Friday night when another inmate snitched on him.

"He bought smokeless tobacco and cigarettes. I don't know how much," Moriarity said.

Steddum is serving four years for home burglary and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle in Nueces County.

It was the latest security breach in Texas prisons since officials promised improved security in late 2008, after a death row convict used a smuggled cell phone to make threatening calls to Whitmire.

"The fact that Walmart has better security cameras than our prisons, well, this whole situation begs a whole lot of questions," the senator said.

Tobacco smuggler spared jail

2010-03-01T03:34:00.000-08:00

A SMUGGLER who crammed almost 1,000lbs of hand-rolling tobacco and 28,000 cigarettes into a people-carrier has been spared jail.

Officers from HM Revenue & Customs found the vehicle's roof-box filled with cigarettes and tobacco was hidden under blankets when Karl Hansen was stopped at Poole Ferry Port, Dorset.

The 47-year-old was given a six-months prison sentence, which was suspended for two years, when he appeared at Bournemouth Crown Court.

The tiler was stopped by customs officers on October 3 last year as he drove a Chrysler Grand Voyager into Dorset after arriving from Cherbourg, France.

Hansen, of Kennedy Gardens, Billingham, pleaded guilty to evading around £71,000 in excise duty.

He was also given a three-month curfew between the hours of 9pm and 7am. The judge also ordered that the vehicle be forfeited under a deprivation order and awarded £250 costs.

The Recorder, Mr Francis Abbott, warned Hansen he would be sent to prison if he did it again.

He said: "If the cigarettes had been allowed through, the Government would be short-changed and the money has to come out of everyone else's pockets."

Just like the real thing; expert techniques make it hard to spot the fake

2010-02-22T03:14:00.001-08:00

THE SMOKE SMUGGLERS: Cigarette counterfeiting is now so sophisticated that it is virtually impossible to tell the difference between a real packet and a fake version at a cursory glance.

Both packets bear the same colouring and livery, both carry the required health warnings in English and Irish, and both carry what looks like a genuine tax stamp from the Revenue Commissioners.

However, one packet sees more than €6.70 contributed to the exchequer when it is purchased, while the other gives nothing to the exchequer and puts handsome profits in the hands of criminal gangs and their network of dealers.

The experienced eye can detect small differences between regular packets of John Player Blue and the counterfeit packet I picked up for a little over half price in a Co Kildare market.

The paper used for the tax stamp is that bit thinner in the counterfeit version, and more poorly glued to the packet, than in the real thing. A watermark, in the shape of an Irish harp, is absent, but is hard to spot on the genuine tax stamp anyway.

The tax stamp bears three numbers, one indicating the manufacturer, another the batch and the third the packet. In my counterfeit packet of 200, however, the same number is used for all packets, when they should be sequentially numbered.

It used to be the case that smugglers focused only on international brands, but in the past two years the Irish market has been flooded with counterfeit versions of popular domestic brands, such as JPS. This change has shocked the home industry into action, and the Revenue has changed its tax stamp in an effort to outwit the smugglers.

But what about the taste of these counterfeit cigarettes, which probably originated in China? Most of the smokers I blind-tested the fake cigarettes on were unable to tell them from real ones, and some even expressed a preference for the cigarette that turned out to be black-market.

Second hand smoke adds to health risk

2010-02-15T04:57:00.000-08:00

Genoa: Smokers who inhale their own secondhand smoke add significantly to the health risks linked to cigarette smoking, say researchers. Until now it has been believed that such risks would be negligible in comparison to those incurred due to actual smoking.
Maria Teresa Piccardo worked with a team of researchers from the National cancer Research Institute, Genoa, Italy, to study the exposure of newsagents i the city to harmful cigarette smoke.
The experts found for someone who smokes 14 cigarettes a day, their own second hand smoke resulted in exposure the equivalent of smoking an extra 2.6 cigarettes.
Piccardo said, "Newsagents were chosen because they work alone in small newsstands, meaning that any tobacco smoke in the air they breathe is strictly correlated to the number of cigarettes smoked by that newsagent. We studied the contribution environmental tobacco smoke

Both active and passive smoking contributions should always be considered in studies about health of active smokers." the study has been published in BioMed Central’s open access journal Environmental Health .

Cigarette tax boosts budget, health

2010-02-12T06:32:00.000-08:00

Maryland's recently enacted $1-per-pack cigarette tax increase has been a budgetary and public health success for which Gov. Martin O'Malley and the General Assembly should be proud. In the year after it took effect on Jan. 1, 2008, the cigarette tax increase brought $144 million in additional funds into the state coffers, which have helped to fund Maryland's recent health care expansion. This expansion brought health care coverage to more than 52,000 Marylanders and brought Maryland from 44th to 16th in the nation in health care coverage for adults.
In addition, during the year after the cigarette tax took effect, there were 74 million fewer packs of cigarettes sold in Maryland, and partly as a result, Maryland now has the fourth-lowest smoking rate in the nation. Some have argued that more people just bought their cigarettes in neighboring states with lower cigarette taxes. Not so.
During 2008, total cigarette sales dropped by 103 million in Maryland, Delaware and the District of Columbia, all of which raised their cigarette taxes that year. At the same time, in the three neighboring states that did not raise their cigarette taxes, Virginia, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, cigarette sales went up by 37 million packs. Therefore, the vast majority of the net drop in cigarette sales in Maryland, Delaware and D.C. was from people smoking less, which saved thousands of lives and hundreds of millions of dollars from tobacco-caused illness and death.
Of course, there is some tobacco smuggling in Maryland, although we have no idea how much. What we do know is how much additional money the state has raised and how much the tax increase has reduced smoking. We are pleased that Comptroller Peter Franchot is doing all he can to stop this illegal activity. He could use more effective tools to reduce cigarette smuggling.
Fortunately, there are relatively simple, cost-effective measures Maryland could implement to prevent and reduce cigarette smuggling and other tobacco tax evasion. California, for example, instituted a new high-tech tax stamp for cigarettes and enjoyed a $100 million increase in its cigarette tax revenues (without any tax increase). But Maryland is still using hard-to-see and easy-to-counterfeit tax stamps based on technology from the 1950s. A high-tech tax stamp would shut the door on the tax-free sale of contraband cigarettes by Baltimore retailers by enabling enforcement officials and others to quickly and definitively identify any contraband cigarettes that are in transit or on retailer shelves.
Maryland could also increase statutory penalties for trafficking in contraband tobacco products; require better record keeping by wholesalers and retailers; set up hot lines for consumers, retailers and others to report illegal cigarette sales; better protect whistle-blowers from retaliation; and allow enforcement agencies to keep some of the penalties and fines they collect from contraband traffickers to support expanded enforcement efforts.
With a high-tech tax stamp and enhanced enforcement, Maryland would become a state that criminal smuggling organizations would avoid entirely. It would simply be easier and more lucrative for smuggling syndicates to sell their contraband cigarettes in states like New Jersey or New York that have even higher tax rates than Maryland and still use old-fashioned tax stamps that are easy to copy.
Plainly, Maryland's past tobacco tax increases have worked well to save lives and raise money to expand health care. It would be a shame if exaggerated fears about smuggling, such as those raised in a recent column by The Sun's Jay Hancock, stopped the state from again raising its cigarette tax. Such an increase would bring in desperately needed new revenue that could further expand health care coverage. It would also improve worker health and productivity, save lives, reduce government and business costs, and protect more of our kids from a lifetime of tobacco addiction.

Parenting Makes Healthy

2010-02-08T01:52:00.000-08:00

Parenting apart from being a hectic job is crowned with an ability of improving your health according to a new study. 198 adults wearing a portable- blood pressure monitoring machines were examined by researchers at Brigham Young University in Utah, USA for 24 hours. The experiments showed parents having children recorded a lower reading as compared to those having no children especially mothers..

Lead researcher Dr Julianne Holt-Lunstad said, “While caring for children may include hassles, deriving a sense of meaning and purpose from life’s stress has been shown to be associated with better health outcomes.”

Researchers from Yale University School of Medicine recently disclosed that frightening plans are not as effective a tool of making smokers quit smoking as positive messages about the benefits of giving up cigarettes. The effect of positive messages regarding smoking surprisingly has almost double intensity according to the reports.

UK study has revealed that there are very less chances (one in 285000) of one being able to meet his/her ideal partner. This study is related to a Math’s Tutors Peter Backus’ formulae “The Drake Equation”.

This mathematical equation was published in a thesis called “Why I Don’t Have a Girlfriend”. He ended up discovering that if he takes into consideration women of a suitable age bracket who are single in London, only 26 out of 30 million women in the UK could be girlfriend for him.

Coventry to ban cigarette machines

2010-02-04T04:43:00.000-08:00

CIGARETTE machines will be banned under ambitious plans to halve the number of smokers in the West Midlands by 2020.
One in five adults in the region smoke, down from nearly one third in 1998.
The government wants to slash that to one in ten within a decade.
This week health secretary Andy Burnham revealed the boldest package of smoking reforms to date.
They include:
*Paying more overseas officers to stop fake fags reaching the streets of Coventry and Warwickshire where they are sold to teenagers.

*Offering a wider range on the NHS to help smokers quit.Banning tobacco vending machines where many underage smokers buy their cigarettes.“We are looking forward to a smoke free future for the next generation.”
Mr Hooper said helping people to go smoke free would also give them more money to spend in the local economy. That would create more jobs across the region.
Coventry and other parts of the West Midlands, but not Warwickshire, are taking an extra step by launching tariffs. It means stop smoking services will be paid for every smoker they help quit.
Contractors, possibly including major supermarkets, are due to be named before the scheme launches in April and if it proves a success it could be rolled out nationwide.
Research shows seven out of every ten smokers want to stop and NHS chiefs want it to become as easy to get help as it is to buy cigarettes.
Smoking kills 80,000 and costs the NHS £2.7 billion each year.

Where there’s no smoke, Altria hopes there’s fire

2010-02-01T00:56:00.000-08:00

For years, Altria, home to Philip Morris and its popular Marlboro cigarette brand,
was a corporate pariah blamed for the deaths of millions of people and sued
for hundreds of billions of dollars by attorneys general in every state.
After eventually acknowledging, like others in its industry, that cigarette smoking was, indeed, addictive and caused disease, Altria went a step further. It broke from the Big Tobacco pack and began supporting legislation that would ultimately put the company under the regulatory thumb of the Food and Drug Administration.
Altria's motives for submitting to strict oversight have long been a mystery. Did the company and its executives, who were internally pursuing a strategy of "societal alignment," suddenly embrace a true partnership on public health? Or was this a case, as its longtime foes and competitors have argued, of Altria seeking to generate good P.R. or lock in its market dominance by cozying up to a regulator that could restrict rivals from marketing new products?
Another possible answer was highlighted this month, as the federal government began fine-tuning aspects of a law that President Barack Obama signed last summer that gives the government sweeping new powers to regulate the production and marketing of tobacco products. A series of letters that Altria submitted to the FDA as part of that process argues that the government should, effectively, sign off on the notion that smokeless tobacco products are less harmful than cigarettes -- and that Altria and other companies should be allowed to market them as such to consumers.

It is a pivotal and divisive claim. While public health doctors agree that the smokeless products are far less hazardous to individuals than cigarettes, they still have concerns because all tobacco products contain nicotine and carcinogens. They also contend that promoting smokeless products -- some in tiny packages in the shape of cigarette packs -- would attract new, perhaps younger customers and maintain the addiction for smokers who might otherwise quit. They note that Altria is adding flavorings to its smokeless products that have long been used in candy.
Furthermore, critics say, Altria's suggestion to the FDA that it be allowed to market its products as less risky is part of an effort to dodge indoor-smoking laws (which are credited with encouraging more smokers to quit) and to encourage smokers to use oral tobacco products as supplements. "If you look at how they're marketing smokeless now, they're marketing for dual use, and to protect the cigarette market, which is their big money maker," says Stanton A. Glantz, a professor of cardiology and a specialist in tobacco research at the University of California, San Francisco.
Under its gregarious chief executive, an occasional smoker named Michael E. Szymanczyk, Altria is treading carefully when it comes to talking about its business strategies or its relationship with the FDA. After its letters to the regulator made headlines this month, the company canceled interviews for this article with top executives at its headquarters in Richmond, Va.
An Altria spokesman says the executives declined to comment because "we don't want to be perceived as leading the discussion" on the regulatory front.
Brendan J. McCormick, another Altria spokesman, says the company supported the legislation enacted last summer because it believed that the FDA offered the best way to settle the debates about tobacco use and marketing, which have raged for decades. He says the company believes that FDA standards will create more predictability in the industry and a level playing field for competitors.
Volumes may be declining, but cigarettes remain Altria's biggest business by far, accounting for $14.4 billion in revenue in 2009. (Smokeless brought in $1.2 billion.) Cigarette profits are growing thanks to price increases and a customer base of people who haven't kicked the habit. About 70 percent of the nation's 46 million smokers say they want to quit, government surveys show, and about 40 percent try every year. But only 2.5 percent succeed, the surveys say. The government estimates that 400,000 Americans die of smoking-related diseases each year.
Critics and public health officials contend that in focusing the FDA's attention on smokeless products, a much smaller but growing industry, Altria and other tobacco companies are diverting regulators' attention from the source of the real public health problem: cigarettes.

CHP and firefighters warn cigarette litterbugs

2010-01-29T01:43:00.000-08:00

The California Highway Patrol, environmental, and fire prevention advocates have launched a newly upgraded Cigarette Litter Hotline, "Hold on to your Butt." This is a public education campaign focused on holding accountable smokers who toss their cigarette butts out of vehicles while navigating San Diego County’s highways.
This program will empower county residents to report smokers who illegally discard their cigarettes on the roadways. Utilizing a toll-free hotline, 1-877-211-2888 (BUTT), citizens will be able to record the date, time, and place of the littering, along with the license plate number of observed cigarette litterbugs.
Drawing from the information recorded by concerned motorists, the California Highway Patrol (CHP) Border Division will send warning letters, on CHP stationary, to tobacco litter offenders.
Worldwide, an estimated 4.5 trillion cigarette butts are tossed out daily and are the most littered item in the United States. Butts discarded on sidewalks and streets eventually end up in storm drains, which flow into the ocean. When the butts get wet from contact with a body of water, toxins gathered by the filter are released.
This threatens the quality of the water and many forms of aquatic life. In addition, littered cigarette butts are a fire risk and have caused significant wildfires in the past.

German Smokers Buying More Smuggled Cigarettes, Welt Reports

2010-01-27T03:09:00.000-08:00

German smokers are buying more smuggled cigarettes as domestic ones become too expensive, Welt reported, citing a survey by the HWWI research institute.
Twenty percent of all cigarettes were smuggled or privately imported from European Union countries, the newspaper said today. Most of the smuggled cigarettes come from Ukraine and Russia, according to Welt.
The German government is losing about 4 billion euros ($5.6 billion) a year, while the cigarette industry and retailers are losing 1.2 billion euros because of smuggling and private imports, Welt said. The average price of a pack of cigarettes in Germany is 4.25 euros, compared with less than 2 euros on the black market, according to the newspaper.

Shop owner decries downtown sign policy

2010-01-25T00:28:00.000-08:00

A longtime downtown Frederick business owner said the city's rules on signs are anti-business after he was forced to remove a banner advertising items he sells in his store.
Joe Cohen took down the sign outside his Classic Cigars and British Goodies store at 14 N. Market St.Removing the sign "doesn't help business, and they ignore the other signs when it pleases them," he said.
"I want the banner back up."
The yellow banner measuring 6 feet by 2 feet hung from the veranda outside the store advertising beer, cigarettes and wine.
Joe Adkins, the city's deputy director for planning, said the sign was a clear violation of Frederick 's Land Management Code.
Section 864 of the code outlaws temporary signs in the city's historic district.
Cohen tried to have his case heard by the Historic Preservation Commission, but because the sign violated the code, the commission would have no power to overrule it, Adkins said.
"We received complaints about it, inspectors went out and we did what we had to do," he said.
Adkins said the city acted on more than one complaint about the sign.
If the sign were to stay up, Cohen would probably be fined $25 per day.
On Friday, Cohen removed the sign that he said was vital to getting people into his store.
He moved his store farther south on Market Street last spring, but the new location has limited views of what he sells inside.
"It's clear that people from out of town need to know what you've got to sell," he said.
Cohen said he sent a presentation to City Hall showing examples of other temporary, banner signs in the historic district.
Adkins said many of his examples were real estate banners, which are exempt under the code.
Cohen said the only alternative to effectively advertise his business would require him to spend thousands of dollars to install a new veranda.
"I can't afford that," he said.

Cigarette litter hotline gets a makeover

2010-01-22T06:41:00.000-08:00

An anti-littering campaign that nearly flickered out two years ago has been revived with a makeover that allows for better tracking of motorists who toss cigarettes out of their cars.
The Cigarette Litter Hotline also has expanded from San Diego County to Orange, Riverside and Imperial counties.
“Once established, this really is a model that can be rolled out regionally, statewide and even in other states,” said Ken David, a spokesman for the local chapter of the nonprofit Surfrider Foundation, which operates the program with volunteers.
The group took over the hotline in July 2008 after county officials discontinued it, said local Surfrider chairman Manase Mansur.
Cigarette butts are regarded as the most-littered item in the world and are found on beaches by the hundreds of thousands nationwide. During rainstorms like those that battered the region this week, they are swept by storm drains to the ocean, where they harm sea life. They also can cause fires if they are tossed into dry brush.
Surfrider announced its upgrades yesterday. The improvements allow the California Highway Patrol to more easily send warning letters to people who have been anonymously reported to a toll-free number. The system relies on residents spotting “litterbutts” and calling in a license plate number along with the time and place of the incident.
The new electronic reporting program developed by Surfrider replaces the time-consuming process of tracking calls with paper records and handing them to the CHP, which then issued the warnings.
“We’ll be able to have more accurate information and send out more letters than we were able to before,” said CHP officer Mary Bailey in San Diego.
CHP doesn’t issue citations to people who are reported on the hotline, but officers do hand out tickets if they see people flicking butts from cars or trucks. Penalties can include a fine up to $1,000 and eight hours of community service picking up litter. Tossed cigarettes that cause fires may lead to felony charges.
“We need the eyes of the public to identify smokers that are endangering public safety by tossing lit cigarettes from vehicles,” said Chief Gary Dominguez of CHP’s Southern California division.
The hotline started in 2004 as a cooperative effort between county health officials, the local chapter of the American Lung Association and others. It averaged about 1,100 calls a month for at least three years, in part because concerned motorists programmed the old phone number into their cell phones to make reporting easier.
“People are very passionate about this,” said Debra Kelley, a top official at the lung association office in San Diego. “I think it’s the whole concept of careless, irresponsible smokers … who think the world is their ashtray. It’s just an affront.”
The hot line closed in mid-2008. Surfrider adopted the program and quickly opened up a new line.
“Once it became apparent that there were no more government funds, our Surfrider executive committee said this is just too important of an issue and too important of a tool to let it drop,” Mansur said.
He said the county had been spending about $50,000 a year on the program but he expects Surfrider can run it for about half that cost using volunteers and the new reporting system.
The number of calls dwindled to about 700 recently while Surfrider slowed its advertising and upgraded the system. Mansur expects calls will increase now that the program is back in the public eye, and he’s looking at installing a voice transcription system that will speed processing.
Kelley thanked Surfrider for taking over the program. “We were one of the parents of the baby and we gave it up for adoption,” she said. “It’s in a happy home now.”

Cops Warn Of Counterfeit Cigarette Coupons In Pa.

2010-01-21T03:05:00.001-08:00

Police in one northwestern Pennsylvania township say someone tried to pass a counterfeit cigarette coupon at a convenience store.
Vernon Township police say a 20-year-old man tried to use a phony coupon for $4 off a pack of Marlboro cigarettes at a Sheetz store near Meadville on Sunday.
Police say the coupons are made to appear as though they are from a company called Smartsource, which offers coupons online and in mailed circulars.
But police say the coupons are bogus and that the computerized bar codes on the coupons can not be read by cash registers.
Police haven't charged the man in Sunday's attempt, but are investigating leads that suggest the coupons were produced locally. Vernon Township is about 85 miles north of Pittsburgh.

Rise of the Part-Time Smoker

2010-01-18T01:07:00.000-08:00

It's tough to be a hard-core chain-smoker these days.

Half of the U.S. population lives in areas where smoking is banned in workplaces, bars and restaurants.

More than 70% of Americans don't allow smoking in their homes, including about half of current smokers.Taxes have pushed the cost of smoking ever higher ($10 per pack in New York City) and the social costs—in disgusted looks and lectures from friends and family members—have escalated too.

Such inconveniences are forcing a sea change in smoking habits and upending traditional approaches to smoking cessation. For one thing, there's a growing group of intermittent and secret smokers who seem to smoke as much for psychological and emotional reasons as nicotine addiction. In addition to breaking the physical addiction, smokers who want to quit today need to understand why, when and where they smoke, and challenge some of the thinking that goes along with it, cessation experts say.

" 'Sneaking one in' has become a smoker's pastime and avocation," says Timothy Stephens, a 40-year-old Manhattan lawyer who started smoking cigarettes in high school when he played a Jet in "West Side Story." Nowadays, with a wife and baby, he doesn't smoke at home. He takes five-minute smoking breaks outside his office building ("four minutes if it's cold") and he drives to work from the suburbs instead of using public transit so he can get more smoking in.

Even though the percentage of American adults who smoke has stalled at about 20% in recent years, smokers are smoking fewer cigarettes than they used to (an average of 13 per day, down from 21 in 1980). And a growing proportion of smokers—roughly 25%—don't smoke every day. One government study found that half of American smokers either don't smoke daily or smoke fewer than six cigarettes a day.

Researchers used to think light and intermittent smoking was a transitional phase for smokers on their way to quitting or ramping up to a more serious habit. But a few recent studies suggest that it's a new, stable pattern, particularly among young, college-educated smokers. An analysis of smoking patterns during the 1990s, published in the journal Nicotine & Tobacco Research last year, found that 18-to-29-year-olds were twice as likely as those aged 50 to 64 to be nondaily smokers. Many experts expect that pattern to continue. "Young people who have grown up with a smoke-free home, school and workplace environment may stabilize at a much lower dependence level than those without such restrictions," the researchers wrote.

Light smokers are still putting their health at risk, however. "People shouldn't fool themselves that just a couple of cigarettes won't kill you," says Thomas R. Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who helped bring smoking rates in New York City down to 15% from 21% when he was the city's health commissioner from 2002 until last year. "The bad news here is that really good studies show that just a very small number—three, for example—drastically increases the likelihood of heart attack and stroke."

Why keep smoking at all, then?

Some experts blame the addictive power of nicotine, even at low levels, that leaves some smokers struggling to kick the habit. But others note that some intermittent smokers can go for days without a fix, particularly if they are accustomed to smoking only in certain circumstances. And some may be using nicotine patches, gum or lozenges to help quell their cravings. A study of 6,500 smokers in the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia, published in the journal Addiction last year, found that one-third of those who used nicotine-replacement products were not using them to quit, but to abstain temporarily or cut down."While we haven't got the full picture, what's clear is that there are multiple types of smokers that we need to better understand," says Saul Shiffman, a professor of psychology and pharmaceutical science at the University of Pittsburgh. As part of his research, Dr. Shiffman is equipping 200 daily and 200 nondaily smokers with personal-digital assistants to record their cravings, triggers and motivations.

For most smokers, the desire to smoke is a complex mix of physical addiction, behavioral conditioning and psychological factors, says Daniel F. Seidman, director of Smoking Cessation Services at Columbia University Medical Center and author of a new book, "Smoke-Free in 30 Days." He notes that smoking just a few cigarettes a day can be even harder to give up than a heavier habit, since each one carries more reward. "I think it's a trap—you're never learning other ways to cope."

Here are some of the most common smoking triggers, and suggestions for counteracting them.

• Social Smoking: Lighting up a cigarette may be taboo in many social circles now. But in others, the negative image only adds to its allure. Smoking at parties, in bars that still permit it, on the golf course or in private gatherings can be a way for some people to belong—an image tobacco ads long cultivated.

Some work environments also are known for heavy smoking habits. "Smoking is a huge part of the food industry. When the diners leave, that's when the party starts for the workers," says Jack Taconni, who owns a gourmet store and catering business in Scarsdale, N.Y., and recalls joining in many after-hours smokes until he quit with the help of a smoking-cessation drug three years ago.

Tips: If smoking is a part of your social circle, try enlisting your friends to quit with you and get together in places where smoking is strictly prohibited. Be wary of alcohol, which often goes hand in hand with smoking and weakens inhibitions. If you need the look and feel of a cigarette to fit in, try using a nicotine oral inhaler (a prescription device that looks like a plastic cigarette and contains a replaceable plug of nicotine). But you may need to avoid heavy-smoking friends until you've broken the habit.

• Secret Smoking: Another group of smokers is desperately hiding their habit—from children, spouses, friends, parents and coworkers—because it's not part of the image they want to project. They often smoke alone, and feel the urge whenever they think they won't get caught.

"Smoking was a contradiction to everything else about me," says Karin, who was a closet smoker for years. "I worked out religiously, maintained a healthy diet, rarely drank alcohol, and worked in health-care public relations, of all things." But all the time and energy plotting her next cigarette created more stress than the cigarettes relieved, she says. And getting serious about her boyfriend, who didn't know she smoked, provided the final incentive to quit, she says.

Tips: Spend as much time as possible with the people you're hiding your habit from, and try to imagine how hard it would be explain a smoking-related illness to them.

• Stress Smoking: "If you ask people why they smoke, the most common answer you'll hear is to relieve stress," another notion promoted by tobacco ads for years, says Dr. Seidman. "But if you ask people how smoking really helps them cope with the challenges in their life, most of them can't tell you. It's just buying you a minute of distraction."

Tip: Recognize that the burst of focus and concentration smoking seems to give you may just be relief from nicotine withdrawal. Using a nicotine patch or gum can help alleviate the urge, says Dr. Seidman. In the meantime, you can work on devising some other means of focusing.

• Emotional Smoking: Some smokers smoke to stifle unpleasant emotions such as anger or frustration. But using cigarettes to manage anger backfires in the long run, Dr. Seidman says. "If you automatically walk around the block and smoke, you never face the issue and fix it," he says. Smokers who do this need to develop what he calls "emotional confidence" to "get comfortable in their own skin."

Tip: Assertiveness-training, which is part of many smoking-cessation programs, can be very helpful for emotion-driven smokers. So can making a conscious effort to stand and face whatever emotion is threatening to engulf you. "Let the feeling pass without smoking, and you'll find over time that you can cope with it better than you imagined," Dr. Seidman says in his book.

A substantial number of smokers have more serious emotional issues. A Harvard Medical School study in 2000 estimated that 44% of all U.S. cigarettes are smoked by people with a diagnosable mental illness, including depression, anxiety, alcoholism and schizophrenia.

Some depressed people think that smoking alleviates their symptoms. But Dr. Seidman argues that depression feeds on smoking instead, and exaggerates nicotine withdrawal symptoms.

Addressing the depression through psychotherapy, medication or both may substantially ease the urge to smoke. Some antidepressants do double duty—bupropion, for example, is marketed as Wellbutrin for depression and Zyban as a quit-smoking aid.

• Smoking Without Thinking: Some smokers have probably never asked themselves why they smoke—and might be surprised if they did. "I have absolutely no idea—I think it's a mental reward," says Phil Hodges, 46, an office worker in Washington, D.C., who has his first cigarette of the day with his morning coffee, then several more at work and another at the gym, often standing outside in his shorts and T-shirt. "I get laughed at," he says.

Tip: Just monitoring your habits and that thoughts that go with him can go a long way toward understanding breaking a behavioral addiction, Noting why and when you smoke is also a key part of the American Legacy Foundation's quit-smoking program at BecomeAnEx.org. The idea, says the group's president, Cheryl Healton, is to "help people stop and think at key moments, 'What the heck am I doing?' "

• Worried-About-Weight Smoking:.Many smokers keep smoking—or go back after they've quit—to suppress their appetite. Often they justify the health risks in the belief that being overweight is unhealthy too. And smoking takes a toll on appearance in other ways—including staining teeth, aging skin and leaching calcium from bones.

Tip: There's some evidence that quitters who use nicotine replacements gain only about half as much weight as those who don't. Substituting water for cigarettes or fattening food, and exercising more, can also help cut cravings and instill healthier habits

• Scared to Stop: One of the biggest reasons people don't quit smoking is the fear they won't be able to cope with life without cigarettes, Dr. Seidman says. But many who hold that view have never tried to stop. When circumstances force them to, they often find it isn't as difficult as they expected.

Nestor Herrera, who started smoking as a boy in his native Cuba in the 1950s, never thought he could break the habit until he was diagnosed with emphysema and was told he didn't have long to live.

Using a nicotine inhaler, and enrolling in Columbia's stop-smoking clinic, made it easier than he expected, he says, and he has stayed off cigarettes for three years. "People who know me very well don't believe that I did it," says Mr. Herrera, 63, who no longer needs his oxygen tank to breathe.

Tip: One technique Dr. Seidman recommends on the path to quitting is "smoking by the clock"—smoking your usual number of cigarettes each day, but according to a rigid schedule, to separate it from your usual smoking triggers. Demonstrating to yourself that you can resist those urges will reassure you that you can exert control over your habits.

There are plenty of other tips for quitting—including throwing out all your cigarettes, matches and ashtrays to make it as inconvenient as possible, and finding a buddy to share the experience.

But learning to live without cigarettes may be even harder than quitting itself. That's why the more you can understand your own behavior, and find other means for coping, the more successful you'll be in the long run.

Smokers hit with hefty fines for dropping cigarettes in Huddersfield

2010-01-15T04:12:00.000-08:00

SMOKERS have been fined hundreds of pounds fordropping cigarette butts in Huddersfield town centre.
Eight smokers received hefty fines at Huddersfield Magistrates Court after they failed to cough up the cash for fixed penalty notices they received last summer.
The smokers were caught throwing cigarette ends onto the ground in New Street, Cross Church Street, Queen Street and King Street by Kirklees Council civil enforcement officers.
If they had paid the fixed fine issued at the time it would have cost just £75.
But six of the eight were left counting the cost of their expensive habit with fines of more than £550.
The highest fine was given to Simon Morgan of Ashenhurst Road, Newsome, who was spotted dropping a cigarette on New Street.
Morgan was left with a £626 bill to the court after he failed to enter any plea or respond to the court summons.
He was fined £175 for the littering offence and ordered to pay £436 court costs plus the £15 victim surcharge.Eight others were fined between £290 and £603 depending on whether they pleaded guilty to the offence or not.
Magistrates rewarded people who pleaded guilty by reducing their fines to £75.
They were also not made to pay the full court costs.
The only person to appear in court, Thomas Warrilow, of Oxley Road, Sheepridge, received the lowest fine of £290.
The other six are; Laura Folan of Broadlands Road, Meltham: Michael Shanks, of Sycamore Avenue, Golcar: Calvin Davies of Oxford House on Swan Lane, Lockwood: Harun Drake of Birch Road, Birkby: Jangeer Hussain of Tithefields, Fenay Bridge: and Shona Astin of Broadlands Road, Meltham.
The highest fine for dropping a fag end in Huddersfield so far went to Lee Hallas in March last year.
Hallas, of Briarlyn Road, Birchencliffe was slapped with a £1,015 court bill for throwing a cigarette butt out of his car window in Milnsbridge.
If he had paid the fine issued at the time it would have cost him just £60.

CES: Even the E-Cigarettes Go Green

2010-01-11T00:24:00.000-08:00

he idea of environmentally friendly technology is a common theme at CES, but Krave takes it to a new level with its so-called electronic cigarettes.Promising a “greener environment for both you and the non-smoking community,” Krave’s e-cigarettes are tobacco-free and instead contain a battery-powered nicotine cartridge in the white part of the cigarette. When a smoker inhales, a sensor inside the cigarette is activated, and the cartridge releases water vapor that looks like smoke but is mainly nicotine, water and a little of the food additive propylene glycol.
“There is no longer a need for anyone to breathe the unwanted, dangerous, second-hand smoke produced by traditional tobacco cigarettes,” Krave’s Web site says.
rave’s parent company, Smoke Fifty-One, warns that its cigarettes are “not a smoking cessation product.” A starter kit containing one battery and four nicotine cartridges costs $30, though Smoke Fifty-One says that one cartridge will “last you through your evening.”

Support offered to quit tobacco

2010-01-06T06:56:00.000-08:00

For anyone who would like to stop using tobacco products or who has recently quit and could use some support, Riverside Shore Memo-rial Hospital has monthly meetings that can help.
These informal, no-pressure meetings are led by Sharon Varricchio, a respiratory therapist with extensive knowledge of both the physical and psychological effects of smoking. She will be joined at each session by an ex-smoker who will provide a personal account of how "it can be done!" There will be practical advice on quitting methods and a rundown on various medications and other aids available.

Creeks to vote on tobacco compact with state

2010-01-04T05:26:00.000-08:00

The Muscogee (Creek) National Council will vote tonight on whether to adopt a tobacco compact with the state, though Principal Chief A.D. Ellis says he has doubts about the measure's passage.
The tribe is one of the last holdouts in signing a compact with the state, the only other tribe being the Cheyenne-Arapaho tribe, which is undergoing a change in government but is likely to sign on once the change is complete, said State Treasurer Scott Meacham.
In the past, the Creek and other tribes' smoke shops funneled low-tax cigarettes reserved for the state's border areas into stores outside those border areas, but an arbitration panel that decided the matter between the Cherokee Nation, which had a compact, and the state ruled that moving the cigarettes out of those areas was a violation of the agreement.
After the supply of cheap name-brand cigarettes dried up, the Creek Nation set up its own wholesale company that received and distributed cigarettes sold through tribes in other parts of the country. Those cigarettes do not have state tax stamps on them, and this year two shipments of un-stamped tobacco were seized by the Oklahoma Tax Commission going from the tribe's wholesale company to tribal smoke shops. The state has also brought a suit in federal court against some members of the tribe who operate the wholesale company and some of the smoke shops.
The state does not have jurisdiction on tribal land that the smoke shops and wholesale warehouse in Okmulgee sit on, since it is trust land.
The name-brand cigarettes sold at the tribe's smoke shops now
mostly bear uncompacted stamps, which have a higher tax rate than compacted stamps, with no money rebated back to the Creeks.
The tribe has rejected several compacts presented by the state in the past, and Ellis said he does not like everything the compact he is presenting, but that it is time to sign one.
"We've got to bring this to an end," Ellis said.
The full compact will likely be released tomorrow, according to a tribal spokesperson, but Ellis said the compact is very similar to that of other tribes, and would require the Creeks to shutter their wholesale operation.
The council will vote on whether to allow Ellis to enter into the compact at a 6:30 p.m. meeting today in Okmulgee.

New cigarette floor price augurs well for industry

2009-12-29T00:58:00.000-08:00

The new floor price for a 20-pack cigarette at RM6.40 is a positive development for the tobbaco sector as it will narrow the gap between extremely-low priced cigarettes (ELPCs) and value-for-money (VFM) cigarettes produced by the industry’s main players.
The Health Ministry had announced that the minimum retail price of a 20-pack cigarette will be fixed at RM6.40 effective Jan 1.
The new regulations, aimed at discouraging smoking among children, youths and the lower income group, will also see the prohibition of promotional prices of cigarettes, although price discounts of not more than 5% are allowed up to three times a year.
The domestic tobacco industry’s main players include British American Tobacco Malaysia Bhd (BAT), JT International Bhd (JTI) and Philip Morris.
Maybank Investment Bank Bhd said the minimum pricing should be good news for BAT and JTI as their cheapest brands were sold from RM7.80 for a 20s pack.
“The minimum price places a ceiling on the price gap between ELPCs and the brands sold by BAT and JTI,” it said in a report yesterday. “ELPCs currently retail from RM4.50 per pack of 20s and now account for about 8% of total industry sales.”
Maybank Investment said the raft of new restrictions would affect ELPCs significantly.
“The banning of price cuts or discounts of more than 5% will mean the banning of price wars which erode manufacturers’ margins.
“But, given that contraband cigarettes account for nearly 40% of total consumption, such restrictions will not impact the overall consumption in the country,” it said.
Kenanga Research said ELPCs would be wiped out by the ruling, which would be positive for players like BAT.
BAT’s cheapest VFM 20s pack is already being sold at RM7.80 so no adjustment will be necessary in response to the floor price.
“The ruling will reduce competition from ELPCs, particularly in BAT’s value segment,” it said in its report yesterday, adding that Pall Mall, BAT’s leading VFM brand, saw a 0.6% decrease in retail audit market share as at Sept 30.
It said the minimum pricing, however, would not help curb illicit trade.
“The illicit segment accounts for 38.7% of all cigarettes sold in the country and presents the biggest threat to the biggest three tobacco players,” it said.
Another research house believes that an increase in the floor price would not have as great an impact on the big three cigarette players as they had differentiated their VFM packs from the ELPCs.
“This is done by raising the price bar to RM7.80 per pack of 20s, which is RM1.40 (or 22%) above the minimum threshold.
“It may result in some gains in market share, as consumers may switch to the VFM brands instead,” the research house said.

Five Million Die from Cigarette Smoking Every Year

2009-12-23T01:18:00.000-08:00

The World Health Organisation has announced that their numbers show five million people die from smoking around the world every year and warn that the number could rise if more stringent measures aren't taken to minimise smoking's impact.
WHO also stated that 600,000 people die every year from passive smoking, ie inhaling someone else's cigarette smoke. Last year, WHO unveiled six strategies that countries could implement to protect their people from the harm of cigarettes.
However, less than 10% of the world's population is covered by any one of those six strategies, which include smoking bans, higher tobacco taxes and bans on tobacco advertising.

Boy left in car for 'chocs and smokes'

2009-12-21T00:41:00.000-08:00

Bloemfontein - The mother who allegedly left her two-year-old son in her car in scorching heat in Bloemfontein, while she went to buy "chocolates and cigarettes", is a nurse at a private hospital in the city.
The 28-year-old woman issued a statement to police on Saturday from her house in the city. A complaint of child neglect is being investigated against her, while the incident will also be reported to social services.
The police are urgently looking for a male witness who stated at the scene that she'd been gone for at least half an hour, while the little boy was apparently locked in the car while the temperature was 35 degrees Celsius.
The woman allegedly admitted to being the mother of the child in the car, but insists that she "was only gone for 10 minutes to buy chocolates and cigarettes" while the child was asleep in the car.
Inspector Richard Botha from the family violence, child protection and sexual offences unit of the Parkway police station tracked her down.
He says when he found the woman late on Friday after an intensive search - aggravated because the car was incorrectly registered - she was extremely emotional, traumatised and overwhelmed with remorse.
Botha returned to their house on Saturday to take down her statement. He told her that a three-year-old boy who'd been left in a car in the city earlier that night while the parents were gambling, was taken away from the parents.
"The dad and the little boy were there. The dad was very upset. It's quite a normal, stable family. She's well groomed and the little boy is delightful and well groomed. The house is in a good complex. That's why I find it so ironic if you look at their setup and her behaviour," he said.
She said her behaviour when the boy was left in the car had been "totally irrational" and that she doesn't know why she did something that she normally would never have done. She said she loves her son very much.
Botha also found the two police officials who'd been at the scene. According to them the child was already out of the car and in the mother's hands when they arrived at the scene.
Witnesses had earlier told Volksblad that the boy was hysterical when he was found on the back seat of the car at the Hyperama's parking terrain on Reconcilliation Day. It also looked like his nose was bleeding.
None of the car's windows were open, while the temperature in an adjacent car showed that it was 35 degrees Celsius shortly before 13:00.

Former owner of Longview tobacco business sentenced in tax scheme

2009-12-18T05:52:00.000-08:00

The former owner of a Longview tobacco wholesaler was sentenced Monday in U.S. District Court in Seattle for his involvement in a scheme to sell millions of dollars in cigarettes without paying taxes on them.
Robert Stuber, 60, of Reno, Nev., received a sentence of nine months in prison, two years of supervised release and nearly $20.7 million in restitution for conspiracy to traffic in contraband cigarettes and conspiracy to launder monetary instruments. He pleaded guilty Feb. 18.
According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Stuber admitted that between January 2005 and May 2007, his business, Cowlitz Candy & Tobacco Co. Inc. of Longview, sold more than 1 million cartons of contraband cigarettes to the Blue Stilly Smoke Shop near Arlington. Neither Stuber's company nor Blue Stilly paid the more than $20 million applicable state taxes on the cigarettes, thereby retaining larger profits for themselves.
The Washington State Liquor Control Board warned Cowlitz Candy & Tobacco Co. in late 2005 that it had been illegally selling untaxed cigarettes to the Blue Stilly Smoke Shop in Arlington. Still, the Longview company continued to do so in the months that followed, court documents said.
Cowlitz Candy & Tobacco, at 924 15th Ave., even tried to conceal the orders by first shipping its cigarettes to an Oregon warehouse, court documents said. Invoices said falsely that the cigarettes were purchased from a New Mexico distributor.
On May 15, 2007, investigators seized more than 2,000 cartons of cigarettes and more than $275,000 during a search of Cowlitz Candy & Tobacco. Evidence during the search revealed that Cowlitz Candy & Tobacco sold Blue Stilly more than 1,052,751 cartons of contraband cigarettes on which no state tax was ever paid, according to court documents.
At sentencing, U.S. District Judge James L. Robart noted that Stuber "was an integral part in the conspiracy to traffic in contraband cigarettes. ... His good judgment was overcome by the money."
In March 2009, three Stillaguamish Tribal members, who owned and operated Blue Stilly, were sentenced to prison for selling contraband cigarettes and avoiding $25 million in taxes.
The other conspirators — a cigarette broker in California and cigarette distributors in New Mexico and California — have been indicted and are scheduled for trial in June 2010.

South Carolina Smokers Could Pay More

2009-12-15T06:03:00.000-08:00

The tax on cigarettes in South Carolina isn't just low, it's the lowest anywhere in the nation.
"South Carolina does have the lowest cigarette tax in the nation: 7 cents," said Sen. Thomas Alexander, a Republican who represents Oconee County. "The last time it was increased was in 1977."
But now there's a push to raise that tax by another 50 cents per pack next year. The increase would generate $143 million per year, $5 million of which would be spent on programs to discourage young people from smoking.
"It's going to prompt kids to quit. It's going to prompt adult smokers to quit. And over the lifetime of those individuals, we're going to see a tremendous savings in health care costs for our state," said Kelly Davis of the South Carolina Tobacco Collaborative.
But if South Carolina is on the verge of bringing cigarettes taxes in line with other states, a report out today by a University of South Carolina graduate student gives the state low marks for cigarette prevention.
"Last year, South Carolina ranked last in the nation, spending no state funds and only a $1 million federal grant on tobacco prevention," said graduate student Geri Guy.
While most funds, including the 1998 tobacco settlement, are used to offset health care costs, officials say little is earmarked for tobacco prevention. Plus, the last proposed increase in cigarette taxes was vetoed.
"We have a governor who's made it clear from day one of his service that he's opposed to any tax increases," said Sen. Mike Fair of Greenville County.
But supporters say they hope next year will be different. The House of Representatives has approved the tax hike, and the state senate is expected to vote on the measure when the South Carolina Legislature convenes in January.

Armed Robbery at CR Cigarette Outlet

2009-12-14T00:28:00.000-08:00

Cedar Rapids police are investigating a second armed robbery in two days.
This time authorities are searching for the two men who robbed the Cigarette Outlet on First Avenue northeast last night. Police say the suspects forced the store's two employees to the ground at gunpoint.
The suspects then fled on foot after taking money, cigarettes and an Iowa Lottery register. No shots were fired and the clerks were unharmed.

Study links ADHD to smoking moms

2009-12-01T05:07:00.000-08:00

New research links exposure to tobacco smoke before birth and lead during childhood to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
The Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center reports that eliminating exposure to both could reduce ADHD cases in children ages 8 to 15 by about 35 percent.
Tanya Froehlich, of the Division of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, said that could mean 800,000 children nationwide.
"Lead is definitely linked to learning disabilities," said Jennifer Frazier, a lead risk assessor at the Mansfield/Ontario/Richland County Health Department. "We do an intense questionnaire with moms who say their children are hyper or have trouble focusing, and we do home visits to see if there is lead exposure."Frazier said she checks for deteriorated paint on the property.
She said a child could acquire ADHD within a month of exposure in extreme circumstances.
"There is no cure of ADHD, but limiting a child's exposure to lead will definitely help," Frazier said. "Eventually the lead will come out of the body with proper nutrition, but once a child has been exposed, they are pretty much damaged as far as learning is concerned."The child may see the effects of this throughout their education."
Frazier said any house built before 1978 should be inspected. "You need to wet-clean as often as possible and wash kids' hands frequently," she said. "A good balanced diet is also important."
Using data from 3,907 children, researchers looked at prenatal tobacco exposure measured by maternal reports of cigarette use during pregnancy. About 8.7 percent of children in the study met diagnostic criteria for ADHD.
Researchers found that children exposed to tobacco smoke before birth were 2.4 times more likely to have ADHD than children who weren't.
Mansfield child psychologist Dennis Marikis said he has seen a significant increase in the number of children struggling with ADHD in the last five years.
Marikis estimated he worked with 30 percent more children with ADHD this year than last, and said the number has nearly doubled since 2004.
"Some of it is identification and people being better able to recognize the signs," Marikis said. "Our primary focus is first to identify an ADHD child and then work in brain retraining."
Although he believes most children acquire ADHD genetically, Marikis said he believes there are links between the disorder and smoking and lead.
"It's very clear with smoking," he said. "Kids are very vulnerable to cigarette smoke."
The Cincinnati Enquirer contributed to this report.

Restaurants to quit cigarettes cold turkey

2009-11-30T00:51:00.000-08:00

If statistics provided by Virginia Department of Health are accurate, it will be business as usual for 73 percent of the commonwealth’s fast food and full-service restaurants that already are smoke-free. For the others, owners and managers must decide how much time and money they’re willing to spend to comply with new regulations while continuing to offer patrons the opportunity to smoke on premises.
Christine Johnson, general manager of Milepost 5 in Midlothian, is in discussions with a state health inspector to determine whether putting up a door between the restaurant’s smoking and non-smoking sections will be enough to keep the facility in compliance. Milepost 5 already has separate rooms and separate ventilation systems for smoking and non-smoking areas, which would appear to satisfy two of the exceptions specified in the smoking ban.
“I think it would help us because we’d be one of the only restaurants that has smoking,” Johnson said.
A statewide survey of 3,725 restaurant patrons conducted by teenage members of Y Street, a volunteer high school action group sponsored by the Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth, suggests otherwise in their findings:
• Eighty-two percent of respondents, including a majority of smokers, think that smoking should not be allowed at all in Virginia restaurants.
• Five out of six survey participants said they would visit restaurants more frequently if those restaurants were completely smoke-free.
• Ninety-one percent of survey respondents who said they dine out five to 12 times a month said they would dine out more frequently or about the same amount if restaurants were smoke-free.
Tillary Buffa, co-owner of Riptides Seafood Restaurant in Chesterfield, said similar anecdotal evidence prompted her and her husband to designate all indoor areas of their facility as smoke-free in February 2007.
“We just had a lot more people who wanted to sit in non-smoking than in smoking,” she said. “Our business has grown. We’ve had a few customers who came in and were disappointed, but mostly everyone has been happy about it.”
That’s the way the system is supposed to work, said Chesterfield Del. Sam Nixon, who made what he called “a principled vote” against the bill in the General Assembly because it takes decision-making power out of the hands of local business owners and transfers it to state government.
“The marketplace handled the situation beautifully until we decided to step in. As consumers, we all have free will. We can walk into a restaurant and walk right back out if we choose,” Nixon said. “Unfortunately government is now right in the middle of it, with all these byzantine standards adding expense to small business owners in the middle of a recession.”
The new law, which applies to all public restaurants regardless of size or capacity, permits smoking in outdoor areas, provided the area is not enclosed by any screened wall, roll-up doors or other temporary enclosures. If the outdoor area is enclosed, smoking still may be permissible if the area is structurally separate from the non-smoking area and is vented to prevent recirculation of air.
Private clubs, defined as organizations that are used exclusively for club purposes or events; are operated solely for recreational, fraternal, social, patriotic, political, benevolent, or athletic purposes; have established bylaws, a constitution, or both that govern its activities; and conduct organizational matters and management by a board of directors, executive committee, or similar body chosen by the members at an annual meeting, are exempt from the smoking ban.
That’s not the case for bowling alleys, skating rinks, bingo halls and other facilities that prepare and serve food. Their options are: go smoke-free throughout the entire facility, cease preparation and service of food or comply with the law by modifying the structure so the smoking area is structurally separate from the non-smoking areas and vent the smoking area to prevent recirculation of air into the non-smoking area.
VDH personnel will assist in enforcing the law by ensuring during regular inspections that facilities have conspicuously posted “No Smoking” signs and removed all ashtrays and other smoking paraphernalia from nonsmoking areas. They will also assess whether separate smoking areas comply with the new requirements.
The civil penalty for failing to obey the smoking ban is a $25 fine. While VDH employees are not authorized to issue summons, they will refer evidence of violations to local law enforcement agencies.

Kaua‘i scores 100 percent in tobacco compliance check

2009-11-26T04:09:00.000-08:00

In a recent compliance check conducted on Kaua‘i, no cigarettes were sold to minors, a county press release says.
Attempts to purchase tobacco by trained minors were made at 40 local businesses last week, but all of the merchants who were approached refused the sales, earning Kaua‘i County a 100 percent rating.
“We are extremely pleased that many local businesses are complying with the law prohibiting tobacco sales to minors,” said Assistant Chief Roy Asher. “We want to thank everyone and hope that we can continue to have excellent compliance checks and protect our young people from the harm caused by tobacco.”
The compliance check was conducted by the Kaua‘i Police Department Youth Services Section with funding provided by the state Department of Health.

Deal says he would sign cigarette tax increase bill if elected governor

2009-11-23T02:53:00.000-08:00

U.S. Rep. Nathan Deal says he'd sign a bill raising the state cigarette tax $1 a pack if he's elected governor next year.
Campaigning this week in Savannah, Deal said the bill deserves consideration, but added he probably wouldn't push for its passage.
The Gainesville lawmaker's comments are the closest any GOP candidate for governor has come to backing the proposal.
The proposal by state Rep. Ron Stephens, R-Savannah, has been opposed by the GOP majorities in the House and Senate.
But some experts say it may get another look when the legislature reconvenes Jan. 11 and tries to grapple with a worsening budget crisis.
Stephens wants to lift the levy from 37 cents to $1.37 per pack. Budget analysts say that would raise about $400 million during the levy's first year.
Tobacco-related medical costs in Georgia total more than $2 billion a year. State taxpayers pick up part of that tab. Studies show higher taxes reduce smoking, so Stephens' bill could save the state additional money.
At least so far, Deal is not ready to bet much political capital on the measure's prospects."Most tax increases are not going to be favorably received in a downturn economy," he said.
But he said an increase in the cigarette levy "is one of the areas where there is more public acceptance."A 2008 poll sponsored by anti-smoking groups found most Georgians - including most Republicans and smokers - supported raising the tax.
"I would say these are the kinds of things we have to look at," Deal said.University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock said Deal's position could be evidence of a thaw in GOP hostility to the idea.
"It may be, but it really depends on whether the legislators are fully aware of how dire the state's finances have become," Bullock said.
In October, state revenue compared with the same month a year earlier dropped for the 11th straight month.
Most state programs already have been cut, and federal bailout programs that eased some of the pain soon will expire.
I really don't think they want to be laying off more teachers," Bullock said.
There may be "some receptivity" for Stephens' proposal, said Robert Eisinger, dean of the School of Liberal Arts at Savannah College of Art and Design.
isinger, a former political science professor, said there is tension between pressure to find new revenue and reluctance to raise taxes.
In that environment, "sin taxes" such as the levies on cigarettes may be relatively "low-hanging fruit," he said.
Stephens said it's "encouraging" Deal said he would sign the bill.
But so far, GOP legislative leaders still are opposed to any tax increase, he said.
He said that may change when "they have to start making more major cuts in some of their favorite programs."Despite improved prospects for Stephens' bill, it's "unrealistic" to expect to see the levy rise by $1 a pack, Eisinger said.
"Something like a quarter is more likely," he said.Stephens didn't argue the point.
"A dollar would be great," he said. "I'd like it to be at least 50 cents. But we'll settle for what we can get."

Tobacco grower learns on the job

2009-11-18T01:20:00.000-08:00

"One thing about tobacco is that there are a lot of hidden costs you can't always account for. You need a large margin to cover those higher costs."
Since tobacco was deregulated in 2004, the question everyone in the industry has been asking has been how many farmers would drop out of leaf production altogether?Many have.
But Jeremy Rhodes of Four Oaks, N.C., has gone against the trend: He didn’t begin growing tobacco until 2005, the year after the price support program ended.
So while most tobacco farmers today have the experience of several generations of family members to draw on, and often some of their capital assets, Rhodes started out as a first-time tobacco farmer with no family history in the crop.
“I had a little experience myself working for neighbors and relatives who had tobacco, but never as an owner and never from a management position,” says Rhodes, who has run a logging business for a number of years. “My father-in-law is a tobacco grower and I was able to obtain advice from him.
But basically, he was out there learning on the job. It was a scary proposition, but at the time, the price of tobacco was appealing compared to other crops. “So I decided I wanted to give tobacco a try,” Rhodes says.
Now, five seasons later, what advice would he give to a potential new grower?
“I would tell him to do all the planning and research he can,” he says. “One thing about tobacco is that there are a lot of hidden costs you can’t always account for. You need a right large margin to cover those higher costs.”The big ones recently have been energy and fertilizer prices.
But the biggest challenge started immediately after he decided to grow tobacco: Amassing the amount of machinery needed to produce flue-cured leaf.
“Since I was new to tobacco, everything has been a new investment,” he says.
The timing of his entry did provide one advantage: Because of the industry turmoil, there was and has continued to be plenty of used equipment on the market. Just this past July, Rhodes was able to buy eight rack barns at a reasonable price, and like everything else he’s purchased, the barns came from local farmers.
His goal has been to keep capital investments as low as possible in hopes of shortening the payback period, he says. “At the prices that newer barns are selling for now, it would be very hard for me to cash flow them over any reasonable length of time.”One thing he hasn’t had to spend a lot of money on is disease control.
“I had a little land that was new to tobacco,” he says. “Most of it had been in tobacco in the past. But it had all been rotated.”
He has developed a three-year rotation of tobacco for himself. “I like to follow sweet potatoes with tobacco. I put a lot of potash to sweet potatoes, and the tobacco may be able to use any that is left over,” he says.
He rents his land to a soybean grower for the third year of the rotation.Rhodes has been able to avoid any serious disease problems by planting on relatively fresh tobacco land, holding to a three-year rotation, and using disease-resistant varieties — Speight 220 and Speight 168.
He grows all 70 of his tobacco acres under the PRC (Purity Residue Clean) program.
Rhodes used the new organic-certified suckercide OTAC this season and got good results. “It cost a little more, but we got a price incentive from Santa Fe to use it,” he says.
It performed as well as any of the conventional contact chemicals he has used.
He sprayed OTAC five times after topping twice and hand-suckering three times. He skips every ninth row and sprays four rows on each side with a boom-type sprayer.
He is hoping for a yield of 2,500 pounds per acre. “I have had 3,000-plus pound per acre yields using this program,” he says.
He contracted this crop with Santa Fe through United Tobacco Co. of Wilson, N.C.
He doesn’t expect any expansion in his tobacco operation next year except perhaps in plant production. “I might add another greenhouse,” he says. “I can produce all I need now. But I have had requests from other people who would like to get plants from me.”
W.K. “Bill” Collins, a longtime Extension tobacco specialist, says Rhodes has good prospects for success because he has capitalized on the current conditions.
• He has taken active steps to keep his land relatively disease-free. “With his good rotation, he is less likely to be confronted with the soilborne diseases that you get in a short rotation,” says the agronomist. “You don’t want to have to fumigate in this day and age. It can add 10 cents a pound to your costs.”
• He is taking advantage of the premium available for PRC tobacco. “He is trying to meet a demand,” Collins says. “Frequently, when farmers have gotten out of tobacco in recent years, it was because they could not produce something that the market demands.”
• He is also taking advantage of the availability of good used equipment. “That’s an advantage tobacco farmers haven’t often had,” Collins says. “It is like buying cars — there are plenty of used ones around right now.”

Stolen tobacco products recovered

2009-11-16T05:24:00.000-08:00

Police are investigating some “people of interest,” but no arrests have been made following recovery of a large quantity of stolen tobacco products, according to Detective Sgt. Tom Parry, who is probing the matter.
The cigars and cigarettes, with a wholesale value of about $40,000, were stolen from the wholesale Valley Grocers warehouse at 1402 Elm St. on Nov. 3, and police recovered most of them Monday at 216 S. Garland Ave., he said.
A witness to the Elm Street break-in gave police a description of a van seen at the Elm Street location.
Parry said he found a van matching that description outside the Garland address next to a pickup truck loaded with the stolen merchandise, with more of the stolen goods inside the Garland building.
Police impounded and inventoried the stolen cigars and cigarettes, the van and the pickup truck.
Parry said Thursday that he was surprised police were still able to find the stolen goods six days after the theft. “I would have thought that the items probably would have been sold by that time,” he added.

Montebello Requires Tobacco Sellers To Get License

2009-11-13T00:42:00.000-08:00

An ordinance passed by the Montebello City Council in September requires retailers to obtain a Tobacco Retailer’s License by Dec. 31 for each retail location where tobacco products are sold. The new license is in addition to the business license required by the city.
The cost for a Tobacco Retailer’s License is $300 per year. Licenses are issued annually. The city is advising retailers to submit their application for the license to the Planning Department by Dec. 1 to meet the deadline.
Each location that sells tobacco, tobacco products, and/or tobacco paraphernalia must have its own license and pay the annual fee.
The City Council enacted the ordinance in order to discourage the sale and distribution of tobacco products to minors, according to a Montebello Police Department statement. Any tobacco retailer who violates state or local laws regulating the sale, advertisement or display of tobacco products shall be subject to permit suspension, according to the police department. The Code Enforcement detail will conduct regular compliance inspections of retail locations. Police will also conduct random undercover youth decoy operations to check compliance with laws prohibiting the sale of tobacco products to minors.

Too many smoke in TT

2009-11-10T01:55:00.000-08:00

Representatives of civil society groups, faith-based organisations (FBO’s) and the private sector have signed a petition in support of the national tobacco control efforts outlined in the Tobacco Control Bill 2009.
Dominique Monteil, tobacco control officer of the Trinidad and Tobago (TT) Cancer Society, said the petition was signed by stakeholders and delivered to Minister of Health Jerry Narace in support of the Bill.
Monteil said the Bill highlights measures to control tobacco use, such as smoking in public places, ways to regulate the tobacco industry and how tobacco products are sold.
“We know that tobacco is a major cause of disease and death in TT,” said Monteil.
Monteil was speaking at the TT Cancer Society and the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) Tobacco Control Stakeholders meeting held yesterday at Kapok Hotel, Maraval.
Some 15 stakeholders signed the petition which was delivered to Narace at the Ministry of Health, Park Street, Port-of-Spain.
According to statistics provided by the PAHO regional office for the World Health Organisation (PAHO/WHO), “Trinidad and Tobago in 2005 accounted for 21 percent of the region’s smokers, the highest in the Caribbean.” Monteil said measures should be put in place for citizens to enjoy a 100 percent smoke-free environment adding that smoke-free “spaces are the only way to protect the entire society.” The current increasing rate of use and exposure to tobacco among youths, according to the Global Youth Tobacco Survey, ranked TT as having the “fourth highest smoking rate in the 13-15 age group in the region.” This was written in the petition sent to Narace.
The petition stated while tobacco companies seize every opportunity to encourage tobacco consumption “to expand and to continue to generate huge profits” more people will suffer the “consequences of ill health from preventable diseases, early death and economic loss, unless (the industry is) strictly regulated.”
Monteil said tobacco control measures which protect the smoker and non-smoker are crucial.
She said the Mori Caribbean survey found that 71 percent of smokers need help to quit.
“It is a very hard drug to quit, nicotine is highly, highly addictive. It is just as addictive as heroin, so we need to provide assistance to those people,” she said.
Professor Paul Teelucksingh, chairman of the Cabinet Appointed Committee on Chronic Non-Communicable Disease, said tobacco is a legal product but may not be “a legitimate drug”. “It’s a toxin,” he said, adding that smokers and non-smokers must be made aware of being exposed to the toxins.
National Parent Teachers Association president (NPTA) Zena Ramatali also supported the Bill and said the NPTA, in 2005, started sensitising parents and students about the risks of smoking through the Coalition for a Tobacco Free TT.

Man jailed for giving cigarettes to toddler

2009-11-06T04:53:00.000-08:00

A drug addict was on Thursday jailed for 18 months for allowing a three-year-old child to smoke a lit cigarette.
Newcastle Crown Court heard that 31-year-old Graeme Conroy encouraged the infant to inhale the smoke when she asked him for a cigarette.Conway then got a 14-year-old to film the act on a mobile phone.
Conroy pleaded guilty to causing unnecessary suffering to the child.He was arrested when a neighbour alerted police to the footage which was recorded on February 24.
In the footage Conroy can be heard laughing as the girl inhales the cigarette smoke. The court heard that the toddler had already smoked two cigarettes
"It looked like she had smoked before," said a witness. "She was inhaling it and she knew what to do."
Judge David Wood said Conway actions could have all sorts of effects upon her future health.
"You have completely disregarded her safety and endangered her," he said.

Council imposes ban on flavored tobacco products

2009-11-05T00:37:00.000-08:00

The New York City Council has banned the sale of all flavored tobacco products, including little cigars.These little cigars look just like cigarettes, but, due to a tax loophole, cost considerably less. They also come in flavors such as raspberry, grape, cosmopolitan and ample-tini and are usually wrapped in vivid, multi-colored packaging designed to appeal to youth.
“We’ve seen the detrimental side effects of what smoking can do to a person, and dressing it up with fun flavors doesn’t make a habit like smoking any less dangerous,” declared Council Member Joel Rivera, chairman of the council’s Health Committee and the chief sponsor of the new legislation. “It is no secret that for years tobacco companies have been targeting our young people with this kind of product. This legislation is a major step forward in protecting kids and deterring them from starting a lethal habit.”
The bill passed 46 to one with no abstentions. The one dissenting vote was cast by Council Member Lewis Fidler who said that even though he was voting no, “I appreciate the motivations of those who support this bill.” He believes that rather than a ban on flavored tobacco products, the most effective way to stop youth from smoking is by raising taxes even further on all tobacco products.
Studies have shown that smoking remains the leading cause of preventable deaths in New York City. The tobacco industry also knows that almost 90 percent of smokers start before the age of 18. That is why big tobacco is using young women, hip-hop imagery and specialty products — such as flavored tobacco products — to portray smoking as cool in order to entice youth into a lifetime of tobacco addiction.
Council Member Letitia James pointed out that in Central Brooklyn and other communities like it, these brightly packaged flavored cigars are often marketed near the candy, right where they can best capture the attention of the youth. Most councilmembersof her colleagues in the council agreed. The prohibited flavors include chocolate, vanilla, honey, candy, cocoa, dessert, alcoholic beverage, herb and spice flavors. (Menthol, mint and wintergreen flavors are excluded from the ban.)
“A significant number of constituents that I have spoken with also believe that smoking cigars is less toxic and less addictive than cigarettes,” James added. “They are wrong. One cigar has as much tobacco as five cigarettes and contains more nicotine. That is why we, as adults, have to stand up and ban these products.”
The law will be enforced by the Department of Consumer Affairs and the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, and violators will be subject to fines of up to $2,000. Multiple violations will result in suspension of one’s tobacco license.
According to a 2009 Zogby poll, 77 percent of New Yorkers surveyed said they support a ban on candy, fruit and liquor flavored tobacco products. The legislation is also supported by the American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, American Lung Association of New York, and Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, which all believe that big tobacco is looking for a new generation of smokers among teens to keep its business going.

Tobacco companies are marketing new products to minors

2009-11-02T04:23:00.000-08:00

Tobacco companies are creating smokeless products for the market and utilizing social networks such as Twitter and Facebook to reach a younger audience.
They are mainly trying to market their products to children and teenagers so they will start smoking younger. They should not be doing that.
These companies are trying to diversify their products by creating smokeless and spitless tobacco. Camel has designed Camel Orbs, pellets that are shaped like Tic Tacs that fulfill the need for a tobacco buzz. Camel strips and Camel sticks are similar to gum and candy cigarettes. These products are a response to a society constantly pushing to become smokeless. Many places in public no longer allow people to smoke cigarettes, including restaurants and bars.
There’s nothing wrong with Big Tobacco trying to create these new products. But marketing these products to younger audiences is wrong.
The smokeless products are shaped just like candy, making it obvious that tobacco companies are trying to get younger people hooked on their products. If a young child swallows such a product, it could be disastrous.
Companies also are using social networking to advance their products. Since young people are the forerunners of such Web sites, Big Tobacco will bombard them with images of cigarettes and similar products.
Kids are unaware of the dangers of tobacco. They are constantly growing and changing, and the world is a strange and confusing place. They are easy to manipulate, and Big Tobacco is taking advantage of them. Companies should have to face the same penalties that everyone else does when cigarettes are solicited to children.
This is not to say the products are bad and don’t have a place. Many adults aware of the repercussions of tobacco products will probably adapt to these products. Many public places are banning smoking cigarettes.
Even entire cities are outlawing smoking cigarettes anywhere in public. These products will allow adults to get their fix without having to light up, avoiding complaints from surrounding people.
It may be impossible to stop tobacco companies from using social networks, where millions of kids and teenagers will see tobacco products. In the end, it is up to the person to decide whether to use tobacco products.
But these strategies are on the verge of manipulating children and teenagers against the will of their parents. Educating the young on the dangers of tobacco only goes so far.
Tobacco companies should be careful when going young in their marketing. We understand you have businesses to run, but children’s well beings are at stake.

Circumvent Smoking Bans with Electronic Cigarettes

2009-10-29T06:59:00.000-07:00

Smoking bans are getting out of control, but the electronic cigarette is quickly becoming the dominant alternative to those who are suffering from them. At one point, you could justifiably expect to be restricted from smoking on public forms of transportation or in your office but nowadays bans are extending far beyond the confines of public buildings. Some North American cities even prohibit smoking in parks or on city streets. So what does a smoker do if they want to enjoy a cigarette but smoking bans prohibit them? Many of them switch to the Green Smoke e-cigarette and enjoy the freedom of smoking everywhere.
In the 1950s smoking was a carefree activity that nobody spent much time thinking about. But as scientific evidence has mounted showing how smoking is harmful to not only the smoker but the innocents breathing second hand smoke as well, governments have run wild banning smoking everywhere from bars and restaurants to almost everywhere. Luckily, electronic cigarettes represent a smokeless alternative that allows smokers the freedom to enjoy their habit in many of the places that actively ban smoking.
With no second hand smoke, the smoking bans do not apply to e-cigarettes. When no thick smoke and toxic smells are released by electric cigarettes, green smokers can finally have their cake and eat it too. And to add a cherry on top of that cake, use coupon code “disc10-1170” when you make your order, it will give you 10% off your new e-cigarette kit.

FDA Begins Looking into E-Cigarettes

2009-10-28T01:33:00.001-07:00

WASHINGTON, DC -- The Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, says it is looking at electronic cigarettes.
At issue is whether the cigarettes are better for smokers.
Users of the new devices are getting around smoking bans, because the e-cigarettes give off a vapor, not smoke.
But the FDA is now getting involved, saying the e-cigarettes it tested had carcinogens.
Some states have passed measures to restrict the sale of the cigarettes.

Clerk cited in underaged tobacco sale

2009-10-23T06:05:00.001-07:00

GENEVA – A gas station clerk was charged with selling tobacco to a person under age 18 as part of a compliance check of tobacco venders, police said.
Hina J. Patel, 38, of the 800 block of Bode Road, Elgin, was charged, Wednesday, Oct. 14, with making the sale at Geneva Shell, 1491 E. State St., police said. The compliance check occurred Oct. 7.
Police Cmdr. Julie Nash said the undercover compliance check was done at 12 establishments in the city that sell tobacco. Police rely on an underaged person whose ID shows he or she is underage to purchase tobacco. In Illinois, the legal age to buy tobacco is 18.
All but the clerk at Geneva Shell refused to sell, Nash said.
"We do this for the very obvious reasons of the dangers of smoking," Nash said. "And it's our attempt to help those who don't always make the best decisions for themselves, to keep them safe. And to make sure businesses are only selling tobacco to those old enough to make the appropriate decisions. It's about looking out for the kids."

The undercover compliance checks are similar to those done at liquor establishments to see if an underaged person will be served or sold to. But what is different is, the charge goes to the person who sold, not to the owner of the establishment. In the case of a liquor violation, the seller can be charged as well as the person who holds the liquor license.
"We are only citing the person who sold he cigarettes," Nash said. "We have never actually cited businesses before. I don't know why that is, but it definitely should be looked into."
According to police reports, the teen working with police asked to buy a pack of Newport cigarettes. Patel asked to see identification, examined it and then sold the pack of Newports for $7.02, to the undercover teen, according to the report.
Patel told police she miscalculated the birthday on the identification, according to the police report.
A spokesman for the gas station said Patel no longer works there. A message left for a manager was not returned Wednesday. Patel has an unlisted phone number and could not be reached for comment. She is to appear in court Nov. 17.

Kelantan To Give Incentives To Premises Not Selling Cigarettes

2009-10-22T00:03:00.001-07:00

KOTA BAHARU, Oct 21 (Bernama) -- The Kelantan Government is willing to consider giving incentives to any business premises which does not offer cigarettes for sale.
State Women, Family and Health Development Comittee chairman Wan Ubaidah Wan Omar said the incentives were in line with the state government's aspiration to ensure the people did not inculcate the smoking habit.
She was replying to Dr Nik Mazian Nik Mohamad (PAS-Gaal) at the State Assembly sitting here Wednesday.
Meanwhile, state local government, tourism and culture committee chairman Datuk Takiyuddin Hassan said the state government was firm in going ahead with the plan to implement hudud law, if given the green light.
"PAS has taken all the necessary moves to uplift the status of Islam by approving the hudud law in 1993," he said in reply to a question from Abdul Halim Abdul Rahman (PAS-Chetok).
On other development, the Kelantan Government denied that the second Sultan Yahya Petra bridge project, implemented by the federal government, was a political issue linked to the next general election.
Replying to Abdullah Yaakub (PAS-Air Lanas), state housing, works, utilities and environment committee chairman Maj (Rtd) Md Anizam Abdul Rahman said construction of the project was ongoing, according to the initial plan and specifications.

Smoking bans reduce heart attacks

2009-10-16T04:58:00.000-07:00

Indoor smoking bans have reduced heart attacks in smokers and non-smokers, according to US research.
Earlier this week Britain’s MPs voted to end the display of tobacco in shops and ban its sale from vending machines. This new study is another blow to big tobacco.
The report, from the Institute of Medicine for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, provides the best evidence to date that banning smoking from workplaces, restaurants and bars can reduce cardiovascular-related health problems.
A panel of experts reviewed 11 studies of smoking bans in the United States, Canada and Europe. All showed reductions in heart attacks of between 6% and 47%.
The difference is partly down to methodology but also, says the report, the context of the ban. Factors such as the information provided on the ban, education and outreach efforts on the dangers of secondhand smoke, and support for smoking cessation programmes are difficult to separate from the impact of the ban itself.
This said, the panel noted the ‘remarkable consistency’ in the link between a ban and a reduction in heart attack. The 205-page report estimates that exposure to secondhand smoke could raise the risk of heart disease by 25-30%.Clear benefits to non-smokers
‘Secondhand smoke kills,’ said CDC director Dr. Thomas Frieden. ‘What this report shows is that smoke-free laws reduce heart attacks in nonsmokers. There is a causal relationship. Smoking bans decrease the rate of heart attacks.’
Not all US states have smoking bans. Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said: ‘In the United States, 27 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have enacted smoke-free laws that include restaurants and bars. The new report should spur the remaining 23 states to enact comprehensive laws that include all workplaces, restaurants and bars.’
Committee chairwoman Dr. Lynn Goldman of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore predicted the report would help inform political debate in US states where new bans are under consideration. ‘This really communicates the benefits for nonsmokers,’ she said. ‘Nonsmokers are at risk. It's always been an important point. Now we know it's not only in terms of cancer risk but cardiovascular disease risk.’
Dr. Elizabeth Ross of the American Heart Association, which strongly advocates smoking bans, said: ‘We obviously want to encourage smokers to quit. But we also want to promote public policies which ban smoking that would expose nonsmokers to the risk of heart-attack from second-hand smoke.’

Yao Ming enlisted as China anti-smoking ambassador

2009-10-13T00:22:00.000-07:00

BEIJING — Basketball star Yao Ming has joined up with the wife of China's vice president to lead an anti-tobacco campaign in the country with the world's largest number of smokers, state media said Tuesday.
The NBA All-Star Houston Rockets centre was named as an ambassador to the Chinese Association on Tobacco Control and is expected to appear in public service announcements urging people not to smoke, Xinhua news agency said.
Also named was pop singer Peng Liyuan, the wife of Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, the report said.
About 350 million Chinese, or nearly 27 percent of the country's population, smoke cigarettes, with the nation consuming up to one-third of the tobacco products sold annually worldwide, said the report, citing the association.
Up to one million Chinese die every year from lung cancer or cardiovascular diseases directly linked to tobacco consumption, it said.
In 2006, Yao, the most successful Chinese player in the NBA, joined a Wild Aid campaign against the eating of shark fin's soup, a popular Chinese delicacy that has left the fish at risk of extinction.
Peng has also served as a spokeswoman for a public awareness campaign against the stigmatisation of HIV/AIDS sufferers.

State receives seven complaints in first week of smoking ban

2009-10-09T00:19:00.000-07:00

State health officials have received just seven complaints about businesses violating a statewide smoking ban that took effect a week ago.
The Montana Clean Indoor Air Act outlawed smoking in all public buildings except bars and casinos four years ago. As of Oct. 1, bars and casinos also had to begin observing the ban.
Five of the complaints made to the state Department of Public Health and Human Services were about businesses that should have gone smoke-free in 2005, said Stacy Campbell, director of the Montana Tobacco Use Prevention Program. Only two were about a bar or casino.
Businesses that violate the ban receive an educational letter after a first offense. A second offense brings a warning and third, fourth and fifth offenses result in $100, $200 and $500 fines.
No complaints were made in Yellowstone County, said Hillary Harris, director of population health at RiverStone Health.
"As far as we know, it's going really, really well," Harris said. "We're really pleased."
In addition to the handful of complaints, the state fielded 25 calls from people with questions about the ban, Campbell said.The most-asked question was about whether the ban mandates how far smokers must stand from the entrance of a building. It does not.
The next-most common question was about electronic cigarettes. Some establishments began selling e-cigarettes, which steam tobacco and emit a vapor instead of smoke, as a way to placate their smoking customers.
But Campbell said the devices are not legal to sell in Montana and are considered cigarettes under the Clean Indoor Air Act.
Montana was the 18th state to enact a comprehensive smoking ban. Another 14 states ban smoking in some public places.
About 16 percent of Montanans are smokers, compared with 20 percent of Americans overall.
Calls to the Montana Tobacco Quit Line did not significantly increase in the last week. The Quit Line offers free counseling and nicotine replacement products.
Campbell said the Quit Line might get busier as the weather turns colder and smokers no longer want to stand outside.
"I think the Montana winter is going to be a cessation aid," she said.

House committee investigating flavored cigars

2009-10-07T00:37:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce is investigating whether two tobacco companies are trying to skirt a federal ban on flavored cigarettes by offering their products as cigars instead, according to letters sent to the companies by the committee's chairman.
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., sent letters to California-based Kretek International and North Carolina-based Cheyenne International targeting their products on Friday.Both companies had previously sold flavored cigarettes, which were banned last month. They have recently released flavored cigars that are close to the size of a cigarette but are wrapped in tobacco leaves rather than paper and contain cigar tobacco.
Waxman is asking both companies to defend the products, provide sales figures and all communications about the decision to market the flavored cigars.
Kretek International, the largest distributor of clove-flavored tobacco products in the U.S., filed suit last month asking a federal court to decide whether its new Djarum-brand filtered cigars fall under the ban. A Kretek spokesman did not immediately return an e-mail message seeking comment.
A spokesperson for Cheyenne International did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment.

Working in clean air

2009-10-05T00:36:00.000-07:00

Do you remember when the surgeon general’s warning about the dangers of smoking first appeared on a pack of cigarettes? It’s been awhile.
The first surgeon general’s report on smoking’s ability to kill a person was delivered in 1964. The warnings showed up on cigarette packaging about a year later.
It’s been nearly a half-century since those events, and the anti-smoking movement is still inching along. The latest step was taken last week by officials at Marian Medical Center in Santa Maria, when they made all of the group’s campuses tobacco-free.
Bravo!
We understand that some smokers may, instead, be booing Marian’s decision. Smoking is legal, after all, and many people feel their rights are being denied when they find themselves in areas where they could smoke, but are prohibited from doing so by government or executive fiat.
What many smokers don’t fully realize is how pervasive their smoke can be. It is truly amazing how a person lighting up a dozen or more feet away, outdoors, can transform a clean-air space into a gagging purple haze.
We’re fairly sure future historians will characterize smoking for what it really is — one of the cruelest hoaxes ever pulled off by a specific industry.

Smoke free bars all across MT

2009-10-01T01:09:00.001-07:00

Some Missoula bars have just one more day to allow smokers into their establishments. It's part of the Clean Indoor Act which means by Thursday, no smoking is allowed in bars and casinos.
The Rhino in Downtown Missoula is one of the those bars yet to go completely smoke-free. But it is on board with the smoking ban, supporting it from day one as a part of the Montana Tavern Association.
The co-owner says he knows its a controversial issue, but the Rhino waited to go smoke-free until the deadline in order to keep loyal clients happy.
"To me I didn't want to get caught up in the that so I am just waiting until the deadline and that's when we are going to go non smoking," explains Rhino Co-Owner, Brad Martens.
The Rhino will set up a smoking booth outside for its clients.

Experts concerned menthol cigarettes are still on market

2009-09-29T00:35:00.000-07:00

Anti-smoking advocates are concerned that the new law allowing the FDA to ban candy- and fruit-flavored cigarettes doesn't include menthol cigarettes, the top-selling flavor and an increasingly popular choice among teenagers. Research shows while teen smoking rates have declined overall, the proportion of teens who smoke menthol cigarettes is increasing.

Slipping out for a cigarette has its benefits

2009-09-29T00:32:00.000-07:00

The proportion of American adults who smoke has fallen from 42 per cent to under 20 per cent over the past 50 years, the American Journal of Public Health said in July. This suggested, the journal wrote, that the US was halfway through a 100-year war on cigarettes. Now, Thomas Farley , New York's city health commissioner, has resolved to fight on the beaches.
Mr Farley wants to end smoking on beaches and in parks, to add to the city's ban on cigarettes in bars, restaurants and workplaces.
As someone whose sole teenage cigarette made him feel sick, I welcomed the Financial Times' decision, over 20 years ago, to set up smokers' rooms and ban smoking at desks. The UK's ban on smoking in all enclosed public spaces in 2007 was even better, because it meant no more cigarette fumes wafting over restaurant food.
But it also meant the closure of the smoking rooms, and my colleagues having to hang around outside. The weather has been balmy, but winter will see them puffing desperately, shoulders hunched, so that they can rush in from the cold.
Separating cigarette smoke from the rest of us was justified. The dangers of second-hand smoke are well established. In 2005, before the smoking ban, the British Medical Journal said that inhaling other people's smoke in the workplace was probably responsible for the deaths of at least two people every working day.
But the hazard is greatly dissipated outside, and any remaining danger is surely preferable to hounding law-abiding people off the streets - or beaches and parks.
It is annoying to find cigarette butts buried in the sand or discarded around park benches, but nonsmokers leave more rubbish behind. Most smokers have now internalised society's disapproval of them. It was not long ago that visitors would ask for permission to light up in your home, or request an ashtray. Few would dream of doing so now. Smokers today are more courteous than mobile phone owners, burger munchers, headphone wearers or cyclists.
It is time to consider what, apart from killing two people a day, smokers have contributed to our workplaces. They form a particular subculture. Forced into each other's company they seem a more congenial bunch than most people at work.
Little research has been done on smoking in the workplace. Much of what there is focuses on how smoking bans encourage people to quit, or how non-smokers resent smokers leaving their desks for a puff (surely less of a legitimate gripe when so many people waste time surfing the internet without leaving their desks).
But I have not been able to track down any research on one of the most striking aspects of workplace smoking groups: their heterogeneous make-up. Companies spend money on activities such as Outward Bound adventures and cookery classes, hoping to encourage bonding between different departments. Smokers already cross those boundaries. Look at any group congregating for a cigarette: you will see senior executives and security guards, marketing and IT support.
Does smoking produce business benefits? "There's no doubt in my mind that it inspires cross-departmental collaboration," one FT commercial manager (and smoker) told me. "You get to know people who you otherwise wouldn't, and get a feel for what they do. If you've half a spark of creativity about you you'll doubtless stumble across an idea you hadn't thought of before. It also allows for the 'off the record' conversations between departments that grease the wheels of business. I'd be pretty lost without them."
Some FT smokers felt that spirit was lost when the smokers were forced outside. "There was an enforced intimacy about the smokers' room (and an enforced sense of solidarity in breathing each other's foul fumes) that is only replicated outside when there is a gentle drizzle, and everyone has to huddle close to the walls. But you do still get cross-departmental chatting," a smoker said.
One colleague recalled a previous job where the smokers were always the best source of gossip. "People (and not only former smokers or those trying to give up) used to announce: 'I'm just going off for a passive' - to sit in the smoking room and find out all the good stuff."
I never went into the smoking room. The stained ceiling gave you an idea of what cigarettes did to your lungs. But I probably missed out on the odd work tip as a result.

Alberta man charged for illegal cigarettes

2009-09-25T00:50:00.000-07:00

An Alberta resident is facing charges in Nova Scotia on charges stemming from the seizure of illegal tobacco.
The RCMP says a pickup truck loaded with contraband cigarettes was stopped Tuesday on Highway 104 near Debert.Officers found cases in the back holding 290,000 cigarettes.
A 34-year-old man, formerly of Noel N.S., but now living in Alberta, was arrested and is to appear in court in Truro today on five charges.

Cigarette Stamp Opens Trail in New Britain Cold Case

2009-09-23T00:01:00.000-07:00

Fourteen years after a woman’s body was found behind Brittany West Plaza in New Britain, her identity and many other factors in the case remain and identity, but police are hoping that people in Albany, New York might be able to help them solve the case.
Police think that the New Britain murder of an unidentified woman in September 1995 might be linked to the killing of another unidentified woman a month later, about 30 miles away in Tolland, Massachusetts.
Massachusetts cops have some leads after finding a tax stamp on pack of cigarettes that led them to Albany.
Because New Britain cops believe their Jane Doe is connected to that Mass Jane Doe, they too believe their victim spent time in Albany.
Now, officials are distributing the photos in the Albany area to see if new leads might come up for a very cold case.

Chinese Citizens Ordered to Smoke More Cigarettes to Boost Economy

2009-09-21T00:20:00.000-07:00

(NaturalNews) The government of Gong'an County, in China's Hubei province, sparked global controversy when it imposed a "cigarette quota" on public employees, in an effort to boost local revenue during the economic downturn.
Chinese law allows county governments to levy taxes on sales of cigarettes only if they are produced within the province. Gong'an County typically raises the least cigarette tax revenue of any county in the region, however, in part because neighboring Hunan province makes some of the highest quality cigarettes in China.
In an effort to raise revenue, the county passed a law ordering public employees to smoke only Gong'an county cigarettes, and threatening to penalize them if they failed to meet a certain quota. County employees were ordered to smoke a total of 230,000 Hubei-brand cigarettes, for total spending of nearly 4 million yuan ($590,000). As part of the new rule, a "special task force" was created and charged with enforcement.
The order drew global media attention when a local newspaper reported that a middle school teacher was to be disciplined for smoking the wrong brand of cigarettes. The teacher reported that county officials entered the school unannounced one afternoon and began sorting through the cigarette butts in the staff room.
When three "non-compliant" cigarette butts were found, the county threatened a fine. After negotiation with the school, a public reprimand was issued instead.
When the story broke, local and global press immediately criticized the rule for wasting public money and encouraging unhealthy practices.
In recent years, the central Chinese government has launched major anti-smoking initiatives. China is home to 350 million smokers, 1 million of whom die from tobacco-related causes each year.
Faced with mounting criticism, Gong'an authorities temporarily suspended the rule, saying that it violated rules about issuing notices.
"The matter is under review," the county said in a statement.
No health concerns were cited as a reason for the reversal, but officials did say that they had no intention of encouraging non-smokers to begin smoking.

Shops 'flout cigarette sales law'

2009-09-17T00:40:00.000-07:00

A fifth of corner shops in England flout the law and sell cigarettes to teenagers and young children, trading standards officers have said.Fines for shopkeepers are so low - less than £100 - that they do not act as an effective deterrent, they added.
Teenage volunteers visited more than 4,000 shops to see if owners would sell them cigarettes without asking for proof of age during a year-long study.
The Association of Convenience Stores said the findings were inaccurate. Magistrates have said their guidelines discourage heavier fines.
Wrists slapped
One in seven 15-year-olds is a regular smoker and the research indicates plenty of shops are willing to sell cigarettes to under-18s. The Local Authorities Coordinators of Regulatory Services (Lacors), the body which oversees the work of trading standards officers across the UK, said the level of fines imposed on offending shopkeepers is not high enough. Lacors chairman Paul Bettison said: "Councils are doing everything in their power to protect young people from the dangers of smoking but retailers are effectively only being slapped on the wrist with minuscule fines."Less than £100 is hardly enough to make a shopkeeper think twice.
"It is time for magistrates to hit those retailers that have a blatant disregard of the law and children's health with higher fines."
The Magistrates' Association has said some of its members are unhappy that sentencing guidelines discourage them from imposing heavier fines. But retailers say the findings of the study are not accurate. Shane Brennan, from the Association of Convenience Stores, told the BBC: "This report fails to paint an accurate picture of what is actually happening for the responsible majority of shops out there in the country, who are every day preventing young people from getting hold of tobacco". In Scotland, the Parliament's health committee has recommended a law change to make it illegal for under-18s to buy tobacco. The committee has also backed plans by the government in Edinburgh to ban the display of cigarettes and outlaw tobacco vending machines. Scottish ministers have said they want to cut the proportion of young people who smoke to less than 23% by 2012. The findings on under-age cigarette sales in England come as the government launched an anti-smoking advertising campaign.
It features children describing their fears about their parents' nicotine addiction.

Are You Up To Date On The Electronic Cigarette Controversy

2009-09-15T03:17:00.000-07:00

The electronic cigarette is something that is either being heavily promoted, or heavily contested among the public due to the fact that there is no certainty here or there about whether or not there are serious health risks from using it and if it is healthier than regular cigarettes or not. Naysayers will say that the electronic cigarette has a higher risk of causing nicotine poisoning, and thus far that has been the primary argument against them. Many who have done their own independent research have found this new product to be a more helpful than harmful device that, if used correctly, it could be used as a means of helping someone quit smoking.

The nicotine in this new version of a cigarette is made up mostly of water, alcohol, nicotine, propylene glycol, and flavorings. However, despite this fact, many researches cling onto the remote possibility of nicotine poisoning as a result of misuse. It has been the most used possible problem by researchers. There have yet to be any other medical issues brought up.

This product has actually been used by many as, despite not being marketed as such, a quit smoking device. This product does not use many of the chemicals that are put in cigarette tobacco. They are also technically smokeless, emitting only a vapor that gives the smoker the sensation of smoking. The electronic cigarettes, while not FDA approved as of yet, are not shown to have any of the other side effects of smoking conventional cigarettes, such as bad breath, stained breath, and the very serious lung cancer. The product acts similarly to the patch, in the sense that it releases only nicotine into the body and not any of the other additives into the body.

Another point of controversy is that many nonsmokers think that this means that any smoker friends they have will use the electronic cigarette as a license to smoke all of the time and stink up the place. But even this argument is void, because the electronic cigarette does not burn anything. Even the smoke which they often complain about is not even smoke by definition. It is actually an odorless vapor. That is right: an odorless vapor. This means that nobody will be stinking up anything. In fact, this is one of the factors that makes this smoking apparatus so popular. And to those who think the electronic cigarette is more expensive, it is actually more cost efficient compared to buying pack after pack of cigarette.

Opinions at Mesa State meeting for, against smoking ban

2009-09-11T00:55:00.000-07:00

At least 119 people, mostly college students, attended a meeting Thursday night at Mesa State College to discuss a potential campuswide ban on smoking.
The meeting is the first of four meetings on the subject planned on consecutive Thursdays at the college.
While some student smokers defended the act of lighting up and some nonsmokers defended their right to fresh air, others focused on cigarette-related littering and possibly designating smoking areas rather than banning cigarette use altogether.
Mesa State student Kyle Evans said his fellow classmates, instead of seeking a ban, should speak up when a person litters or stands too close to a building while smoking.
“We just don’t have the means to enforce this legislation,” Evans said.
Ted Rodriguez, a student and a grounds crew worker at the college, said prohibition of alcohol didn’t work and that a smoking ban won’t take well, either. But he would appreciate it if those who choose to use tobacco clean up after themselves, Rodriguez said.
“There’s nothing more disgusting than picking up a cola can and finding out it’s a spit can,” he said.
David Miller, a math major and smoker, said some smokers are considerate.
“To lump me in and alienate me and tell me I can’t smoke because a few people throw their cigarettes down isn’t fair,” he said.
Jen Kimbrou, a Mesa State student-athlete, said it isn’t fair that plumes of smoke effect her health when shuttling between classes.
“I’m allergic to (smoke). As a student-athlete, I can’t afford these allergic reactions,” she said.
Dave Robinson, a Mesa State student, said the ban would not stop people from smoking; it would just push them to the outer edges of campus to do the deed. Robinson said he worries how the college would appear to passersby and prospective students if a ban were enacted.
The Thursday meeting and a forthcoming survey conducted by the college’s business department will provide some insight for Associated Student Government members to discuss at their next meeting, said Nick Lopez, college government vice president.
“I feel this was really helpful,” Lopez said of the meeting.

Marlboro's black menthol 'One' cigarette in Japan

2009-09-09T00:07:00.000-07:00

Whenever I travel internationally, I look at how cigarettes are advertised. On a recent trip to Japan, the Marlboro"One" menthol cigarette was featured on every vending machine that I came across during my brief stay. Cigarettes were about $3.00 a pack and the minimum age to buy was 20. A special card was needed to purchase out of a vending machine to prevent underage purchases.

One of the commercials that I viewed on the television was for "Cafe Tobacco," a smoking haven. The owner said that patrons are only in the cafe for 20 minutes and therefore, could not become addicted to cigarettes.

Tobacco settlement funds misused, Ohio judge rules

2009-09-07T00:09:00.000-07:00

An Ohio judge ruled that state funds from a 1998 nationwide settlement with tobacco companies must be used for what they were intended, namely prevention and cessation programs.

The lawsuit, filed by a state-established foundation that oversees the tobacco money, alleged lawmakers in their 2009 budget illegally diverted some of the state's $230 million settlement funds to pay for other projects.

The Franklin County Court of Common Pleas agreed in an Aug. 11 ruling that blocked the state from transferring the money. The court said depleting the funds "would result in a substantial increase in tobacco-related premature death and disease in Ohio, and a substantial increase in medical expense."

Gov. Ted Strickland is appealing the ruling, and maintains he and the Legislature have the authority to appropriate the funds as they see fit.

Hundreds of cigarettes stolen from garage

2009-09-03T00:39:00.000-07:00

RAIDERS stole hundreds of packs of cigarettes worth £5,000 from a garage in a night time break-in at Stamford.
Burglars got into the Morrisons petrol station in Uffington Road, Stamford some time overnight between Monday and Tuesday stealing about 800 individual packs of cigarettes and about 30 200-packs.
They forced their way inside by wrenching open a metal grate and then prising back metal wall panelling.
Police are appealing for any witnesses or anyone who saw any suspicious vehicles on or around the A16 near Morrisons to get in touch as soon as possible.
A Morrisons spokesperson said: “We can confirm that there was an incident. The matter is now being investigated by the police.”
n Anyone with any information can call Stamford Police Station on 01780 752222, quoting incident number 61 of September 1.

Time's up for tax crybabies

2009-09-01T00:52:00.000-07:00

For decades, Americans have preferred to run up huge deficits by borrowing from foreigners rather than living within their means by collecting enough taxes to cover their government's expenditures.
Any attempts to raise taxes are greeted with derision by voters who have no idea how low their taxes are compared with the rest of the world.
Like others living outside the United States, I'm very unsympathetic to this whining and deficit-riddled form of governance. It's ruinous for the rest of the world and has been a contributing factor to the economic mess we're all in nowadays.
Americans are tax crybabies, but their spendthrift party will have to end. For the first time, there are hushed whispers in Washington's policy corridors of a possible federal VAT, or GST, across the land to right the listing ship of state.
Some say this is impossible. After all, the President who does this must be the political equivalent of a suicide bomber, willing to die politically in order to get to fiscal heaven.
But no less than the great former governor of the Federal Reserve and Reaganite Paul Volcker has given some, albeit tepid, support to the possibility, according to a recent Washington Post article.
To Canadians, and the rest of the free/developed world, an across-the-board sales tax -- either a value-added tax or a goods and services tax -- is not only a no-brainer but, quite possibly, a world saver now. Europeans pay roughly 15% in VAT and most Canadians pay nearly the same in sales taxes to their provinces and the feds, Alberta excepted.
The Americans need to spend trillions over the next few years and can do this only through taxation, borrowing or printing. But more U.S. debt or currency debasement would be dire for the world's economy and would lead to even greater problems down the road. In a probably vain attempt, I will repeat once again some taxation statistics I published in January 2009. Figures were provided by investment banker and economist DeWolf Shaw of Montreal: - Washington could raise US$600-billion per year or more if Americans paid a 5% federal sales tax on goods and services if it were identical to Canada's 5% GST. - Another US$280-billion could be generated if Americans paid slightly more than double what they pay now, or US$3.75 a gallon, for gasoline, which is roughly what Canadians pay. - Another US$180-billion is available if Americans paid the same taxes on cigarettes as Canadians. - Then there's another US$355-billion for government coffers if Americans had the same liquor taxes as Canadians. - The total that could be raised from all four is US$1.415-trillion. That is, by the way, the size of Canada's or Spain's economies.
That's more than enough money to fix the fiscal mess. For those who think such taxes are job-robbers, consider the economic benefits and jobs that derive from a public sector that provides health care, infrastructure jobs or better education.
Who likes taxes? But the Americans need more of them as much as they need oxygen. They also need to be more responsible in managing their affairs.

Scheme to stub out cigarette litter

2009-08-24T00:12:00.000-07:00

A new drive has been launched in Doncaster to stamp out the litter caused by cigarette smokers.
Council officers have been posted in the town centre and at the railway station to hand out £75 fixed penalty notices to people caught discarding leftover cigarettes.

The direct action has been backed up with a poster campaign.

Half Million Ringgit Worth Of Liquor And Cigarettes Seized

2009-08-17T05:04:00.000-07:00

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 14 (Bernama) -- Police confiscated 5,181 cartons of cigarettes and 527 cartons of liquor of various brands worth over RM500,000 in three separate raids in Ampang Jaya and Selayang, here, on Wednesday.Bukit Aman Commercial Crime Investigation Department media relations officer ASP Abdul Malek Abdul Ghani said they arrested a local man and a Cambodian woman, aged between 20 and 40, in the first raid in Taman Dagang, Ampang Jaya."The first raid was carried out at 3pm based on a public tip-off regarding the distribution of pirated DVDs and VCDs at a house in Taman Dagang."However, no discs were found, instead the police discovered liquor and cigarettes believed to have been smuggled in from a neighbouring country and hidden in the house," he said when contacted Friday.Following the raid, the police conducted another raid on a shophouse in Taman Kosas, Ampang Jaya and in Selayang which also revealed several cartons of liquor and cigarettes.He added that the smuggled items were believed to be for sale in sundry shops in the Klang Valley area at a cheap price.However, the case has been handed over to the Royal Malaysian Customs for investigation and further action.

Police hunt cigarette thieves

2009-08-11T07:09:00.000-07:00

Police are on the hunt for at least two men who stole a cabinet of cigarettes from a service station in Sanson, 24km northwest of Palmerston North, today.
At 4.30am, the men smashed through the front doors of the Caltex station in a stolen ute, Feilding police said.
They stole a large cigarette cabinet from the shop and loaded it on the back of the ute.
The ute, which was stolen from Foxton Beach overnight, and the empty cabinet were found in Foxton, 39km southwest of Palmerston North, later this morning.
Pretty much all the cigarettes were stolen from the cabinet, police spokeswoman Kim Perks said.
The store was doing a stock take to work out the value of the items stolen.
Nothing else was taken from the shop, she said.
Ms Perks said two men had their faces covered and were wearing hoodies, one a green and white check, and the other a black and grey check.
Trucks were believed to have driven past the service station while the crime was being committed.
A search warrant was executed in the Foxton area this afternoon and police were continuing investigations.

Industry gimmick to entice youth to smoking

2009-08-06T03:47:00.000-07:00

Questions have been raised whether the Tobacco industry has resorted to distributing free cigarettes in order to promote the habit of smoking among youth.
The Chairman of the National Authority on Tobacco & Alcohol (NATA) Prof. Carlo Fonseka in a letter to Daily News refers to an incident which took place in front of a restaurant in Colombo as an example, which was personally witnessed by NATA officials, and describes it as a fragrant violations of the NATA Act.
According to Prof. Fonseka around 8.00 pm on July 28, NATA officials after being alerted had visited and witnessed the free distribution of cigarettes by a group of about 10, including young women in front of a restaurant in Fife road, Colombo 5.
The activity had been carried out to the accompaniment of loud music calculated to draw maximum attention.
However, according to the Professor, two traffic Policemen after hearing the loud noise had visited the scene and had informed the concerned people that it was an offence to play loud music without informing the Police, at which point the group had stopped the activity and disbursed from the scene.
The NATA officials at the scene however had followed one vehicle and after reaching its final destination, had spoken to the three occupants politely, and had informed them that what they did was illegal.
Their reply had been that they were simply doing a job for which they were paid.
The officials then had lodged a formal complaint with the Narahenpita Police as the said restaurant was located in the aforesaid Police division.
Thus Prof. Fonseka points out that this incident was a clear violation of the Act No.27 of 2006 and that relevant officials should take prompt action to bring the violators to book and take steps to prevent a recurrence of such incidents in the future.

Philip Morris to Halt Supplies to Illicit Dealers

2009-07-27T05:10:00.000-07:00

Philip Morris USA will stop supplying cigarettes to illegal Internet and mail-order dealers as part of an agreement with attorneys general for California and 36 other states and territories.The action is the third prong of the states' efforts to curb the sale of cigarettes to minors over the Internet and by mail order, often to avoid substantial state sales taxes. In March, major credit card companies agreed to stop processing payments from Internet retailers. Months ago, shippers DHL and UPS Inc. agreed to stop shipping packages from the vendors.
"These illegal enterprises cannot remain in business without a steady supply of cigarettes, and thus restricting that supply can be very effective," said Spitzer, who leads the group of attorneys general from 33 states, three territories and the District of Columbia.
A spokeswoman for Philip Morris, part of Altria Group Inc., said the agreement built on the company's policies and programs to "preserve the integrity of our brands and the legitimate trade channels through which they are sold.
"Our voluntary agreement
The company has agreed to change its practices nationwide, including:
* Ending shipments to any customers the attorneys general found engaged in illegal Internet and mail-order sales.
* Reducing the amount of cigarettes sold to customers that state officials find resell the product to Internet retailers.
* Suspending the incentive programs of any retailer engaged in the illegal sales.
The attorneys general consider all Internet cigarette sales to be illegal because they violate one or more state or federal laws aimed at stopping sales to underage smokers and collecting sales taxes. They said many of the sales through foreign websites also violate federal smuggling, cigarette labeling, money laundering and contraband laws.
The nation's biggest tobacco company voluntarily agreed to end shipments of any of its products to customers, Indian tribes and enterprises that the states deem illegal, New York Atty. Gen. Eliot Spitzer said Thursday.

No Worry About Secondhand Smoke With The Electric Cigarette

2009-07-17T00:05:00.000-07:00

If you smoke even a little, do you ever think about what the smoke is doing to those around you? Smoking a cigarette is bad enough for you, but if you happen to be in a room full of people this smoke can effect each of them also. This smoke will travel to all corners of the room with the ones closest to you inhaling much of this secondhand smoke. If the room is full of smokers, all of you will be getting the smoke from all of the cigarettes in the room, not just your cigarette. All of you could come out of this room smelling like a walking cigarette.

This secondhand smoke is only one reason for the ban of smoking in public places where there are more non-smokers than smokers. This law also prevents children of non-smokers from being impressed by those that smoke. Most children that have been around someone that smokes cigarettes many times end up being smokers themselves. The best way to keep your young from taking up this habit is to not smoke around them at any time.

If you happen to think really hard about the side affects of cigarettes, then you should also realize that this one cigarette is doing the same to others and then try to quit. It is not easy to quit smoking cigarettes as most of you know, but there is a new smoking device on the market that you can switch to. It is called an e-cigarette. With this electronic cigarette there is no tobacco being burned so there is no secondhand smoke either. You can use them around others that do not mind it and not have to worry about any of them. You can use them like a normal cigarette, but without lighting them and producing secondhand smoke.

After you have the normal number of drags from a cigarette you will simply set this e-cigarette flat in your pocket or the surface of your table. You want to keep it out of the reach of children as they might think it is something to play with or use. This product is meant only to be used by adults over the age of eighteen. You will have no tobacco, but you do receive nicotine so just make sure that you put this where children can not touch it. You might also want to think twice before you even use this product around children even though it is relatively harmless.