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Vt. anti-tobacco lobby wants $1-a-pack tax hike

2011-02-03T10:50:00.000-03:00

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — Puffing on a Marlboro outside a coin-operated laundry, 19-year-old Dan Blanchard was quick to say how he feels about a plan to add a $1-a-pack tax on cigarettes bought in Vermont.

"That wouldn't be cool," he said. "That would be insane."

Vermont's anti-tobacco forces say otherwise.

They're pressing lawmakers to boost the state's per-pack tax — now $2.24 — in hopes of offsetting planned budget cuts to anti-tobacco efforts, raising more money for the state and discouraging people from lighting up.

Representatives of the Coalition for a Tobacco Free Vermont joined with officials of the American Lung Association, the American Heart Association and the Vermont Low Income Advocacy Council on Tuesday to propose the increase, which they say would raise $10.2 million in new revenue for state government, drive some smokers to quit and save millions in health care costs.

Gov. Peter Shumlin has proposed a $2.1 million cut in the state's tobacco control efforts. The anti-tobacco lobby says nearly five times that amount could be raised — and some tobacco-control programs spared — by slapping $1 more onto Vermont's per-pack tax.

The hike would prompt 2,000 smokers to quit and prevent 3,600 children from taking it up, according to the Coalition for a Tobacco Free Vermont. It would raise money for the state, which is facing a budget shortfall of about $176 million for the fiscal year starting July 1, and reduce Medicaid expenditures, according to coalition coordinator Tina Zuk, of Colchester.

"It's a win-win for everyone," said Zuk. "The primary role of the tax is not the revenue, although I think to some that sweetens the deal. Where we're going is that from a public health perspective, it's the single best way to get youths not to smoke and to get smokers to quit."

State Rep. George Till, D-Chittenden, a physician who's among bill's sponsors, says using tobacco is the single most preventable cause of death and disease in Vermont.

Now, cigarettes sell for about $6.50 a pack in Vermont, and about 17 percent of adults smoke.

The Vermont Grocers' Association opposes the increase, which it contends will drive smokers to buy somewhere else, not quit.

"No one wants to see increased smoking," said Jim Harrison, president. "We want to see decreases. However, just changing the tax rate, it has other unintended consequences. We've seen it time and time again, especially when small geographic states like Vermont increase the rate. It shifts sales to neighboring state, the Internet, Indian reservations.

"We think we've decreased (smoking), but we really haven't, and what we really ended up doing is losing commerce in Vermont, and some of that tax revenue," Harrison said.

Shumlin agrees.

Vermont state government has reaped about $4.9 million more in cigarette tax revenues in this fiscal year than it forecast, mainly because of price-conscious smokers from neighboring New York who head east to buy for less, according to state Agency of Human Services Secretary Doug Racine.

In New York, the state tax on a pack is more than $4.

"We wish people weren't doing this, and we know it contributes to higher health care costs, but we're seeing New Yorkers come into Vermont to buy cigarettes," Racine said.

Blanchard, who's been smoking since he was 15 and goes through about a pack a day, said paying more wouldn't get him to kick the habit.

"If I'm going to smoke, I'm going to smoke. I might start buying cheaper cigarettes, though," he said.

FDA launches anti-tobacco drive near schools, colleges

2011-01-18T10:27:00.000-03:00

37 shop owners near educational institutions fined since Jan 10

Schools and colleges are required to display boards with warnings that prohibit consumption of tobacco products, says the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Since January 10, the FDA has launched an anti-tobacco campaign and fined 37 shop and stall owners near various schools and colleges in the city.

The FDA seized tobacco stock worth Rs 58,199 from shops located within 100 metres of each of the 27 educational institutions in the city.

“We collected Rs 6,000 as fines from shopkeepers who sold tobacco products so close to schools and colleges. We also urged the educational institutions to help us in the anti-tobacco campaign,” said Food and Drug Joint Commissioner, Pune, Sanjay Patil.

One of the provisions of the Cigarette and Tobacco Products Act, 2003, states there should not be any shop selling tobacco products within 100 metres of an educational institution.

US warns stores for selling cigarettes to minors

2011-01-11T05:37:00.000-03:00

Mississippi stores warned after illegal sales found

* FDA actively using new powers to regulate tobacco

* Retailers nationwide on notice for tougher scrutiny

By Susan Heavey

WASHINGTON, Jan 7 (Reuters) - U.S. health officials have warned 25 Mississippi convenience stores to stop illegally selling cigarettes to minors, exercising for the first time new federal powers over sales to people under age 18.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Friday it sent the stores warning letters for failing to check picture identification and selling cigarettes to minors after inspections in November uncovered the illegal sales.

The agency, which began regulating tobacco products under a 2009 law, told the stores to prevent future sales to minors or face possible penalties that could include fines, a ban on selling tobacco products and product seizures.

The FDA's move is the latest sign that federal regulators are actively using new powers given to them under the law. It also puts retailers nationwide on notice to expect tougher scrutiny.

"If inspectors identify violations, the FDA will take swift actions to protect young people," Lawrence Deyton, head of the FDA's new tobacco center, said in a statement.

Mississippi is one of 15 states using state inspectors to conduct such FDA investigations. This year, the FDA plans to expand the partnership to all 50 U.S. states.

Cigarette sales to minors have long been illegal. Still, more than a quarter of children and teenagers have tried or used cigarettes, smokeless tobacco and other similar products, according to U.S. government statistics.

The FDA announcement regarding the convenience stores came two days after the agency said cigarette makers must provide regulators with detailed information about the ingredients and design of products they have introduced or changed since early 2007 or face possible penalties. [ID:nN05272003]

Under the 2009 law, which won bipartisan support in Congress, FDA gained wide power for the first time over cigarettes and other tobacco products, allowing it to regulate manufacturing and ingredients as well as sales and marketing.

The FDA sent the warning letters, dated Dec. 29 and made public on Friday, mostly to stores at gas stations as well as other convenience stores and delis

Chris Rickert: Don't balance budget on backs of the poor

2011-01-04T10:02:00.002-03:00

Several years ago at the paper I used to work for in Illinois, some of us in the newsroom were batting around the ideas legislators had been floating to fix the state budget.
If you think Wisconsin's two-year, $3.3 billion projected budget deficit is bad, it's small potatoes compared to the Land of Lincoln. Its one-year deficit is estimated to reach about $15 billion by June, and the state has long been adept at a kind of budgetary sleight of hand that depends heavily on kicking the problem down the road.
But the main issue that day was a proposed increase in the cigarette tax, a common way for governments to raise money and still be able to say they haven't raised taxes — as in taxes, like income and sales taxes, that people other than nicotine addicts pay.
Over about the last decade, states have raised cigarette taxes more than any other, Arturo Perez, a fiscal analyst with the National Conference of State Legislatures, told me last week, although the tax brings in comparatively little revenue.
I said that day in Illinois that a cigarette tax increase is basically a tax on the poor because the poor are more likely to smoke — as demonstrated, for example, by a 2009 study by the UW-Madison Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention that found that 42 percent of adults in some of Milwaukee's poorest neighborhoods smoked. Compare that to about 21 percent of adults nationally.
One of my colleagues disagreed. He said a cigarette tax is a "stupid tax," as in if you don't have the brains to stop paying for the privilege of slowly killing yourself, perhaps you deserve what you get.
This is a concept I struggle with anytime lawmakers start talking about transferring large amounts of capital from America's more or less permanent underclass to the government or some other moneyed interest.
And for that reason, I'll be interested in seeing what Beloit does with a proposal to provide much-needed employment, economic development and tax revenue by building an Indian casino, as well as whether the Republicans taking over state government will weaken a law passed last year to regulate so-called predatory lenders.
Because both fall into the poor vs. stupid quandary.
Walk into any casino outside the Las Vegas strip and it becomes pretty clear pretty fast that the people pumping quarters into the slot machines are not exactly the types with a lot of disposable income. A study released in February by the Lehigh Valley Research Consortium — part of a Bethlehem, Pa.-based association of colleges — found that almost half of those with incomes under $20,000 said they were likely to visit a casino soon to open in their area.
That's in contrast to the 20 percent of people making over $100,000 who said they likely would go.
Meanwhile, the opportunities for legalized gambling — via slot, scratch-off, etc. — have been steadily increasing nationwide.
Payday and auto title loans are by definition aimed at people who don't have enough money to pay relatively small (for the rest of us) bills and thus must rely on short-term loans at exorbitant interest rates secured by either their transportation or their paycheck.
But does that mean gambling and short-term loan providers are intrinsically unfair, and thus ripe for government oversight or outright bans? Seeing as how it's no secret that even the loosest slots' odds are tilted pretty heavily toward the house and that any person with an eighth-grade education should know the ramifications of carrying a loan with a 300 percent annual interest rate, do the poor, to put it bluntly, deserve what they get?
To be clear, I am not equating poverty with stupidity, just as I would not equate wealth with intelligence (for by that measure, Paris Hilton should be living under a bridge).
It's just that with a new Legislature and governor set to begin tackling the state's problems on Monday — shifting from total Democratic to total Republican control — the question of who pays is sure to come up again. It is, in public policy matters at least, arguably the only question there is.
Perhaps the poor, especially those getting government assistance, shouldn't be pitied if they're doing things clearly counterproductive to improving their financial lot — like buying cigarettes and lottery tickets or relying on predatory loans.
So feel free to dispense with the pity. But be aware that it's probably just as counterproductive — for all of us — to kick them while they're down.

E-Cigarettes Win Court Ruling

2010-12-28T10:59:00.001-03:00

Electronic cigarettes moved a step closer to being regulated just like mainstream tobacco products on Tuesday when a federal appellate court unanimously upheld an injunction against the Food and Drug Administration’s attempt to ban them or regulate them more strictly as drugs.

E-cigarettes are battery-powered tubes that look like cigarettes. They deliver nicotine by vaporizing a nicotine-derived liquid without combustion. Their distributors say this makes them more healthy than cigarettes. They can even deliver steam to exhale like a clean, smoke-free smoke.

The F.D.A., concerned with marketing claims of products that deliver a highly addictive substance, has tried to ban e-cigarettes as unapproved drug delivery devices.

But the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., upheld a lower court injunction against the F.D.A. ban. The appellate court said the F.D.A. should regulate them under the 2009 legislation that set up a Center for Tobacco Products. E-cigarettes are marketed for the pleasure of a product, not for the therapeutic benefit of a drug or medical device, the court said.

Jeffrey Ventura, an F.D.A. spokesman, said in a statement on Tuesday, “We are studying the opinion and considering next steps.”

The e-cigarettes in the case were manufactured by Sottera of Scottsdale, Ariz., doing business as NJOY. It sells the products and refill cartridges on a Web site requiring certification that the buyer is 18 years old. A starter kit costs $79.99.

Quit-smoking products like nicotine patches and gum and the Pfizer pill Chantix are regulated by the federal drug law, which requires them to be proven safe and effective. The tobacco law allows the F.D.A. to regulate ingredients and marketing claims in “any product made or derived from tobacco,” but shifts more of the burden of proof to federal regulators.

The F.D.A. tried to regulate all tobacco products as drugs in 1996. The Supreme Court ruled against that by a 5-4 vote in 2000, leading to work in Congress to develop the tobacco control act that passed last year.

The appellate court ruling was hailed by advocates of e-cigarettes, who say they are much safer than cigarettes.

“This is a huge victory for public health and civil justice,” Bill Godshall, founder of Smokefree Pennsylvania, a nonprofit group supporting e-cigarettes, wrote in an e-mail message. “It’s time for F.D.A. officials to come to their senses by reclassifying (and promulgating reasonable regulations for) e-cigarettes as tobacco products.”

The American Heart Association was among the antitobacco groups to support a drug ban or tighter regulation.

“We’re gravely concerned about the implications of today’s ruling,” the association’s chief executive, Nancy Brown, said in a statement. “The appeals court has cleared the way for the industry to peddle these products to consumers without any scrutiny as to their safety or efficacy. There is no scientific evidence that e-cigarettes are effective smoking cessation devices and, until they undergo rigorous evaluation by the Food and Drug Administration, they should be pulled from the marketplace. With this ruling, e-cigarette manufacturers will continue to make misleading claims that their products can help smokers quit.”

The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, a Washington advocacy group, said the ruling would leave an unregulated period before the F.D.A. could assert jurisdiction.

“This decision will allow any manufacturer to put any level of nicotine in any product and sell it to anybody, including children, with no government regulation or oversight at the present time,” the campaign’s president, Matthew L. Myers, said in a statement. “We urge the government to appeal this ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. “

J&J to roll out Nicorette from this week

2010-12-22T10:44:00.003-03:00

Smokers looking to give up the habit have one more alternative to choose from, with Johnson & Johnson Ltd set to bring in Nicorette, its sugar-free nicotine gum that helps reduce nicotine cravings.

Nicorette will be available at all chemist outlets beginning January 2011, a note from J&J said.

Many people choose to quit regular cigarettes like Davidoff cigarettes or Lucky Strike cigarettes and start using Nicorette.

Tobacco cessation products are already present in the country, with Pfizer having launched its Chantix (sold in India as Champix ) in 2008. GlaxoSmithKline's product Zyban was launched locally in 2001, but shelved two years later.

J&J, however, said that from later this week, Nicorette would be rolled-out in packs of 4mg (10 gums) – prescribed by doctors for “heavy smokers”, and as an over-the-counter product of 2 mg (4 & 10 gums) for “light smokers”, a note from the company said.

The cessation products are priced at Rs 22 for a 2 mg, 4 pieces box of Nicorette and Rs 50 for a 2 mg, 10 pieces box of Nicorette, besides Rs 65 for a 4 mg, 10 pieces box.

A Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) product, Nicorette provides therapeutic and clean nicotine, slowly and in lesser quantities as compared to a cigarette, but also just enough to satisfy the cravings, the company said.

NRT substitutes the nicotine obtained from smoking, thus controlling craving and withdrawal symptoms, and preventing relapse to smoking.

Also, unlike tobacco smoke, it delivers nicotine that is devoid of harmful chemicals such as tar, irritants and carbon monoxide, and, hence, is safer than smoking a cigarette, it added.

Concerns

NRTs are recognised as part of cessation programmes, and its short-term use is a bridge to actual cessation, said Dr Srinath Reddy of Public Health Foundation of India.

But long term use could have adverse effects in terms of impact on the heart and fresh addiction, he said, adding that it needs to be monitored.

In fact, cessation products have in the past too had to deal with associated concerns. Late last year, Pfizer had to update the label on its smoking-cessation product Champix, to alert health professionals of behavioural changes, including depressed moods and suicidal thoughts, reportedly associated with such products.

This was after the US regulator, the Food and Drug Administration raised the concern and mandated “boxed warnings” on Chantix (varenicline) and Zyban (bupropion hydrochloride), two prescription medicines used as part of smoking cessation programmes.

NC union says menthol ban means worker hardship

2010-12-17T05:57:00.002-03:00

A union representing workers at the company that makes the top-selling brand of menthol cigarettes says a ban on the additive would cause economic hardship.

Many tobacco brands are on top because they have good quality even if some of them do not have menthol addition. For example Camel cigarettes or Vogue cigarettes are very demanded among smokers.

The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union also says it's being shut out of a Wednesday meeting in Raleigh.

The federal Center for Tobacco Products is meeting with representatives of the tobacco industry. The Food and Drug Administration is studying the use of menthol in cigarettes, and may recommend tighter regulations or an outright ban.

The union represents about 1,000 workers at Greensboro-based Lorillard Inc., makers of Newport cigarettes.

Dozens of union workers plan to rally in front of the Raleigh hotel where the meeting is being held.

Pro-smoking group petitions against EU regulations

2010-12-17T05:54:00.002-03:00

Proposed changes to the European Commission’s Tobacco Products Directive include a ban on the display of tobacco products in retail stores, the introduction of plain packaging, the enlargement of picture warnings on packs and the prohibition of all types of smokeless tobacco products.

There are different regular cigarette brands like Davidoff cigarettes or West cigarettes.
The European Commission’s public consultation closes on Friday 17 December.
“We support measures that educate children and adults about the health risks of smoking, but we oppose unnecessarily restrictive regulations that are designed to denormalise a legal product and will threaten jobs and small businesses and inconvenience millions of law-abiding citizens throughout Europe,” said Forest director Simon Clark.
“We urge everyone who opposes these proposals to sign the petition which will be submitted to the EC as part of the consultation. It is essential that consumers make their voices heard in Brussels as well as in Westminster.”
The petition will be delivered by Forest to the European Commission in Brussels on 17 December.

Menthol Ban Could Boost Kid Smoking

2010-12-02T09:03:00.000-03:00

A ban on menthol in cigarettes might be an obvious way to curb kiddie smoking, but a new survey of anti-smoking regulations in Canada finds that getting tough only results in a black market of smokes that are cheaper and easier for kids to get.

As the Food and Drug Administration considers a ban on menthol, cigarette makers like Lorillard, which produces Newport, have been pushing back. At a meeting today of the Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee, which has until March to advise the FDA on a regulatory path, the report they presented was a reminder that those who want to smoke will find a way to do it.

The survey from the research firm Compass Lexecon found that a ban would create a sizeable black market for menthol cigarettes, boost organized crime, increase youth access and have little impact on smoking rates. The key summary paragraph: "Restrictions placed on legal menthol sales would primarily divert current sales of menthol cigarettes to non-menthol cigarette alternatives and to black market menthol cigarettes. Further, our best estimate is that the black market that will emerge will be substantial. In terms of unit sales, our estimate is that black market menthol sales will be over 70 percent of current volumes, and that aggregate revenues will approximately be close to current sales levels. Finally, our analysis suggests that there could be many unintended consequences, ranging from the more obvious outcomes, such as significant growth in organized crime activity, to other types of effects, such as greater youth access to cigarettes (especially in urban areas) and large increases in the sales of low-cost counterfeit cigarettes."

Groups like the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids believe a ban will curb youth smoking, but Bill Wilson, the president of Americans for Limited Government, says a ban will only lead to a black market that makes cigarettes cheaper and easier to get. "This is a classic case of government interference leading to devastating outcomes. Since the charge to ban menthol cigarettes is led by the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, it may be time for them to change their name to the Campaign for Tobacco Access for Kids," he says.

What's happened in Canada, after it significantly raised taxes, is that a huge black market opened with cartons of cigarettes being stuffed in plastic bags for sale about a quarter of the retail price. Kids are able to buy them without having to prove their age. The industry survey and Powerpoint, provided to Whispers, found that the Canadian provinces that suffered the greatest increase in contraband sales are also those that saw teen smoking rates jump.

Santa Cruz City Council to consider tobacco retail license fee: Funds would be used to fight underage cigarette sales

2010-11-30T07:39:00.000-03:00

SANTA CRUZ -- Following in Watsonville's footsteps, the Santa Cruz City Council on Tuesday will weigh the creation of an tobacco retail license fee to fund programs designed to reduce access to cigarettes by minors.

The council will vote on directing staff to study how many businesses would be affected and how the fee would be administered. The council would consider an actual proposal later.

In August, Watsonville City Council passed a similar measure, the first of its kind in the county, to charge retailers $255 annually for a license to sell tobacco. The program is expected to raise more than $15,000 from 61 retailers, money that would support education programs and decoy stings designed to ensure retailers are checking IDs.

Santa Cruz Mayor Mike Rotkin is recommending the license fee now because "there will be community support for it" and because it will take time to document the rates of tobacco sales to minors. Staff also must still determine whether the fee is subject to Proposition 26, the recently passed state measure requiring voter approval for some taxes and fees.

Interim Police Chief Kevin Vogel said the department does not currently conduct tobacco decoy stings, adding, "It's my anecdotal sense is that it's occurring out there, but hasn't come on our radar as a problem." But he noted that Watsonville police weren't sure how widespread a problem they had until they studied it.

Thirteen-year tobacco retailer Ron Venturi, who owns Ron and Bridgette's Place with his wife, has long anticipated the city would pass a fee like nearly 80 other jurisdictions in California. He said he understands the desire to curb illegal sales to teens.
"We don't sell to minors," he said. "We have children. They don't smoke. We wouldn't want someone selling to our children."

But he also said another fee will make doing business difficult. "Basically, we're being fined for not doing anything wrong," he said, adding that he will have no choice but to pass the cost along to his customers.

The city created an Alcohol Sales Permit Fee 12 years ago to fund a police education and compliance program about alcohol sales.

Rotkin said he is sympathetic to small businesses, but said retailers that sell a product proven to pose serious health risks should have to fund programs that address negative impacts.

"I don't have a problem if you drive the tobacco industry out of business," Rotkin said. "They are selling death and I don't see that we need to support them."

The council will weigh the fee study during its 3 p.m. session.

Cigarette butts targeted

2010-11-24T10:02:00.000-03:00

Smokers have a convenient new way to dispose of their cigarette butts at public events in Salem and Beverly under a new initiative. An ad hoc committee comprised of officials and environmental advocates from the two cities recently acquired 20 cigarette butt receptacles that it is making available for borrowing at no charge for public events in Salem and Beverly.

The committee, Citizens for Salem/Beverly Water Resources, purchased the receptacles as part of a $1,500 grant it received earlier this year from the Vermont-based New England Grassroots Fund to acquire equipment that can protect water resources and reduce waste. Committee members note that cigarette butts are made of cellulose acetate that is non biodegradable and are the most littered item in the world.

The new receptacles have already collected more than 500 cigarette butts at several events over the last few weeks, including the Salem Jazz and Soul Festival held at Salem Willows Park, according to Jason Silva, chief of staff to Salem Mayor Kimberley L. Driscoll. The committee estimates the receptacles have the potential to collect more than 20,000 cigarette butts each year.

Citi Downgrades Altria, Lorillard, RHS Could Get Burned

2010-11-19T12:03:00.000-03:00

Citigroup made calls on U.S. tobacco companies today.

Citi downgraded Altria (MO) from buy to hold, maintaining a $17 price target.

It downgraded Lorillard (LO) from buy to hold, maintaining a $95 price target.

Citi cited increased menthol regulation risk in the downgrades.

Citigroup has buy rating on Reynolds American (RAI), with a price target of $79, and noted the company is less exposed to methanol.

Altria, Lorillard and Reynolds American traded lower today.

Together, the three companies make up 7.62% of the Rydex S&P Equal Weight Consumer Staples ETF (RHS), which was flat on Friday.

Protecting Kids from Tobacco

2010-11-10T06:49:00.001-03:00

Every day nearly 4,000 kids under 18 try their first cigarette and 1,000 kids under 18 become daily smokers. Many of these kids will become addicted before they are old enough to understand the risks and will ultimately die too young of tobacco-related diseases. FDA is working to protect the health of America’s children and ultimately reduce the burden of illness and death caused by tobacco use.

Regulations Restricting the Sale and Distribution of Cigarettes and Smokeless Tobacco to Protect Children and Adolescents
FDA is issuing a final rule that contains a broad set of federal requirements designed to significantly curb access to and the appeal of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products to children and adolescents in the United States.
The new rule became effective on June 22, 2010, and has the force and effect of law. Among other things, the rule:
Prohibits the sale of cigarettes or smokeless tobacco to people younger than 18,
Prohibits the sale of cigarette packages with less than 20 cigarettes,
Prohibits distribution of free samples of cigarettes,
Restricts distribution of free samples of smokeless tobacco, and
Prohibits tobacco brand name sponsorship of any athletic, musical or other social or cultural events.

Halloween holdup nets cash, cigarettes

2010-11-02T05:02:00.000-03:00

HALIFAX - Police in the Halifax area say they're looking for a suspect in a Halloween armed robbery of a convenience store.

Police were called to the store on Pleasant Street in Dartmouth on Sunday night, where someone in a Halloween-style scream mask held a knife at the clerk.

The suspect fled on foot with some cash and cigarettes.

Police say there were no injuries.

The suspect is described as a white male wearing a blue hoodie, yellow work boots and baggy jeans.

Police also say he was wearing one glove.

Lawmaker: Series should skip smokeless tobacco

2010-10-26T03:37:00.001-03:00

WASHINGTON A congressman is calling on the San Francisco Giants and Texas Rangers to tell their players not to use smokeless tobacco on the field or in the dugout during the World Series.

New Jersey Democrat Frank Pallone, chairman of the House Health Subcommittee, says he's concerned about free advertising baseball players give the tobacco industry and "the influence this exposure has on young people."

On Monday, Pallone sent letters to Rangers President Nolan Ryan and Giants President Larry Baer, telling them a "ban of smokeless tobacco while players are in uniform would be a great service to this country."

At a House hearing in April, Pallone urged baseball and its players to agree to bar major leaguers from using chew, dip or similar products during games.

Cigarette Makers and Retailers Sue to Block Rule Requiring Antismoking Posters

2010-06-28T09:58:00.000-03:00

The nation’s three big tobacco companies, and trade associations representing hundreds of New York City bodegas and convenience stores, are challenging the city’s latest salvo in the antismoking wars: graphic images of diseased brains, lungs and teeth that are posted where cigarettes are sold.

The tobacco companies — Philip Morris, Lorillard and R. J. Reynolds which is the manufacturer of Camel cigarettes— joined with the New York State Association of Convenience Stores and retailers in filing a federal lawsuit against the city in an effort to remove the gruesome placards from about 11,500 establishments. Since late last year, the city has required the retailers to post them within three inches of cash registers or in each place where tobacco products are displayed.

The suit, filed on Wednesday in United States District Court in Manhattan, contends that the placard rule infringes on the federal government’s authority to regulate cigarette advertising and warnings and violates the First Amendment rights of store owners who disagree with their message, and that the placards are so disgusting that they hurt business by discouraging people from buying not only cigarettes but also more-wholesome merchandise like milk and sandwiches.

“This is not the city taking out a billboard, which it would have every right to do,” Floyd Abrams, a First Amendment lawyer who is representing the convenience stores, said Friday. “What it doesn’t have the right to do is to force other people to adopt its expression.”

The suit also complains that because of heavy restrictions on cigarette advertising, advertising space near the cash register is one of the last places where companies can promote their brands.

By putting ugly posters there instead, the suit says, the city is blocking tobacco companies from communicating with consumers, depriving retailers of coveted advertising revenue and pushing restrictions on tobacco-related speech “past the constitutional tipping point.”

In a statement, the city’s health department said that putting warnings where cigarettes were sold was one of the most effective ways to deter people from smoking and to discourage a new generation of smokers. “By trying to suppress this educational campaign,” the statement said, “the tobacco industry is signaling its desire to keep kids in the dark.”

The city has spent $80,000 to print and distribute the signs in the eight months since the law was adopted. They are based on research that shows pictures are much more effective at conveying the hazards of smoking than written text, according to the health department.

The suit received a mixed reception on Friday at the Corner News convenience store at 40th Street and Eighth Avenue in Manhattan.

Maria Roman, 35, a customer-service representative, barely glanced at the poster of a bloody tooth, stuck to the cash register, as she paid for a package of candy. To her, she said, the poster seemed perfectly factual. “It’s the truth,” she said, shrugging. “It’s just a visualization of what’s actually happening.”

John Pae, 58, a chef, said he generally resented government intrusions into his life but was even angrier about high cigarette taxes and a proposed soda tax, because they affected his wallet.

He said that he had called the city’s 311 hotline to help him quit smoking about two and a half months ago, but that the nicotine patches the city provided were so cheap that they had to be held on with duct tape. He has since bought patches at a drugstore.

“Everything pushed me to quit — taxes, getting older, the effect on my health,” Mr. Pae said. But he conceded that the city’s 311 smoking-cessation program, which he saw advertised on television, “made it easier.”

A clerk at the store, Saiful Islam, said a photograph on the cash register, of a diseased tooth, was so upsetting that some customers had switched from buying cigarettes to buying candy or gum. Many of them were spending as much on soda, candy and lottery tickets as they had on cigarettes, he said, so the store had not lost business.

He said the taxes that had pushed the price of a pack of cigarettes to $10 were worse for business than the posters, because they led people to buy cigarettes on the black market — which he said thrived on the sidewalk right outside the store.

Cigarettes and how they influence us

2010-06-23T07:15:00.002-03:00

Imagine walking home one day to smell a thick scent of smoke. This isn’t the same smell left out, but of something burning. Suddenly, you think of all the possibilities. Maybe the stove was left on. ou ask him why he would make such a bad decision? He says he is under a lot of pressure and he friend told him that smoking would make him feel better. Let’s stop and think for a second, you can’t blame your child. There is a temptation and no one to stop him, wouldn’t it be better if did away with the temptation or illegalize it.

America alone has 46.2 million adults smoking cigarettes. Smoking nearly harms every organ in your body. It is the leading cause of cancer. It causes cancers of the lung, esophagus, larynx (voice box), mouth, throat, kidney, bladder, pancreas, stomach, and cervix, as well as acute myeloid leukemia. Every year 440,000 people die due to health conditions caused by smoking. Once you try one cigarette, it is hard to resist. Not only is it harmful, but it is also addictive. Because it posses nicotine that addicts, smoking and poverty go hand and hand. People will spend every last penny to buy a box of cigarettes.

Not only is smoking harmful for the smoker, but it can affect anyone inhaling the smoke. It is known as passive or second hand smoking, many people call the silent killer. Even though you might not smoke, you are still in danger. When you inhale the 4000 chemicals burning from a cigarette, you might suffer disease such as Lung cancer, asthma attacks, and breathing problems. There were 46,000 deaths from heart disease in non-smokers who live with smokers last year in American alone. Plus the 3,400 who died from lung cancer. I don’t think that is fair, there are innocent people dyeing. We as American citizens or just people on earth deserve clean air where we don’t have to worry about inhaling smoke that can endanger life.

Cigarette companies know all these facts and so does congress, then you wonder why cigarettes are legal. Why would something that can kill you be legal? There is a very simple answer, money. To stay alive cigarette companies pay money as well as allowing congress to put a special tax on cigarettes. Every year congress makes about 7.7 billion dollars and states make about 13 billion. Basically, the government’s priority is money over our health.

With all this being said, I think cigarettes should be illegalized. The world would be a safer place. We might even stop worrying that are children might take a wrong step by smoking, one less thing to worry about.

U.S. Postal Service to put curbs on the mailing of tobacco

2010-06-21T08:43:00.000-03:00

The Post Office will shut down one of the main ways kids can get cigarettes and distributors can dodge taxes.
As of June 29, the U.S. Postal Service will stop accepting and carrying packages containing cigarettes or smokeless tobacco, the agency said yesterday in its latest internal bulletin.
The agency is taking the move to implement a new federal law meant to crack down on illegal trafficking in cigarettes.
The new rules about tobacco say the Post Office can refuse to accept packages if it has reasonable cause to believe they contain cigarettes or smokeless tobacco -- for instance, if the packages are shipped by companies or people with websites promising to mail cigarettes, smokeless tobacco or loose tobacco for roll-your-own cigarettes.
The rules apply to international and domestic shipments alike. They do not apply to cigars.
"Internet sales of cigarettes is a problem because they can sell to kids and they evade taxes," said Eric Lindblom, director of public policy research at the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "The Post Office was the No. 1 way illegal Internet sellers deliver cigarettes."
Major package delivery firms, such as FedEx, UPS and DHL, will not ship cigarettes, under agreements reached with state attorneys general seeking to enforce laws banning sale of tobacco to minors.
"These new requirements will put an end to tax-evading online sales and impose rigorous age-verification requirements for remote sellers of these products," said David Sutton, a spokesman for Altria Group Inc., the Henrico county-based tobacco giant.
He said Altria supported the new law, adding "it will help states recover millions of dollars in tax revenues they are losing to tax-evading online sales; help ensure that kids cannot purchase tobacco products online; and help combat illegal activity associated with the sale and distribution of tax-evading tobacco products."
Convenience store operators and law-enforcement agencies also supported the law.
The new law does allow some exceptions. For instance, a smoker can return defective cigarettes to manufacturers for a refund, or small amounts can be mailed as gifts.
But the Post Office said all such deliveries will be made face-to-face, and the recipient must show proof of age. Such shipments are limited to 10 ounces and no more than 10 a month.
There are also exceptions allowing licensed tobacco manufacturers, wholesalers, test laboratories and government agencies to mail cigarettes for business or regulatory purposes, if they win permission from the Post Office. The rules also allow for cigarettes or smokeless products to be mailed within Alaska and Hawaii.

Court backs Walgreens' objection to tobacco ban

2010-06-18T05:23:00.000-03:00

San Francisco's first-in-the-nation ban on tobacco sales in drugstores appears to be unconstitutional because it exempts supermarkets and big-box stores that have pharmacies, a state appeals court said Tuesday.

But the First District Court of Appeal left open the possibility that the legal defect could be cured by extending the tobacco ban to all stores that sell prescription drugs, rather than repealing it. The court referred that question to a Superior Court judge.

The ruling is "a powerful condemnation of the legality of the ordinance," said Daniel Kolkey, a lawyer for Walgreens, which filed the suit.

Australia Senate Approves Cigarette Excise Hike

2010-06-15T08:25:00.000-03:00

CANBERRA -(Dow Jones)- Lawmakers in Australia's upper house Senate on Tuesday approved a 25% increase in cigarette excise taxes.

The increase, which raised the price of a pack of 30 cigarettes by about A$ 2.16, was enacted with immediate effect on April 30 but needed legislative approval. It will raise around A$5 billion over the next four years.

Canberra is also working on a separate plan to ban brand labels and other marketing imagery on cigarette packaging by 2012. Cigarette companies have vowed to fight that measure.

Province's controls on teen access to tobacco 'second class' Read more: http://www.edmontonjournal.com/health/Province+controls+teen+access+tobacco+s

2010-06-03T06:58:00.000-03:00

The provincial government must do more to curb teen access to tobacco products, an Edmonton-based anti-smoking group said this week.

"Alberta is the only province in Canada without specific provincial controls on sales to minors," said Les Hagen of Action on Smoking and Health. "We believe that Alberta kids deserve first-class protection from tobacco, and right now they're getting second-class protection."

Hagen's group is calling on the province to introduce stricter regulations to help prevent retailers from selling tobacco to teens. A Health Canada survey on retailer compliance released last month showed that 17 per cent of Alberta retailers were willing to sell tobacco to minors between the ages of 15 and 17, compared with about 10 per cent of retailers willing to do so in 2006.

Hagen's group wants to see Alberta build on existing federal legislation by introducing regulations similar to those currently controlling the sale of alcohol in the province.

He said Alberta should introduce a licensing policy and mandatory training for tobacco retailers, better point-of-sale signs, and a mandatory ID check for anyone 25 or under. The province should also introduce a minimum age of 18 for clerks who sell tobacco products, Hagen said.

"You could have a 14-year-old selling tobacco in Alberta," he said. "Not only is it an issue of controlling the sale, but tobacco products invite crime. It is a health issue and a safety issue."

Minister of Health and Wellness Gene Zwozdesky agreed that more action may be needed to lower youth smoking rates and said he was willing to listen to suggestions from anti-smoking advocates. But he said the province already has strict fines and guidelines in place regarding tobacco sales to minors.

"We haven't had that discussion, but I am prepared to listen to what the proponents are advocating," Zwozdesky said.

He said smoking rates among teens aged 15 to 19 now stand at about 16 per cent, a number he wants to see decline.

"Clearly, we have to do more work to continue reducing that number and eventually eliminating it if we can," he said.

Hagen said teens continue to take up smoking partly because of tobacco industry marketing campaigns designed to encourage them to buy their products.

"They will vigorously deny that they are doing anything to attract teenagers, but you have to look no further than candy flavours, price discounts and slim cigarettes," Hagen said. "It's obvious to everyone that the industry is targeting kids and continuing to entice them to use their deadly products."

Charlene Reese, 17, has been smoking for a few years.

"Maybe you have to be 18 to buy smokes, but anyone can get them. All you need is an older friend or something."

Kelly Allers, 23, is a clerk at a downtown tobacco shop. He regularly turns away minors trying to buy tobacco products.

"On average, I probably kick out two people a week because they don't have ID."

He said he usually asks for identification from anyone who looks under 23.

Noynoy says he will smoke even on no-tobacco day

2010-06-01T09:42:00.003-03:00

Not even World No-Tobacco Day can stop president-apparent Sen. Benigno “Noynoy" Aquino III from indulging in one of his most controversial habits – smoking.

Aquino told reporters at the Senate Monday he is not inclined to take a break from puffing a cigarette on the occasion.

“Palagay ko po (I think)," he said smiling when asked if he would light a stick today.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has selected "Gender and tobacco with an emphasis on marketing to women" as the theme for the World No-Tobacco Day, which falls today.

According to WHO, more than 1.5 million women die from tobacco use annually, most of them in poor and middle-income countries. In addition, two-thirds of the 430,000 adults who die each year from second-hand smoke are women.

"We must turn back the global tobacco epidemic. On World No Tobacco Day, I urge all governments to address this public health threat. Tobacco use is not stylish or empowering. It is ugly and deadly," a statement from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said.

Last week, Aquino said he was not inclined to stop smoking yet as kicking the habit might create pressure affecting his decisions.

He said he was not keen on being a poster boy for anti-smoking advocates, adding he would stop smoking at the "appropriate" time as there might be too much pressure on him if he kicks the habit at this time.

"Noong tumakbo ako, alam ng taumbayan [na] naninigarilyo ako. At the appropriate time na hihinto ako, titigil ako. So long as nako-control ako sa mga batas at wala akong naiistorbo baka parte ito ng kalayaan kong natitira," Aquino said.

(When I ran for the presidency, everyone knew I was a smoker. I will kick the habit at the appropriate time. As long as I follow the controls of the laws and I don't disturb other people, then maybe this is a part of what remains of my freedom.)

Pressures from the industry

As the world marks World No-Tobacco Day, anti-tobacco advocates advised Aquino not to be swayed by pressures from the tobacco industry once he assumes office next June 30.

The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Alliance Philippines (FCAP) said that if Aquino thinks he is facing much pressure from well-meaning people to quit smoking, the more he would be pressed by the demands of tobacco companies.

“It is with the tobacco industry that he should be cautious about. This industry is bent on influencing the public sphere to ensure that it will continue to sell cigarettes while the government’s health agency deals with the increasing number of deaths due to smoking-related diseases," said Dr. Maricar Limpin, FCAP executive director, in an article posted on the Health Department website.

The president-apparent should keep his doors open to professional help, if he really wants to quit smoking, Limpin added.

A pulmonolgist, Limpin said programs on how to stop smoking are available in government and private hospitals

Kicking the habit is difficult because of the addiction to nicotine, according to her.

Trying to quit now would not add “stress" to Aquino’s life, as he claims, but he should exercise the willpower to stop, she said.

Young people as the target of tobacco companies these days have no idea about the harmful effects of smoking to their health, Limpin said.

"The tobacco industry does not want to stipulate clearly the fatal impact of tobacco on the consumers, lest they lose the profits they currently enjoy," she said.

How to quit

While the WHO's Tobacco-Free Initiative said Aquino could pick several options as a "patient" who needs to stop smoking, it reminded him that his parents had symptoms of exposure to cigarette smoke.

"(From) his public statements, it seems that Mr. Aquino is aware that he is not only damaging his own health but is setting a poor example to his fellow-countrymen and fellow-countrywomen and has expressed a desire to quit," WHO Tobacco-Free Initiative Western Pacific regional adviser Susan Mercado said in an article posted on the Department of Health website.

She noted that former Sen. Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr. suffered a heart attack while the late President Corazon C. Aquino had colorectal cancer. "Both of these conditions have been linked to cigarette smoke exposure," she said.

Mercado said that with the coming into force of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) in 2005, anti-smoking programs have changed dramatically.

"In the past, smoking and quitting were left to the individual smoker. Today, because of the WHO FCTC, it is also government's responsibility and mandate to control tobacco use," she said.

Unfinished agenda

Mercado said it took 17 years from 1987 for the first anti-smoking bill in the Philippines to get passed into law.

Now, she said there is a huge unfinished agenda for the Philippine government to comply with the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

"Noynoy Aquino is a smoker like 17 million other Filipinos. Like others who were born in the 1960s, he grew up in an environment where smoking was the norm – even among role models like priests, doctors, businessmen, scientists, scholars, actors, athletes," she noted.

Women’s groups also scored the tobacco industry over deceptive marketing gimmicks to lure more women into smoking.

The groups representing the urban poor and farmers sectors said this puts the lives of Filipino women, especially the young, in danger.

“More young women will be convinced to embrace this addiction if the government fails to decisively act and prevent the tobacco industry from further victimizing our young children. The government cannot afford to stay at the sidelines while the industry continues to prey on our children," said WomanHealth Philippines national coordinator Ana Maria Nemenzo, in an article posted on the Department of Health website.

Women smokers

Meanwhile, the 2009 Global Adult Tobacco Survey reported that 2.8 million Filipino women 15 years and older were smokers.

“We urge Health Secretary Cabral to institute administrative measures to put more effective health information in cigarette packs to effectively counter the aggressive marketing strategies of the tobacco industry. The statistics on girls as young as 13 years becoming addicted to smoking is really alarming and increases the reproductive health risks for those who would become mothers some day," said Mercy Fabros, WomanHealth advocacy campaign coordinator.

Studies conducted by the Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI) showed the risk of heart attack for women who smoke and use oral contraceptives was greater than for non-smokers.

The studies also found that pregnant women who smoke were twice as likely to have a miscarriage during pregnancy.

No sale of tobacco products today

2010-05-31T07:53:00.004-03:00

Traders will not sell cigarettes and other tobacco products on May 31 being observed as the World No Tobacco Day.This will be part of their attempt to create awareness of the ill effects of tobacco, said T. Vellaiyan, president of Traders Association, here on Saturday.

Addressing a workshop on tobacco control, he said profit making alone should not be the motive of traders. They should have social responsibility too. He appealed to traders to educate the public on the evil effects of smoking and use of tobacco products on that day. They should voluntarily join the anti-tobacco campaign launched by various voluntarily organisations.

R.T. Porkaipandiyan, Director of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, said all efforts should be made to put an end to “tobacco terrorism,” which was spoiling the lives of youth in the productive age group of 20 to 40.Of late there had been a rise in smoking habit among women, which would lead to delivery of babies with low IQ and stillborn infants.

Appealing to traders to restrict the sale of tobacco products, he said by this, they were serving a social cause.V. Shanta, Chairman of the Cancer Institute, said tobacco was the root cause for heart-related diseases and cancer. Though all smokers would not get cancer, 90 per cent of the cancer patients were tobacco users.

Early detection could cure cancer. But, it was difficult to detect lung cancer at an early stage. It was mostly caused by tobacco products. Passive smoking was yet another menace affecting children and women. The battle against tobacco could not be won without the active support of traders, who could play a positive role in curbing tobacco practices, she said.

T.G. Sagar, director and dean of the Institute, in his welcome address, said the purpose of the workshop was to target traders in the campaign against tobacco and also to make them aware of tobacco control legislations. Traders should make efforts to motivate the public in creating and maintaining smoke-free public places.

Local students stand up against smoking

2010-05-27T06:00:00.004-03:00

Students in Kingman took center stage in the fight against tobacco on Tuesday and Wednesday when they joined thousands of young people nationwide in the 15th Annual Kick Butts Day.

Sponsored by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, Kick Butts Day is an annual event where kids educate their peers on the dangers of smoking and how tobacco companies try to target youth.

On Tuesday, students at the Kingman Academy of Learning High School handed out literature and hosted a table displaying visuals of tobacco's dangers along with a graffiti wall for youth to write powerful messages about tobacco's toll on them and their loved ones.

The Kingman High School in Kingman will be doing a similar graffiti/pledge wall as well as a numbers campaign to represent the number of kids in Arizona who start smoking each month at 10 a.m. According to the campaign, tobacco use is the No.1 cause of preventable death in the United States, killing more than 400,000 people and costing $96 billion in healthcare bills each year.

While there has been significant progress in reducing youth smoking, 20 percent of high school students still smokeAccording to the campaign, in Arizona, tobacco use claims 6,800 lives and costs $1.3 billion in healthcare bills each year.

Currently, 22.2 percent of the state's high school students smoke, and 22,900 kids try cigarettes for the first time each year.

Side Effects of Smoking

2010-05-26T09:31:00.003-03:00

In today's culture, smoking is considered cool, among the youth and adults alike. However, no one has paid much attention to the effects of smoking, that can lead to irreversible damage on the mind and the body. This damage is not only individual. It even affects our close ones, and our environment. As such, it is important to take a look at the side effects of smoking, and then proceed with a healthier and more suitable course of action.

Side Effects of Smoking Cigarettes

Lots of people already suffer from these side effects, yet sometimes, a fact sheet is required to open their eyes to their invitation to bad health.
Smoking cigarettes not only stains the teeth but over time, can lead to the development of oral cancer. Not to mention its effect on the breath.Not only oral cancer, smokers are susceptible to the development of several other types of cancer, including lung cancer.

Smokers are at an increased risk of developing heart problems and stroke.
Smoking makes the smoker feel lethargic, and disturbs the metabolism of the body. This affects the immunity levels in the body, making it more prone to contracting diseases.The belief that smoking relieves stress is only psychological. It is a belief that is true to the withdrawal symptoms and not an actual cause of smoking.

Smoking strips the skin of its natural glow, and ages the skin by causing the development of wrinkles, dark circles, and a gray skin pallor. It also leads to sudden weight gain.
Smoking is sure to leave a dent in your pocket, and if you calculate the expenses just on cigarettes over a period of ten years, you will see the huge amount you have spent on it.
Lastly, smoking reduces the average life span by almost 15-20 years.

Toxic Dangers to Children from Third-Hand Smoke

2010-05-25T11:10:00.002-03:00

Most people recognize potential health risks to the smoker and those exposed to second-hand smoke. Throughout the world, cigarette labels warn of potential impotence, fetal injury, premature births, cancer, heart disease, emphysema, gum disease, and tooth loss. The Surgeon General's report in 2006 on involuntary smoking stated that more than 126 million people are exposed to second-hand smoke with 50,000 deaths annually.

There is another concern--third-hand smoke which contains contaminants of tobacco toxins after visible smoke dissipates. The journalPediatrics 2009, reports a study led by Dr. Jonathan Winickoff of Massachusetts General Hospital. The study included a national survey of 1,478 people and their beliefs on the health effects of third-hand smoke. Two-thirds of non-smokers agreed that it would be harmful to their children, compared to less than half of smokers.

Research has documented the association between smoking in the home and persistently high levels of tobacco toxins well beyond the period of active smoking. These toxins take the form of particulate matter deposited in a layer onto every surface in loose household dust. These volatile toxic compounds off gas into the air over a period of days, weeks and months. Particulate matter from tobacco smoke includes 250 poisonous gases, chemicals and metals according to the National Toxicology Program. Among these are hydrogen cyanide (used in chemical weapons), carbon monoxide (found in car exhaust), butane (used in lighter fluid), ammonia (used in household cleaners), toluene (found in paint thinners), arsenic (used in pesticides), lead (formerly found in paint), chromium (used to make steel), cadmium (used to make batteries) and highly radioactive polonium-210.

Dr. Winckoff stated: "Eleven of the compounds are classified as Group 1 carcinogens, the most dangerous. When you smoke--anyplace--toxic particulate matter from tobacco smoke gets into your hair and clothing. When you come into contact with your baby, even if you're not smoking at the time, the baby comes in contact with those toxins. And if you breastfeed, the toxins will transfer to your baby in your breast milk." He commented, however, that breastfeeding is still preferable.

The study concluded there is no safe level of exposure to tobacco smoke. Small children are especially susceptible to third-hand smoke exposure. They have faster respiration than adults and can inhale near, crawl and play on, or touch and mouth contaminated surfaces. Dr. Winickoff further stated, "Emphasizing that third-hand smoke harms the health of children may be an important element in encouraging home smoking bans. Health messages about third-hand smoke contamination could be easily incorporated into current tobacco control campaigns, programs, and routine clinical practice."

Awareness of children's unique susceptibility to toxins of all kinds should impel us to keep a home environment as pollutant free as possible. Besides stopping future in-home smoking, methods to help resolve the residue problem can include inexpensive measures like opening windows, air- filtering plants and cleaning with non-toxic cleaning products. Additionally, a high-quality and effective air purifier would be a blessing.

Mother of two shot and killed over a cigarette at Edmonton LRT station

2010-05-24T08:28:00.004-03:00

EDMONTON — Heather Rae Thurier, the 23-year-old mother of two killed at the Stadium LRT station Friday, was shot over a cigarette, according to her family.
“It was about a cigarette, it started over a cigarette. My family asked, him, the guy, for a cigarette,” said Thurier’s sister, Nicole Gladue.

Gladue wasn’t there on Friday night when Thurier was killed, so she didn’t know how a simple request for a cigarette turned fatal for her sister — only that the man pulled a gun from his bag instead.

Police said the man fired one shot before running away. Thurier, who was hit in the head, fell face down and was pronounced dead minutes later, lying just inside the 112th-Avenue entrance to the station.Thurier’s brother was there with her Friday night and is badly shaken up from witnessing the shooting, but he described to Gladue some of what happened.

“She fell on her face,” Gladue said. “My brother was at her feet.”Thurier came from a large, close family, Gladue said. From an early age, she showed a fierce, protective attitude toward anyone she felt had wronged someone she loved.

“She was everybody’s bulldog. I remember this one time when she was three, she knocked out my brother who’s almost three years older than me, so five years older then her,” Gladue said.“She just ups and clocks him, right. He was picking on me and she got really mad. She wasn’t gonna have that.”

Thurier had a family of her own: a one-year-old girl and a three-year-old boy.

“She loved the kids, adored the kids, talked about them all the time,” said Thurier’s longtime friend, Joshua Nielsen.Nielsen met Thurier in the small town of Willingdon, around 135 kilometres northeast of Edmonton, where she lived parts of her life with her dad.

The two kept in constant contact over the years, Nielsen said.“She was always outgoing, always fun loving, liked to laugh all the time,” he said.

She had just moved to the Coliseum area of Edmonton, Nielsen said, and was excited about returning to the city.

Thurier was a regular user of the services offered by the Mustard Seed Church. She had been at the church Friday evening before she was shot to death.“She was very dear to many community members who are shocked,” said a church staff member.

The young man believed to have shot her is described as between 16 and 21 years old, around five-foot-10 and 160 pounds.Police seized LRT security footage to help with their investigation and were still searching for the suspect Sunday.

Thurier was Edmonton’s seventh homicide victim of 2010 and the third of last week.

Tobacco smoke causes behavior problems in children

2010-05-22T08:12:00.003-03:00

A study published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives has revealed that children who are exposed to cigarette smoke prenatally and during the first year of their life are likely to develop behavioral problems by the time they are of school age. Particularly problematic during the gestational years, tobacco smoke can more than double the risk of childhood behavior problems.

Scientists from Germany analyzed children whose mothers smoked while they were in the womb as well as children who were exposed to second hand smoke following their birth up until their first birthday. The children who were only exposed prenatally were 90 percent more likely to develop behavioral problems compared to children whose mothers did not smoke at all. Children who were exposed only after birth had a 30-percent higher risk. Children exposed both prenatally and after birth had a double risk of developing abnormal behavior problems.

In order to isolate the true cause of behavioral problems, scientists crafted a detailed questionnaire that aimed to eliminate possible biases that would have altered results, such as external social and environmental factors. When all was said and done, hyperactivity, attention deficit disorder, and social interaction problems were among the primary setbacks observed in the tobacco-exposed children.

Because the negative effects of tobacco smoke were found to be the greatest during fetal development, scientists see an undeniable link between tobacco and developmental problems. The formative years of a child's growth and maturation are severely upset by the presence of tobacco, something sc

Teen Choice Award Winner Tells His Story

2010-05-21T09:00:00.001-03:00

The Leon County Health Department Students Working Against Tobacco (SWAT) invites Tallahassee youth to hear Chad Bullock, national stand-out anti-smoking advocate, speak.

“Igniting Initiative” is a carefully researched and developed experience that creatively explores the power of socially engaged youth.

Students will be actively engaged with hands on activities and contests while learning how they can create change in their communities.

The presentation is based on Chad’s unique journey from loss to super advocate.

Over 40,000 students have been reached with his message, and they always walk away with a fresh perspective on community involvement and a flair for tobacco control.

His home state governor sums up his one-of-a-kind approach: “Chad is the poster kid for getting in the trenches and advocating strongly and making change happen,” said North Carolina Governor Beverly Perdue. She added, “It’s incredible, right here in the heart of the tobacco district, for young kids to make a difference."

Chad Bullock is often referred to as one of the leading anti-tobacco activists in the nation. Bullock developed a passion for tobacco-use prevention in the 9th grade after learning that he had lost a loved one to tobacco. He worked to get smoke-free ballparks in North Carolina, successfully petitioned a major tobacco company to end unlawful marketing and has trained over 35,000 youth to become anti-tobacco activists.

Bullock won the 2008 Do Something Award and $100,000 to continue his anti-smoking efforts and became the first and only “non-celebrity” to win a Teen Choice Award from FOX. His anti-tobacco efforts were recently featured on 35 million Doritos chips packages.

Bullock is the director of a new national anti-smoking activism campaign, called “helloCHANGE,” and currently works with MTV News. He also studies mass communications at school in New York.

FDA issues final rule on youth smoking restrictions

2010-05-19T09:47:00.002-03:00

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a final rule containing a broad set of federal requirements designed to significantly curb access to and the appeal of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products to children and adolescents in the United States.
The new rule is titled “Regulations Restricting the Sale and Distribution of Cigarettes and Smokeless Tobacco to Protect Children and Adolescents”, and restricts the sale, distribution, and promotion of these products to make them less accessible and less attractive to kids. Among other things, the rule prohibits the sale of cigarettes or smokeless tobacco to people younger than 18, prohibits the sale of cigarette packages with less than 20 cigarettes, prohibits distribution of free samples of cigarettes, restricts distribution of free samples of smokeless tobacco, and prohibits tobacco brand name sponsorship of any athletic, musical or other social or cultural events.
Enforcement of the new rule will begin once it becomes effective on June 22, 2010. The FDA will work closely with states and territories to ensure that retailers comply with the rule. The FDA will also work with the retail community over the coming months to educate them about the new requirements and assist them in understanding how to comply with them and help protect children and adolescents.
Manufacturers and retailers who do not comply with the rule may be subject to enforcement action. The rule was originally crafted in the 1990s by the Food and Drug Administration. After being set aside by the Supreme Court, it was included as a key provision of the 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. (pi)

Anti-smoking fund cut, smoking rises

2010-05-10T07:59:00.000-03:00

In the last three years, New York's once heralded anti-smoking program has been cut three times by a total of 30 percent and as its TV spots, quitters' help line and free nicotine patch programs were scaled back, 105,000 adults started smoking who otherwise might not have.Anti-smoking advocate Russ Sciandra notes the state Tobacco Control Program has been cut far deeper and more often than most areas, and wonders why.

The answers say much about Albany and how its forces have torn at the Tobacco Control Program, one of the quiet casualties of the state's fiscal crisis.

Sciandra said the anti-smoking program faces a formidable obstacle for any cause in Albany: A lack of a shrill constituency that politicians don't dare ignore.

"We don't have clients," said Sciandra, director of the Center for a Tobacco Free New York. "Politically, it doesn't hurt anyone."

All he has is facts: 100,000 more smokers means 25,000 more premature deaths and $1 billion in added cost to the state in government-subsidized health care for the poor and elderly.

"Until people quit, they hate us. And once they do, they don't need us," Sciandra said.

Elections records give some bite to what he considers another obvious factor.

Back in October of 2008, less than a week before the legislative elections would determine which party controlled the Senate, Philip Morris parent Altria Group Inc. contributed $30,000 to the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee when they needed it most. It was the second $30,000 contribution to the committee that year, and was followed by a $50,000 donation in January, when Democrats opened the Senate session in the majority.

It's all legal, just like the $125,000 Altria contributed to the Senate Republican campaign when Republicans controlled the Senate during the 2006-07 session and the $50,000 it gave the GOP committee in November 2008, days after some dissident Democrats threatened to switch the majority back to the GOP.

"There's nothing there," agreed Altria's David Sutton. "It's something we've done for a number of years ... we simply do not lobby on control issues at all." Instead, Altria's was dedicated to fighting more cigarette taxes, trying to get Albany to end its delays in collecting hundreds of millions in taxes on cigarettes sold by Indian tribes, and other issues including fighting for positive programs for youths.

"The government policy side and political side operate completely independent of one another," said Eric Blankenbaker, spokesman for the Senate Democratic campaign. "There is no connection."

Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Research Group chuckled at that.

"It reminds me of the scene in `Casablanca' when the French police chief is arguing that he's `shocked' there is gambling as he gets his winnings," Horner said. "In my opinion, they wouldn't be giving that money to the Democratic Senate unless they felt they were getting something in return." The result is that a program that was once a top priority of Republican and Democratic governors is another casualty of the fiscal crisis in which the state can no longer sustain levels of spending as tax revenues plummet. Even protected programs such as school and hospital aid face some cuts. Schools for example, are fighting a 5 percent reduction.

The latest cut to the smoking program is proposed for $5 million in the 2010-11 state budget, now a month late and under negotiation.

"Do we like it? Of course not," said Claudia Hutton, spokeswoman for the state Health Department. "But I don't know of any program in the Health Department that is an entitlement that isn't taking a whack."

Some of the cuts were pushed by the Legislature, as it sought a deficit reduction program in December that spared school aid and some other funding.

Hutton doesn't dispute Sciandra's trends or the cuts so far. She said whenever tobacco is taxed more, or whenever more TV ads and programs like free nicotine patches are offered, smoking declines including smokers who cut back. Lift those even briefly, and smoking increases.

"You can see this kind of swing that quickly," Hutton said. "Ideally, we would never have a period without tobacco advertising and not one minute when the help line isn't open."

Australian Cigarette Packaging Censorship - Has it gone too far?

2010-05-03T08:06:00.000-03:00

The Australian government is moving to have cigarette company/brand logos removed from packages and replaced with graphic images of diseased lungs. The only thing that would differentiate one brand from another would be some small generic text with the brand's name. Tobacco companies are already complaining that such packaging will reduce sales. But, isn't that the point?

The whole Australian proposal got me thinking, the "Tumor Pack" concept could have some useful spin-offs. Why not beef up other warning labels? Or, create frightening labels where there weren't ones before? Here are three such possibilities:

1) Alcohol – In the US, alcohol is currently labeled with the ABLA warning: “(1) According to the Surgeon General, women should not drink alcoholic beverages during pregnancy because of the risk of birth defects [INSERT GRAPHIC IMAGE HERE]. (2) Consumption of alcoholic beverages impairs your ability to drive a car or operate machinery [INSERT GRAPHIC IMAGE HERE], and may cause health problems [INSERT GRAPHIC IMAGE HERE].

2) Hairdryers – Here is part of the label from my wife’s hairdryer: “Keep away from water! Danger! ‘Unplug It!’ Do not remove this tag! Warn children of risk of death by electric shock! [INSERT GRAPHIC IMAGE HERE]”

3) Automobile Airbags – “Warning! Death or serious injury can occur. [INSERT GRAPHIC IMAGE HERE] Children age 12 and under can be killed by the air bag [INSERT GRAPHIC IMAGE HERE] … Never put a rear facing child seat in the front… etc…”

Admittedly, some of these images might seem a bit macabre and disturbing. Certainly, images of dead or injured children are bound to be controversial, but consider the lives saved. Are smokers the only ones we want to attempt to scare into safety? Or is it the addictive nature of smoking that seems to require stronger and more disturbing measures to be taken in an attempt to improve public health?

Think about it. If you are someone who may be apt to put hairdryers in the tub while they are plugged in, you may be a bit dim, but you’re probably not a stupidity addict. In fact, you probably won’t be around long enough to find out if such behavior could be addictive. However, keep smoking in spite of calm warnings about how bad it is for your health, and how it could kill you, and there may be other factors at play.

Whatever the reasoning… cigarettes will probably have graphic labels long before any of the others will. Alcohol, well… we don’t want to scare people off of it completely, right? I mean, there is such a thing as moderation. And, what red-blooded American wants to look at pictures of children with birth defects, and bloody accident victims while partaking in his/her well-deserved after-work beer (assuming that red-blooded American still has a job.) And hairdryers? Well, let’s be honest… two words: Natural Selection. Airbags? We are trying to get our auto manufacturers back on track, fiscally. Just think about how mini-van sales will plummet if little Billy and Annie have to look at images of disembodied children next to their built-in, in-car DVD system.

Tobacco groups seek to challenge UK display ban

2010-04-26T09:17:00.000-03:00

Imperial Tobacco, Japan Tobacco International (JTI) and British American Tobacco said on Monday they are to seek a judicial review of the relevant sections of the Health Act 2009, in which the UK government is looking to impose the display ban to discourage smoking.

Imperial, which makes Lambert & Butler and Richmond cigarettes in the UK, said there is no evidence to suggest children start smoking or that adult smokers continue to smoke as a result of the display of tobacco products.

"If this misguided legislation is implemented it will simply fuel the growth in the illicit trade of tobacco and create a huge cost burden for retailers who are already under considerable pressure as a result of the difficult economic climate," said Chief Executive Gareth Davis in a statement.

JTI, which took over Gallaher in 2007 and makes Benson & Hedges and Silk Cut cigarettes in the UK, called the regulations "unreasonable and disproportionate" and said it had no option but to start the legal process to challenge the ban.

BAT, which makes Rothmans and Pall Mall cigarettes, added there was no evidence to show the move will cut smoking rates in the UK, but argued it would damage competition and the livelihoods of tens of thousands of small businesses.

It said driving legal trade from public view will encourage illegal traders.

The Health Act 2009 requires cigarettes, cigars, pipe and roll-your own tobacco products to be hidden from view in England, Wales and Northern Ireland from October 2011 in large retailers and from October 2013 in smaller outlets.

Scotland is pushing its own banning legislation through its own parliament.

Only government will influence price of alcohol and cigarettes

2010-04-19T07:54:00.000-03:00

ONLY the government has the power to influence the price of alcohol and cigarette products that are subject to excise tax in the event the unsolicited proposal by Sicpa Security Solutions SA successfully hurdles the so-called Swiss challenge.

Sicpa director for institutional relationships Hans Schwab emphasized this point in a briefing at the Makati Shangri-La on Friday as his company’s bid to win a government contract enters its third year.

Sicpa has offered to cure the rampant underreporting and smuggling of cigarettes and alcohol in the country with a proprietary process seen ramping up excise-tax collection by some P70 billion a year.

Schwab said the government will not have to spend a single centavo for a technology able to track and trace for tax purposes each exciseable product at any point of its production, distribution and eventual sale.

While the government immediately benefits from the system in the form of ramped- up collection, Sicpa will only get to bill the government for the service only after the system is up and running, Schwab said.

Because Sicpa assumes all the cost of putting up the system, there should not be any price increase on the sale of exciseable products, Schwab said.

“We provide the technology at absolutely no start-up cost to the government. Sicpa assumes all of the cost of deploying the system. We get paid on per-pack once the system is fully operational. At the same time the government starts paying Sicpa, it also starts benefiting from the incremental revenue, so on net basis, there is no cost whatsoever to government,” Schwab said.

“If after this the government still decides to pass on the cost despite the fact that it is a fraction of the additional revenue or if it still decides to pass on that cost to the manufacturer, then that is its choice,” Schwab added.

He also noted it has taken Sicpa three times longer than usual in the Philippines to complete a bid that should normally last them four to six months elsewhere.

He said while Turkey produces more or less 4 billion packs of cigarettes every year, the Philippines only produces 4.5 billion packs.

Turkey also manufactures 67 tobacco product lines while the Philippines has 150.

Schwab acknowledged unsolicited proposals in the country have a long and difficult history hurdling government requirements.

But he vowed to push forward and leave it to his principals in Switzerland to decide whether giving up was preferable over wanting to continue with the project.

“Giving up is something our shareholders will have to decide. But as long as we’re asked to wait and continue negotiation with government we will do so,” Schwab said.

Hospitalization Rates For Heart, Respiratory Ailments Drop In Toronto Because Of Smoking Ban

2010-04-15T05:50:00.000-03:00

Toronto registered a 39 percent decline in heart ailment hospitalizations and a 32 percent drop in confinements due to respiratory conditions. The city attributed the drop to a city-wide three-phased smoking ban Toronto imposed beginning 1999.

The study covered a decade – from 1996 to 2006 – which includes three years prior to the smoking prohibition. The capital city of Ontario banned in 1999 smoking in all work places, in 2001 at all restaurants and in 2004 at all bars.

The 39 percent and 32 percent slip in hospitalization were observed in 2004, three years after Toronto prohibited smoking inside restaurants. During that year, heart attacks also decreased by 17 percent.

Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences Fellow Dr. Alisa Naiman, one of the study’s authors, said aside from the smoking ban, other factors that contributed to the decline in hospital confinement for the two smoke-related ailments were the hike in tobacco taxes, new advertising rules on tobacco products, graphic warnings on the danger of lighting up and improvement in handling chronic ailments such as asthma and angina.

Naiman wrote, “Our results serve to expand the list of health outcomes that may be ameliorated by smoking bans. Further research is needed to establish the types of settings in which smoking bans are most effective. Our results lend legitimacy to efforts to further reduce public exposure to tobacco smoke.”

The study came out in the Tuesday edition of the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

Tobacco shop controversy heats up in Cloverdale

2010-03-29T07:45:00.000-03:00

A tobacco shop that opened late last year in Cloverdale alongside Highway 101 is selling contraband cigarettes and making dubious claims that it is operated by an Indian tribe, according to state authorities.

The state attorney general's office has notified Native Tobacco 101 that most of the brands it sells are untaxed, not approved for sale in California, and do not meet fire safety standards.

“These cigarettes they are selling don't have a tax stamp on them,” Senior Assistant Attorney General Dennis Eckhart said.

While the business claims it is exempt from state taxes because it only sells cigarettes manufactured on Indian land, Eckhart said, “We don't agree.”

In a letter dated March 18, he asked the store to stop selling the cigarette brands and to confirm the “illegal conduct” has ceased.

The manager of the store on Friday said he was not aware of the letter, but requested a copy.

“We are on native land. We are a tribally operated, sovereign nation,” said Tony Speer, manager of Native Tobacco 101.

“One side believes we should pay state taxes, the other that we should not - only federal (taxes). It's been going back and forth,” he said.

There are complicated issues of Indian law and restrictions on state enforcement procedures involving tribes and Indian lands. But legal experts said the U.S. Supreme Court made it clear tribes have an obligation to collect and remit state tax on the sale of cigarettes to non-tribal members.

When the Cloverdale store opened in December, it drew immediate complaints from other tobacco retailers in Cloverdale who said its American Indian owners enjoyed an unfair advantage by not charging sales tax.

It also touched on a controversy that has played out in other states involving American Indian smoke shops and the taxes they sometimes avoid.

In New York, for example, state officials claim bootleg sales of tobacco products on reservations or through the Internet have resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in lost state revenues.

When Native Tobacco 101 opened, the then-store manager confirmed he charged no state taxes on his products. But he said the tobacco products were mostly manufactured by Indians on Native American lands and had been subjected to federal taxes.

Eckhart on Friday said the shop is unlawfully avoiding an estimated $1.50 per cigarette pack in state excise and sales taxes, and other levies.

Some of the revenue from the state taxes on cigarettes goes to children health care services, tobacco control and cessation efforts, he said.

Local officials have also expressed consternation that Native Tobacco 101 has put other retailers at a disadvantage.

“They are not paying taxes and I'm not sure that's appropriate,” Cloverdale Mayor Carol Russell said Friday. “I'm a firm believer in one set of rules for everybody.”

Russell said she also was “shocked” to learn the brands sold at Native Tobacco 101 allegedly do not comply with cigarette safety provisions, which are designed to ensure they don't keep burning when not being puffed.

Many tribes in California sell cigarettes that are authorized on a state directory and also pay state taxes.

But the attorney general's office has recently gone after some shops in Southern California that were alleged to have sold illegal tobacco products on reservations, or failed to collect state taxes.

Earlier this month, four of the retail tobacco stores on Indian lands in Riverside County voluntarily closed after the state filed an injunction seeking compliance.

The Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians agreed that the tobacco products on the reservation were being sold illegally and they were not in partnership with the retailers.

Native Tobacco 101, located on a frontage road next to the freeway, is on a remnant of the former Cloverdale Rancheria, owned by survivors of John Santana, a Pomo elder and postmaster who was allotted the land more than 40 years after the rancheria was dissolved.

When it opened several months ago, the then-manager of the shop said the owners are working with a Native American company licensed to use the land and operate the tobacco business. But he declined to provide more detail.

Speer, the current manager, referred questions about the attorney general's allegations to the owners, who could not be reached for comment.

The restored Cloverdale Rancheria Band of Pomo Indians, who are proposing a casino on adjacent lands, have said they have no connection to the tobacco business, and it is not on land belonging to the tribe.

In his letter, Eckhart said a sign posted in the shop is misleading.

It states that the store is located on Indian land and operated by a federally recognized Indian tribe.

“We believe that the posted sign may falsely represent to your customers a fact about the shop's ownership and/or management,” he said.

University of North Alabama to change campus smoking policy

2010-03-15T07:37:00.001-03:00

As someone who has smoked for 14 years, Chris Lazo knows some people consider his habit offensive.

"I'm addicted," he said, standing outside Bibb Graves Hall on the University of North Alabama campus. "I don't smoke to make friends or be social. I smoke because I'm addicted to it."

Where Lazo smokes on campus could change in the coming months as UNA officials revamp the university's smoking policy. It's a process that's already under way, according to David Shields, vice president for student affairs. He said the enhanced policy could take effect as early as this fall.

Smoking is prohibited inside all university buildings, and Shields said the new policy would designate smoking areas that would be a certain distance from building entrances. It also would add resources, such as smoking cessation programs for students who want to break their habit.

"With the revisions, we plan to make it a stronger policy," Shields said.

"Anecdotally, we're seeing some increases in our incidence of smokers, especially among young women."

Studies among college students who use tobacco show that between one-third to one-half of the population nationwide smokes, even if infrequently. Although male smokers outnumber female smokers, according to the findings, the number of women between the ages of 18 and 24 who smoke is rising.

Increased marketing by tobacco companies, as well as peer pressure and a sense of freedom from parental control, are among the reasons Cindy Wood believes the numbers to be rising.

As the director of University Health Services, Wood said Bennett Infirmary often is busiest Monday mornings with students complaining of sinus or asthma issues brought on by smoking cigarettes during the weekends.

"From a medical standpoint, it's a problem if even one person smokes," she said. "Although I don't have the data to support the theory, based on what I see in the clinic, it's more and more among young women. I hear the term 'social smoker,' which is the idea that, if they only smoke on weekends or when they drink (alcohol), they're not really smokers."

Medically, Wood said a casual smoker can become a two-pack-a-day smoker if the genes for addiction are present. Young women who take birth control medication put themselves at an increased risk of stroke and blood clots if they smoke, she said.

April Curry, a senior at UNA, said she spent some of her early college years as a social smoker.

"I went to a nonsmoking school in Georgia for a couple of years," she said. "But I'd go out with friends, and I might smoke."

Curry said cigarettes provided a sort of stress relief for her, but it's a habit she has since given up. Although the new policy won't affect her, it will affect those such as Lazo who light up between classes.

"I might not go through a pack a day, but you're going to find me smoking after each class," he said.

"Now, if it were to go nonsmoking, I wouldn't be in favor of that. I believe that's bias and discrimination against smokers."

Shields said UNA isn't contemplating a smoke-free campus, but part of the problem continues to be cleaning up the cigarette butts that get tossed once the tobacco is smoked, he said.

"We have containers all over campus, and I'll see someone flick it on the ground when the container is an arm's length away," he said. "It's a problem."

Michael Gautney, director of facilities, administration and planning, said it is the job of two groundskeepers each morning to clear the campus of cigarette butts.

"The majority of our problems are around congregational areas, including the residence halls and the Guillot University Center," he said. "It's not a large percentage of our garbage, but it is a lot."

Gautney said cigarette butts that aren't disposed of properly also pose a safety hazard. In the past year, he said there have been two grass fires on campus as a result of cigarettes.

"Even with a new policy, it will create other issues," Gautney said. "If we say they can smoke 30 feet from an entrance, that could put them at a fresh air intake unit that would send all the smoke into the building."

Shields said these and other issues, including how to enforce the new policy, are being hashed out, and violations are bound to happen.

"But what we won't tolerate is smoking in the dorms," he said. "I don't have a lot of patience or tolerance for putting others at risk like that."

It's time to put out those cigarettes [Sentinel and Enterprise, Fitchburg, Mass.]

2010-03-09T08:33:00.000-03:00

The first step to snuffing a smoking habit is to make quitting a top priority, according to Marianne Pappas, director of the Take Charge occupational-health program at HealthAlliance Hospital/Leominster.

The hospital is running a series of free smoking-cessation seminars beginning next month at its Burbank/Fitchburg campus, each with a different theme and each recognizing that a nicotine addiction is a hard thing to overcome, Pappas said.

Smokers are well aware of the health risks their behavior poses, especially as new research continues to surface about the effects of smoking, Pappas said.

"I know physicians and nurses who smoke," she said. "You would think the knowledge (about risks) would deter it. But it's an addiction -- and a powerful one -- and you have to treat it as such."

Even President Barack Obama sneaks an occasional cigarette, according to his recent physical records -- his doctors reported Obama as being in good health, but urged the president to cut back on smoking.

You have to be motivated to quit, because temptation will hit you during the activities or moods in which you're accustomed to lighting up, said Pappas.

"The behavioral aspects of smoking are really significant, beyond just the physiological aspects," she said.

Counselors advise smokers to keep busy through their cravings, which usually only last two to three minutes, eat healthy foods -- such as carrot or celery sticks -- to replace the

action of smoking, throw out all their cigarettes, and offer themselves small rewards, according to the state Department of Public Health.

Pappas said the rising cost of cigarettes -- nearly $8 per pack -- is also good motivation to quit.

In the case of someone like Obama, quitting may be difficult because he will likely not be able to put a great deal of time and focus into it -- which is the same challenge facing many busy, overworked and stressed-out smokers, Pappas said.

She also said that Obama is a healthy, educated, athletic person -- bucking the stereotype that smokers are uneducated or in otherwise poor health.

"It's just probably not on his list of things to do," she said. "Obviously, he's got the resources. You have to make that a priority, taking care of yourself. You have to have a plan, and it has to be something that you want to do."

HealthAlliance, like many workplaces, last year banned tobacco use inside and outside, and offered services to help employees quit smoking, Communications Director Mary Lourdes Burke said.

The counseling has proven to be successful, and by not allowing smoking on campus, Burke said the hospital is promoting a healthier image.

"It just goes hand-in-hand with what our goals are," she said. "A lot of businesses are going in this direction."

For many smokers, the cigarette break is a long tradition in the workplace, so if a company is cracking down on tobacco use, or a smoker is trying to quit, it's helpful for them to band together with fellow smokers and come up with a plan to support one another, Pappas said.

"Get a pact going and support each other. Some people just want to get through that eight-hour shift without smoking," she said. "If you think about it, you have to be pretty motivated on some of these New England days to go out and smoke, especially if you can't smoke at your building."

The HealthAlliance smoking-cessation classes run every Thursday night for six weeks, starting April 1, from 6 to 7:30 p.m., at the Burbank campus Cancer Center in the Brian Bergevin conference room. The classes are free and people may attend as many seminars as they choose.

The following is the schedule of class themes: April 1, health effects of smoking/personal evaluation and plan; April 8, benefits of being a non-smoker/decisional balance; April 15, obstacles in quitting/coping techniques; April 22, controlling weight/situational smoking; April 29, dealing with stress/relaxation techniques; and May 6, quitting forever/how to remain a non-smoker and avoid relapse.

Singapore Customs calls a media pitch for anti-contraband cigarettes campaign

2010-03-01T08:10:00.000-03:00

SINGAPORE - Singapore Customs is believed to be on the lookout for an advertising agency for its anti-contraband cigarettes campaign.

The contract period is for twelve months starting from April 2010 to March 2011.

The government body will be briefing the agencies on 2 March and the closing date and time for submission of tender documents is 15 March at 4.00pm.

In September 2008, Singapore Customs awarded its US$1.04 million anti-contraband campaign assignment to local shop Up BrandBuzz, following a final round of pitching, believed to involved Saatchi Lab, McCann Erickson and Mandate Advertising.

The appointment followed a ruling by the Singapore Government to stamp cigarettes with a 'Singapore duty-paid cigarette' marking to curb rising contraband sales.

Last year in January, Up BrandBuzz launched an anti-contraband campaign for Singapore Customs. The campaign aimed to convey the severity of buying, selling and possessing illegal cigarettes following the passing of a law.

Tobacco Company Marketing To African Americans

2010-02-22T07:51:00.000-03:00

“We don’t smoke that s_ _ _. We just sell it. We reserve the right to smoke for the young, the poor, the black and stupid.”
R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company Executive
The tobacco industry has gone to great lengths to target the African-American community over the past 30 years. Through market research and aggressive advertising, the industry has successfully penetrated this population. The industry’s “investment” in the African-American community has had a destructive impact: African Americans suffer the greatest burden of tobacco-related mortality of any ethnic or racial group in the United States.2
Targeting African-American Youths
Research shows that cigarette company advertising and other marketing efforts greatly influence tobacco use initiation among adolescent non-smokers and maintenance among those youths who have already become regular smokers.3 80 percent of all smokers start before the age of 18 and, not surprisingly, the vast majority of kids smoke the three most heavily advertised brands. 4 5 One of these heavily advertised brands, Newport, is the cigarette brand leader among African-American youths in the United States.6 Eight out of every ten black, youth smokers smoke Newport cigarettes.7
While smoking among black youths has decreased steadily since peaking in 1997 and 1998, smoking among African American tenth graders in 2008 was almost identical to the smoking rate among this group in 1992 (6.6 percent vs. 6.5 percent, respectively), and smoking among African American twelfth graders was actually higher in 2008 than it was in 1992 (8.7 percent vs. 10.3 percent, respectively).8
Targeting African Americans through Advertising
The tobacco industry targets the African-American community through intense advertising and promotional efforts.
A 2008 study of retail outlets in California found that the number of cigarette ads per store and the proportion of stores with at least one ad for a sales promotion are increasing more rapidly in neighborhoods with a higher proportion of African-Americans.9 A 2007 study found that there were 2.6 times more tobacco advertisements per person in areas with an African American majority compared to white-majority areas. In addition, the odds that billboards were tobacco-related in African American communities were 70 percent higher than in white communities.10
African-American communities have been bombarded with cigarette advertising. Since the MSA, the average youth in the United States is annually exposed to 559 tobacco ads, every adult female 617 advertisements, and every African American adult 892 ads.11
There is more interior and exterior tobacco advertising in retail outlets in low-income communities and communities with larger African-American populations.12
Expenditures for magazine advertising of mentholated cigarettes, popular with African-Americans, increased from 13 percent of total ad expenditures in 1998 to 49 percent in 2005.13
During the two years after the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) in November 1998, the average annual expenditures for Newport in magazines with high youth readership increased 13.2 percent (from $5.3 to $6.0 million).14
Studies found more cigarette ads in African-American magazines, such as Ebony and Jet, than in similar magazines, such as Time and People.

Customs enforce currency rules for incoming travelers

2010-02-15T08:37:00.000-03:00

Travelers returning to Taiwan must make sure they do not carry with them banned food items or excessive foreign currencies and cigarettes, customs authorities have warned.
Incoming travelers are banned from bringing plants or fresh food items into Taiwan, the authorities stressed.
Foreign currencies in excess of US$10,000 (S$14,120) will have to be declared, and undeclared portions will be confiscated, they said.
Last year, the customs offices cracked down on 57 cases of undeclared foreign currencies, with the total equivalent to NT$18.41 million (S$810,040) - 14 times the sum of 2008, they said.
For the Chinese renminbi, travelers are allowed to carry 20,000 yuan each. Any excessive sums will have to be bonded at the customs, which will return them when the travelers leave Taiwan, the officials said.
For the local currency, the limit is NT$60,000 for both arriving and departing travelers. Any sums over the limit must be approved by the central bank before travelers can leave or enter Taiwan with the extra sums, the officials said.
Since the government raised the health tax on cigarettes last year, violations of the duty-free cigarettes regulations have been rising, they said.
The customs offices have reported a total of 231 violations since May 12, 2009, with travelers paying NT$1.35 million in taxes for their cigarettes, the officials said.
Each incoming traveler can carry 200 cigarettes and one litre of alcoholic drinks with no duty imposed on the items.
Individual travelers can carry up to 400 cigarettes and four litres of alcoholic drinks by paying taxes for quantities over the duty-free limit. Any excessive amounts will be seized, the officials said.

Cigarette linked to deadly attack

2010-02-12T10:44:00.000-03:00

The man killed in what police call a random attack may have lost his life over a cigarette.

Police will not comment on a motive in the death of Marcus Tremaine Deveaux Monday night.

But several people — including Jo-Ann Amond, the sister of the man accused in the murder — said the encounter began with a request for a cigarette and ended with the 37-year-old left for dead on a street.

She said her brother told her he was walking with a friend to get cigarettes from a store when her brother’s friend, “asked him for a smoke and the man said, ‘Sorry I have none.’ ”

Deveaux was found by a passerby clinging to life in the area of 22 Ave. and 17 St. S.E. about 8 p.m.

He died before arriving at the hospital.

Police said a second man in custody on unrelated warrants is a possible suspect in the killing, but as of Thursday no charges were laid.

Police could not be reached for comment on Amond’s family’s claims there was another man badly hurt during an attack downtown the same evening.

Darrin Thomas Amond is charged with second-degree murder.

Hollywood continues to glamorise smoking

2010-02-08T06:33:00.001-03:00

Last week, we asked what our readers thought about the smoking scenes in the 3D Avatar and in movies in general.

Michelle Delaney, Irish, Bangkok

As a firm anti-smoker I'm usually first to be up-in-arms on spotting a sneaky cigarette displayed anywhere in the mass media.

The workplace smoking ban was brought into my home country in 2004 and since then most smokers and non-smokers alike in Ireland consider indoor smoking pretty unacceptable.

I have to admit however, when asked about the smoking scenes in Avatar it took me a moment to even remember any - perhaps more a reflection of the stunning visual and technical wizardry of the movie than anything else.

When I did recall Weaver's chain-smoking character, I connected it with an effort to ease her anxiety and amplify a certain masculinity in her character, rather than endear her to viewers as sultry or cool.

I don't believe the act of smoking symbolised aspects of Weaver's character that many female movie viewers would necessarily aspire to.

Is the botanist character considered an icon or sex symbol to the thousands of young impressionable Avatar fans?

Are movie-goers racing out to light up their first cigarettes after seeing Dr Grace in action?

I doubt it.

To see princess Neytiri or the rugged Jake Sully lighting up on our screens - now that probably would have given me enough fuel to begin a rant at James Cameron about his social responsibility to his young Avatarian apostles.

Steve Turner, British, London

The film, Avatar, is a phenomenal success.

The enormous production costs seem to be paying off, with the film already exceeding US$2billion in ticket sales in just the few weeks since its release.

But, within this modern science fiction film there is an old practise of product placement that one would associate with the technologies of the last century, and shows a practise that is now illegal in many of the countries where the film is being shown - smoking in the work-place.

There are two scenes where the character played by Sigourney Weaver smokes nervously in the laboratory, during work, among her colleagues.

Tobacco and smoking in films is an old practise, started before there was a full understanding of the hazards of tobacco and at a time when it could be seen as a realistic reflection of the society or characters that were being portrayed in the films.

But in the late 20th century and certainly the first ten years of the 21st, the health implications of smoking are well known.

Also well known are the skilful ways in which tobacco companies, in many countries of the world denied the opportunity to advertise their product, are using opportunities such as product placement to maintain the profile of smoking in general and, if possible, to promote specific brands.

What makes a multi-billion dollar global company promote a product that is responsible for 5 million deaths per year?

It remains to be asked of the film's director and producers, among the many questions about style, technology, ground-breaking effects, science-fiction story lines and exceptional make-up skills: how much money were they paid to place this ludicrous but deadly harmful event - harmful to real people, not fictional movie characters - in their film?

Abu Ebrahimsa, Malaysian, London

They promote a habit that has been scientifically proven to be detrimental to your health.

Film-makers just try and portray smoking as a 'hip', 'cool', 'fun' habit and forget the medical consequences of having such both a harmful and costly habit.

Yes there is the corporate social responsibility on part of the film makers to actively downplay smoking but even though there is a financial incentive to promote certain brands, is it not for the audience and public to realise what is good/bad and downright wrong.

What the Vietnamese Government doing is good but is merely a short-term solution to a long- term problem.

What governments need to do is to educate their population, as with education comes knowledge and hence realisation what is good or bad.

Another issue, if you look at it from the government's point of view, is that they receive tax revenue by promoting this product which 'developing' countries need so where would they get that extra income?

Even in the most sophisticated, educated rich countries like the UK and the US, people smoke and there were ads and TV ads, so really education and awareness is a key way to tackle this problem compared to censorship.

N.C. Reconsiders Cigarette Tax Stamps

2010-02-04T09:24:00.001-03:00

North Carolina may bring back its state cigarette tax stamp, which has been out of use for 17 years, the Winston-Salem Journal reports. Today, a House committee on revenue laws meets to discuss the tax stamp.

A tax stamp would counter cigarette smuggling and selling cigarette cartons purchased in North Carolina in other states for a big profit. Analysts predict the stamp could bring in an annual $1 million in excise-tax funds.

In 1993, the General Assembly discontinued the stamp because the revenue generated by the tax wasn’t enough to justify the administrative, enforcement and logistics of the stamp program. With no tax stamp on North Carolina cigarettes, convenience stores, manufacturers and tobacco wholesalers have seen an increasing number of smokers who make the state a destination point for picking up cheaper cigarettes.

“This is a smuggler’s dream, what they live for,” said Jeff Lenard, NACS spokesman. “Price disparities like these are what make it worth selling cigarettes out of duffle bags and in alleyways.”

A cigarette tax stamp would make counterfeiting harder and make tracking and tracing contraband cigarettes easier. “There’s really no way to police the sales now, so having a stamp would help improve the playing field and reduce the impact on our profits from cigarettes sold in South Carolina being smuggled here,” said Rodney Allen, an owner of R&R Distribution.

Currently, only North Dakota, North Carolina and South Carolina do not have cigarette tax stamps.

Study Shows Cigarette Smoking a Risk Factor for Alzheimer's Disease

2010-02-01T05:29:00.000-03:00

A UCSF analysis of published studies on the relationship between Alzheimer’s disease and smoking indicates that smoking cigarettes is a significant risk factor for the disease. After controlling for study design, quality of the journals, time of publication, and tobacco industry affiliation of the authors, the UCSF research team also found an association between tobacco industry affiliation and the conclusions of individual studies. Industry-affiliated studies indicated that smoking protects against the development of AD, while independent studies showed that smoking increased the risk of developing the disease.
Study findings were published online today in the January issue (19:2) of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. An abstract of the paper is available at the link below.
“For many years, published studies and popular media have perpetuated the myth that smoking is protective against the development of AD. The disease’s impact on quality of life and health care costs continues to rise. It is therefore critical that we better understand its causes, in particular, the role of cigarette smoking,” said Janine K. Cataldo, PhD, RN, assistant professor in the UCSF School of Nursing and lead author of the study.
According to the Alzheimer’s Association, 5.3 million Americans currently have the disease, and that number will escalate rapidly as the baby boom generation ages. AD also triples health care costs for Americans aged 65 and older, the organization states.
The UCSF team reviewed 43 published studies from 1984 to 2007. Authors of one-fourth of the studies had an affiliation with the tobacco industry.
The UCSF team determined that the average risk of a smoker developing AD, based on studies without tobacco industry affiliation, was estimated to be 1.72, meaning that smoking nearly doubled the risk of AD. In contrast, the team found that studies authored by individuals with tobacco industry affiliations, showed a risk factor of .86 (less than one), suggesting that smoking protects against AD. When all studies were considered together, the risk factor for developing AD from smoking was essentially neutral at a statistically insignificant 1.05.
Previous reviews of the association between smoking and AD have not controlled for study design and author affiliation with the tobacco industry, according to Cataldo. To determine if study authors had connections to the tobacco industry, the UCSF team analyzed 877 previously secret tobacco industry documents.
The researchers used an inclusive definition of “tobacco industry affiliation” and examined authors’ current or past funding, employment, paid consultation, and collaboration or co-authorship on a study with someone who had current or previous tobacco industry funding within 10 years of publication.
“We know that industry-sponsored research is more likely to reach conclusions favorable to the sponsor,” said Stanton A. Glantz, PhD, of the UCSF Department of Medicine and a study co-author. “Our findings point to the ongoing corrosive nature of tobacco industry funding and point to the need for academic institutions to decline tobacco industry funding to protect the research process.”
Judith J. Prochaska, PhD, MPH, of the UCSF Department of Psychiatry, also is a co-author. The team’s research was supported by grants from the California Tobacco Related Disease Research Program, the National Cancer Institute, and the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
UCSF is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care.

Why Tanning Beds Are the Cigarettes of Our Age

2010-01-29T05:49:00.000-03:00

When we first launched Cosmopolitan's Practice Safe Sun (PSS) campaign in 2006, it was in response to some shocking statistics I'd just learned: Melanoma had become the second most frequently reported cancer in women in their 20s. It was only later, though, that I began to hear the stories behind the stats, and they've been heartbreaking: Women in their 20s and 30s having multiple and disfiguring surgeries to remove the cancer and many dying of the disease. I learned this week about a young mother who died of melanoma five months after her twins were born. So often the common denominator among these women is that they loved to be tan--from the sun and often from tanning beds as well.
These stories have kept us highly motivated at Cosmo to make women aware of the dangers of both outdoor and indoor tanning. This week we took Cosmo's PSS initiative to a new level. We hosted a press conference in our offices at which Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Congressman Charlie Dent (R-PA) announced their plans to introduce The Tanning Bed Cancer Control Act, a key piece of bipartisan legislation that would expand federal regulation of tanning beds with the aim of limiting the strength of the UV rays emitted by tanning beds and the time consumers may be exposed to harmful radiation.
If you have any doubts about how dangerous beds are, consider the announcement made in July by the World Health Organization. They described tanning beds as definitely carcinogenic--putting them in the same category as cigarettes, asbestos, and uranium. If you tan indoors before age 30, your skin cancer risk rises by 75 percent (and nearly 70 percent of customers are young women). When we did an undercover report with ABC's 20/20, we found tanning salons routinely misrepresented the risks.
But at the same time that the evidence against tanning has become more clear, we've seen the continuing glorification of the tan in popular culture. Just check out the pervasive reality series, Jersey Shore. The daily routine is "GTL"--gym, tanning, laundry.
As Representative Maloney said when she introduced this new bill, tanning beds are the cigarettes of our age. We owe it to everyone, particularly to young women, to make sure that the risks of tanning are clearly communicated and understood and that tanning beds are regulated as tightly as devices with their risk-profile merit. Please write your congressperson and let him or her know you support this legislation.
And if you use a tanning bed, please stop. Now.

Cigarette Makers Ask to Block Ruling in 4,000 Cases

2010-01-27T07:48:00.000-03:00

Altria Group Inc.’s Philip Morris USA unit and other U.S. cigarette makers asked a federal appeals court to block federal trial courts from applying a 2006 Florida decision they claim would deprive them of a fair trial in thousands of death and injury suits in the state.
The companies argue that a series of factual findings endorsed by the Florida Supreme Court in a 2006 decision - including that the companies sold defective products, that they conspired to hide information about the health effects of smoking and that they made false statements about their products - can’t fairly be applied in any of 4,000 cases against them in Florida federal court.
The companies claim that applying the 2006 ruling, which came in the Florida’s “Engle” tobacco class action, ‘would compromise an arbitrary deprivation of the defendants’ federal due process rights,” as a lower judge ruled in August 2008.
The plaintiffs, smokers and their families who are suing the cigarette makers individually, claim the findings are based on ample evidence. They argue that the federal courts are required to apply state law in the cases and can’t review the state supreme court’s decision. A decision in the smokers’ favor would make it easier for smokers to win verdicts in the cases.
In Florida state courts, which instruct jurors on the factual findings endorsed by the state Supreme Court, smokers have won several of the post-Engle cases that have gone to trial. These include a $30 million verdict against Reynolds and an $8 million verdict against Philip Morris. The cases are being appealed.
Florida Smoker
The Engle case was filed in 1994 and named after a Florida smoker named Howard Engle who was the lead plaintiff. After more than a decade of litigation in the Florida courts, the Florida Supreme Court in 2006 rejected a $145 billion punitive damage verdict in the case and ruled that it couldn’t continue as a class action on behalf of smokers statewide who were addicted to nicotine and developed cancer or other smoking-related illnesses.
At the same time, Florida’s high court upheld a series of factual findings made by a Miami jury in the case, and said they would apply in all of the individual suits filed by smokers who had been part of the Engle class. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case.
Specify the Defects
In the appeal today in Atlanta federal court, the companies aren’t challenging findings by the Engle jury, upheld by the Florida Supreme Court, that smoking is addictive and that it can cause illnesses including cancer, emphysema and heart disease.
“The complaints allege that the defendants were negligent and that they sold defective cigarettes,” said Andrew Frey, a lawyer for the cigarette makers. “Our position is that you have to specify the particular respect in which the product was defective, the particular respect in which the defendant was negligent.” Samuel Issacharoff, who argued the smokers’ case, told the judges that the Florida federal courts should follow the state supreme court and permit the findings to be used as they apply in individual cases. “Some of them may be useless,” said Issacharoff. “Some of them may simply streamline the cases.”
The three judges on the panel questioned the lawyers about the extent to which the Engle findings can be used by federal courts trying the cases. Each of the judges suggested the findings may be used to some extent.
Reynolds, Lorillard
“I promise you, you’re not going to get an opinion that says ‘the district court opinion is affirmed for the reasons set out in the opinion below,’” said Circuit Judge Ed Carnes.
The judges didn’t say when they will rule in the case.
In addition to Richmond, Virginia-based Phillip Morris, the biggest U.S. cigarette maker, the companies in the case include No. 2 R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., a unit of Reynolds American Inc. and No. 3 Lorillard Tobacco, a unit of Lorillard Inc.
The 4,000 cases, along with about 4,000 in Florida state courts, were filed after the 2006 ruling. In August, U.S. District Judge Harvey Schlesinger in Jacksonville, Florida, ruled that the factual findings can’t be used in the federal trials and certified the case for immediate appeal.

Lift cigarette prices to $20 a packet to help tackle health funding crisis: Quit

2010-01-25T04:58:00.000-03:00

KEVIN Rudd is being urged to increase the price of cigarettes to $20 a packet and raise an extra $2 billion in taxes if he is serious about tackling a health funding crisis in Australia.

The Prime Minister last night outlined the looming threat of an ageing population, warning that the rising cost of health would outstrip the states' ability to raise taxes within two decades.

Quit Victoria executive director Fiona Sharkey told The Australian Online today that lifting the price of cigarettes would save lives.

“It is the single biggest thing we can do to bring smoking down. It cuts consumption and it cuts the number of people who smoke,” she said.

“What the tobacco industry says is the tax is regressive and it hurts poorer people. In fact we find that low socio-economic (people) are more likely to quit.

“As Health Minister Nicola Roxon said, if we don't act on what we know works then we are effectively killing people.”Raising the cost of cigarettes and alcohol is a serious option before the Rudd government. It was one of the main recommendations of the recent National Health Taskforce that also suggested a volumetric tax on alcohol to reflect alcohol content, a push believed to be also backed in Treasury secretary Ken Henry's tax review for the Rudd government.

The Rudd government's big reform options for health also include spending a lot more money on preventative health such as Quit smoking measures to help out the budget in the future.

An increase in the price of cigarettes to $16.50 would raise about $1 billion and an increase to $20 a packet would raise an extra $2 billion a year.

“We haven't had a real price rise here for 10 years and if we had followed the World Health Organisation recommendation we would be at around $16.50 a packet now and we are about $13,” Ms Sharkey said.

“The Taskforce suggested a two phased increase to $16.50 and second one to $20 a pack.

“And the reason they talked about a two-phased increase was to support programs to help low-income people to quit. So that could be subsidy on nicotine replacement therapy. The cost to do that is so minimal.

“It's the single biggest thing you can do. So don't delay.”

ATF stings put 250M illegal cigarettes on streets

2010-01-22T10:56:00.000-03:00

Undercover ATF agents in Virginia have funneled more than 250 million cigarettes onto the nation's streets in the past three years through black market sales targeting smugglers, an Associated Press review has found.
Authorities say the flood of government-provided smokes -- a pack and a half for every man, woman and child in New York City, the smugglers' main destination -- leads them to organized crime rings and can even cut off financing for terrorists. The stings by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives have yielded about five dozen federal arrests, albeit none on terror charges.
Many of those cigarettes undoubtedly wind up in the mouths of minors, since black market vendors have no reason to turn away teenage purchasers.
Despite that, government auditors and anti-tobacco groups want the ATF to do even more.
"Smuggling reduces prices, so it increases use, especially among kids, who are more price-sensitive" in their purchases, said Eric Lindblom, director of policy research for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
The Department of Justice, the ATF's parent agency, estimates that federal, state and local governments lose out on $5 billion annually in tax revenue from cigarettes sold through illegitimate channels.
In the biggest and most recent prosecution, federal authorities charged 14 people in November with paying more than $8 million in cash, supplemented by guns and drugs, for 77 million cigarettes over the course of a year. Two are accused of paying an undercover agent posing as a hitman to kill a couple over missing cigarettes.
In September, the Justice Department's inspector general found that tobacco diversion cases account for just 1 percent of ATF's caseload and 2 percent of its budget. In large swaths of the country, ATF has not conducted any investigations of cigarette smuggling for at least five years, the audit determined.
A notable exception, the AP found, was the Eastern District of Virginia, which includes Richmond, northern Virginia and the Interstate 95 corridor. The area is a hotbed for the crime because while 42 states and the District of Columbia have collectively passed more than 80 tax hikes on cigarettes since 2002, Virginia and North Carolina, the heart of tobacco country, still tax tobacco at only pennies per pack.
"The profit margin on this is ridiculous," said Ashan Benedict, resident agent in charge of the bureau's office in Falls Church, Va. "It's not that hard to find a customer who wants to save $40 a carton."
All told, the AP found undercover sales of more than 250 million cigarettes in the last few years. The AP review did not include state charges -- authorities said that the vast majority of cases brought in state courts involve relatively small quantities of cigarettes.
While 250 million is a large number, it pales to the 469 million cigarettes produced every day by Philip Morris USA at its two plants in Virginia and North Carolina last year.
The Virginia agents say they focus on cigarette smuggling in large part because the investigations often turn up other crimes. The ATF's Richmond office went so far as to set up its own store in King George, Va., called KG Wholesale, which advertised in Arabic-language newspapers and elsewhere. The store was set up with audio and video surveillance to record the transactions, all of which were illegal undercover sales.
By the time ATF pulled the plug on KG Wholesale in 2008, 27 people had been arrested and roughly 60 million contraband cigarettes had been sold.
The planners of the storefront sting were aware that cigarette smuggling has been a source of terrorist funding in the past -- in 2002 a federal jury in North Carolina convicted two Lebanese citizens of diverting millions of dollars in cigarette smuggling proceeds to the radical Islamic group Hezbollah -- and were anxious to disrupt other similar money trails.
Agent Ken Mosley is confident that investigations like the KG case disrupt terror financing, but he acknowledged evidence was insufficient to bring terrorism charges.
"There is no doubt in my mind that we have arrested people involved in terrorism," Mosley said.
The focus on Arabic-speaking smugglers in the KG Wholesale investigation -- the store did not run ads in other foreign-language papers -- smacks of profiling, said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights group.
"Obviously it would be a concern if they targeted only Muslims and/or Arab-Americans," Hooper said.
While there have been terrorists who have made money through cigarette smuggling, it's far more common to find smugglers linked to organized crime, said John W. Colledge III, a Nevada-based consultant who once ran large-scale cigarette smuggling investigations for the U.S. Customs Service.
"Unfortunately, terrorism has become a sort of a buzzword," he said. "That's what gets you funding."
Smuggled cigarettes end up in legitimate retail establishments as well as on street corners, where they're often sold for $5 a pack -- several dollars below retail. The cheap cigarettes are especially alluring to minors, experts say, since black market sellers are less likely to card.
A tractor-trailer filled with untaxed or low-tax cigarettes can hold a potential profit of $1 million if they're trucked to New York City, where each pack faces $2.75 in state taxes plus a $1.50 levy from the city itself. A single vanload can turn a $115,000 profit.
By their nature, the undercover investigations require agents to act convincingly as criminals. Benedict and Fairfax County Police Lt. David Smith had the Korean smugglers convinced they were Italian mobsters. In the KG case, Mosley said agents would get angry or cagey if their customers asked where all the cigarettes were coming from.
"We'd tell them, 'It's none of your business,'" Mosley said.
In fact, the cigarettes come from the same places the legitimate ones do: Big Tobacco. Under an ATF program, tobacco corporations supply cigarettes for stings and are repaid with the proceeds from the sales.

Court Reverses Ohio Victory Over Cigarette Ad

2010-01-21T06:33:00.000-03:00

An Ohio appeals court has reversed a decision that a cigarette company's advertisement in Rolling Stone magazine violated a tobacco industry settlement.
Ohio and several other states brought lawsuits over an R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. ad in Rolling Stone that ran alongside a November 2007 feature story illustrated with drawings.
Ohio officials and the lower court said the ad's placement amounted to using cartoons to sell cigarettes, violating a promise in the industry's 1998 settlement with multiple states.
The appeals court in Columbus ruled Thursday that Reynolds had no say in the content that Rolling Stone chose to run next to the ad.
The ruling overturns a 2008 decision in the state's favor. Ohio attorney general's office spokeswoman Kim Kowalski says the office has not yet decided whether to appeal.

The Tobacco Freedom Index

2010-01-18T05:54:00.000-03:00

I want to first start off by saying that I am not a smoker, I do not like cigarette smoking whatsoever and in fact am allergic to it. However I still believe that smoking has become somewhat of a gauge when it comes to liberties enjoyed by the individual and how they have slowly diminished in this "land of the free."
Can one readily admit that smoking is the issue here? Are politicians and corporations really that worried about other people’s health as much as they are worried about votes and profits? It does not take a rocket scientist to figure this one out. Over the years cigarette smoking has been progressively pushed out of social norms and ostracized into a corner of society which most now frown upon.
In the early 19th and 20th centuries in America, smoking was quite popular and of course this was in fact prior to most of the medical findings in relation to diseases caused by this activity. However there was no legislation against engaging in cigarette smoking in any public area as such there should not be one in what is supposedly a free society. Unfortunately, the moral crusaders of this nation succeeded in the 1920s with Prohibition.
Unbelievably enough in what has been the one nation and society that has come the closest to libertarian ideals throughout history and in the world, the consumption of alcohol was successfully prohibited through legislation. Clearly the consequences are now common knowledge; the emergence of speakeasies, moonshine, bootlegging, rum-runners and all sorts of organized crime and black markets that arose from the passing of Prohibition. Incidentally perhaps the one interesting enough fact to come out of this was the popularity of the mixed drink. The reason alcohol started to be mixed more frequently with other beverages such as juices was to mask the taste of the bootlegged liquor since it was often so strong or tasted so bad that by itself most patrons could not pour back even one glass of it. Even in the face of such statism, individuals are always innovating and adapting.
Prohibition eventually became a social engineering disaster and was lifted in 1933. During prohibition, smoking was effectively banned in 15 states during its zenith, but by the close of the 1920s most states had repealed their bans on the sale of cigarettes.
I digress from my main point though. Throughout history, smoking has been banned by despotic and totalitarian regimes, so why is it that in America smoking bans have been passed in so many places? It seems that the more totalitarian a regime becomes the more bans on smoking and other activities deemed dangerous to our own good are enacted, providing a gauge as to just how free one is to choose.
One must also remember that if a country offers its populace free healthcare, it is in the best interest of that country’s Government to eliminate the consumption of any products that may potentially be hazardous to the health of the individual for their own good. In reality it is all just propaganda because underneath its surface is the need to cut the costs being incurred by the Government when offering such social welfare services.
If you are still thinking that I am arguing for smoking, I am not. It’s about freedom of choice. How is freedom of choice a radical idea in a free society? Why does a business owner have to abide by a piece of legislation passed by his representative banning indoor smoking in any restaurant or bar thus cutting his profits due to a loss of clientele? It is not up to a man in a suit 1,000 miles away to decide such issues. It is not up to men in suits who believe they know what is moral or immoral to legislate moral behavior. Moral behavior is something that is nourished and developed at home, the community, the church, synagogue or mosque, wherever such learning needs to naturally take place.
It is not up to an elected official to choose which portion of society gets what sort of privilege. If an individual business owner wants to offer his services to cigarette smoking patrons, then so be it. If he does not, then so be it. It is after all his business and his property so it is his decision. In this manner if a smoker wishes to go to a restaurant or bar to smoke and eat in peace without being discriminated against, he may choose to go to an establishment that allows this. This choice is consequently eliminated from both the business owner and the individual when moral behaviors are legislated. People are forced to conform to a set of rules which they may accept at first but will eventually rebel against as was the case with Prohibition.
As higher and higher taxes are levied on tobacco, smokers are turning to homemade cigarettes which are far more dangerous due to it not being observed by specialists or tested for certain chemicals all of which tend to occur in a factory environment where goods are being produced for later consumption, much like in the 1920s and 1930s when individuals turned to moonshine. In a far out scenario which is not so far out there if one thinks about it, perhaps if cigarette smoking is made illegal it will become much like marijuana. It does not prevent individuals from smoking it but they do it through more dangerous means by engaging in black market exchanges where there is no oversight in the production of these goods to ensure the safety and health of the user. A new crime syndicate may arise from it and a new "war on cigarettes" may become the next "war on drugs."
Hitler banned smoking in Germany during his Reich; he said in 1942 "I am convinced that if I had been a smoker, I never would have been able to bear the cares and anxieties which have been burdens to me for so long. Perhaps the German people owe its salvation to that fact."
This is simply a pro-liberty argument. May I as an individual with certain unalienable rights be allowed to make my own decisions as to how I want to engage in my daily activities? Or should I be told how to carry on and be told that perhaps this is for the best and for my own safety and health? Thanks for caring, but I would rather be allowed to choose. After all isn’t the government instituted among men, deriving their powers from the consent of those governed? That is not me though; I’m just quoting a document that seems to be forgotten these days here in America.

Govt encourages people to Finnish smoking

2010-01-15T08:14:00.000-03:00

Finland has extended its anti-smoking laws to include a ban on cigarette displays in shops.
The government says it is attempting to ban smoking in the country altogether.
The Finnish government's latest policy means people wanting to buy cigarettes will have to ask for them from under the counter.
It has announced a ban on smoking in cars carrying passengers under 18 years of age.
Tobacco vending machines are also being phased out over the next three years.
Finland hopes its initiatives will help to eliminate smoking entirely within the next 30 years.
Tobacco giant Philip Morris is investigating its legal options.

Bloomberg added to discrimination-conspiracy lawsuit

2010-01-11T05:13:00.000-03:00

A year after filing a discrimination lawsuit against Suffolk County and its officials, the Unkechaug Indian Nation has expanded its action to include New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other leaders in both their official and individual capacities, and has added conspiracy allegations to the mix.
The original civil lawsuit was filed in December 2008 by the nation and Chief Harry Wallace in his capacity as chief and as an individual, and named Suffolk County, Suffolk County Police Department, Police Commissioner Richard Dormer, County Executive Steve Levy, County District Attorney Thomas J. Spoda, and “John and Jane Doe 1-100” as defendants.
The lawsuit alleges First, Fourth and 14th Amendment violations of tribal members’ freedom of speech, religion and assembly; their freedom against unreasonable searches and seizures; and their right of equal protection or due process.
It was filed in response to a blockade in December 2008 of the nation’s Poospatuck Reservation by armed members of the Suffolk County Police Department who stopped cars entering and exiting the reservation and allegedly harassed and threatened tribal members.
The blockade was part of the longstanding tobacco war in which the state has attempted to force Indians on reservations to collect taxes on cigarette sales to non-Indian customers. The nations refuse to do so based on their status as sovereign.
A few months before the blockade, the City of New York jumped into the battle when Bloomberg filed a federal lawsuit accusing eight Unkechaug reservation smoke shops of breaking state and federal laws by selling cigarettes in bulk to bootleggers who resell them in the city. He claimed that “unpaid taxes” from “illegal cigarette sales on Indian reservations across the entire state total over $1 billion a year.” The case is pending.
The nation’s discrimination lawsuit was amended in December 2009 and now includes tribal council member Thomasina Mack as a plaintiff, and names as additional defendants New York City itself, several city attorneys in their official and individual capacitates, and Bloomberg as mayor and as an individual.
“We included people who were involved in a concerted effort to discriminate solely against our tribe and have the police department engaged in a blockade. The City of New York encouraged the blockade, they encouraged and solicited support from Suffolk County directly, and while both reservations on Long Island are engaged in the sale of unstamped cigarettes, which we contend is lawful, they only brought a lawsuit against our tribe,” said Wallace, who is an attorney. The other Long Island reservation is owned by the Shinnecock Indian Nation.
The lawsuit says the police blockade prevented tribal members from participating in religious services, events and political meetings. Specifically, the lawsuit says Wallace and Mack were “deprived” of conducting a previously scheduled tribal meeting and business with members and “did not leave the reservation as planned due to fear of police force against them and their families.”
“Our basis for that is city attorneys attended a meeting when Suffolk County legislators were determining whether or not they wanted to commence a legal action against the Unkechaug and the New York attorneys made a presentation that they should. Newspaper articles attest to that, plus we have a tape where all these individual attorneys were present at the meeting,” said James Simermeyer, the nation’s attorney.Naming the officials as individuals covers all bases, he said.
“It creates a situation where the city has to say the individuals did it (the blockade) with the authority of the city or they acted outside the authority so it gives us a clear picture of whether this was an official act or not.”
If the discrimination allegation is upheld, the end result will be a determination of whether it was an official or individual act of discrimination.
Suffolk County officials filed to have the case dismissed, claiming the nation does not have standing to file a discrimination lawsuit.
“The county is trying to say it’s only individuals who can bring a discrimination lawsuit because it affects individual rights. We’re saying that’s not true. We’re arguing that the tribe can bring a discrimination action in its representative capacity as the people who provide for and protect tribal members,” Simermeyer said.
“So, if worst comes to worst and they (the court) says the tribe can’t file a discrimination lawsuit, then they’ll just have 350 people signing up and saying they were violated.”
The city defendants have asked for an extension to respond to the amended case, which is pending before federal District Court Judge Thomas Platt.
Meanwhile, in another tobacco-related case, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals will hear the nation’s appeal of a ruling by federal Judge Carol Bagley Amon that state cigarette tax laws apply to Indian reservations.
Amon’s ruling runs up against a state Supreme Court injunction against enforcing the state’s cigarette tax laws until a viable tax exempt coupon system for tribal members is established or until the issue is resolved in the state’s highest court.
“Our appeal is that she should have kept the status quo until the court makes its determination. She basically said the state doesn’t know what they’re doing with their own laws, which is kind of unusual for a federal judge to do. The federal government and federal courts aren’t to determine state laws concerning their taxes and citizens,” Simermeyer said.Suffolk County is “vigorously” defending the lawsuit, County Attorney Christine Malafi said.
“At no time did Suffolk County act in any way or with any intent or effect of discriminating against anybody on the reservation. The county only seeks to prevent the violation of laws that could harm the public.”
Asked what those laws were, Malafi said, “I believe it was some traffic laws and then the only other thing the police department does is there is a law prohibiting the transport of unstamped, untaxed cigarettes in bulk. I think it’s 20 cartons. I think there’s a law that you can’t have more than that.”
Malafi said police arrested people for transporting unstamped, untaxed cigarettes, but she did not know if any were Unkechaug reservation residents. She could not say whether the prohibition against transporting unstamped, untaxed cigarettes applies to Indians, who are exempt from taxes on cigarettes purchased on sovereign Indian land.
“I can’t answer. There’s a lawsuit pending with respect to that issue.”

Push for cigarette-like warnings on mobiles

2010-01-06T10:20:00.000-03:00

A move by legislators in the US state of Maine to require brain-cancer warnings on mobile phones is expected to trigger a worldwide response, the Australian industry has said.
A Democrat state representative, Andrea Boland, wants new mobile phones to carry health warnings like those on cigarettes and is pushing ahead with the legislation despite a lack of scientific consensus.
The Australian industry expects a wave of concern when the legislation is debated this month.
Ms Boland said she understood that radiation from mobile phones increased the risk of brain cancer, especially for those under 18, and her opinion was reinforced by a 2006 study by the Swedish National Institute for Working Life showing a correlation between brain tumours and heavy mobile phone use.
"The main thing is that the warning labels get on there, and when people go to purchase something they have a heads-up that they need to really think about it," Ms Boland said.
"This is a big important industry, and it's a small modification to assure people that they should handle them properly."
Randal Markey, the manager of communications for the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association, said it was understandable that people would have concerns about mobile phones because of their experience with health controversies such as tobacco and asbestos.
"We do not expect everyone to accept our assurances about mobile phone safety," he said.
"Our industry relies on the expert opinion of international health agencies for an overall assessment of health and safety issues.
"There is no established evidence that radio frequency exposure within internationally accepted safety limits causes adverse health effects."
The World Health Organisation's Interphone study, a decade-long investigation into the health implications of mobile phone use, remains unpublished.
In 2005 WHO said studies had found "no convincing evidence of an increased cancer risk" from mobile phones or their towers.
Mr Markey said if people were concerned, there were practical steps that could reduce exposure including using a hands-free kit or loudspeaker, text messages and limiting the length or number of calls.
In Australia there are more than 22 million mobile phones.
In the 11 months until November, more than 8.35 million handsets were brought into Australia - down slightly on 2007's record 9.3 million - and although some were slated for distribution around the Pacific, most were for sale here.

Excise taxes on cigarettes, fuels and electricity up as of Jan. 1

2010-01-04T10:03:00.000-03:00

Excise taxes on cigarettes, unleaded gas, diesel and electricity used for commercial purposes will rise as of January 1, 2010; excise figures will be higher also as a result of their being calculated for a euro/leu exchange rate by some 14 percent higher in comparison with 2009.
Starting January 1, the excise tax for cigarettes will be of 74 euros per 1,000 cigarettes, up from 64 euros for 1,000 cigarettes at the end of 2009. The government decided to apply the rise in the tobacco excise tax starting January 1, 2010 , providing a specific excise of 48.5 euros and an ad valorem tax of 22 percent. “The new structure was discussed with the business circles and cigarette manufacturers. It provides a specific excise of 48.5 euros and an ad valorem tax of 22 percent, resulting in a total excise of 74 euros per 1,000 cigarettes,” explained Secretary of State with the Public Finance Ministry Gratie la Iordache.
In 2009, excise taxes on cigarettes were twice increased ahead of the initial schedule, in April and September by seven euros each time from 50 euros per 1,000 cigarettes to 64 euros per 1,000 cigarettes. Excise taxes in 2010 will be calculated for an exchange rate of 4.2688 lei per euro, announced on October 1, 2009 by the National Bank of Romania, up 14 percent from the 3.7364 lei/euro a year ago used to calculate excise taxes in 2009.
According to the Tax Code, the excise tax on unleaded gas will be raised from 436 euros to 452 euros/ton, that for diesel will rise from 336 euros to 347 euros per ton and the excise tax on electricity used for commercial purposes will go up from 0.42 euros to 0.5 euros/MWh.

Discarded cigarettes cause of fire in mobile home

2009-12-29T05:27:00.000-03:00

Discarded cigarettes in an ash tray in the bathroom is what investigators say caused a mobile home fire off Stone Street Extension Monday afternoon.
Timothy McKinnan was asleep Monday afternoon and woke up to the smell of smoke at about 12:52 p.m., said Jesse Gwynn, a fire inspector with the Alamance County Fire Marshal’s office.
McKinnan was able to get out of the trailer, located in a mobile home park off of Stone Street Extension in Haw River, but he was taken to Alamance Regional Medical Center for smoke inhalation, Gwynn said. McKinnan’s condition wasn’t immediately known.
When firefighters with Haw River and Mebane fire departments responded to the call, there was smoke and fire coming out of the bathroom window. The flames were contained to the bathroom and hallway, but there was heavy smoke damage to the trailer, Gwynn said.
The American Red Cross of Alamance and Caswell counties was called to provide emergency assistance to McKinnan.

Students charged in marijuana probe

2009-12-23T05:50:00.000-03:00

Several Hobbs Middle School students’ education might be up in smoke after being caught in possession of marijuana.
The Press Gazette has confirmed that three students at Hobbs Middle School were charged with a second degree felony on charges of possession and intent to distribute marijuana on school property on December 9. Due to the fact that they are juveniles, their names are not being released to the public.
According to Hobbs Middle School principal Stephen Shell, 12 students were found to be in possession of cigarettes or marijuana after several students came forward to administrators about the illegal issue.
The two week long investigation started after tips from numerous students led administrators to 9 separate children who were either tipped off for being in possession, or were found to be in possession.
A second incident occurred almost a week and half later, putting three more students in the hot seat for possession. Stephen Shell, the principal at Hobbs Middle said cases like these are rare in middle school settings, and this is the second time a case like this has occurred in his 3-year term at Hobbs.
According to a Santa Rosa Sheriff’s report, .4 grams of marijuana and another bag containing marijuana joints was seized during the Dec. 9 investigation. Twenty cigarettes were also seized from the sheriff’s office as evidence.
As of press time, a representative from the Santa Rosa Sheriff’s Office was not available for comment on the case.
“This is my third year here, and we had one situation prior to that my first year as principal,” Shell said.
Shell said the incident surprised him, but was glad students were comfortable enough to come to administrators about the students.
“It’s surprising because you hope that no one is doing it, and if they are, you hope it’s not a middle school student doing it,” Shell said. “I’m glad students were comfortable enough with the administrators here and were able to open up to us (about the students).”
According to the sheriff’s report on Dec. 9, a student admitted to a teacher that he/she had paid another student $10 to purchase some marijuana. After the student admitted to the purchase, he/she supplied the teacher with the Ziploc baggie, which also contained a pack of cigarettes, which the student admitted getting from their house.
Shell, who has worked in middle school education for almost 14 years said correct action was taken towards the incident concerning both the cigarettes and the marijuana. A resource officer from Milton High School was sent out to retrieve the string of students during both occurrences.
“A resource officer from Milton High School, who also serves our school was called out and came into the school and assisted with finding the students,” Shell said.
The students in possession of cigarettes were not booked by the sheriff’s office, but instead were disciplined by the school according to the sheriff’s report.
All of the students booked with possession of marijuana were automatically handed a 10-day suspension from the school. It will now be up to the school board to decide what happens after their suspension.
“We have zero tolerance in the school system for this type of incident,” Shell said. “After a 10-day suspension, the school board will have a hearing to decide where to put the student from there.”
Right now, Shell said he is unaware of what will happen, but in most cases, the students are sent to an alternative placement school for one calendar year. If the child’s behavior improves while at the facility, they may be allowed to return to their original school before the end of their serving time.
“It’s up to the school board what will happen to them after the 10 days,” Shell said.
Despite the incident, Shell said students are prone to being exposed to illegal substances in any school system, and was glad that several came forward about the incident.
“That’s tough to do when you are a student, and it’s tough for them to take the positives out of that,” Shell said. “No matter where you are, most kids are being exposed to those things.”
Shell said the best thing a student can do when exposed to bad influences is walk away from the situation. Parents, Shell said, should also play a role in educating their children about what’s right and wrong.
“Parents should be involved in their child’s life. Parents need to be upfront with their children, and educate them on what should and shouldn’t occur,” Shell said. “The students probably feel they want to be part of a group, and don’t think of the consequences before they occur.”

Fla. wants citizens to report tobacco tax cheats

2009-12-21T05:29:00.000-03:00

Florida is trying to enlist citizens in a campaign against tobacco tax cheats.
The state made the trade in illegal cigarettes more lucrative this year by increasing the cigarette tax by $1 a pack.
The Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco on Wednesday announced that it'll begin paying informants up to 50 percent of fines collected for illegal cigarette sales.
The agency also has set up a toll-free hot line to report sales of cigarettes without the required tax stamp.

Galveston smoking ban amended, OK for tobacco shops

2009-12-18T10:40:00.000-03:00

Smokers in Galveston will be allowed to light up in certain public spots.
The smoking ban adopted in July by the Galveston City Council, and set to take effect Jan. 1, has been amended to allow smoking in stores that sell tobacco and cigars.
A final vote came Thursday.
The change will allow smoking in tobacco and cigar stores, but those businesses are banned from selling alcohol or allowing drinking on the premises. Tobacco shops must install ventilation systems and be off limits to anyone younger than 18.

Staten Island man sentenced in stickup at Va. cigarette distributor

2009-12-15T10:20:00.000-03:00

A Staten Island man has been sentenced to six years in prison -- and with a potential for 22 more years if he misbehaves -- for his role in an armed stickup in Virginia that netted cigarettes and cash.
Ariel Peisahovish, 26, was sentenced in Stafford Circuit Court on robbery, abduction and firearms charges, a court spokeswoman said today.
In September, Peisahovish cut a plea deal stemming from the April 10 incident at a Stafford cigarette distributor. Stafford is about midway between Washington, D.C., and Richmond, Va.
Peisahovish's two accomplices, Vyacheslav Elentulch, 24, and Dmitry Khavkin, 26, both of Brooklyn, also cut plea deals. Authorities did not provide a street address for Peisahovish.
According to prosecutor Eric Olsen, Peisahovish and Elentulch pulled a gun on a clerk after Khavkin had gained entry before the store opened. Khavkin knew the clerk.
Peisahovish and Elentulch then tied the clerk's arms to a chair with packing tape and loaded the loot into a van they had rolled up to the store, the prosecutor said.
Before leaving, the suspects took the clerk's driver's license and threatened her.
Employees at a nearby business saw the suspects leave, followed the van to get the plate number and called police. Officers stopped the van as it headed north on Interstate 95.
Cops found almost 1,200 cartons of cigarettes, $4,000 cash and two guns inside, said Olsen.

Man found guilty of smuggling E3.9m cigarettes

2009-12-14T05:07:00.000-03:00

A man has been arrested for transporting 499 master cartons of cigarettes worth E3.9 million without the necessary papers from the customs and excise department. He was sentenced to 16 months in jail or a fine of E3 500.
Carlos Gil (28) was facing three counts was found guilty in all of them . He committed the crimes on December 8, 2008. He appeared before Nhlangano Magistrate Mandla Mkhaliphi where the Crown was represented by Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Nkosinathi Maseko. Gil was represented by lawyer Chicken Dlamini.
On count one, Gil has been found guilty that on December 8, 2008 he was found driving a white Isuzu truck registered SD 393 MG with the 499 master cartons of cigarettes all valued at E3.9 million.
On count two, Gil has been found guilty of an offence where he was accused of being found driving the same vehicle carrying the said goods without the necessary documents from the Customs and Excise and these being goods worth E3.9 million.
He was arrested by Lavumisa Police.
In regard to count one, Magistrate Mkhaliphi sentenced Gil to seven months in jail or E1 500 fine. The magistrate also sentenced the accused to seven months in jail or E1 500 fine on the second count. On the last count, he was sentenced to two months in jail or pay a fine of E500.
The brands that Gil was transporting in the truck are:
144 YES master cartons, 290 BOSS master cartons and 65 ACE master cartons.

Tar Heel tobacco growers vote to continue funding research on crop

2009-12-01T09:54:00.000-03:00

North Carolina tobacco growers have agreed to continue funding tobacco-agricultural research for another six years.
More than 92 percent of tobacco growers in the state who voted favored the North Carolina Tobacco Research Check-off Referendum, which calls for growers to allocate 10 cents per 100 pounds of flue-cured and burley tobacco to tobacco research and education. The referendum is voted on every six years and must be approved by two-thirds of voters to pass.
The funds are collected at buying stations by the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and then allocated to North Carolina State University by the North Carolina Tobacco Research Commission. Since 1991, the program has raised nearly $300,000 a year to support projects at NCSU.
"The tobacco check-off funds have resulted in many important developments for the state's burley and flue-cured tobacco farmers, including variety development, improved nitrogen management, advanced curing technologies and breakthroughs in pest and disease management," said Johnny Wynne, dean of NCSU's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
Tobacco growers have been forced to fund nearly all research into improved tobacco agriculture practices. The federal government ceased tobacco research funding in 1994, and state support has declined due to budget deficits.
"This referendum is critical for North Carolina tobacco growers to remain competitive in the world market," said Keith Oakley, president of the North Carolina Tobacco Foundation. "By voting to continue this self-help program, the state's tobacco growers are making an important investment in the future of tobacco production, research and education in North Carolina."

EU targets cigarette smugglers and organized crime, but who’s winning?

2009-11-30T05:36:00.000-03:00

The problem of illicit trade, tobacco smuggling and organized crime enjoys unprecedented attention at the top European level in these days, especially in Brussels, where European governments say they’re going to fight back harder than ever. Why? The illegal trade in tobacco robs EU countries of nearly 10 billion euros ($14.78 billion of potential profits, and the return on investment in smuggling tobacco for the criminal gangs is more than 370 percent. “This problem cost my company 120 million euros ($179.728 million) across the EU last year. But it is in the interest of all European citizens that this illegal activity is tackled because it cost European shopkeepers and small businesses around 700 million euros. This is money that should be going to fund social services and is instead going to criminal gangs,” Michael Kraushaar, Head of Corporate and Regulatory Affairs for cigarette maker BAT’s western European operation told New Europe.
Twilight or smugglers’ New Moon?
Three leading Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) took the initiative to gather together some of the top officials in law enforcement and politics to discuss the problem of organized crime and put together a new game plan for fighting it. “One of the key factors that enhance the illicit activity of the organized crime groups is the huge return on investments. For instance in the market of counterfeit medicine, one US dollar generates a profit of up to 1000 dollars,” said Carlo van Heuckelom, Head of the EUROPOL Financial and Property Crime Unit during his presentation on the second forum on illicit trade organized by European Parliament on 17 November.
UK Liberal Democrat MEP Bill Newton Dunn, Hungarian S & D Edit Herzog and German EPP member Andreas Schwab said they helped organize the event to raise awareness and educate EU institutions and the public about the impact of illicit trade across society. Herzog emphasized that bringing up the topic of organized crime to the forums was designed to push lawmakers toward becoming more active in the battle.
“I believe there is a growing awareness of the problem at the European Parliament and we hope this continues. A number of senior European politicians have realized how politically and economically serious this problem is and they are working in the EP to educate Members. European citizens need to realize that the trade in smuggled tobacco is not a victimless crime but is in fact a crime that leaves us all worse off,” said Kraushaar.
New attention has been paid, especially in the media, to the problem of tobacco smuggling raised after authorities in Ireland on October this year announced that they had confiscated more than 120 million contraband cigarettes, considered to be the largest single seizure ever made in the EU. Ireland, together with Germany and UK, is the main destination for contraband cigarettes, where profits from illicit sales are greatest. Irish MEP Gay Mitchell told the European Parliament (EP) that 97 percent of illegally trafficked cigarettes are “evading the legitimate tax net to the cost of the European taxpayers.” Mitchell also opened the topic of the health implications from smoking, saying that “The health risks are extraordinary and half of all patients in the largest hospital in Ireland are admitted with smoke-related illnesses. If you check in all European Member States, you will find that the situation is the same,” added Mitchell. Where’s the solution?
EU anti-fraud commissioner Siim Kallas of Estonia, in reaction to appeals from the Parliament for a more active policy on tobacco smuggling and organized crime, acknowledged that it is a “really huge issue, which hurts the budgets in the EU Member States and said the fight against cigarette smuggling is clearly very important priority.” But, he added that, “We can only facilitate and provide intelligence. We have special possibilities to help Member States but to ‘catch the cigarettes’ is a duty of Member States.”
On the other side, as Kraushaar said, industry actors see a lack of the coordination on the EU level. “We appreciate the efforts the EU institutions are making to tackle the illicit tobacco trade. But ideally, we would like to see increased coordination on an EU level and also to see the new Commissioner responsible to take a lead in the fight.” The same point was stressed by the co-organizer of the forum on the illicit trade, Newton Dunn, who told New Europe there is a weakness in cross-border policing in Europe. “Crimes which are committed across open borders can only be effectively countered if law enforcement is given the same facility. The member states of the EU will never be willing to totally share their national police intelligence and resources. So, weakness in cross-border policing in Europe will remain - until a federal police force with cross-border powers is created for the EU,” he said.
A new approach and solution has been offered by EUROPOL office, which sees the priority in preventing the trade in counterfeit goods at its source. “Modern and organized crime is evolving, with business-mid approach and links to many other illegal activities, such as money laundering, illegal employment, illegal immigration, drugs trafficking. The main challenging issue is to stop the trade in counterfeit goods at its source. Internet evolves as a huge source of counterfeit products, therefore this problem needs to be addressed urgently by Law Enforcement,” added Heuckelom.
The possibility of creating a European version of the American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI,) has been brought up for the discussion. Newton Dunn said sees Europe in the same position today that US states were in 70 years ago. “With open state borders they had to develop a FBI. The EU’s member states will eventually realize that they have to do the same; the longer they drag their feet, the greater the success of the cross-border criminal gangs,” he said.

Police nab Zim cigarette smuggling ring

2009-11-26T07:38:00.000-03:00

The police have said they are still on the trail of smugglers suspected to have driven trucks loaded with high quality cigarettes into Botswana from Zimbabwe.
This is contrary to reports that the culprits have been arrested and slapped with a P15,000 fine. The suspects escaped after the police confronted them, abandoning the contraband. The police recovered 133 boxes containing 66,500 cartons of Pacific cigarettes, 108 boxes with 54,000 cartons of Derby cigarettes and 128 boxes containing 64,000 cartons of Sevilles cigarette. The total number of the boxes was 469 with 184,500 cartons. The police assumed that the smugglers were avoiding declaration of the boxes to customs as cigarettes are one of the highly taxed goods. It is said the goods are worth P20 million.
Apparently, buoyed by their success at smashing what could be one of the biggest smuggling rings between Botswana and Zimbabwe, Tshesebe Police Station commander, Superintendent Mojaboswa Mathitha said yesterday that they will intensify their patrols at the border to deter “those who have a propensity to commit such crimes”. The police have detained a 27-year-old man from Serowe who they arrested at Jackalas No 2. The man was apparently driving a truck, which was on its way to help one of the cigarette- loaded trucks that was stuck in the mud.
The other truck drivers managed to escape on foot. The arrested man took the police to the owner of the trucks who is being investigated.
Mathitha said the two men are likely to be charged with abetting smuggling. It is suspected that the cigarettes were to be smuggled into Botswana to be exported to Asian countries such as India and China.

Want to Quit Smoking? Don't Turn to Light Cigarettes

2009-11-23T06:37:00.001-03:00

Smokers who switch to a low-tar, light or mild brand of cigarette will not find it easier to quit and in fact may find it harder, researchers reported on Tuesday.
They found that smokers who traded to light cigarettes were 50 percent less likely to kick the habit.
"It may be that smokers think that a lighter brand is better for their health and is therefore an acceptable alternative to giving up completely," Dr. Hilary Tindle of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, who led the study, said in a statement.
Her study of 31,000 smokers found that 12,000, or 38 percent, had switched to a lighter brand.A quarter said they switched because of flavor but nearly 20 percent said they had switched for a combination of better flavor, wanting to smoke a less harmful cigarette, and as part of an effort to give up smoking completely, Tindle's team reported in the journal Tobacco Control.
Those who switched brands were 58 percent more likely to have tried to quit smoking between 2002 and 2003 than those who stuck with their brand. But they were 60 percent less likely to actually succeed in quitting, Tindle's team found.
"Forty-three percent of smokers reported a desire to quit smoking as a reason for switching to lighter cigarettes. While these individuals were the most likely to make an attempt, ironically, they were the least likely to quit smoking," Tindle said.
Other research has shown that so-called low-tar cigarettes have just as much tar, nicotine and other compounds as regular cigarettes.

Tobacco ban helps UK, state’s health for future

2009-11-18T05:57:00.000-03:00

On a campus constantly rife with disagreement — usually between the UK administration and the students who attend classes here — the 800 pound gorilla on this campus is about ready to be uncaged.
After months of preparation and anticipation, Thursday will be the day UK leaves tobacco behind.
Since the ban went public, smokers have made their frustrations clear as the rules have gradually changed.
In the not so distant past, smoking was a deeply entrenched part of the campus culture. Forget smoking outside — people were allowed to smoke inside within the past decade. Much of the art department calls the Reynolds building, named after tobacco baron R.J. Reynolds from when the building was a tobacco warehouse, home, and many of the lofts near campus boast the same past.
But with the ban, UK is no longer looking to the past, but to the future.
In four or five years, only a relatively small number will remember what it was like to use tobacco on this campus. In that time, this year’s freshman class, the last one to see tobacco use at UK, will be on the way out. The fresh faces that will come after them will never know what they missed.Nor will they care.
UK is responsible for the greater community. As the state’s flagship unversity with so many resources and such a far-reaching influence, it must be a leader in the tobacco-free movement.
The university and the state have obvious deep ties to the controversial crop. Historically, Kentucky has been one of the most important tobacco states in the nation. Even now, the effects of tobacco are visible from UK continuing to benefit from a cigarette tax to many tobacco farmers still making a living from tobacco.
Yet, UK’s responsibility extends beyond providing people a place to smoke and promoting a habit for the sake of economics and history. UK now has to be creative and find ways to ensure the economically viable ways to use tobacco.
While the ban may take away from one aspect of tobacco consumption, UK can be a leader in alternative ways to using the crop, such as textiles, cosmetics and even medicine.
Additionally, UK must show its commitment to the health aspect of the ban. Devoting its resources to help quit tobacco and making those resources more accessible to students, faculty and staff will be necessary.
With any measure of this magnitude, there will be initial backlash. As forward thinking as this historic ban is, it is clear that compliance will not happen overnight — but the objective is a longterm solution that will help cure Kentucky of one of its worst ills.
Yes, the input of students, faculty and staff is something that needs to be crusaded for everyday on this campus. But 20 years down the road, we’ll all look at this decision and realize its benefits.
Sure, there will probably be disregard and backlash in the weeks following the ban. And students exercising a right to protest isn’t something to frown upon.
The implementation hasn’t always been correct, but the solution is.
Going tobacco-free is possibly the best decision UK has made all year.

Contraband cigarettes seized

2009-11-16T09:11:00.001-03:00

An Ontario man is facing charges in Manitoba after he was found to be transporting contraband cigarettes.
The man was arrested Monday afternoon when he was stopped by a police officer for an equipment violation on his van, RCMP said.
The officer was patrolling the Trans-Canada Highway near Angle Road in Portage la Prairie at around 1:30 p.m. when he noticed the van was missing the rear bumper and a tie down strap was hanging out the back.
When he approached the van, the officer noticed a large quantity of cigarettes in the rear of the vehicle, RCMP said.
The driver, a 31-year-old man from Ontario who currently lives in British Columbia, was arrested under the Federal Excise Act, and the vehicle was searched.
Police seized 12 cases of contraband cigarettes, each containing 50 cartons, totaling 120,000 cigarettes. The value of the contraband cigarettes is estimated at $24,000.
The driver, whose name has not been released by police, was released on a promise to appear in provincial court on Dec. 10 in Winnipeg.
Charges are pending under the Federal Excise Act and the Provincial Manitoba Tobacco Tax Act, RCMP said. A tax penalty of $66,600 could also be assessed, RCMP added.
The investigation into the matter is continuing.

Tobacco use to stop at hospitals

2009-11-13T05:26:00.000-03:00

Hoping to improve local health and limit health-care costs, the New River Valley's hospitals are joining together and joining a growing number of businesses that limit tobacco use.
Representatives of HCA and Carilion announced Wednesday morning that their hospitals, physician practices and outpatient centers throughout the New River Valley would go tobacco-free Jan. 1 for employees and guests.
Those facilities include Carilion New River Valley Medical Center near Radford and HCA's Montgomery Regional Hospital in Blacksburg and Pulaski Community Hospital in Pulaski.
Carilion Giles Community Hospital will be tobacco-free when it opens in the spring.
Currently, employees and visitors must go outside the facilities to use tobacco products. Come Jan. 1, tobacco use will be discouraged inside and out.
The heads of three hospitals appeared Wednesday at the New River Valley Mall to discuss the initiative that they hope will save lives and cut down health-care costs.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that nearly one in five U.S. deaths each year is a result of tobacco use, according to a media release.
Approximately $150 billion is spent each year in health care for smokers, said Jim Thweatt, interim chief executive officer at Pulaski Community.
And about 25 of all health-care costs are spent treating "modifiable" health risks, he said, including smoking.
"This is the right example to set for our community," said Don Halliwill, president of Carilion NRV, which employees about 1,000.
"People come [to hospitals] to get well," said Scott Hill, CEO of Montgomery Regional, where close to 600 work. "This is a no-brainer."
All three hospital chiefs said lessons were learned over the past two years from a similar joint effort in Roanoke.
In July 2007, the two companies' facilities in the Roanoke Valley went tobacco-free. Halliwill said the important lessons were take your time and communicate why with employees. That's why he said employees were given a year's notice of the decision to give them time to seek smoking-cessation programs.
"This is not a condemnation of individual personal choices," he said. "This is not a political decision."
Instead, he said, it was about giving employees, patients and visitors an "appropriate health-care environment."
Despite the announcement coming two years after the Roanoke Valley went tobacco-free and after General Assembly legislation mandated many restaurants go smoke-free on Dec. 1, Halliwill denies the New River Valley is behind the times.
Nationally, he said, only about 50 percent of hospitals are tobacco-free. By year-end, he said, that will be 70 percent in Virginia.
"We're not behind," he said. "We were just ahead of the curve in Roanoke."

Rise in number of tobacco farmers

2009-11-10T06:46:00.000-03:00

At least 17,000 tobacco farmers have registered to grow tobacco with the Tobacco Industry and Marketing Board for the 2009/2010 agricultural season.
The number of farmers intending to plant tobacco in the forthcoming season is a marked improvement on the 10,000 registered during the previous agricultural season.
Deadline for registration was last Friday.
The TIMB chief executive officer, Dr Andrew Matibiri, said the high registration of farmers was a result of the mobile registration undertaken by the board.
“Farmers heeded the call to register during the campaign we undertook by conducting mobile registration with farmers around the country,” Matibiri said.
He said the mobile registration had gone a long way in ensuring that prospective farmers got registered on time to enable proper planning of what inputs were needed.
“There will be no further extension of the deadline. The initial deadline for registration was October 31, but this had to be moved to allow interested farmers to come forward.
“We are strict on registering new growers and we will not issue new grower numbers after the due date,” he said
Matibiri said the board spent time in educating farmers about the effects of side marketing their crops and failure to honour agreements with input companies with whom they were under contract.

Statues used to smuggle cigarettes

2009-11-06T09:38:00.000-03:00

A CARDIFF woman is facing jail for smuggling cigarettes into Britain hidden under religious statues.
Nicola Stretton, 34, hid the cigarettes in a false compartment of a consignment of Buddha figurines shipped into Southampton from Thailand. Customs officials found hundreds of packs of Marlboro Reds, L&M Lights and L&M filters during a search of the container.
Cardiff Crown Court yesterday heard Stretton was on holiday in Thailand when she noticed that cigarettes were £1 for a pack of 20. She set up a company called Finishing Touches to import religious figures to sell them on eBay and at markets. But the court heard it was a smokescreen to smuggle 857,000 cigarettes into the country.
Office manager Stretton denied failing to pay duty of £144,570 but was found guilty at Cardiff Crown Court. Stretton, originally of Cardiff, but now living in Hereford, was freed on bail but warned she could be jailed when she is sentenced later this month.

Smoking in Pregnancy Tied to Bad Behavior in Kids

2009-11-05T05:17:00.000-03:00

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Women who smoke while pregnant risk having hyperactive preschoolers who can't pay attention, a large study from the UK hints.
Although previous studies have demonstrated significant risks for school-aged boys, this is the first time an association has been shown between smoking during pregnancy and problems for girls and for boys as young as 3, the researchers point out.
Dr. Kate E. Pickett, of the University of York, Hull-York Medical School and colleagues looked for ties between smoking in pregnancy and behavior and attention problems in more than 13,000 3-year-old boys and girls in the UK Millennium Cohort Study.
As part of the study, a wide range of information was gathered including family economic status, education level of parents, ethnicity, parents' marital status, financial difficulties and maternal smoking, drinking or drug use.
Questions were also asked about the children to assess behavior and hyperactivity-inattention problems such as how easily their child was distracted or if their child was prone to temper tantrums, fight with or bully other kids, argue with grownups, steal, lie, and/or cheat.
In all, nearly 10 percent of women reported smoking heavily (+10 cigarettes a day) throughout their pregnancy, 12.5 percent were light smokers (less than 10 cigarettes a day), and 12.4 percent tried to quit, the researchers note in a report published this week in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.
Even though no ill-effects of even heavy maternal smoking during pregnancy were recorded for most boys (61.6 percent) and girls (71.7 percent), the risk of developing behavior or attention problems increased with maternal prenatal smoking, the researchers found.
They also found that the effect of smoking during pregnancy was different in boys and girls. Boys exposed to cigarette smoke in the womb were more likely to have behavior and attention deficit problems, while girls with this exposure were more likely to experience behavior problems alone.
Girls whose mothers quit smoking during pregnancy had a lower risk of behavior problems than girls whose mothers never smoked leading the researchers to conclude the mother's "the ability to quit" may be a characteristic of "restraint and easy temperament" that the daughters inherit.
Smoking throughout pregnancy carries the highest risk for both boys and girls, according to the data. "Overall, the most important factor seems to be smoking continuously throughout pregnancy, more than amount smoked," Pickett said.
"Persistent heavy smokers had a higher risk of having a boy with conduct problems than light smokers. For conduct problems in girls, any continuous smoking seemed to matter more than amount. Similarly, for hyperactivity-inattention problems both light and heavy smokers had similarly elevated risks compared to non-smokers," Pickett explained.

Learn tobacco curing energy efficiency in Danville

2009-11-02T08:54:00.000-03:00

DANVILLE — Manage soaring energy costs related to flue-cured tobacco production.
Local tobacco producers will explore options at the free “Tobacco Curing: Energy Efficiency Conference” sponsored by Virginia Cooperative Extension and the Southern Piedmont Agricultural Research and Extension Center on Nov. 12.
Attendees will gather information on flue-cured tobacco energy efficiency technologies and practices, wood-fired boiler systems, use of micro-biorefineries for the production of renewable energy and bioproducts and the cap and trade legislation.
Virginia Foundation for Agriculture Innovation and Rural Sustainability provides funding for the conference at the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research in Danville from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Cigarette Companies Use Color, Rather than Words, To Convey Message

2009-10-29T10:01:00.001-03:00

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is being given new authority to regulate the manufacturing and marketing of tobacco, after President Obama signed the '”Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act" into law last June. Starting next summer, large labels, warning about the health risks associated with smoking, must cover at least half of the front and back of cigarette packs. Certain flavored cigarettes will also be banned, and words like 'light' and 'mild' will no longer be allowed. The FDA cites studies that show those words give consumers a false sense that a ‘light’ or ‘mild’ cigarette is less harmful or may be easier to quit.
A few brands have already dropped those terms from their packaging. What used to be Pall Mall full flavor, light, and ultra light cigarettes, are now called ‘Red’, ‘Blue’ and ‘Orange’. Salem now labels their cigarettes ‘Box’, ‘Gold Box’, and ‘Silver Box’, and use an increasingly light shade of green. While those words may not seem to mean much, the new packaging is still getting a message across.
Even without words like 'light' on the packaging, many of the people we showed the new packaging to still perceived the lighter or brighter colors to be lower in nicotine, tar, or tobacco, and less harmful.
"Certain colors do elicit certain responses, feelings, emotions", said Tom Neal, Director of Brand Development at Kinziegreen in Wausau. He says with the tobacco already so heavily regulated, they're using the methods that are allowed as effectively as possible. "As the color scheme goes from darker towards lighter, you're seeing they're trying to say to the consumer the things they can't really say with words."
So while cigarette companies won't be able to say 'mild', 'light', or 'ultra-light', by using a cool, calming blue, an energetic orange, or even a natural, healthy light green, would-be customers are getting the message. That's something that has health officials concerned.
"They're trying to make the consumer believe that they are getting a healthier product as a result of the packaging.", said Renee Trowbridge, a public health educator for Marathon County. "They are doing a very good job of making it appealing."
Trowbridge works with teens who have been using tobacco, and says they're more affected by packaging and advertising than most consumers. She says that's something the tobacco companies are well aware of. "Their main strategy is to continue to make and market a product that appeals to young people", she said. "We know about 90 percent of people who smoke started before the age of 18."
Neal speculates that the regulations against the tobacco industry will continue to tighten. But he believes tobacco companies will simply continue to evolve their marketing to make their product appealing. "The advertisers are going to see what they can do how far they can push and what's available to them."
Trowbridge says the latest restrictions are a step in the right direction, but says until cigarettes stop appearing in magazines, films, and other places where young eyes see them, tobacco products will continue to find new consumers. "I think even if you did generic black and white packaging on cigarettes you are still going to have a product that will appeal to our young people", she said.

Crushing Cigarettes In A Virtual Reality Environment Reduces Tobacco Addiction

2009-10-28T05:11:00.000-03:00

ScienceDaily (Oct. 28, 2009) — Smokers who crushed computer-simulated cigarettes as part of a psychosocial treatment program in a virtual reality environment had significantly reduced nicotine dependence and higher rates of tobacco abstinence than smokers participating in the same program who grasped a computer-simulated ball, according to a study described in the current issue of CyberPsychology and Behavior.Benoit Girard, MD, Vincent Turcotte, and Bruno Girard, MBA, from the GRAP Occupational Psychology Clinic (Quebec, Canada), and Stéphane Bouchard, PhD, from the University of Quebec in Gatineau, randomly assigned 91 smokers enrolled in a 12-week anti-smoking support program to one of two treatment groups. In a computer-generated virtual reality environment, one group simulated crushing virtual cigarettes, while the other group grasped virtual balls during 4 weekly sessions.
The findings demonstrate a statistically significant reduction in nicotine addiction among the smokers in the cigarette-crushing group versus those in the ball-grasping group. Also, at week 12 of the program, the smoking abstinence rate was significantly higher for the cigarette-crushing group (15%) compared to the ball-grasping group (2%).
Other notable findings include the following: smokers who crushed virtual cigarettes tended to stay in the treatment program longer (average time to drop-out > 8 weeks) than the ball-grasping group (< 6 weeks). At the 6-month follow-up, 39% of the cigarette crushers reported not smoking during the previous week, compared to 20% of the ball graspers.
"It is important to note that this study increased treatment retention. All too often individuals drop out of treatment prior to completion. It will be interesting now to go further and compare this to other popular treatments such as the nicotine patch," says Brenda K. Wiederhold, PhD, MBA, BCIA, Editor-in-Chief of CyberPsychology and Behavior, from the Interactive Media Institute, San Diego, CA.

A call to arms for tobacco store owners

2009-10-23T09:43:00.000-03:00

Let us consider the case of a cigar store owner. No food is served. No alcohol is available. The only products are cigars, tobacco products and accessories. Because no alcohol is served, it doesn't qualify for status as "Specialty Tobacco Bar."
Let us also assume that this establishment is owned by a retiree, the sole employee. He started this store because of his love of cigars. He has become something of an expert and customers often seek out his advice, much in the way a wine enthusiast may seek the opinion of a sommelier.
Under the expanded ban he will not be allowed to sample a new cigar in his own store in order to provide advice for his customers.
Who is being harmed and needs to be protected by the expanded ban? Does he not have the right to run his business to the best of his ability?
I would urge all tobacco store owners to call their City-County Council member and urge him or her to vote against Proposal 371.

Man arrested for stealing $6K of cigarettes and beer

2009-10-22T03:45:00.000-03:00

A wanted Georgia man was arrested by Gainesville police for stealing more than $6,000 worth of cigarettes and Steel Reserve beer from a Chevron early Wednesday morning.
After leaving the Chevron, 3845 NE 15th St., 41-year-old Oscar Tellez drove east and was peeking inside the Citgo at 1606 NW 13th St. from his truck when police spotted him, GPD spokesman Keith Kameg said.
When officer Ariel Lugo approached Tellez, he jumped into his truck and drove away.
Police dog K-9 Justice found Tellez hiding at the CVS construction site on Northwest 16th Avenue, Kameg said.
Entering a construction site without permission is a felony offense.
"When you refuse to come out of a situation and we give you ample warning, we will send our dogs out 100 percent of the time," Kameg said.
Police found the stolen items from the Chevron inside Tellez's truck, which was stolen in Georgia.
According to Kameg, there have been similar gas station thefts, which police believe may be connected to Tellez and are under investigation.
Tellez was charged with grand theft auto, loitering and prowling, trespassing on construction site, fleeing and attempting to elude, resisting arrest without violence and driving without a license.

Fears smoking bans could inflame tensions in overcrowded WA prisons

2009-10-16T08:28:00.000-03:00

Inmates at WA's maximum security Hakea Prison will be banned from smoking in their cells from Monday - prompting fears from prison officers it could further increase tensions in the State's overcrowded jails.
As part of the Department of Corrective Services' smoking reduction policy, inmates at Hakea will be banned from smoking in their cells during the day from next week, according to John Welch, secretary of the WA Prison Officers Union.
Mr Welch said while the union agreed that passive smoking in prisons was potentially harmful to his members, of more immediate concern was the effect a tobacco ban could have on the mood of already tense inmates.
"They will have to wait until they get outside of the units before they will be able to smoke again.
"In a broad sense our members don’t like passive smoking - but when you are really overcrowded ... and in the middle of all this heat it is very difficult for the staff to manage.
"Hakea is at about 140 per cent capacity, Casuarina is at nearly 180 per cent - it is very difficult in that environment to manage such an enormous cultural change - and we are very sensitive how we are going to be able to manage it safely."
A statement from the Department of Corrective Services confirmed Hakea had begun stage one of a smoking reduction process, which involves reducing smoking in cells during daylight hours.
But Custodial Operations Assistant Commissioner Jon Peach said he was "keenly aware" of pressures on prison officers - and would be monitoring the situation.
"The Department remains keenly aware of current pressures on the prison system and will monitor the process carefully. Staff safety remains a priority," Mr Peach said.
According to the Department of Corrective Services website, the intention had been for all enclosed areas in WA prisons, including cells and units, to become smoke-free on June 30 this year, in an attempt to "realign the prison environment with community standards on smoking".
Mr Welch said that because of fears over the effect the ban would have on inmates, the policy had been more gradually introduced, but it would eventually become universal.
"80 per cent of inmates smoke, so it is not like the rest of society. Imagine trying to ban smoking in pubs in the 1950s," Mr Welch said.
"It was intended some months ago that there would be a much more aggressive approach to bringing these smoking bans in.
"There does seem to be a push from the Department to continue, despite the levels of overcrowding.
"The proposal is that eventually we will roll to a situation where people are only going to be able to smoke outside, and then ultimately we will move to a no smoking environment - and we have great fears about that."
According to the Department, prisoners who continue to breach the new rules on smoking will lose privileges. But they will be given free Nicotine Replacement Therapy treatment, as will staff.
But Mr Welch said that making cigarettes effectively contraband - when they are currently used as currency - could be a nightmare to police.
"The reality is that is always hard to stop contraband coming into prisons, so it will be very difficult if we then make tobacco a further contraband," Mr Welch said.
"It is very difficult when you have 4750 prisoners in the system designed for 3350 to introduce a ban of this sort."

MPs approve cigarette vending ban

2009-10-13T03:49:00.000-03:00

The removal of cigarettes from public display is a step closer after MPs said vending machines should be banned and shops should keep stocks out of sight.
MPs supported a backbench amendment to outlaw cigarette vending machines in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Scotland has its own separate bill.
The vending machine amendment to the government's Health Bill was passed by the Commons without going to a vote.
The bill passed its third reading and will now go before the House of Lords.
The vending machine ban was proposed by the former Labour minister Ian McCartney, who said it would "change history".Mr McCartney said vending machines gave young children access to cigarettes and condemned them as an "outrageous loophole in our country's safeguards" against tobacco.
He said tobacco was still "the only product in Britain that can be sold legally, which routinely kills and injures its customers".
The Conservatives had questioned the wisdom of banning shops from putting cigarettes on public display during a recession, when many smaller retailers were suffering from a lack of business. Newsagents say the proposal could cost them £250m in lost sales.
'Completely false'
Tory backbencher Philip Davies said: "This is the nanny state gone mad. On every conceivable level this particular ban is wrong.
"It goes against the principle of individual responsibility, free choice and people making their own decisions."
Mr Davies said it was "completely false" to suggest people would be more likely to buy cigarettes because they were displayed in shops.
He argued: "As someone who was a retailer for 12 years, can I tell you that tobacco is not an impulse purchase in the same way that cream cakes are."
But health minister Gillian Merron said the ban would help to stop new generations taking up smoking.
She said: "The tobacco industry constantly recruits young people to replace those who give up smoking or die each year.
"We are of course aware of how the current economic climate is affecting small business which is why we will not commence the effect of this legislation until 2011 for larger stores and 2013 for smaller shops."
Ms Merron said she was opposed to an outright ban on vending machines but the Health Secretary, Andy Burnham, said he would not oppose Mr McCartney's measure in the Lords.
He said: "The remaining amendments that have been voted through go over to the other place (the Lords) in a well-drafted and legally workable form.
"I will watch with interest how his proposals are received in another place but the government will not seek to overturn them," he added.
The chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health (Ash), Deborah Arnott, said the vending machine ban had "made a strong Bill even stronger".
The Scottish Parliament is considering a similar ban on vending machines and public displays of tobacco.

Man uses truck to break in store and steal cigarettes

2009-10-09T04:02:00.000-03:00

SPOKANE -- Police and deputies are searching for a man who used a truck to break into a gas station to steal cigarettes and money Thursday morning.They say the man first tried to use the fire extinguisher to break in the Conoco on Geiger Blvd., but when it didn't work he used a silver Dodge Dakota to smash through the entrance.
The owners of the store tell us the man stole more than 100 packs of cigarettes and whatever money was left there overnight.
The crash into the store set off an alarm, then the owners were called. The owners tell us this is the fourth time they've had damage done to their building by people trying to steal from them.
The owners have released their security camera video to us, which shows the whole incident. The suspect was dressed in all black, including a face mask and got away in that silver truck.

Gas station cigarettes, cash and liquor taken

2009-10-07T04:10:00.000-03:00

Cash, cigarettes and bottles of liquor were taken during an armed robbery at a gas station in Northwest Peoria early Tuesday, police said.
An employee told police he was in a back office at Huck's, 3819 W. War Memorial Drive, about 3:40 a.m. when he heard the front bell go off. When he came out to see who had walked in, he was met by a man with a mask partially covering his face, according to a police report.
The 23-year-old employee said the man pointed a gun at him, ordered him to the front and then emptied the cash drawer. The man also took money from an unlocked safe, several packs of cigarettes and four bottles of liquor.
The robber put a gun to the employee's head and ordered him to take the tape out of the store's video surveillance system, but he didn't know how to use the digital system, he told police.
When the gunman apparently thought he heard someone entering the store, he took the employee with him out the back door and made him lie down, then ran toward the tree line east of the store.

Higher Cost A Deterrent To Smoking

2009-10-05T04:21:00.000-03:00

Connecticut's decision to hike the state cigarette tax to $3 per pack was a no-brainer. The new rate, effective on Oct. 1, will raise millions in urgently needed state revenue, will convince more people to quit smoking and will slash health care costs associated with smoking-related illnesses.
One of the greatest benefits is that more teenagers will not take up the dirty habit in the first place. The national Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids estimates that Connecticut's $1-per-pack tax increase will deter 24,000 youths from becoming addicted smokers, and will convince 10,000 adults to quit. The group also projects $520 million in health care savings. These are significant numbers.
Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death and disease in Connecticut, claiming 4,700 lives each year and costing the state $1.63 billion annually in health care bills, the group says.
State officials estimate the higher tax will bring in nearly an extra $100 million in revenue this fiscal year, money desperately needed to support essential services.
Now that Connecticut has shown leadership by boosting the cigarette tax rate, it ought to take the next logical step and devote more dollars to smoking cessation programs. Nicotine is one of the toughest addictions to overcome, but with help smokers can kick the deadly habit.
Connecticut for years has allocated a pittance to smoking prevention and cessation efforts. Currently, the state spends less than 2 percent of $447 million in tobacco-generated revenue for these programs, far below what the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends.
Connecticut can do better. Lawmakers who saw the wisdom of raising taxes on cigarettes ought to demand that some of that new revenue be used to support effective smoking cessation programs.

Schoolgirl's TV bid to stop mum smoking

2009-10-01T04:57:00.000-03:00

SCHOOLGIRL Molly Elvin hopes to persuade her mum to quit smoking for good after being filmed for a hard-hitting new NHS campaign.
The eight-year-old from Hammersmith put herself up for the national TV and poster campaign after going through the trauma of seeing her grandmother die of smoking-related cancer two years ago.
Now short ads of Molly talking movingly from outside her home in Flora Gardens are being broadcast at peak TV soap-watching times to try to encourage more people to stub out their last cigarette.
In the ad, Molly appeals to mum Sam to give up because she does not want her to die.
Molly says: "Hi mum, I know you're watching Coronation Street. I don't want you to smoke because I don't want you to go through what your mum went through. Because it will just make me really, really sad and because I don't want you to die. I don't know what I would do without you."
Sam, 42, managed to give up for six months once before before starting smoking again. She has now vowed to give up for good before Christmas.
She said: "It was quite upsetting just to hear Molly say the things she said, but it was really powerful and I've promised her I'm definitely going to try to stop. I didn't realise before how strongly she felt about me smoking.
"There's been a lot of attention since – Molly even ended up going on Sky and on This Morning with Peter Andre. I'm really proud of her and all the things she said."

Gas station robber demands cash, cigarettes, cigars

2009-09-29T03:49:00.000-03:00

A masked man with a handgun robbed a gas station convenience store near Wilmington, stealing cash from the till and grabbing cigarettes and cigars, state police said today.
The robbery happened at about 9:50 p.m. Sunday at a BP Shore Stop in the 3500 block of Miller Road, said state police spokesman Cpl. Jeff Whitmarsh.The man entered the store, displayed a black handgun and demanded money from the till, he said.
After the clerk complied, the man took several packs of Newport cigarettes and some cigars before fleeing on foot, he said.
The robber was described as about 6 feet tall, with an average build, and was wearing a mask, a black baseball cap, a dark-colored long-sleeved shirt with a collar and light-colored horizontal stripes, dark-colored pants (possibly green), white sneakers and white gloves.
Police released surveillance images of the man.

€1.5m seizure of Dublin-bound cigarettes in Spain

2009-09-25T04:29:00.000-03:00

A shipment of contraband cigarettes worth €1.5m, which was believed to be headed for Ireland, has been seized in Spain.
Nine hundred cases of cigarettes were found hidden in a container which arrived at the Basque port of Bilbao from south-east Asia. Spanish authorities believe they were destined for Dublin.
Detectives are now hunting for those behind the smuggling attempt.

Cigarette Kingpins: Indian smoke shops are feeling the heat

2009-09-23T07:22:00.000-03:00

NEW YORK (AP) – After doing time for possession and an accidental killing, crack dealer Rodney Morrison decided he was finished with drugs. He threw himself a “retirement” party in 1993 and got into a new line of work: tax-free cigarettes.
It was a business operating in a gray area of the law, and the riches were enormous.
Within a decade, the smoke shop Morrison opened on Long Island’s little Poospatuck Indian Reservation had become one of the state’s biggest dealers in untaxed cigarettes. Other drug dealers soon took note and followed him into the business.
By 2007, one in every seven packs sold in New York state came from either Morrison’s shop or three others on the reservation, all four managed by people with a history of drug dealing, The Associated Press found in a review of court and business records.
Those four stores sold 9.9 million cartons of cigarettes that year, or enough to supply every smoker in New York City with a pack a day for 31/2 months.
Now, it may all be going up in smoke for the cigarette kingpins of the Poospatuck reservation.
Dismayed by the lost tax revenue, New York City has waged a legal battle that could put shops like Morrison’s out of business. This month, Poospatuck stores may have to begin collecting taxes for the first time because of a federal judge’s ruling that untaxed sales to non-Indians are illegal.
Morrison, 42, is in deeper trouble. He could get up to 30 years in prison when he is sentenced Sept. 25 in a case in which federal prosecutors set out to blame him for a murder but wound up convicting him of illegally trafficking in cigarettes.
Other states have also struggled with the sale of untaxed cigarettes at reservation smoke shops, and federal prosecutors have filed smuggling charges in recent years against a few dealers in Idaho and Washington. But the cigarette trade on New York’s reservations dwarfs the business in other states, with 304 million packs sold in 2007 alone.
The Poospatuck case is being watched closely. If the court decisions are applied to all reservation smoke shops statewide, they could doom a $6 billion-a-year business in Indian tobacco that now accounts for a third of New York’s cigarette sales.
The Poospatuck reservation covers just 55 acres at the edge of a suburban neighborhood in the town of Mastic, about 60 miles from New York City. Fewer than 300 people live there. The centuries-old preserve of the Unkechaug tribe has long been impoverished, with many residents living in trailers.
It has about a dozen smoke shops in all, for one major reason: Indian sovereignty.
Because the state doesn’t collect sales taxes on Indian land, cigarettes bought there can cost less than half of what they do in New York City, which has the nation’s highest tobacco taxes. In the city, a carton of Marlboros costs about $95, including $42.50 in state and local taxes.
As a result, “buttleggers” – operating, investigators say, with the assistance of some store owners – buy large quantities of cigarettes on the reservation and resell them in the city at a big markup. Some of those packs wind up on the shelves of convenience stores and bodegas. Others are sold on the street by “$5 men.”
“There’s no difference between the cigarette business and the drug business. It’s the same type of individuals involved,” said Kyron Hodges, a former drug dealer from Brooklyn who joined legions of street hustlers transporting tax-free cigarettes from the Poospatuck reservation to the city. “I took all of my street knowledge and applied it to cigarettes.”
Technically, New York law allows reservation merchants to sell tax-free tobacco only to members of the tribe for their personal consumption. And in recent years, police have arrested at least 220 people leaving the Poospatuck reservation with loads of cigarettes.
But until now, the rule has never been enforced against the smoke shops themselves, despite the loss of more than $700 million a year in state and local tax revenue. Since the mid-1990s, New York governors fearful of stirring up tribal unrest have instructed state tax officials to leave the smoke shops alone.
And so, as state authorities looked the other way, Morrison’s business boomed, grossing $172 million in one 41/2-year period, according to bank records. He bought homes, land and businesses throughout the U.S. and Latin America, stashed $30 million in foreign banks and collected $1.7 million worth of luxury watches.
Morrison’s lawyer, Billy Murphy, said his client’s transformation from drug dealer to entrepreneur should be viewed as a success story.
When Morrison was 20, he killed a 6-year-old boy while blasting off shotgun rounds in a friend’s yard. He pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide and was sentenced to probation. Later, he got a year in jail for drug possession.
“Rodney decided to give it up and go legit,” Murphy said. “He retired from the drug business and went into the cigarette business because he thought it was legal.”
Prosecutors, though, said Morrison didn’t change his methods. He kept a gun in his office. He talked tough. And when a wave of violence swept the reservation, people began pointing fingers.
The car of one smoke shop owner was firebombed. Another shop owner was beaten and robbed. Armed men burst into a tribal council meeting and threatened the chief’s life. Then, in 2003, a former Morrison employee with a rival cigarette business, 23-year-old Sherwin Henry, was shot to death on a Brooklyn rooftop.
After the incident at the tribal council meeting, Morrison seemed pleased people were afraid of him, an employee later told prosecutors. “Every now and then you have to bite people,” he said, according to the worker.
Meanwhile, Morrison held himself out as a respectable businessman, joining the local Chamber of Commerce.
Morrison wasn’t the only person on the reservation with a checkered past.
His estranged half-brother, Shawn, began managing The Golden Feather smoke shop after finishing a seven-year prison term in 2004 for drug dealing. The Smoking Arrow Smoke Shop was managed for a time by a former member of Morrison’s drug crew. And Monique’s Smoke Shop was run by a man who served six months for drug dealing in the 1990s.
None of the men are Indian, but all of them are married or connected romantically to Indian women, and that entitled them to run businesses on the reservation.
During hearings over a lawsuit brought by New York City, a former smuggler and an undercover state tax investigator testified that many of the Poospatuck stores welcomed illicit business.
Some were lookouts, watching for police patrols. Others split large orders into smaller transactions to hide big deals. There were tales of late-night meetings in parking lots where cash was exchanged for garbage bags filled with cigarettes.
Morrison was arrested in 2004 and indicted on federal racketeering charges accusing him of Henry’s murder and a string of other violent crimes. Prosecutors said he paid $15,000 to have Henry killed because he was stealing customers away.
At trial, Morrison’s lawyer argued that most of the charges were concocted by jealous competitors. The jury acquitted Morrison last year on most counts, including the murder, but found him guilty of racketeering for selling untaxed cigarettes to non-Indians.
The verdict came as a shock to scores of reservation smoke shops across the state engaged in a nearly identical business.
Morrison’s lawyers have appealed his conviction, saying the state’s policy was “so hopelessly confused ... it is impossible for a citizen to know the law.”
In denying Morrison bail last week, U.S. District Judge Denis R. Hurley, who will sentence the cigarette dealer, called him “a cunning individual with dangerous proclivities” and said that, despite the verdict, he believed Morrison had “set up the scenario” that resulted in Henry’s murder.
Since the trial, state courts have continued to send conflicting messages about the smoke shops’ legal obligations. As recently as July, a state appeals court threw out a case against a Cayuga Nation store in western New York, saying it could not be prosecuted for selling untaxed cigarettes.
Things could come to a head in the next few weeks. In her Aug. 25 ruling in the city’s lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Carol Bagley Amon ordered the Poospatuck stores to start collecting taxes on sales to non-Indians in 30 days.
Shawn Morrison recently decided to close. Rodney Morrison’s store is still in business, but like the others is in limbo. Philip Morris, the maker of Marlboros, ordered wholesalers last year to stop selling its products to shops on the Poospatuck reservation because of the smuggling.
The Unkechaug chief, Harry Wallace, blames a few “dirty dealers” for ruining the business.
“The unscrupulous guys come in, and all they care about is building their own personal fortune and then engaging in quasi-legal activity,” Wallace said. “All of a sudden, we are all criminals. We are getting blamed for someone else’s actions.”

Cigarette sales on Six Nations tied to issue of sovereignty

2009-09-21T07:33:00.000-03:00

I love the smell of a fresh-lit cigarette. The ascending smoke randomly curling through the air was common. One after another marked the hours of my days. Twenty-five years ago, people were allowed to smoke in the hospital. It wasn't like it is today. Now we identify smokers by their huddling presence at doorways to public buildings. I remember when the cost of an entire pack was below $2. Today, it's five times that amount. Smoking was a habit I would eventually give up.
Mostly store merchants at Six Nations of the Grand River sold cigarettes in the 1980s. They were given a quota that dictated how many cartons a retail outlet was allowed to purchase for resale. It wasn't anything like it is today. As many as 200 smoke shops are now estimated to litter the landscape of the reserve. A few years ago, a map of the reserve used as a tool for tourism had smoke shop locations marked on it as if they were a tourist attraction. All that was needed was the replica of a giant cigarette in Veterans Park, smoke rising from it rivalled only by the Camel billboard in Times Square.
The situation begs the question, "How do they all make any money?" I've talked to a few people who either run or own smoke shops and the answer is, "They don't." That is not unless they sell inventory in large quantity. But not all of them can afford to purchase the inventory to do high volume business.
Some businesses can afford to deal in high volume business. The cigarettes manufactured at Six Nations by Grand River Enterprises do have taxes paid on them by the manufacturer to the Canadian government, as much as $120 million a year, according to one figure. This business is the largest employer at Six Nations and willingly pays taxes to the Canadian government, even though the business is located on Six Nations of the Grand River territory. Today, some of the owners of Grand River Enterprises are indicted in the United States for trafficking in contraband cigarettes.
Last fall, there was some attempt by the elected band council and the confederacy council to organize the smoke shop merchants by introducing regulations but it proved to be a monumental task after having the industry go unchecked and unregulated for so long. Not only has the cigarette industry grown in correlation with government taxation on the product but it is also mired in the issue of sovereignty, which makes it defendable. But for those who don't agree with the changing landscape of the reserve, how far does the obligation go to defend the cigarette industry in the name of sovereignty?
It's one of those issues where you may not agree with it in principle but it's part of a bigger issue that is a vital part of a culture of a people. Sovereignty to Six Nations is like clean air to humanity: it's not given up willingly and must be defended.
When the RCMP came calling at Six Nations almost two years ago to see what could be done about the selling of "illegal" cigarettes, the elected council told them that there were no such thing as "illegal" cigarettes being sold at Six Nations and it was their job to monitor Canadians to make sure they paid the taxes on products. Two years later, that is exactly what police are doing as they stop people and confiscate the cigarettes they have purchased on the reserve as they leave the tax free zone. That raises other questions: Can they stop everybody and confiscate their cigarettes? And can they monitor every exit leading out of Six Nations continually? The short answer is: no.
So, what's the solution? The government could lower taxes on cigarettes but that would be taking away their own revenue stream. They could pour more money into education, which could encourage more people to quit smoking and lower the demand part of the supply and demand chain. They could increase the penalties for non-native people not paying taxes on cigarettes purchased on a reserve. However, none of these possible solutions is guaranteed to decrease cigarette customers coming to Six Nations to purchase product.
I don't agree with the economic development at Six Nations in terms of the cigarette industry. I hoped the economy could be run by some product other than one that causes disease and death to so many people who use it.
Allan M. Brandt in his book, The Cigarette Century, cites projections "that in the course of the twenty-first century, one billion people across the globe will die of tobacco-related diseases." The other aspect of taking the sacredness of a medicine and selling it in another form for personal financial gain conflicts with the Great Law, the values and principles upon which Haudenosaunee society is based.
There are those people who also believe that the cigarette industry is inextricably linked to the increase in crime in the community.There are those who say that not all cigarette outlets are 100% native-owned and people are being used for their rights. There is a definite need for research to be done in this area in order to capture a clear picture of what is happening at Six Nations in terms of crime.
I grew up on the reserve. I lived at my grandparents' home at Sour Springs corner where the door was left unlocked the majority of the time. It wasn't like it is today. I only need to bring up the topic of crime and my ears are filled with stories about "gun-toting seniors" and "crack orphans." The social problems that result from an unsafe community are becoming more difficult to ignore. Community meetings where crime and safety are the only topics for discussion are happening now.
Yes, the cigarette industry has given the community a stream of revenue but in a very unbalanced way. To say the entire community has benefited would be an untrue statement. It has made some people multimillionaires. It has changed the reserve in a most drastic way. It has polarized the economic field of a small community. It has raised questions regarding links to crime. It has strained family relationships and it has branded the Reserve with an image that has overshadowed more positive ones.
The cigarette industry is the dark part of the issue of sovereignty. Having said that, I must defend sovereignty because to not defend it invites abolishment. I may not agree with what is sold but I must defend the right to sell it.
L. M. VanEvery is a journalist from Six Nations of the Grand River who wishes everyone would quit smoking.

MPP introduces bill to cut tobacco taxes

2009-09-17T08:15:00.000-03:00

Haldimand-Norfolk MPP Toby Barrett has submitted a private member's bill before the Ontario legislature on its first day back from the summer break, which calls for a dramatic reduction in the tax on cigarettes and cigars to fight the contraband trade.
His bill, which passed first reading Monday and will be up for second reading on Sept. 24, would replace the current Ontario Tobacco Tax with a new one that lowers the rate by 33% to 8.23 cents per cigarette from 13 cents per cigarette, and to 37.7% on a cigar from the present 56.6%.
His bill also calls for the change to be done in conjunction with the federal government's tax policies.
"We must lower the taxes on those products legally to match the prices of the contraband trade, which carries on activities that allow cigarettes to be sold without paying proper taxes," Barrett said in a telephone interview after first reading.
"What I am proposing is to do what we did in 1994 when contraband got out of control due to taxes that were too high. The situation changed as soon as taxes were lowered to a more acceptable level."
Because the bill is one of the first out of the starting gate in the fall sitting and will be up for second reading in less than two weeks, Barrett acknowledged that MPPs in all parties know little about its purpose.
So he has prepared a sales job to lobby them on the necessity to use a change in tax policy to attack a contraband trade that now accounts for more than 50% of cigarettes on the street and robbed Ottawa and the provinces of an estimated $2.5 billion in 2008 alone.
Barrett will explain his bill before the Progressive Conservative caucus today.
His office has also prepared an package with background information on his bill to be distributed to every MPP in all three political parties.

How To Dissuade Your Children From Smoking Cigarettes

2009-09-15T09:41:00.000-03:00

Have you ever looked in the mirror and wondered who was looking back at you? As you all know we age every day, but when you smoke cigarettes this aging process starts to speed up. Young people usually start smoking because they think it makes them look older or cooler. They do not know that doing this will certainly make them look older than they actually are, eventually anyway. These cigarettes will not only make them look older sooner, it will also bring them closer to death sooner as well. This is a fact that they often overlook at the time they start smoking. They might end up with one or more of the cancers that come from smoking early in their lives. We have so many people in hospitals with these cancers that they might never have gotten if they had never started smoking cigarettes.

Young kids do not realize the pity that older smokers feel for them when they see them smoking. Older smokers realize the pitfalls of smoking that the young smokers have not had to deal with yet. You should try to make your child understand that smoking cigarettes is not the right thing for them to do. If you need to scare them a little, you could take them to a hospital where there are cancer patients dying that smoked. Let them talk to the patients to find out what cancers they have and the medicines that they are on trying to fix their problems. Let these patients talk to your child alone as they might be able to get through to them better if you are not in the room.

You might be surprised to find out their ages when asked. Most of them might not look their age because their bodies have aged so much. These people might look many years older than they really are because of the smoking. Have them talk to as many people in the hospital as they can. If you both have a strong stomach you might even take them down to the morgue and let them talk to the people that do this job. These professionals might be able to show your child the cancers and what they do in terms of their bodies. This in itself might keep this child from even starting.

If you find that your child has already been smoking, then get them to talk it over with you so that maybe you can with the help of these professionals get them to quit. If you get to them quickly enough, you can get them to quit easier. Sooner or later reality sets in with any smoker and they will sometime or another have a desire to quit even if they never do. Preventing someone from ever starting to smoke is the key to them never becoming addicted. Parents have to be very vigilant when it comes to keeping their children away from cigarettes. If you smoke cigarettes in front of your children, you might as well be lighting one up and handing it to them because chances are very good that they will smoke eventually and then how are you going to feel?

Thousands of cigarettes seized in Londonderry

2009-09-11T09:41:00.000-03:00

Thirty locations on both sides of the River Foyle were visited by officers from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) supported by the PSNI in operations that targeted the
sale of illicit cigarettes. During the raids seizures amounted to 48,181 cigarettes,
kilos of hand rolling tobacco as well as counterfeit DVD's, CD's and football jersey's.
As part of an ongoing programme of visits to businesses across Northern Ireland (HMRC) officers involved in the Londonderry raids used new hand-held scanning equipment to quickly identify counterfeit non UK-duty paid tobacco products. The scanner detects covert security markings on the packaging, invisible to the naked eye, and gives an instant indication of counterfeit or smuggled tobacco.
Brian Dixon, Specialist Investigations, HMRC said: "The unregulated sale of illegal cigarettes and tobacco is not a victimless or harmless crime, and encourages otherwise honest people to trade with criminals. The gangs behind this form of criminality are motivated solely by greed and personal gain. Their lavish lifestyles cost the taxpayer around £3 billion per year in unpaid duty.
"We are tackling tobacco fraud at all points of the supply chain, from smuggling and storage through to sale, and we are now using new technology to quickly identify the illegal and counterfeit products.
"We will continue to work with our partner agencies, the PSNI and the Organised Crime Task Force, to combat this crime but we are also keen to work closely with local people. We would encourage anyone who knows of someone selling cheap or duty free cigarettes and tobacco to contact our hotline on 0800 59 5000."
Investigations into the origins of the seized products are ongoing.

Tobacco shop will fight charges

2009-09-09T07:59:00.000-03:00

Tobacco Haven isn’t a cigarette manufacturer despite claims by the state, says the attorney for the small tobacco shop in Brookline facing an unusual legal action against its use of roll-your-own cigarette machines.
Acting Attorney General Orville “Bud” Fitch filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the tobacco shop in Merrimack County Superior Court, alleging that the operation sidesteps the federal settlement between tobacco manufacturers and the state.
The company has a pair of 4-foot tall “roll your own” machines in its store. Customers buy one of three types of loose tobacco and paper tubes with filters, then use the machines to turn them into cigarettes at about half the cost of name-brand cigarettes.
Jeffrey Burd, of Cincinnati, one of several lawyers who will represent Tobacco Haven in court, said this business doesn’t make Tobacco Haven a manufacturer.
“Tobacco Haven rents its machine to customers. They can buy or rent,” said Burd. He contrasted the shop’s operation with a hypothetical cigarette manufacturer in North Carolina that can produce several hundred cigarettes in seconds, while it takes minutes to roll the same number at a tobacco shop.
Burd will make his case in Merrimack County Superior Court at 11 a.m. Oct. 13, when the state brings its case against the tobacco shop.
The state filed the suit this week, about three weeks after contacting the tobacco shop’s owner, Joseph Correia Jr., asking if the business was manufacturing cigarettes.
Burd said he responded with a four-page letter that explained why Tobacco Haven is not a cigarette manufacturer.
Under two state laws, the Non-Participating Manufacturers Act and the Directory Act, tobacco manufacturers must make payments to the state based on the number of cigarettes they sell.
Burd argues that stores all over the country are operating similar machines that allow customers to make their own cigarettes at a significant savings, without paying the federal tobacco settlement taxes levied on manufacturers.
The in-store rolling machines are larger and faster than the ones consumers buy for home use, Burd said.
And local residents as well as ones from neighbor Massachusetts are flocking to the store.
“Roll-your-own cigarettes has gone through the roof,” said Keith Spano, manager at Castro’s Backroom in Nashua. “It’s an extremely cheap way to do it. I heard there’s a line out the door at (Tobacco Haven) with people that just wait from Massachusetts, New Hampshire, everywhere.”
Tobacco Haven’s big draw appears to be the price. A carton-worth, or 200 machine-rolled cigarettes cost $25.99. Cartons of many name-brand cigarettes cost more than $40.
Peter Labrecque drove from Nashua for exactly that reason. He said a carton of his old brand of cigarettes cost about $42.
“It’s more a matter of what I can afford right now,” he said. He said there’s not much of a difference between the store’s machines and rolling his own cigarettes at home, except convenience.
“Would it be different if I rolled them in my own home? Why would that be any different?” he said.
Mary Kavanaugh drove about 20 minutes from Lunenburg, Mass., because her old brand of cigarettes cost more than $60 per carton.
“I think it’s a great thing to help out the people. We just can’t afford all these new taxes on everything,” she said.
At Smokin’ Deals in Nashua, customers have a choice among five different tabletop models of take-home cigarette machines and eight handheld versions ranging from $25 to $63, according to manager Cindy Demanche.
“We’re overselling machines, tobacco, tubes and rolling papers,” Demanche said. “Every time the taxes go up, more and more people are looking for them. They’re fed up with all these tax increases.”
Depending on the model, it can take five to 15 minutes to roll out a pack of 20 cigarettes at home, she said.
“I’ve heard about (Tobacco Haven) from some of my customers, Demanche said. “They think it’s the coolest thing ever that they can do it in a store and not take it home.”
But others don’t seem to think so and the state wants Correia to halt his make-your-own cigarettes procedure until the apparently unprecedented matter is cleared up.
Burd and New Hampshire officials both say they believe the Brookline case is the first of its kind in the nation.
Sales of personal cigarette-rolling machines in the U.S. skyrocketed about 10 years ago, following the national tobacco settlement that required manufacturers to pay millions of dollars to states for healthcare for Medicaid patients suffering from tobacco-related illnesses.
Americans have been rolling their own cigarettes for decades, although the rise in sales of the machines 10 years ago was the first since the Great Depression, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Federal and state taxes on cigarettes have continued to climb over the past decade.
New Hampshire has collected roughly $50 million in tobacco-settlement money. Little of it has gone for health care. Instead, it has been placed in the general fund.
The future of this fund was a major concern of the state in filing the lawsuit, Assistant Attorney General David Rienzo said Tuesday.
Failing to take action against small cigarette manufacturers, he said, could lead to complaints and legal action against New Hampshire from the large companies that pay the bulk of the settlement money.

New ‘fire-safe’ cigarettes drawing smokers’ ire

2009-09-07T07:57:00.000-03:00

THIBODAUX — Starting today, self-extinguishing cigarettes are what local smokers should find in their packs.The so-called fire-safe cigarettes, indicated by the letters “FSC,” have bands of paper several layers thick surrounding the tobacco, making it more likely to go out if it’s not actively being smoked. The goal is to prevent fires and deaths associated with lit cigarettes.
Starting today, vendors must buy and sell fire-safe cigarettes in Louisiana. Eighteen states already require the special cigarettes. Louisiana and 13 others will join the list this year.
The change has some smokers upset.
Nick Richard, 58, of Thibodaux, says he must relight his Marlboro Ultra Lights up to three times per cigarette.
“If you put it down for more than a minute it goes out,” Richard said. “It’s just a huge pain.”
Mark Tortorich, owner of the Tobacco Outlet Discount in Thibodaux, said some of his customers are unhappy at the change.
“Customers have been complaining,” Tortorich said. “Some people say it tastes different, others don’t like having to relight it. I tell customers to call their cigarette manufacturers.”
Manufacturers say the change won’t affect cigarettes’ taste or appearance.
“There are no additional chemicals,” said Frank Lester, a spokesman for tobacco company R.J. Reynolds said. “The difference is the paper bands.”
Lester and David Sutton, a spokesman for tobacco compnay Philip Morris, say smokers must still be careful.
“It’s important to point out to consumers that anything that burns, if handled carelessly, will still burn,” Sutton said. “Nothing that burns is fire safe.”
Manufacturers who sell cigarettes in violation of the new standard could be fined up to $100 per pack. Subsequent violations could result in higher fines.
Stores are allowed to sell any remaining stocks of non-fire-safe cigarettes purchased prior to today.
Chad Mire, Thibodaux’s assistant fire chief, said the new cigarettes should help reduce fires caused by unattended cigarettes.
“It’s a great thing,” Mire said. “Anything that can benefit fighting or preventing fires is a good thing.”
Richard, however, says he remains unhappy with the change, especially given the recent tax increases on his smokes.
“I’m very upset by this,” he said.

Find A Reason To Quit Smoking Cigarettes And Reclaim Your Life

2009-09-03T08:59:00.000-03:00

There are many millions of people in the world that smoke cigarettes everyday of their lives. Everyone knows that there are many ailments that come from smoking cigarettes and one of the biggest killers is cancer. No one wants to go to the doctor and hear him say that they have cancer in their lungs, liver, intestines, pancreas, or any of the many other places it can be in your body. This disease kills hundreds of thousands of people each year and the numbers are not going down enough to really notice.

Cancer is something that no smoker wants to think about. Most all of them can tell you that they know it is damaging their lungs and they are even running the risk of getting lung cancer, but they still continue to smoking cigarettes or other tobacco products. It seems as people get caught up in their everyday life and stay so busy, they do not stop to think about what they could be giving up by continuing to smoke. The ones that have been smoking for many years and are middle aged, probably have kids or maybe even grandchildren. A big priority in the lives of most people is family, especially your children and their children.

There are all kinds of reasons that you could come up with to help you quit smoking and the biggest one should be yourself and your health. How can you claim to love others so much when you are choosing to kill yourself slowly and will not likely be with them for as long as you could. Continuing to smoke cigarettes will do damage to the body that not even the strongest of willed people can not over come later in life. Nobody wants their kids or even grandchildren to see them looking old and sick, but the truth is that the carbon monoxide that they have breathed all of their life has robbed them of their youthful appearance. This is a deadly chemical that a smoker has been inhaling into their lungs for many years.

Not only will cigarettes rob you of your youthful look, you will find that eventually you are going to realize the amount of money that you have lost over the last many years of supporting this habit.
So, if you are still smoking cigarettes, talk to your doctor about the possibilities of getting on a program or anything you can do that will get you off of cigarettes. If just looking at your family can not make you quit, just imagine not being able to ever look at them again because you had to die too soon.

FDA warns of e-cigarette risks

2009-09-01T09:15:00.000-03:00

The Food and Drug Administration is warning consumers about potential health risks associated with electronic cigarettes.

Also known as "e-cigarettes," electronic cigarettes are battery-operated devices designed to look like and be used in the same manner as conventional cigarettes.

Sold online and in many shopping malls, the devices generally contain cartridges filled with nicotine, flavor and other chemicals. They turn nicotine, which is highly addictive, and other chemicals into a vapor that is inhaled by the user.

The FDA said it is concerned that e-cigarettes can increase nicotine addiction among young people and may lead kids to try other tobacco products, including conventional cigarettes. In addition, the products may contain ingredients that are known to be toxic to humans because clinical studies about the safety of these products for their intended use have not been submitted to the FDA.

Of particular concern, the FDA said, is that e-cigarettes are sold without any legal age restrictions and are available in different flavors such as chocolate, strawberry and mint, which may appeal to young people.

In addition, the devices do not contain any health warnings comparable to FDA-approved nicotine replacement products or conventional cigarettes.

Consumers may report serious problems with e-cigarettes to the FDA through the MedWatch program, online or at 800-FDA-1088.

Thousands of illegal smokes seized

2009-08-25T08:01:00.000-03:00

A New Brunswick man is facing charges after being arrested early Monday morning with 130,000 illegal cigarettes.
The 54-year-old from Sainte-Anne-de-Kent, who has not been identified, was stopped for speeding on the Trans-Canada Highway 104 in Debert at 12:30 a.m. Police investigating the speeding noted a strong odour of raw tobacco from inside the car
and the RCMP Customs and Excise Unit was called in. Inside the vehicle 650 clear plastic zip-lock bags, each containing 200 cigarettes, were discovered.
“This has been the second apprehension in less than a week indicating that, despite higher prices for the illegal tobacco at the point of origin, there is still a demand for the product,” said Cpl. John Currie.
The man was released to appear in Truro provincial court on Oct. 28 to face charges under the Federal Excise Act and the provincial Revenue Act.
Last Wednesday afternoon a truck was stopped for speeding near the Cobequid Pass toll-booth and a subsequent search led to the seizure of 1,250 cartons of illegal cigarettes. A 34-year-old Indian Brook man is to appear in Amherst provincial court on Oct. 28 to face Customs and Excise Act charges.

Mall kiosk challenged for selling 'electronic cigarettes'

2009-08-18T10:54:00.000-03:00

Anti-smoking activists are pushing Jordan Creek Town Center managers to evict a kiosk selling "electronic cigarettes."
The battery-operated devices contain no tobacco, and they don't emit smoke, but activists worry they will lure young people into inhaling noxious fumes.
The sleek kiosk, called Smoking Everywhere, opened a few weeks ago in the West Des Moines mall.
It offers small white-and-tan devices that look like cigarettes. Instead of tobacco smoke, they give off a heated vapor containing nicotine, which is the most addictive part of cigarettes.
Kiosk manager Joshua Ross said he doesn't understand why there's a fuss about his wares. "What you inhale is steam. It's about the same as what comes off a bowl of soup," he said, puffing on a demonstrator model. The vapor he exhaled had very little odor.
Ross touts his product as a safer alternative for people who want to quit or cut down on smoking.
"I guarantee you, cigarettes will kill you 20 times faster," he said.
The American Lung Association isn't buying it. The group recently wrote to mall managers, asking them to evict the stand, which is upstairs near the Baby Gap and Bath & Body Works stores.
"Due to the fact that Jordan Creek Town Center is a family-oriented environment and an establishment many young people frequent, we believe it is crucial that you remove this vendor from your mall immediately, not only for the health of mall employees but also mall guests," the association wrote to the mall's leaders. The group is asking its members to write to mall managers with similar requests.
Kerry Wise, the lung association's director of mission services, noted in an interview that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently put out a warning about e-cigarettes.
The warning said the devices could contain cancer-causing chemicals and other toxins, including diethylene glycol, an ingredient used in antifreeze.
Wise said she is unclear whether the devices are safer than real cigarettes.
"The research isn't there on it," she said.
She said she was unsure whether the mall could legally break its lease with the kiosk, which is owned by a Kansas City company.
Wise said she is particularly worried about the fact that the devices come in flavors, including chocolate and vanilla.
"That targets a younger audience," she said.
Ross pointed to a sign on his kiosk, reading: "Must be 18 to try or buy."
He said the rule is strictly enforced.
Ross said he doesn't know of any other retailers selling e-cigarettes in the Des Moines area, though he said such stands are common around the country.
He dismissed the FDA's warning as "propaganda." He said most of his customers already are smokers who want to curtail or quit their habits. The e-cigarettes also allow them to get their nicotine in many nonsmoking areas, including bars, malls and even most airplanes.
"People tell me it's the best thing they've ever done," he said.
Many of the devices are sold online, including by Ross' brand. The company's Web site offers the "Freedom to Smoke Anywhere." It features glamorous people using the product. "Looks like a cigarette. Feels like a cigarette. Tastes like a cigarette. But it isn't a cigarette," the site says.
Ross said the devices are cheaper than cigarettes, which have shot up in price because of recent federal and state tax increases. The metal e-cigarettes cost about $180, but their refill cartridges are only $3. Each cartridge is equal to about two packages of cigarettes, which could cost $14, he said.
Randy Tennison, the mall's general manager, did not respond to requests for comment. Wise said mall managers have not responded to her group, either.

Smoking no longer trending down

2009-08-10T08:54:00.000-03:00

WASHINGTON - The decades-long decline in smoking by Americans has stalled for three years, the first time smoking rates have leveled off for that long since the federal government began collecting statistics more than 40 years ago.

After more than a decade of steep decline, moreover, smoking rates for high school students also have hit a plateau in the past few years and even increased a bit. This comes amid controversy over the targeting of young women by the R.J. Reynold's Tobacco Co. with its Camel #9 cigarette - which is packaged in "hot-pink fuchsia" and claims to be "light and luscious."

Together, the data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Thursday present a worrisome picture of smoking patterns, experts said, especially because the trend had been downward for so long.

"Anytime we are not seeing a decline, it's a cause of real concern to us," said Corrine Husten, head of the epidemiology branch of the CDC's Office on Smoking and Health. "Smoking is the biggest cause of preventable disease we have, and we need to bring down the rates as quickly as we possibly can."

According to the CDC report, about 20.8 percent of American adults are smokers - with 80 percent of them (36.3 million people) smoking every day and the rest smoking on some days. Adult smoking rates declined more than 15 percent from 1997 to 2004 but have been stubbornly unchanged since.

Husten pointed to several likely reasons for the unwelcome news.

Cigarette companies have been spending billions of dollars to offset tax increases and discount their products, and funding has been cut sharply for several very successful state anti-smoking campaigns, she said.

Some anti-tobacco advocates said the Bush administration has not made tobacco control a priority and has not highlighted or promoted the issue. In part, they said, the stalled smoking rates are a result.

William Corr, executive director of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said the administration has been "AWOL regarding tobacco control - doing little or nothing." He called it "inexcusable that elected leaders have not done more given the overwhelming scientific evidence of what works to reduce tobacco use among both children and adults."

The relatively unchanged price of cigarettes since 2002 is considered important because more people stop smoking due to cost than for any other single reason. That is especially true of younger smokers. While a number of states have increased tobacco taxes, the federal government has not raised its rate for more than a decade, and President Bush has strongly opposed a proposal in Congress to increase the tax as way to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program.

The administration has also been skeptical of a bill that would give the Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate tobacco. FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach told Congress in October that the agency did not have the funds to take on regulation of tobacco and had reservations about regulating a product known to be harmful.

Von Eschenbach said in a statement that "the bill could undermine the public health role of FDA." Two major reports this year - one by Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and another by the President's Cancer Panel - called for FDA regulation of tobacco.

The administration has also declined to send the World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control to the Senate for ratification. The treaty, signed by the United States in 2004, would require some toughening of U.S. anti-smoking efforts. So far, more than 150 of the 168 nations that signed the treaty have ratified it, but the State Department has consistently said it is still studying the document.

The price of cigarettes increased after tobacco companies agreed in 1997 to pay billions to the states to settle a suit seeking compensation for Medicaid costs related to smoking-related disease. But statistics collected by the Federal Trade Commission show that tobacco companies then dramatically increased their advertising and marketing budgets - from $6.7 billion in 1998 to $15.1 billion in 2003 and $13 billion in 2005. From 2003 through 2005, price discounting accounted for more than 70 percent of the promotion expenditures.

David Sutton, a spokesman for Philip Morris USA, which supplies about half of the American cigarette market, said the company agrees with the public health community that the "best way to reduce the health effects of cigarettes is to quit or not start in the first place." But he said that in the highly competitive domestic market for adult smokers, companies had to offer discounts to retailers to keep old customers and attract new ones.

Since 2000, there also has been a drop of 20 percent in state spending to keep children, in particular, from taking up smoking and to encourage and help smokers to stop, the CDC reported. That decline was especially stark in several states that had had aggressive and effective programs, including Massachusetts, Florida and Minnesota.

Some of the spending decline results from cuts in state appropriations and some from decline in the amount of money available from the tobacco settlement. Under that landmark agreement, the amount paid by the tobacco companies declines if cigarette consumption falls off, or if more than 1 percent of the cigarette market is captured by small and foreign companies not covered by the settlement - a threshold that was reached some time ago.

The rate of cigarette smoking began to fall steadily after the 1964 surgeon general's report on tobacco's health risks, though the decline leveled off for two years in the mid-1990s.

The new data, in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report released Thursday, did not include specific information about youth smoking, but other reports have shown a similar leveling off among them in the past several years.

The controversy over R.J. Reynolds' Camel #9 - which came on the market in February - has reached Congress, where Rep. Lois Capps, D-Calif., has denounced the company's advertising for targeting women, especially young women. She and 40 others members of Congress twice wrote to 11 women's magazines asking them to stop running its ads, which generally feature slinky clothes in black and pink. One ad tells women the Camel #9s are now "available in stiletto" - longer, thinner cigarettes. Capps has also accused RJR of scenting the cigarettes to taste like a chai latte.

The CDC report showed a small drop-off in adult smoking in the first three months of 2007, but Husten said it is not considered significant and that smoking rates often come in low at the beginning of a year.

Among the CDC findings was that in 2006, almost 37 percent of people with smoking-related chronic disease were still smoking - a considerably higher percentage than in the general population.

Shocking images deter cigarette smokers: WHO

2009-08-03T07:39:00.000-03:00

GENEVA - Cigarette packages should show graphic images of yellow teeth, blackened gums, protruding neck tumours and bleeding brains to alert smokers to their disease risks, the World Health Organization said on Friday.
More than 20 countries, including Britain, Iran, Peru and Malaysia, already use visual warnings on their tobacco products, the head of the WHO's Tobacco Free Initiative said.
"Although some people question the need for such pictures, the evidence is absolutely clear that they convince people to quit," Douglas Bettcher told a news conference ahead of World No Tobacco Day, to be held on Sunday.
Bettcher pointed to a warning that read "smoking causes brain strokes" and showed blood oozing from a brain.
He has called for such images to be printed on all tobacco product packages and on tags to water pipes that are popular in the Middle East. Bettcher added that the "disgust, fear, sadness or worry" from the warnings can discourage smoking.
The WHO, which requires all its staff to be non-smokers or to agree to try to quit, has been campaigning for more than two decades to discourage smoking and fight efforts by big companies such as Philip Morris International, Imperial Tobacco, Japan Tobacco and British American Tobacco to attract new customers.
Bettcher said the tobacco industry opposed visual warnings, viewing them as a threat to profits.
Tobacco is the world's leading preventable cause of death, killing more than 5 million people a year, the WHO says,
Around 80 per cent of smokers live in developing countries, where smoking rates have risen sharply in recent years alongside a ramping-up of tobacco marketing and production in poorer states, Bettcher said.
In addition to package warnings, the WHO supports bans on tobacco marketing and sponsorship, prohibitions of smoking in public buildings, and high taxes on tobacco products.
The recent emergence of designer cigarette pack-holders and other accessories to cover up health warnings showed the warnings were having an impact, Rob Cunningham of the Canadian Cancer Society said.
"That is a good indication, because smokers are noticing enough that they feel that they must not look at them," Cunningham said.

Philip Morris USA to Introduce Marlboro Snus.

2009-07-21T05:58:00.000-03:00

Philip Morris USA announced today that the company is introducing into test market Marlboro Snus, a tobacco pouch product that is neither cigarettes nor spit tobacco like dip or chew. Unlike traditional spit tobacco, pouches were designed especially for adult smokers who are interested in smokeless tobacco alternatives to cigarettes.
Marlboro Snus builds on the brand equity of the best selling cigarettes brand in the U.S. and comes in four varieties - Rich, Mild, Mint and Spice. Marlboro Snus utilizes a unique flavor strip and dried tobacco which makes it flavorful and spit-free.
"Consumer research shows that some adult smokers are interested in smokeless tobacco alternatives to cigarettes," said John R. Nelson, president, operations and technology, Philip Morris USA. "Marlboro Snus is a smokeless tobacco product that we believe smokers like. It is our hope that adult smokers interested in a smokeless tobacco alternative to cigarettes will switch to Marlboro Snus."
Philip Morris USA will introduce Marlboro Snus in the Dallas/Fort Worth area in August to understand adult smoker acceptance of this new product.
"This new product from Marlboro represents a proposition that embraces the flavor heritage of Marlboro cigarettes and connects it to a new and unique product offering. Marlboro Snus delivers the taste and quality that adult smokers expect from Marlboro in no-spit tobacco pouches," said Nelson.
Marlboro Snus is part of Philip Morris USA’s continuing efforts to make progress against its growth strategy. Philip Morris USA’s growth strategy aims to add to the mix of products it offers starting with those tobacco or tobacco-related products that are adjacent and similar to its existing business, cigarettes.

Stop Smoking And Get Your Freedom Back

2009-07-14T09:52:00.000-03:00

Are you really tired of being chained to a pack of cigarettes? After so many years, this is the way that many smokers do feel, only they can not seem to break free from them. So many people that smoke cigarettes have tried to quit repeatedly and have no been successful. Why is this particular addiction so hard to break? The body does not react in the same way as people who use other drugs. There is no real head spinning or mood alterations when you smoke a cigarette in comparison to say, smoking marijuana. Of course, the nicotine does cause a physical reaction in the body, it is just not a mind altering reaction like other drugs can give.

The big question is what is one way that could make any smoker be able to quit? Well, evidently there is not one. There are a lot of nicotine products available that are supposed to help you quit, but studies have shown that the success rate for for quitting using these products is relatively low. Still, people buy them everyday in the hopes that one of these products will help them to break free from smoking. Sometimes people will see their family doctor and get help from there. There are pills on the market now that are supposed to help, but these have some side affects that are not agreeable with everyone. They are still on the market, and are still being used.

The one thing that it all comes down to is the will power and determination of the person that is trying to quit. A smoker must have these two things because they will not be successful without them. There are no products that can make you quit. If you smoke cigarettes while you use some products, they can make you sick. This is why it is so important to know whether you can handle not smoking once you are using a product that does not allow you to smoke. You already have an addiction, you do not want to become sick also.

Many smokers find that it is helpful to join a support group of other smokers who are trying to quit and be counseled by those who have already been successful. Talking to others that have managed to stop smoking could provide the one tip you need that could make all of the difference. Different things work for different people. If you are not ready to stop smoking, you probably will not stop. You have to be in the proper state of mind in order to quit. Sometimes it will take a smoker months or even years before they are sick enough of smoking to do almost anything to stop. Once you reach this point, you should have a fighting chance.

Electronic Cigarettes And Your Friendships

2009-07-13T03:46:00.000-03:00

Let us say that you are a smoker who frequently gets together with friends who not only do not smoke, but they are friends that think your habit is nasty and do not like having to put up with your habit anymore. You may be thinking that you need to just find some new friends, but not so fast. There is a product out there that may very well be the answer you and your friends have been looking for. The device is the electronic cigarette. The electronic cigarette is a device that gives the smoker the sensation of smoking without having to actually light up or breath in nasty chemicals.

The first thing that needs to be cleared away before you even begin to think about buying an electronic cigarette is that they are not, as of yet, approved by the Food and Drug Administration. This is due to a concern that has been raised by some who think that the electronic cigarette could cause nicotine poisoning if not used correctly by the smoker. The electronic cigarette, you see, does not use tobacco. It actually uses a chemical solution composed of nicotine, alcohol, water, and several other chemicals.

It also does not feature some of the more serious addictive chemicals used by tobacco companies to keep smokers addicted, except for the nicotine that is used. The nicotine inside of the cartridges only releases nicotine into your body, but there is no tobacco, tar, or anything like that. This is why many consider the electronic cigarette to be a healthy alternative to conventional cigarette, although it is not entirely known how much healthier it may be.

The main reason that the electronic cigarette can get you back into the good graces of your friends is that it does not give off an odor, make your breath stink, or stain your teeth. It uses only the chemical vapor which is, as previously mentioned, completely odor free. It also means that your friends will not have to put up with you taking smoking breaks or worrying about second hand smoke. As previously mentioned, the electronic cigarette is not FDA approved as of yet, but if you strongly feel that one of these would help out your social life when it comes to being a smoker, then there are resources available for you to do your own independent research. The electronic cigarette might not be a perfect solution to smoking, but it is much better than the tobacco cigarettes that you are using now.