NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The U.S. Postal Service said Thursday that it plans to resume shipping care packages with cigarettes and other tobacco to soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A law aimed at preventing smuggling had unintentionally banned families from sending tobacco to military members serving overseas. Spokesman Greg Frey said the postal service is planning to issue new instructions that could allow shipments to resume possibly as soon as Aug. 27.

The Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act of 2009 quietly took effect June 29 and was created to prevent minors from ordering cigarettes through the mail. It allowed for small shipments of tobacco but required a way to verify the recipient was old enough – meaning the only way to ship the packages through the postal service was by Express Mail, which requires a signature.

However, Express Mail doesn’t deliver to most overseas military addresses.

“It’s a very delicate balancing act to remain in compliance with the law and serve the needs of our customers and in this particular case those brave men and women overseas,” Frey said.

The new instructions would allow tobacco shipments to military addresses through Priority Mail, which does ship to deployed troops, with delivery confirmation instead.

U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl, the bill’s sponsor, said in a statement that he was notified Thursday of the new instructions.

“I’m pleased that the Postal Service responded so quickly to the concerns of our military families and found a way to honor the original intent of the bill: to keep cigarettes out of the hands of children and prevent tobacco smugglers from profiting on the black market,” he said.

Kohl recently sent a letter to the Postmaster General asking him to change the regulations, because the bill also expressly permits the shipping of tobacco from adult to adult, including to military addresses.

Following the law’s enactment, family members of soldiers were turned away when they tried to send care packages containing tobacco products to combat troops. The law only affects the U.S. Postal Service because UPS and FedEx do not allow consumer-to-consumer shipping of tobacco.

Rep. Anthony Weiner was the primary house member on the act and said the law was intended to stop the black market sales of cigarettes, not stop soldiers from getting smokes.

“We have made it clear that our troops overseas may still get care packages with cigarettes,” he said.

A tobacco industry-funded group claiming to represent small businesses today launched an advertising campaign targeting Labor’s policy of plain packaging for cigarettes.

The Alliance of Australian Retailers – whose website is registered to Melbourne-based PR company The Civic Group – today began running full page newspaper ads.

The new organisation describes the government’s policy on plain packaging as “the last straw” for small business owners with the ad claiming: “The government should support hard-working Australians instead of pursuing an untested and unproven policy.”

The ad discloses that the group is “supported” by British American Tobacco, Philip Morris and Imperial Tobacco.

According to their LinkedIn profiles, Jason Aldworth and Andres Puig, who both previously worked in senior roles at PR company CPR – are the two directors of The Civic Group.

The tactic of lobby groups attacking Government policies ostensibly for the good of ordinary Australians was recently successfully used by mining companies to overturn tax plans. After the ads began to run, prime minister Kevin Rudd’s popularity fell and he was ousted by Julia Gillard who changed the policy.

In a new plea that U.S. law should not reach overseas, British American Tobacco Co. on Friday asked the Supreme Court to order a second look by lower courts at the federal anti-racketeering law’s scope. That law was used in the federal government’s massive lawsuit against nearly the entire tobacco industry, including the British firm — a case the Supreme Court refused to hear, denying seven separate appeals last month. The petition for rehearing (found here) is based mainly on the Supreme Court’s broad ruling on June 24 against the overseas reach of U.S. securities law (Morrison v. National Australia Bank, 08-1191).

While conceding that the Court seldom grants rehearing to review a case once denied, the petition said it was “far more common” for the Court to agree to rehear a denied case and then set aside a lower court ruling so that “an intervening decision” by the Justices can be taken into account. The D.C. Circuit Court, it argued, should be told to “consider Morrison’s impact in the first instance.” In upholding all key parts of a District Court ruling against the industry, BATCo’s lawyers contended, the Circuit Court created a “flawed ‘exception’ to the traditional presumption against extra-territoriality” of a U.S. law based on the alleged “effects” on the U.S. of overseas conduct.

“The D.C. Circuit Court held that RICO [the anti-racketeering law] could properly be applied to BATCo’s foreign conduct based on that novel theory, and on its twin conclusions that the ‘effects’ test could be properly transplanted from securities and antitrust law to RICO and that a severely watered-down version of the ‘effects’ test is satisfied here,” the petition said. The Morrison decision, it added, directly rejected that test for securities law, thus undercutting the Circuit Court’s conclusion about BATCo.

“Not only does Morrison invalidate the rationales underlying the D.C. Circuit’s extraterritoriality decision, but it also repudiates the legal authorities on which the lower courts relied,” the petition contended. “In light of Morrison, there is a virtual certainty — far more than merely the requisite ‘reasonable probability’ — that the D.C. Circuit would reject the premises underlying its decision to use the ‘effects’ test (a) to measure RICO’s extraterritorial reach, and more generally (b) to disregard the presumption against extraterritorial application of U.S. laws.”

Within the wording of the RICO law, how that law’s various parts fit together, and the history of its passage by Congress, there is “substantial evidence…that Congress did not intend RICO to extend beyond the Nation’s borders….Morrison reaffirmed that domestic conduct must be the ‘focus of congressional concern’ for it to render an otherwise extraterritorial application of a U.S. statute domestic in nature.”

Under the Supreme Court’s Rule 44, the Justice Department will not be allowed to respond to the rehearing petition unless the Court asked it to do so. And, the Rule adds, “in the absence of extraordinary circumstances,” a rehearing petition will not be granted if no response has been requested. Amicus briefs also will not be accepted on such a plea.

In the government’s RICO case against the cigarette-making companies, it charged that the firms had engaged — for more than four decades — in a scheme to defraud the American consuming public by denying and covering up the health hazards of smoking. As the case was finally resolved in many respects in the government’s favor, it was based solely on the RICO statute. The Justice Department, anti-smoking groups, and most of the major cigarette companies had sought review by the Justices; all were denied (as usual, without comment) on June 28. The one key part of the Department’s case that failed in the D.C. Circuit was a plea to force the industry to forfeit some $280 billion in profits it had made since 1971. The Supreme Court, in fact, had refused twice to hear a government appeal on that point — once when the case was in the midst of trial, and then again in the June 28 denials.

SALT LAKE CITY – Smoke shops and other businesses in Utah that sell tobacco products are seeing people buying in bulk. Consumers are trying to get their hands on cigarettes and cigars before a state tobacco tax increase goes into effect Thursday. Smokey’s smoke shop in Salt Lake City says that business has increased 30 to 40 percent from the past week. Because come Thursday, a $40 carton of cigarettes will be 60 to $70.

“Instead of buying a pack they’re buying a carton, instead of buying one carton they’re buying 4 or 5,” says Bill Humeniuk from Smokey’s.

Tobacco tax goes from 35 percent to 86 percent, making the current cost of a pack of cigarettes a dollar more after the tax.

Smoking has certainly become a luxury in New York after state legislators recently approved a hefty cigarette tax that makes the Empire State the most expensive place to smoke in the nation.

However, the tax – which raises the price for a pack of smokes to about $9.20 statewide and nearly $11 in New York City – has put smiles on the faces of cigarette store owners just across the border in Pennsylvania who traditionally benefited from New Yorkers looking for a cheaper smoke.

“We have a lot of New Yorkers that come here, and I expect more,” said Rene Kizer, store manager of Smokin’ Joe’s Tobacco Shop in Beach Lake, Wayne County, a 6-mile hop from the New York border.

Ms. Kizer sells a pack of premium cigarettes for just under $6 and a carton of cigarettes for $59, compared to $100 just over the Delaware River in New York.

On June 21, New York legislators tacked on the additional $1.60 tax setting the per pack tax rate at $4.35 – the highest cigarette tax in the U.S. and slightly below the price for a generic pack of smokes in Pennsylvania – including taxes.

Minutes from the New York border, out-of-state smokers from New York and New Jersey looking to save a buck have made up “almost all” of the customers at Smokers Choice in Milford, Pike County, even before this most recent cigarette tax hike, said store employee Natasha Marcial.

But after hearing about the latest smoke tax across the border, she’s certain it will boost business.

“Absolutely, hands down,” Ms. Marcial said. “You’ll be paying almost double (in New York).”

The higher taxes is “good for business” at the smoke shop, she added.

Even tobacco shops in Lackawanna County are bracing for an influx of New Yorkers stocking up on cigarettes. At Tobacco Road Smoke Shop in Scranton, tourists from New York often purchase multiple packs of cigarettes because they are cheaper, a worker said. New York’s new tax will likely cause a rise in business from New Yorkers, she added.

Manhar Patel, an employee at Cigar & Cigarette Outlet in Milford, put it simply.

“We are cheaper,” he said. “They will come.”

BY STEVE McCONNELL
Thetimes-tribune: June 26, 2010

In 2009, the tobacco industry officially fell under the jurisdiction of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and, for the first time, tobacco products became subject to federal regulation. As of June 22, cigarette manufacturers are no longer allowed to label their products as “light,” “ultra light,” “mild,” or “low tar.” The FDA has argued that these labels were designed to deceive consumers by suggesting that “light” cigarettes were less harmful than regular cigarettes, or that the risk of cancer and other smoking-related diseases was lessened by choosing a “light” or “ultra light” cigarette. Tobacco companies counter by saying that the terms “light” and “mild” refer to the flavor of the cigarette in question, and should not be taken to mean anything about the safety level of the product.

But, will changing the name of a cigarette — for instance, from “Marlboro Light” to “Marlboro Gold” — really change Americans’ smoking habits, or prevent kids and teens from picking up the smoking habit?

Recent studies show that nearly 21 percent of all American adults smoke. More alarming, the CDC reports that about 3,000 kids under the age of 18 start smoking every day, and underage smokers account for 20 percent of all American smokers. One in five deaths in America is attributable to smoking. Given these alarming statistics, America has a vested interest in finding a way to limit smoking. What’s not clear, however, is how many people choose their cigarette based on a perceived lower risk from it, or how changing the labels will affect that choice.

Until I quit over 15 years ago, I was a pack-and-a-half a day smoker. My cigarette of choice was Camel Light. I did not choose my brand because I thought that light cigarettes would be less harmful to me than the full-strength version. Jokes about going to the doctor to be diagnosed with “light cancer” aside, I knew that my Camel Lights were just as dangerous as my father’s Vantages and my boyfriend’s Marlboro Reds.

Many of the women I knew in my small Midwestern town chose light cigarettes from various brands, and not a single one of us, if pressed, would have said we had chosen it to lower our risk of cancer. People choose a given cigarette brand for myriad reasons — taste, image, cost, availability — and none of these factors have a thing to do with perceived health risks. Americans know that cigarette smoking is dangerous, and we do it by the millions anyway. Labeling changes do not get at the core issue of why people pick up smoking and continue to smoke, even in the face of potentially deadly health consequences.

Most Americans will likely continue to smoke their favored brand, even if they have to ask for it a little differently at the gas station or tobacco shop. Much as raising prices on cigarettes did not significantly lower the smoking risk — in fact, the number of American smokers rose in 2009 — changing the labeling will not stop significant numbers of people from smoking.

While the labeling changes are a good step for truth in advertising, they do not get at the heart of why people smoke. The addictive nature of tobacco ensures that people are unlikely to stop simply because their cigarette pack changes or they have to ask for “Marlboro Silvers” instead of “Marlboro Ulta Lights.” Until we address the systemic causes of smoking in America, all the label changes, warning labels, and price hikes in the world won’t keep American smokers from lighting up.

Diversified conglomerate ITC is looking to enhance its position in the Indian premium cigarettes market, with plans to launch the iconic global brand ‘Lucky Strike’ this week.

According to industry sources, Lucky Strike, the original American brand that was launched way back in 1871, will make its formal India debut this week.

“The brand will be initially launched in the Delhi, Mumbai and Pune markets and will be available in select cigarette-selling retail outlets, premium hotels, restaurants and clubs,” a source said.

Popularly known as the ‘Luckies’, it will be competing with Marlboro, from the stable of Philip Morris, which is sold in India by Godfrey Philips India Ltd.

ITC officials were not available for comment.

With the launch of Lucky Strike, ITC will be enhancing its presence in the premium segment, in which it already sells brands like Insignia and Benson & Hedges.

Sources said a pack of 20 cigarettes of Lucky Strike will be priced at Rs 110 and will take on Marlboro, which costs Rs 98 for a 20-cigarette pack.

“Lucky Strike cigarettes will be launched in India in two variants — ‘Gold’ and ‘Red’,” the source said.

Lucky Strike is a leading international brand and is available in 47 countries. In India, ITC will own the trademark and will be the exclusive manufacturer and marketer.

ITC’s other cigarette brands include India Kings, Classic, Gold Flake, Silk Cut, Navy Cut, Scissors, Capstan, Berkeley, Bristol and Flake.

The diversified group had registered sales of Rs 9,321 crore from its cigarettes business in the fiscal ended March 31, 2010. As per industry estimates, ITC commands around 80 per cent of the organised cigarettes market in India.

Now, it seems, the do-gooders are meddling with history.

A big, fat cigar was almost a permanent fixture in photos of Britain’s wartime leader Sir Winston Churchill.

But now visitors entering The Winston Churchill’s Britain at War Experience museum are being greeted with a tobacco-free Photoshopped image of him.

The image in question is a well-known 1948 picture showing Britain’s prime minister making a “V” with his fingers while chomping on a cigar. In the version hanging above the museum’s main entrance, his trademark stogy is nowhere to be seen.

The altered photo, which was first reported by the Telegraph.co.uk, managed to slip by museum managers, saying they did not notice the cigar was missing.

“We’ve got all sorts of images in the museum, some with cigars and some without,” John Welsh, the manager of the museum, told the Telegraph. “We’ve even got wartime adverts for cigarettes in the lift down to the air-raid shelter, so we wouldn’t have asked for there to be no cigar.”

Despite being shocked to learn of the fudged photo, Welsh declined to give up the person responsible for helping Churchill kick the habit – at least in photos.

Airbrushing cigarettes and cigars out of pictures is nothing new. In January 2003, poster companies in the U.S. removed a cigarette from the hand of Paul McCartney on the cover of the Beatles’ Abbey Road album. The change was made without the permission of either McCartney or Apple Records, who owns the rights to the photo.

And since then, anti-smoking campaigners have targeted movie studios that feature scenes with stars puffing away.

The advocacy wing of the American Medical Association launched a summer-long campaign in 2009 to publicly shame the studio that had actors and actresses smoking on the silver screen.

But even though society now casts smoking in a negative light, not everyone is happy with the altered image of Churchill.

“I pointed out this crude alteration to a museum steward who said she hadn’t noticed the change before, nor had anyone else pointed it out,” museum visitor David McAdam told the Daily Mail. “Viewing the now disfigured image reveals just how unhinged the vociferous anti-smoking lobby has become. So much for the notion that only communist tyrants airbrushed history.”

Allen Packwood, the director of the Churchill Archives Centre, says the airbrushing distorts the image of the former prime minister.

“The cigar is part of what makes Churchill an iconic figure and of course it was very much part of his image as war leader,” Packwood told the Daily Mail. “It went hand in hand with his victory salute and the uniforms he wore.

“What’s politically correct for 2010 was not politically correct for 1940.”
BY Michael Wursthorn, Nydailynews

WASHINGTON – With the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act due to take effect June 22, tobacco companies are lightening up their packaging colors on “light” or “mild” cigarette brands, USA Today reports. The act prohibits the use of the words “light” or “mild” on cigarette advertising or packaging.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and the American Lung Association have accused the tobacco companies of being disingenuous for using lighter colors to convey the “light” or “mild” cigarettes brands. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued guidance that found many smokers think cigarettes called “light” or “mild” have fewer health risks.

The color changes are “a transparent attempt by the tobacco industry to evade the law and mislead consumers,” said Waxman.

“The tobacco industry is masterful in its knowledge of consumer behavior and marketing,” added Paul Billings, vice president for national policy for lung association.

R.J. Reynolds countered that the “smoking experience” is what smokers enjoy about “light” cigarettes. Coloring the packaging on those brands will alert smokers that the taste they enjoy is still available, said David Howard of R.J. Reynolds, which makes the Salem brand.

Salem cigarette packages had been the same green shade but now “lights” are housed in a lighter green and white, while “ultra lights” come in a pale gray and white. “The bottom line is there is no safe cigarette…and that is certainly well-known among adult cigarette consumers,” said Howard.

FDA spokeswoman Kathleen Quinn said the ban encompasses “mild,” “light” and “low” but that the agency would look into any probably violations on a case-by-case basis.

WINDHOEK – The writing is on the wall for tobacco marketing companies in Namibia regarding future regulations that would essentially prohibit sponsorship of any Namibian event, however charitable, by tobacco companies or distributors of tobacco products.

Health and Social Services Minister Richard Kamwi hinted at a new law during the commemoration of ‘World No Tobacco Day’ in Gobabis on Monday.

Kamwi said smoking among the young, especially women, is going up, hence the urgency to curb demand for tobacco in the country.

Once in force, the Tobacco Products Control Act No 1 of 2010 will black out marketing and promotion of tobacco products in the country, and restrict tobacco vending machines to restricted areas with an 18-year age limit.

“Plans are underway to invite all [concerned] to inform them on how we will enforce this law, including not smoking in public places,” Kamwi said.

President Hifikepunye Pohamba has signed the Tobacco Product Control Act, thus paving the way for its enforcement.

This puts a total blackout on advertising, promotion and any public relations activities around tobacco products or companies whose names are directly associated with tobacco products.

In addition, the Act also prohibits tobacco companies and distributors of tobacco products from sponsoring an event in Namibia to ostensibly promote tobacco brands through such events.

Figures from the Ministry of Health and Social Services single out two specific regions, Omaheke and Hardap, as having the highest average number of women smokers.

In Hardap, the average is 24 percent, which the health ministry says “tops the list of women smokers countrywide”.

Interestingly, that average percentage also exceeds the estimated number of women smokers worldwide, at 20 percent of the total number of smokers.

In Omaheke, women smokers are estimated at 5 percent. “The number could increase as the industry sees opportunities for business, especially among women and the youth,” warns the Ministry of Health and Social Services.

The Act also mandates the establishment of a fund from levies on sales of tobacco and other sources. The fund would partly use the money to pay for treatment of tobacco-related illnesses.

The Act aligns the Namibian health system with the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

Attempts to get comment from various tobacco companies in Namibia on the future effect of the Act were futile.

This year, the World Health Organisation (WHO) commemorated World No Tobacco Day under the theme “Gender and Tobacco, with emphasis on marketing tobacco to women”.

Today young people, especially young women, are the target of tobacco companies, and the health ministry wants all Namibian women to “adopt healthy lifestyles free of tobacco smoking and alcohol”, Kamwi said.

By Desie Heita, 03 June 2010

Regardless of whether or not you smoke, there’s no denying that the ubiquitous flip-top cigarette pack is easily one of the cigarettes best examples of packaging design – ever. The folks at Tank Magazine have taken that well-known design and blended it with classic literature. The London-based company’s TankBooks is a cleverly-designed, super-cool series of books designed to mimic cigarette packs – the same size, packaged in flip-top cartons with silver foil wrapping and sealed in cellophane.

Each story is complete and unabridged – with a type size that’s easy to read. Titles ($14 each) include Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness,” Ernest Hemingway’s “The Undefeated” and “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” and Rudyard Kipling’s “The Man who would be King.” TankBooks have cool, gift idea written all over it; ‘for people on the move, lovers of literature and connoisseurs of design,” the company states. “Try one and you’ll be hooked!”

A gauge of Australia’s annual inflation accelerated in May above the top of the central bank’s target range to the fastest pace since October 2008.

Consumer prices advanced 3.7 percent from a year earlier, after gaining 2.9 percent in April, according to an index compiled by TD Securities Ltd. and the Melbourne Institute released in Sydney today. Prices increased 0.5 percent from a month earlier, when they rose 0.4 percent.

Australia’s economic expansion, forecast to almost double its pace in the next two years, is stoking inflation above the central bank’s target range of 2 percent to 3 percent. Governor Glenn Stevens has boosted the benchmark lending rate six times since early October to 4.5 percent and will tomorrow keep the rate unchanged, according to analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

“The details of this inflation report are worrying,” said Annette Beacher, senior strategist at TD Securities Ltd. in Singapore. “This outcome is not only above the RBA’s target band, but is consistent with an economy that is fully employed, a situation that is only going to tighten going forward.”

Excluding a 25 percent increase in tobacco taxes this month, annual inflation gained 3.3 percent, Beacher said. Gasoline and financial services also boosted the inflation rate in May.

Consumer prices rose 2.9 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, the most since late 2008, a report by the Bureau of Statistics showed on April 28.

The Melbourne Institute is a research unit of Melbourne University and TD Securities is a division of Toronto-Dominion Bank, one of Canada’s largest lenders. The monthly inflation index measures the prices of 1,000 goods and services.

New government regulations for smokeless tobacco sponsorships couldn’t have come at a worse time for two teams. Ron Hornaday Jr. must remove Longhorn snuff from his Camping World Truck Series Chevrolet and Greg Biffle must drop RedMan from his Nationwide Series Ford by the end of June.

The Food and Drug Administration will have new rules that will further restrict the way tobacco companies can market their products. As of June 22, cigarette and smokeless tobacco sponsorships can’t be included in any athletic, musical, social, cultural or team-related event.

Kevin Harvick owns Hornaday’s truck. The team learned of the new regulations 18 months ago, but even with a head start it hasn’t been able to find a replacement.

KENTUCKY RACE ON HOLD: The Kentucky Speedway cleared its biggest hurdle in getting a Sprint Cup Series race last month when the track’s original owners dropped their anti-trust lawsuit against NASCAR. But that doesn’t mean the track located between Cincinnati and Louisville, Ky., will get a race next year.

Speedway Motorsports Inc., which bought the track in 2007, will have to make improvements to the 1.5-mile speedway, including adding seats, before it can play host to a Sprint Cup race, the company reported to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Once the work is completed, SMI still has to figure out a way to get a race. NASCAR has insisted it won’t expand the schedule, so SMI’s best option may be to move a race from one of its seven existing facilities.

New Hampshire Motor Speedway might be a prime target since local leaders there are demanding $150,000 from the track for police and emergency services for next month’s race.

BEST, WORST OF BROTHERS: Steve Addington worked with Kyle Busch last year; now he’s Kurt Busch ‘s crew chief. Between the two, he’s happier with the older, more mature Kurt.

“Well, you know, Kyle has his own personality, that’s just Kyle,” Addington said after Kurt Busch’s victory Saturday in the Sprint All-Star race. “… He’s trying. I know he’s trying and trying hard to get to where he stays a lot calmer.”

Kurt used to have a reputation for being a hothead, too. Now he’s under control, gaining the respect and admiration of the rest of his Penske Racing team.

“I think the biggest difference is, you know, being mature and being through the up-and-down seasons,” Addington said.

By Don Coble
May 26, 2010

Dr. Lawrence Deyton, director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, spoke at a tobacco policy conference on Monday. Jeff Stier got a chance to participate in the conference on Tuesday. The topics included smokeless tobacco (snus) as a means of harm reduction, and the FDA’s deliberation of a ban on menthol.

“I was honored to be a discussant on a panel yesterday with Drs. Carl Phillips, Brad Rodu, Joel Nitzkin, Michael Siegel,” says ACSH’s Jeff Stier. “A key point that Dr. Phillips made strongly is that most of what the speakers said would be illegal if someone from the tobacco industry was saying it, due to how strictly smokeless tobacco companies are prohibited by the FDA tobacco legislation from making even truthful harm reduction claims.

“They also talked a bit about menthol because the FDA is starting to focus on ingredients in cigarettes. While it’s true that menthol makes cigarettes easier to smoke, banning it could have the unintended consequence of making homemade menthol cigarettes all the more desirable. The panel tried to emphasize that the most harmful aspect of cigarettes isn’t menthol; it’s the combustion of tobacco.”

ACSH’s Dr. Gilbert Ross agrees: “If you inhale burned matter 20 times a day for 10 years, I predict that you will provoke all kinds of cancers in your body. That’s why smokeless tobacco products are inherently less harmful, and smokeless tobacco companies should be allowed to say that.”

LEXINGTON, Ky.-Burley tobacco growers in the United States sounded the alarm today on proposed regulations originating out of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) that could lead to a worldwide ban on blended, American-style cigarettes that contain burley tobacco.

The rules were recommended by a Working Group of the FCTC for implementation under Articles 9 and 10 of the treaty, which has 168 signatories. Canada, Norway and the EU are spearheading the effort to eliminate American-style cigarettes from the global marketplace.

“The FCTC’s Working Group on Articles 9 and 10 have declared all out war on growers of burley tobacco,” said Roger Quarles, the president of the Burley Tobacco Growers Cooperative Association, an organization representing burley growers in several tobacco states in America. “If adopted and implemented by the signatories to the FCTC, these overly broad guidelines will decimate burley growers in the United States. This is an issue of fairness, it’s an issue of jobs, and it’s an issue of global health bureaucrats running afoul of common sense.”

Leaders of the Working Group, particularly the delegation from Canada, have attempted to confuse the media and policymakers into believing that its FCTC regulatory agenda is largely focused on ridding the marketplace of tobacco products that have candy or confectionary flavor. Banning these types of products is a laudable goal shared by tobacco growers, and is something that has been accomplished in the United States, France and Australia without imposing undue hardships on the growers of burley tobacco.

“There is absolutely no defensible health reason for the WHO to single out American-style cigarettes,” Quarles continued. “This is nothing more than a blatant attempt to confuse the public and policymakers into believing that American-style cigarettes are somehow more attractive than non-blended cigarettes, which is patently untrue. Some consumers prefer blended; some prefer flue-cured products. Both products taste like tobacco; neither leave a candy-flavored or any other characterizing taste with consumers.”

The proposed guidelines originating from the FCTC extend to all ingredients, and would for all intents and purposes, eliminate blended products from the marketplace. These proposed guidelines are now open to comment from the signatories to the FCTC.

“It is our hope that reason will prevail at the WHO,” Quarles said. “While we agree that steps should be taken to reduce youth smoking by eliminating candy-flavored tobacco products, it would be devastating to the livelihoods of tobacco farmers everywhere in the world if these misguided and overly broad regulations are adopted as part of the FCTC. Therefore we call on the US Administration, congress and other governments around the world to adopt a common sense approach and reject these irrational and potentially devastating guidelines.”

A lobby group of small retailers protesting the Government’s tobacco price hike is receiving public relations support from Imperial Tobacco, the tobacco giant told a select committee last week.

The Association of Community Retailers (ACR), set up late last month, had earlier rejected suggestions it was backed by tobacco cash and said it was entirely funded from its members.

The ACR shared a postal address with Omeka Public Relations, whose managing director, Glenn Inwood, also represented Imperial Tobacco and Japan’s Institute of

Cetacean Research through another PR company, blogger Keith Ng revealed.

Mr Inwood said earlier this month the ACR received no funding from tobacco companies or himself but purely from members’ subscriptions.

“It’s running off the smell of an oily rag.”

One of the ACR’s coordinators, Denielle Boulieris, told another blogger, Rory McKinnon, earlier this month that the association does not have a relationship with tobacco companies.

But Imperial Tobacco’s New Zealand sales and marketing director, Tony Meirs, last week told a Maori Affairs select committee the company was providing the ACR with public relations resources through Omeka Public Relations.

Meirs told the select committee the company wanted to support retailers in speaking out about regulations that would damage their business viability, according to a transcript provided to McKinnon.

“This is our way of helping those retailers protect their business against unnecessary regulations that will be ineffective. We’re helping them to develop a voice,” Meirs said.

He told the select committee he did not know the value of the public relations support Imperial Tobacco was providing, and was unable to say whether Imperial Tobacco would be better off if the ACR achieved its aims.

“I don’t know, because whether Imperial Tobacco would be financially better off or not depends on how we compete in the marketplace, how we compete for adult smokers. So it’s just, the two just aren’t linked,” he said.

“I support the position of those retailers wanting to develop a voice, wanting to put their argument forward to protect their businesses from unnecessary regulation.”

ACR founding member Richard Green, who ran a tobacconist business in Palmerston North, told NZPA earlier this month the ACR grew out of the former Stay Displays coalition of retailers, a coalition that formed to fight a proposed ban on displaying tobacco products for sale.

ACR would speak for retailers on a wider range of subjects affecting retailers, such as security, sale of alcohol and confectionary, and was set up with the help of

Mr Inwood, who had also worked on the Stay Displays campaign.

Green said the sole funding for the ACR so far came from its members. It had employed two part time coordinators but it had yet to figure out how they would be funded, as it was still early days.

DATE: May 12, 2010

FROM: Director, Center for Tobacco Products, FDA

TO: Tobacco Product Constituents Subcommittee of the Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee (TPSAC)

SUBJECT: June 8-9, 2010 Meeting of the Tobacco Constituents Subcommittee of TPSAC

Thank you for your participation in the upcoming meeting of the Tobacco Product Constituents Subcommittee of the Tobacco Products Scientific Advisory Committee (TPSAC), June 8-9, 2010. This will be the first of two Subcommittee meetings where information regarding harmful and potentially harmful constituents in tobacco products and tobacco smoke will be presented and discussed. The findings of the Subcommittee will be presented at a future meeting of the TPSAC for review, discussion and recommendations to the Agency regarding establishment of an initial list of harmful and potentially harmful constituents in tobacco products and tobacco smoke. For the initial list the Subcommittee will focus on consideration of substances previously identified as harmful on example lists developed by some countries, the Hoffmann analyte list, and the World Health Organization (WHO) including the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). Subsequent to the establishment of an initial list of harmful and potentially harmful constituents in tobacco products and tobacco smoke, FDA intends to undertake a comprehensive examination of constituents in tobacco products and tobacco smoke, and develop criteria to revise the list as appropriate.

The June Subcommittee meeting will focus on several example lists (listed below), the criteria (as available) used in developing these lists, and availability of established methodologies to quantify the substances on these example lists. The Subcommittee is tasked to evaluate this information and determine what criteria are most appropriate for the initial list FDA is required to establish, to develop an initial list of harmful or potentially harmful constituents using the example lists as a basis for discussion, and begin to identify established methodologies that could be used to quantify the constituents identified as appropriate for the FDA list. Discussion of methodologies will be continued, as needed, at the second Subcommittee meeting.

Enclosed is the background package for the June Subcommittee meeting. This memo summarizes the contents of the background package and, most importantly, the key issues for discussion at the meeting.

Key issues for discussion during the meeting:
•
Synthesize the information from the example lists to determine what criteria are most appropriate for establishment of an initial list of harmful and potentially harmful constituents as required by section 904(e) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act;
•
Develop an initial proposed list of harmful and potentially harmful constituents.
•
Begin to discuss and develop a list of established methodologies for the constituents on the initial list of harmful and potentially harmful constituents.
We look forward to your expert comments about harmful and potential harmful constituents in tobacco products and tobacco smoke.

The most diverse corporate board in North Carolina is at a company that sells tobacco, which has long been thought of as a male-dominated industry.

But Reynolds American Inc., based in Winston-Salem and run for the past six years by chief executive Susan Ivey, has a board where half the members are women are minorities. That’s a far higher percentage than most other N.C. companies, according to a study released today by the UNC School of Law.

According to the study, which is part of the school’s Director Diversity Initiative, N.C. companies are lagging the Fortune 100 when it comes to putting women and minorities on their boards. The study, which examined the 50 largest companies headquartered in North Carolina, found that 12 percent of the corporate board members were women, and 7 percent were minorities. Each of those measures are up about 1 percentage point from the last survey, in 2006. But they’re below the average for Fortune 100 companies, which have about 17 percent female board members and about 15 percent minority board members, the UNC study said. UNC gave kudos to the 16 N.C. companies whose boards were at least one-quarter women or minorities, with Reynolds at the top of the list. Charlotte-based Piedmont Natural Gas Company Inc., Family Dollar Stores Inc., SPX Corp., Bank of America Corp., Polymer Group Inc. and Goodrich were also recognized.

Eleven of the N.C. companies had no women or minorities on their board, including five that are based in the Charlotte area: EnPro Industries Inc., Sonic Automotive Inc., Polypore International Inc., Cato Corp. and Speedway Motorsports Inc.

UNC’s Director Diversity Initiative also holds training programs on board diversity and maintains a database of potential board candidates.

By Christina Rexrode
May. 20, 2010

Tobacco grower will feel even more of a pinch in the coming year. Major tobacco companies are trimming their contracts with growers. North Carolina growers could see a 10 percent decline in the amount of tobacco purchased.

Winston-Salem based R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. spokesman David Howard said smoking is on the decline for various reasons and they have to keep supply in line with demand.

He said one reason demand for tobacco is on the decline is that federal excise taxes went up 150 percent last year. “Every year states looking at trying to get more and more money from excise taxes on tobacco and, of course, increases in smoking bans and restriction, all of these having an impact,” said Howard.

He would not disclose how much Reynolds is reducing their contracts with growers. He emphasized that the move is just a part of doing business.

If one smokes a smokeless cigarette, can they still be considered to be smoking? This zen-like conundrum is causing a number of health experts, transportation companies and government authorities to scratch their heads, furrow their brows and maybe even soothe their anxieties with a cigarette – smokeless, of course.

“Zero Style Mint,” newly introduced in the Tokyo metropolitan area by Japan Tobacco, Inc., is not your father’s or grandfather’s cigarette. Though it contains tobacco, the ground leaves are sealed inside cartridges that in turn are placed into a reusable plastic tube when the user desires to “smoke”. JT is marketing twin-cartridge packs of Zero Style Mint for 300 yen, or around $3.25 per package.

All well and good – the high tech fags do not burn and the user doesn’t inhale (or exhale) smoke. No fire hazard; no secondhand smoke to annoy non-smokers and endanger public health. No problem, right? Wrong…

Although municipal governments who have enacted no-smoking bylaws seem to be excusing smokeless cigarettes from enforcement, Japan’s two largest airline companies are split on the matter. Says a JAL spokesperson, “We have no complaint with customers using smokeless cigarettes, including on international flights.” ANA, on the other hand, states “Smokeless cigarettes cannot be smoked onboard flights. Even if they’re smokeless, they’re still cigarettes.” Japan’s major rail corporations are also split on how to classify products like Zero Style Mint.

The matter may finally decided by health authorities who have always aimed to protect the public at large from the dangers of smoking. In the case of smokeless cigarettes like Zero Style Mint, the danger is restricted to the user: those who seek to ban or restrict smokeless cigarettes could find themselves involved in personal liberty issues.

Maybe everyone involved should just lighten up, since in the case of Zero Style Mint there’s no actual lighting up.

At least in Canada, many young people seem to believe that hookahs and other water pipes are safer than cigarettes, researchers say.
For a study that appears in the current issue of the journal Pediatrics, scientists in Montreal mailed questionnaires in 2007 and 2008 to 1,208 people ages 18 to 24 who had participated in an earlier study of nicotine use by teenagers. Three-quarters completed the questionnaires.

Of those, 23 percent said they had smoked tobacco in a water pipe during the previous year, though most said they did so less than once a month.

In the United States, studies of college students have estimated that 9 to 20 percent have used a hookah in the previous month.

The senior author of the paper, Jennifer O’Loughlin, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Montreal, said there were several widespread myths that water pipes are safer than cigarettes.

“One myth is that because the texture is smoother, it is less toxic, and the water filters out the toxins,” Dr. O’Loughlin said. “That is not at all true.” In fact, she said, the pipes may expose smokers to higher amounts of nicotine and heavy metals than cigarettes.

The newest recyclable material in China? Cigarette butts.

The Shanghai government might want to question the newly proposed smoking ban, as Chinese scientists announce that they’ve found a new use for the countless cigarette butts that litter local streets every day, leaching into the local environment: use them to protect steel piping, a key part of the Middle Kingdom’s ever-increasing infrastructure.

The recently released Chinese study, reported in the China Post, shows that remnants of used cigarettes butts, one of the world’s most common kinds of trash, “soaked in water can help guard against corrosion in a type of steel commonly used in the oil industry.”

“When people walk on the streets, they usually see cigarette butts scattered everywhere, on the ground or the grass,” says Jun Zhao, a PhD student at the Xi’an Jiaotong University who worked on the study, by telephone to the site. “I felt it was quite significant to do a project related to environmental protection.”

In a country with 30 percent of the world’s smokers as well as world’s largest tobacco grower and cigarette producer, this is very, very, good news.

The study, published in “Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research,” explains the finding: “The scientists showed that extracts of cigarette butts in water, applied to a type of steel (N80) widely used in the oil industry, protected the steel from rusting even under the harsh conditions, preventing costly damage and interruptions in oil production. They identified nine chemicals in the extracts, including nicotine, which appear to be responsible for this anti-corrosion effect.”

We’re sure smokers around China are now puffing away a bit easier knowing their doing their part to help Chinese growth.

The top-grossing film in movie history is No. 1 again. The James Cameron epic Avatar, which has earned more than $2.7 billion in theaters worldwide since its Dec. 18 release — nearly 50% more than the previous record holder, Cameron’s Titanic — went into video stores yesterday and sold about 4 million copies. That established new standards for sales of both DVDs (topping Twilight as the year’s top seller) and Blu-ray discs (smashing The Dark Knight’s stash by nearly a million units). Actually, we’re not sure how the folks at Fox calculated that, since the Blu-ray edition of Avatar is offered only packaged with a DVD for $39.99 (currently half price on amazon.com). Anyway, it’s quite a haul.

More surprising than the sales figures is the composition of the DVD package. Released on Earth Day, April 22, to underline the film’s eco-friendly message, the first home version of Avatar is hardly fan-friendly. It boasts no extra footage; apparently the picture that Cameron showed in theaters was his director’s cut. You’ll find no making-of documentaries, no “behind the scenes in Pandora” mini-movies, though several of these played in heavy rotation for months on the Fox Movie Channel. The presentation also skips the usual trailers for other Fox movies. The only “extra” is an anti-smoking public service announcement. And one other caveat, which sends the collective voice of Avatar’s admirers ascending into a shrill chorus: no freakin’ 3-D.

This, after all, was a movie sold on the need to see it in its full stereoptic grandeur, and audiences bit: about 75% of theatergoers paid higher prices to see the picture in 3-D or IMAX venues. Some people waited for weeks to get seats in those theaters, because, as critics and fans agreed, who wants to see Avatar in poor old 20th-century 2-D? Yet here the movie is, available in a format that only a quarter of the moviegoing public saw it in. If, as DreamWorks Animation boss Jeffrey Katzenberg keeps saying, 3-D is the biggest transformation in movies since color, then this is Avatar in black-and-white. Remember Col. Quaritch’s warning, at the beginning of the movie, that “You are not in Kansas anymore”? Welcome back to Kansas.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Cameron said he didn’t release a DVD in 3-D because “Our feeling is there just aren’t enough players out there. We don’t want it to come out and be a fart in the frying pan.” Yet if there’s one event that could cue a 3-D DVD buying spree, it’d be the release of Avatar in that format. Instead, the Na’vigator hopes to milk his movie’s popularity dry with no fewer than three home versions. “Right now, today, if people want them some Avatar, they can get it. And I think they will. And then in August, we’re going to take those six minutes of deleted scenes and finish them up to a level of photo-reality equal to the rest of the film and re-release the film theatrically. Then we’ll get creative with the DVD technology in November.”

So what do you get right now? A crisp keepsake of the movie; a thing to hold called Avatar; a fetish for acolytes; a slim box to put on your video shelf, with space for the real editions coming out later. Seen in its flat format, the film looks ordinary, especially in its first half-hour or so, as Cameron none too adroitly sets up his premise. The middle section, in which Jake (Sam Worthington) befriends the Na’vi princess Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) and becomes part of her world, is much more beguiling; 2-D can’t rob Pandora of its majesty, and the colors, especially in Blu-ray, are as spectacular as ever. Those who fell in love with the love story, with Jake and Neytiri and their blooming emotional connection, will get a lot more out of this Avatar than moviegoers who were just wowed by the spectacle.

But will any home version, in DVD, Blu-ray or 3-D, equal what the theatrical version offered? The whole economic and artistic point of the Avatar we all saw — indeed, of any 3-D movie — was to create an experience that couldn’t be duplicated at home. On the big screen, in that process, the picture hypnotized moviegoers with its size and scope. The gigantic image had no competition for a viewer’s attention; in the darkened cathedral of a large theater, the movie was the only light, and watching it was a votive experience, with Cameron the high priest controlling the message and the tempo. Sitting there, in the company of a thousand other communicants, we entered Jake’s virtual, much more beautiful life. We were all dreamwalkers.

There’s no way to duplicate that intensity at home, with a much smaller image, and the ordinary interruptions of phone and email messages, of the ordinary importuning of kids and spouses. Yet in an important and diminishing way, you are in charge, not Cameron. You can fast-forward through the slow spots, click back to relive a scene, stop when it’s dinnertime and maybe never come back. Even a movie as powerful as Avatar can’t work its spell on a distracted viewer. To stay with it requires an act of will, not the blessed passivity of a moviegoer.

Later this year we’ll doubtless pony up more money for a fuller version of the film. But I’d rather believe the rumor now circulating: that Fox has found a hole in the crowded schedule of the year’s 3-D movies, and will rerelease Avatar in theaters. That’s really the only way to see it — until Cameron and his video savants come up with a 3-D home machine that can duplicate the theater experience. I wouldn’t put it past them. After all, they figured out how to turn an epic vision into a trailblazingly glorious movie.

By Richard Corliss
Time, April 24, 2010

ST. PAUL — Anti-tobacco activists spread out around the Minnesota Capitol Wednesday in an effort to convince lawmakers to ban products they say are designed to hook children on nicotine.

A bill due up for a legislative committee hearing Thursday would forbid sale of “e-cigarettes,” designed to give users nicotine vapor without tobacco. The bill also would classify “little cigars” as cigarettes.

“The new products, they are sneaky,” said Dr. Mary Boylan of St. Luke’s Cardiothoracic Surgery Associates in Duluth, who spoke at the rally with about 150 people.

Those at the rally, including many young people, talked to legislators about making the changes to a law that already bans tobacco use in public buildings.

“We will save more lives today than I can being in the operating room all day,” Boylan said about changing the law.

One of the new products, legal to sell now, resembled a breath strip, but the doctor said it provides a dose of addictive nicotine.

“They are under the radar screen,” she said.

DFL lawmakers seek change in health plan

Some Democratic lawmakers want to change a health care program for the poor that was signed into law just three weeks ago Wednesday.

Rep. Tom Huntley, DFL-Duluth, and others announced Wednesday they have a plan to provide permanent health care to poor adults with no children other than the new General Assistance Medical Care program. The plan would take $1 billion of state money to be matched with $1 billion of federal money.

Patients would move off of GAMC onto a newly expanded Medical Assistance Program, and some MinnesotaCare insurance recipients also would move to the new program.

Huntley said the new program would allow rural hospitals to receive better funding when they provide care for the poor. Most rural hospitals would not participate in the new GAMC program, citing its high cost.

But Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s spokesman said Huntley’s plan is based on incomplete tentative information and would cost too much. Brian McClung said the new GAMC program, negotiated between legislative health leaders and the governor, should be given a chance to work before it is scrapped.

Also, McClung said: “There is a significant math problem with this proposal.”

McClung claimed that the Huntley plan was built on use of money from a fund that would be in deficit.

ERA again

An equal rights amendment to the Minnesota constitution is being considered, as it has every year since the federal ERA took effect in 1982.

A Senate committee discussed the matter Wednesday, but took no action. It was unclear if the proposed amendment would be brought up for a vote in the month the Legislature has remaining in its 2010 session.

The amendment proposal would require people be treated the same, regardless of gender.

Refund party

If Dairy Queen’s Blizzard can celebrate its 25th birthday, the Minnesota property tax refund program can do the same, Rep. Paul Marquart, DFL-Dilworth, said.

So, as chairman of the House property taxes committee, he hosted that party Wednesday in an attempt to draw attention to the program, which a third of eligible taxpayers do not collect.

“It helps people stay in their homes,” Marquart said.

Sitting behind a “happy birthday” sign, Former Gov. Wendell Anderson said that his signing of the bill, combined with raising taxes a few years earlier, “made Minnesota in the minds of others, the state that works.”

Alec Olson of Willmar, Senate president when the refund passed, said the concept was “rather radical,” but the program “has brought people together.”

The average property tax refund in 2008 was $683.

Also celebrated was a related program, which provides money to renters.

ALBANY, NY – President Obama signed into law the Federal PACT Act on March 31st, 2010.

The PACT act (S. 1147) makes tobacco products a non-mailable material. The change in classification was an end-run in the continued battle between New York State and the Seneca Indian Reservation.

The New York State Health Department, in a 2004 study, found that 10% of New Yorkers were buying cigarettes via mail order or online and that as many as 1/3 of NY smokers were purchasing cigarettes at an Indian reservation.

According the New York State, the highest-volume online cigarette sales websites are located on the Seneca Indian Reservation.

The PACT act effectively shuts down these businesses entirely, making it a violation of federal law to mail cigarrettes.

The new law, passed overwhelmingly by Congress earlier this month, requires Internet and other mail-order sellers of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco, including Indians, to:

• Pay all applicable federal, state and local taxes and affix related tax stamps before delivering cigarettes or smokeless tobacco to any customer;

• Comply with state and local laws as if the sellers were tobacco product retailers located in the same jurisdiction as their customers;

• Register with the state and make periodic reports to state tax collection officials;

• To stop sales to minors, check the age and ID of customers at both points of purchase and delivery.

The law, which takes effect in 90 days, makes tobacco products nonmailable matter, meaning that the U.S. Postal Service cannot be used to deliver them. For some years, common carriers such as UPS and FedEx have refused to handle tobacco products because of legal concerns. The PACT Act also strengthens penalties for illegal sales and allows state attorneys general to enforce the law.

“The availability of cheap, tax-free cigarettes undermines the health and economic benefits of New York’s cigarette tax. Passage of the federal PACT act will help cut off the supply through Internet sales which has allowed cheaper cigarettes to be sold to our children through the postal service,” stated Julianne Hart, NYS Director of Advocacy for the American Heart Association. ”

Proponents of the bill emphasized the ability of children to purchase cigarettes over the internet, playing on the sympathies of Congressmen in their efforts to pass the bill.

Online cigarette sales sites, however, don’t allow credit card/debit card purchases, have always required photo ID for proof of age and bank account information to verify the identity of the purchaser.

Opponents say the move was just one more tactic in the ongoing battle between New York State and Indian reservations over the legality of taxing sales from native-owned businesses located on the reservations.

By treaty, New York State has no authority to tax sales that take place on the reservations. The PACT Act, a federal law, has effectively prevented a large percentage of those sales, putting mail-order cigarette companies out of business overnight.

New York Congressman Anthony Weiner sponsored the bill in the House of Representatives. Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand were cosponsors of the bill in the Senate.

Lots of smokers, lots of racial overtones, lots of interest. There’s so much interest in menthol cigarettes and their regulation, in fact, that the Food and Drug Administration’s newly created scientific advisory committee on tobacco products will be webcasting its inaugural meeting — focusing entirely on menthol in tobacco — on Tuesday and Wednesday, March 30 and 31. The panel is expected to tackle the question of whether and how mentholation of cigarettes should be regulated by the FDA. You can check the meeting out here.

First, a few facts from a comprehensive collection of research on menthol and tobacco produced by the National Cancer Institute: Menthol cigarettes account for 26% of all cigarettes sold in the United States. Among adult African Americans who smoke, nearly 7 in 10 smoke menthols. Smoking menthols is biggest among black women and 18- to 30-year-olds. Latinos also appear to be drawn to the frosty taste and sensation of menthols: Among Latinos who smoke almost 3 in 10 smoke menthols, compared with about 22% of non-Latino whites.

Those facts mean that any regulation of menthol in cigarettes will weigh more heavily in minority communities — a sensitive subject for public policy. African Americans have the highest rates of lung cancer of any racial or ethnic group, and black men are far more likely than males of any other ethnic group to die of it.

Beyond those glaring demographic facts, there’s a lot of uncertainty about the role of menthol in cigarettes. Does menthol induce young people, and especially young African Americans, to take up the habit? Does it make it harder for those who smoke them to quit? Does the frosty flavoring prompt those who smoke menthols to drag harder or inhale more deeply? And are menthols any more cancer-causing than unmentholated cigarettes? These questions — to which research has provided contradictory and incomplete answers — will be discussed by the FDA’s advisory committee, the membership of which is listed here.

Menthol is derived from the oil of peppermint, and it’s also known as mint camphor. As luck would have it, it’s a compound that in used in embalming, and in masking the smell of decomposition. The first brand of menthol cigarettes, Salem, was introduced by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. on the American market in 1956, just as researchers outside the tobacco industry were beginning to collect evidence of cigarettes’ dangers.

An initiative to legalize marijuana and allow it to be sold and taxed will appear on the November ballot, state election officials announced Wednesday, triggering what will probably be a much-watched campaign that once again puts California on the forefront of the nation’s debate over whether to soften drug laws.

The number of valid signatures reported by Los Angeles County, submitted minutes before Wednesday’s 5 p.m. deadline, put the measure well beyond the 433,971 it needed to be certified. Supporters turned in 694,248 signatures, collecting them in every county except Alpine. County election officials estimated that 523,531 were valid.

The measure’s main advocate, Richard Lee, an Oakland marijuana entrepreneur, savored the chance to press his case with voters that the state’s decades-old ban on marijuana is a failed policy.

“We’re one step closer to ending cannabis prohibition and the unjust laws that lock people up for cannabis while alcohol is not only sold openly but advertised on television to kids every day,” he said.

Lee, tapping $1.3 million from his businesses, has put together a highly organized campaign that he emphasized Wednesday would be led by a team of experienced political consultants, including Chris Lehane, a veteran operative who has worked in the White House and on presidential campaigns.

“There’s all kinds of big professional politicos who are coming on board now to take it to the next level,” Lee said.

Opponents have also started to put together their campaign. “There’s going to be a very broad coalition opposing this that will include law enforcement,” said John Lovell, a Sacramento lobbyist who represents the California Police Chiefs Assn. and other law enforcement groups. “We’ll educate people as to what this measure really entails.”

The measure, like the medical marijuana initiative, could put California on a collision course with the federal government. The possession and sale of marijuana remain a federal crime.

This month, President Obama’s drug czar, R. Gil Kerlikowske, decried legalization in a speech to police chiefs in San Jose.

The initiative would allow adults 21 or older to possess up to an ounce for personal use.

Possession of an ounce or less has been a misdemeanor with a $100 fine since 1975, when Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown, who was then governor, signed a law that reduced tough marijuana penalties that had allowed judges to impose 10-year sentences.

Legalization supporters note that misdemeanor arrests have risen dramatically in California in the last two decades. The initiative would also allow adults to grow up to 25 square feet of marijuana per residence or parcel.

But the measure, known as the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act, goes further, allowing cities and counties to adopt ordinances that would authorize the cultivation, transportation and sale of marijuana, which could be taxed to raise revenue.

Supporters hope this feature will win over voters watching local governments jettison employees and programs in the midst of a severe budget crisis.

Three other marijuana legalization initiatives have been floated this year but are not expected to qualify for the ballot. One failed, one was withdrawn and one remains active.

Lovell said that the initiative would lead to increased marijuana use, cause the same kind of social ills as alcohol and tobacco and put more demands on law enforcement. He said voters are distressed by the medical marijuana law. “Neighborhoods feel very uncomfortable with these locations that have a lot of dope and a lot of cash,” he said.

Lee countered that the state’s experience with medical marijuana shows “the sky didn’t fall.” He said the measure would allow police to focus on serious crime, undercut Mexican drug cartels and make it harder for teenagers to buy marijuana.

Underscoring the importance the backing of law enforcement will play, Lee’s campaign on Wednesday highlighted the support of retired Orange County Superior Court Judge James P. Gray, a former L.A. County deputy sheriff and Torrance police officer.

With polls showing that a slim majority of voters support legalization, the legalization campaign will be trying to appeal to a slice of undecided voters who are mostly mothers. “It’s always easier for people to say no than to say yes for an initiative,” said Mark Baldassare, the pollster for the Public Policy Institute of California.

Lee hopes to raise as much as $20 million. He will probably be able to tap a handful of wealthy advocates who have supported efforts to relax drug laws, including multibillionaire investor George Soros and George Zimmer, founder of the Men’s Wearhouse. Zimmer has donated at least $20,000.

Lovell said he expected to raise less than his opponents but would have enough to get his message out.

Some facts about marijuana:

Marijuana is the third most popular recreational drug in America (behind only alcohol and tobacco), and has been used by nearly 100 million Americans. According to government surveys, some 25 million Americans have smoked marijuana in the past year, and more than 14 million do so regularly despite harsh laws against its use. Our public policies should reflect this reality, not deny it.

Marijuana is far less dangerous than alcohol or tobacco. Around 50,000 people die each year from alcohol poisoning. Similarly, more than 400,000 deaths each year are attributed to tobacco smoking. By comparison, marijuana is nontoxic and cannot cause death by overdose.

In Oregon, marijuana is legal for medical purposes, and marijuana advocates are working on their own ballot initiative for the November election. The Oregon Cannabis Tax Act will comprehensively reform cannabis and hemp laws by regulating and taxing adult commercial use in Oregon, while promoting hemp cultivation. We need to collect 125,000 signatures by July 2, 2010 to secure a spot on the November ballot.

Prohibition does not work; prohibition is a historical and contemporary failure. Marijuana should be legalized, taxed and regulated for medical and recreational purposes. Drug use and abuse should be treated as a medical problem, rather than a criminal problem. The war on drugs is a war on Americans. Let us end the assault on our friends and neighbors.

Topeka – A poll released Tuesday shows more than two-thirds of Kansas voters would support a tobacco tax hike.

The survey of 500 likely Kansas voters was backed by a coalition of groups including the American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, American Lung Association, Tobacco Free Kansas Coalition, and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

The poll showed 69 percent of Kansas voters support raising the tobacco tax by $1 per pack to cut the state’s budget deficit. The support comes from a broad-based coalition of voters, including 71 percent of Republicans, 73 percent of Democrats, and 59 percent of Independents.

“Kansans understand the difficult choices our leaders face as they deal with the State’s budget woes. We know that many legislators are reluctant to support any tax increase, but 69 percent of Kansas voters want them to raise the tobacco tax instead of making deeper cuts to critical programs like education, roads, and services,” said Chris Masoner, Legislative & Government Relations Director in Kansas for the American Cancer Society. “These results show that, regardless of party, voters across Kansas understand raising the tobacco tax is a smart way to help plug the hole in our budget.”

Kansas voters strongly prefer the tobacco tax over other options, such as sales and income taxes, for addressing the state’s budget woes.

Out of more than a dozen proposals tested, the tobacco tax and alcohol tax are the only two favored by a majority of voters to help address the budget shortfall. While 71 percent support increasing the tobacco tax for this purpose, a majority opposed other options such as increasing state sales and income taxes, taxing utilities, churches, and non-profits, and reducing funding for health care, education, social services or highway maintenance.

The survey also found among Kansas voters:
·54 percent are more likely to support candidates who favor the $1 proposal, while just 25 percent are less likely to do so.
·80 percent support using part of the revenue brought in from the tax to fund programs to keep kids from smoking.
·81 percent favor taxing other tobacco products such as cigars and smokeless tobacco at a rate comparable to cigarettes.

“Raising the cigarette tax by $1 per pack will not only reduce possible cuts to important programs and services, but will also encourage more Kansans to quit smoking and prevent more Kansas kids from becoming future smokers,” said Mary Jayne Hellebust of the Tobacco Free Kansas Coalition. “It’s a win-win situation.”

A recent report by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and other public health organizations found that a $1 increase in Kansas’s tobacco tax would raise nearly $75 million in new annual revenue. Such an increase would also prevent 21,600 Kansas kids from smoking, save 10,000 state residents from premature, smoking-caused deaths, and save $492 million in tobacco-related health care costs. Increasing the tax rate on other tobacco products would raise an additional $23 million in new revenue, for a total of nearly $98 million.

The survey was conducted by the national polling firm Public Opinion Strategies. The statewide poll has a random sample of 500 likely Kansas voters and was conducted March 17 to March 18, 2010. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 4.38 percentage points.

Triangle North, overseer of four tax-advantage business parks in Franklin, Granville, Vance and Warren counties, has received a $50,000 grant from the Golden Leaf Foundation to support its marketing efforts.

“We believe we are on the threshold of a new economic future for four counties, with Triangle North creating jobs and opportunity in the same way Research Triangle Park did for our region and state,” said Danny W. Wright, chairman of the Kerr-Tar Regional Economic Development Corp., which owns and develops Triangle North.

The Golden Leaf grant will supplement funds provided by the North Carolina Rural Economic Development Center, business investors and others that are supporting Triangle North’s marketing strategy.

The strategy focuses on identifying companies in targeted industries, such as life sciences, technology, aviation and defense technologies and contracting, that are likely to expand and are interested in locating in the Research Triangle region.

The Golden Leaf Foundation manages North Carolina’s portion of the national monetary settlement with big tobacco.

Tobacco can save lives, scientists at St. George’s Hospital in London have found.

Researchers have created a strain of tobacco that sucks up deadly pond scum that poisons water used for drinking, swimming and bathing.

The pollutants in the pond scum, known as microcystins, “are quite a big problem, an increasing problem, as people are starting to realize” across the globe, Dr. Pascal Drake, a plant biotechnologist at the University of London hospital medical school, told the Star on Thursday.

In China, for example, the scum is linked to high rates in cancer, he said.

In much of the developing world, killing microcystins in water requires

“fairly expensive and difficult to use” systems, said Drake. His team’s discovery could provide a simpler, cheaper method.

Microcystin, called “toxic pond scum” in lay terms, can fight off conventional water treatment such as chlorination and sand filtration.

The discovery has several implications, he said. If the work could transfer to other plants, “you could use whole plants to remove all sorts of pollutants.” Or agriculture could create antibodies that attach themselves just to the roots of plants so that crops grown with polluted water would still be safe to eat.

Tobacco, said Drake, is easy to work with and easy to genetically modify. The scientists created a strain that produced antibodies that in turn attached themselves to microcystin and destroyed it.

“Plants tend to be quite cheap to work with. They feed off sun and water.” The next stage would be to translate what they created in tobacco to aquatic plants or trees, since tobacco requires humans to cultivate it.

Drake understands the alarm genetically modified plants can trigger. “It’s far worse to have microcystin in the environment,” he said. “We hope that our study will ultimately lead to a reduction in the exposure of humans, livestock, and wildlife to environmental pollutants.”