The state has seized a Seneca tobacco retailer’s truck containing thousands of cartons of cigarettes, a move some see as a test by the government as Albany looks to start collecting taxes on Indian cigarette sales in the months ahead.

The truck was seized Monday by at least one state tax and finance agent as it made its way between the tribe’s Cattaraugus and Allegany reservations.

Brad Maione, a tax department spokesman, said the state confiscated “thousands of cartons of cigarettes that did not have a New York State tax stamp as required by law.”

He said the cigarettes were “allegedly possessed illegally by an individual not on reservation property.” He declined to answer any questions about the case.

Senecas said the truck was owned by Aaron J. Pierce, a Seneca businessman who has been among those challenging in court the legality of a new federal law that targets mail-order cigarette trade.

Pierce declined to comment and referred calls to his lawyer. Lisa Coppola, a lawyer with the firm representing Pierce, released a statement from Pierce’s company, AJ’s Wholesale, calling the warrantless seizure “illegal.”

The seizure came just one day before Seneca Nation businesses asked a federal judge in Buffalo to delay the federal government’s ban on mailing cigarettes until their appeal can be heard by a higher court.

The government, during a hearing Tuesday before U.S. District Judge Richard J. Arcara, countered by asking him to put on ice his temporary prohibition against the collection of taxes on cigarettes mailed by Seneca businesses.

The dueling requests are part of the fallout from Arcara’s order last month upholding the crux of a new federal law that Seneca business owners say will cripple their mail-order tobacco operations.

“Right now, they’re all shutting down,” William Parry, the owner of Wolf’s Run in Irving, said after the two-hour court session. “There are a lot of people out of work.”

Arcara is expected to rule later this week, maybe as early as today, on the two motions that he heard Tuesday.

Outside the courtroom, Seneca businesses found themselves dealing with a state government eager to crack down on untaxed cigarettes.

AJ’s Wholesale cited a bid last year in Central New York by local officials to seize Indian cigarettes, a move later rejected by the courts.

AJ’s said the state tax agents Monday “abandoned” the truck driver “and boxes of melting candy” along a stretch of Route 353A outside the Town of Dayton. It said the seizure was unconstitutional.

“This outrageous seizure is clear retaliation for my company’s litigation in federal court,” Pierce said.

Seneca Nation President Barry E. Snyder Sr. called the stopping and seizing of the truck “unprecedented” for goods traveling between the Seneca reservations. He said the cigarettes were legally flowing between Seneca-licensed businesses.

“The nation does not take lightly this overt act of state aggression against the nation and its people,” he said. He said the nation will weigh its options “to protect and preserve” its sovereign rights.

The seizure has caused a stir on Seneca land, with officials concerned that cigarettes with a tribal tax stamp will be confiscated by state officials.

“Stopping vehicles going from one territory to another is something new. We’re all one entity: the Seneca Nation,” said Richard Nephew, chairman of the Seneca Tribal Council.

Tensions are already high on the reservations. Between the new federal PACT Act targeting mail-order tobacco shipments and a looming state effort to halt tax-free cigarette sales by Indian tribes in New York, Seneca business owners see their thriving tobacco trade in jeopardy. For years state officials have expressed concern about violence erupting, as was seen in the late 1990s the last time the state tried to collect the cigarette tax.

While the state’s effort to collect taxes on Indian cigarette sales to non-Indian consumers is not due to start until Sept. 1 at the earliest, Maione said it is already illegal to transport cigarettes without a New York State tax stamp on “New York property.”

Fueling the volatile environment is the federal court case before Arcara.

In his previous order, the judge upheld the federal government’s ban on the mailing of tobacco products but allowed for other forms of interstate sales of tax-free cigarettes.

Under other federal and state laws, buyers still would be required to pay taxes on those cigarettes.

At the core of the court case is the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act, or PACT Act, which was passed by Congress and signed into law in March by President Obama.

The new law is viewed by both critics and supporters as sweeping legislation with billions of dollars in tax revenue and thousands of jobs at stake, many of them in Western New York.

During Tuesday’s court session, Arcara heard from government lawyers who argued that a stay of his injunction against the taxing portion of the law is warranted because of the public health risks associated with untaxed cigarettes.

“In a nutshell, what’s gotten lost is that preventing the sale of cigarettes that are untaxed dramatically decreases the number of kids who start smoking,” said Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids in Washington, D.C.

Arcara, in rejecting the taxing aspect of the new law, said, “The court is aware of no other federal statute requiring out-of-state retailers to be subject to taxing schemes for state and local governments into which they ship goods.”

Arcara, in that same decision, rejected a request by Seneca businesses for a preliminary injunction that would have prevented the government from enforcing the overall ban on mailing tobacco products.

During the hearing, a lawyer for the Seneca Free Trade Association argued that the harm caused by the ban on cigarette mailing is sufficient to warrant an injunction until the case can decided by an appeals court.

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!”

Out of the 6.8 billion people on this planet, a whopping 1.1 billion consider themselves smokers. And despite what the Surgeon General wants you to believe, that number is rapidly growing. By 2025, an estimated 1.6 billion will be smokers — a 45% increase. Once you drill down to specifics, these stats are even more shocking.

The World Bank estimates that between 82,000–99,000 young people start smoking every day — roughly 85% from mid- or low-income countries, specifically in Asia.

Unfortunately, this trend isn’t likely to slow down in the foreseeable future. As emerging economies around the world begin to see an expanded middle class, tobacco use skyrockets.

In India, one of the fast-growing BRIC countries, 37% of all men smoke bidis, a smaller, cruder type of cigarette. About 60% of all males over age 20 smoke in China. And an incredible 80% of males in Indonesia — the world’s fourth largest population — smoke. Compare that to the 23% of the male population that smokes in the U.S.

Judging by these numbers, smoking isn’t going away anytime soon. Philip Morris Intl brought in $62 billion last year. Its former parent company, Altria, brought in $23.5 billion. And British American Tobacco saw revenue near $22 billion.

The amazing part about this story is how these companies do it – you see, in the tobacco industry there are a number of different niches, each with its own benefits for investors.

With the exception of British American Tobacco, large cigarette manufacturers are only good at two things: rolling a massive volume of cigarettes and selling them. They are usually classified under the tobacco industry, but they shouldn’t be. All these companies do is roll tobacco into cigarettes.

However, there’s not much money in tobacco farming. The industry deals with high costs, large debt loads and extreme risks. A single storm can wipe out an entire crop. That’s all of a farmer’s assets gone in a heartbeat. That’s why these massive corporations stay out of tobacco growing, for the most part.

Some hopes may have gone up in smoke.
After much deliberation, India has banned further foreign direct investment in the cigarette business.

That seems to be a blow to the likes of Japan Tobacco and British American Tobacco, which were lobbying to expand their small presence in the growing and increasingly affluent market. But the protectionist move should hardly come as a surprise, especially given that ITC, which has nearly 80% of the cigarette market, is 34%-government owned through state-run insurance companies. And it should give companies time to think if they really are missing out.

Despite rapid growth in disposable income and massive migration of people from rural to urban areas, cigarettes are the choice of only a slim segment of Indian tobacco users. Many prefer chewing tobacco. Among those who smoke, hand-rolled leaf tobacco is favored; a mere 15% smoke cigarettes.

And profit margins are tight, in part because of competition from contraband cigarettes smuggled across the borders and illegally made local smokes. Though there are no specific estimates of how many such smokes circulate in the market, ITC says they are its biggest challenge.

On top of that, New Delhi, particularly the Health Ministry, is increasingly vocal about curbing smoking. Even before the formal investment ban, the government had rejected proposals by foreign players to increase their presence in India. Existing rules use licenses to cap the number of cigarettes a company can produce in a year, and there are loud calls for higher tax rates to reduce tobacco use. The country’s tobacco tax already represents 69% of the retail price of a cigarette — among the highest percentages in the region, according to the Tobacco Institute of India, a trade group.

And cigarette makers bear a disproportionate share of the tobacco tax. Though cigarettes represent only about 40% of India’s $12 billion tobacco market, they generated 80% of the revenue collected from the tobacco industry in 2007-08. The non-cigarette industry is fragmented, consisting of many small-scale players.

Certainly, global companies may have hoped a market like India — where cigarette consumption is growing around 5% a year, according to Datamonitor — could offer growth potential they lack at home. Japan Tobacco is hunting for new markets as its domestic market shrinks due to a declining population and fewer people lighting up.

But when the smoke clears, foreign firms may see India’s protected market has its own shortcomings.

RICHMOND, Va., – MeadWestvaco Corp. /quotes/comstock/13*!mwv/quotes/nls/mwv (MWV 25.10, -0.31, -1.22%) , a global packaging solutions leader, today extended the Promina(R) tobacco paperboard line with the introduction of Promina(R) Style, one of MWV’s next generation solid bleached sulfate (SBS) tobacco boards intended for use in premium tobacco packaging. This super-premium, single ply SBS board is one of the brightest grades available — using optical brighteners and a controlled manufacturing process for ultra-white styling that is ideal for luxury and limited print coverage tobacco packaging.

After several years of development, the Promina family was officially launched in September 2009 as a successor to MWV’s previous market leading tobacco paperboard line, Printkote(R) Tobacco. Since the introduction, MWV has been conducting extensive packaging qualification trials to ensure a smooth and efficient transition of all tobacco customers to Promina, which MWV expects complete conversion by the end of Q1 2010.

“The performance characteristics of the Promina line continue the legacy of Printkote Tobacco boards with unparalleled efficiencies on converting equipment and cigarette packing lines — but at a targeted 5-6 percent lower basis weight,” says Todd Walton, General Manager, MWV Tobacco Strategic Business Unit (SBU). “The printing, embossing and cutting characteristics of Promina paperboards makes it an ideal choice for tobacco companies looking to further enhance their premium brands and boost brand visibility.”

Promina Style, which has brighter styling than Promina, retains all of the performance, stiffness-to-weight and runnability advantages that Promina is known for — providing enhanced brand perception and operational efficiencies. The manufacturing process of the Promina line is enhanced to produce a sheet that is up to 40 percent cleaner than MWV’s previous high whiteness offerings. These board characteristics are particularly desirable for tobacco brands that do not completely print on the package with graphics and text, wishing to have the natural board color show through at point-of-purchase.

“Our long-standing commitment to the tobacco industry stretches as far back as the introduction of the hinge-lid box, a package we helped developed more than 50 years ago and is now the mainstay of the industry,” says Walton. “Throughout the decades, MWV has continued to invest and develop innovations that impact and evolve tobacco packaging on a global scale…Promina and Promina Style are examples of this type of innovation.”

The demand for sustainable products continues to grow. As a leader in sustainable packaging, MWV approaches the concept of sustainable packaging holistically, working with customers to provide solutions that address and optimize each phase of a packaging system’s lifecycle. With the introduction of Promina MWV provides the tobacco industry with new options for sustainable solutions, as the manufacturing of this new board can reduced energy consumption, CO2 emissions and water usage compared with MWV’s Printkote Tobacco grades.

For a given amount of production, Promina is expected to (vs. Printkote Tobacco):

– Reduce overall energy consumption by 6 percent

– Reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 3 percent

– Use less water to produce

MWV SFI and PEFC Fiber Chain of Custody certifications ensure traceability of original sources of all wood fiber used in tobacco paperboards, and that these sources are managed and harvested in compliance with all relevant laws and regulations.

For more information: www.mwv.com/tobaccopackaging.

WASHINGTON — By increasing cigarette taxes by $1 per pack, states could raise more than $9 billion in new annual revenue to help close severe budget shortfalls, a new report released by a coalition of public health organizations claimed. The group has published a national poll along with the report that claimed 67% of voters support a $1 tobacco tax increase.

The poll also claimed that voters prefer higher tobacco taxes to other options, such as other tax increases or budget cuts, for addressing state budget deficits.

The report detailed the revenue and health benefits to each state of increasing its cigarette tax by $1 per pack. If every state and Washington, D.C., did so, they would raise $9.1 billion in new annual revenue and save $52.8 billion in health care costs, it claimed.

The report, Tobacco Taxes: A Win-Win-Win for Cash-Strapped States, was released by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Heart Association, American Lung Association and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

According to the coalition’s poll:

* By a 67% to 31% margin, voters favored a $1 per pack increase in the state tobacco tax, with 53% saying they “strongly” support the tobacco tax increase. This support crosses political lines, with a majority of Democrats (70%), Republicans (68%) and Independents (64%) favoring the increase.
* Voters preferred raising the state tobacco tax to other options for addressing state budget deficits. While 60% supported increasing the tobacco tax for this purpose, more than 70% opposed every other option presented, including higher state income, gasoline and sales taxes and cuts to education, health care, transportation and law enforcement programs.
* By a margin of 59% to 35%, voters preferred a candidate for state office who supports the tobacco tax over one who opposes it. This preference is expressed by majorities of Democrats, Republicans and Independents.

According to the report, states can achieve even greater financial and health benefits if they also increase tax rates on other tobacco products, such as smokeless tobacco and cigars and dedicate some of their tobacco tax revenues to fund programs to prevent children from smoking and help smokers quit.

The current average state cigarette tax is $1.34 per pack, with rates ranging from a low of seven cents in South Carolina to a high of $3.46 in Rhode Island.

The national survey of 847 registered voters was conducted from January 20-24, 2010, by International Communications Research and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.

Meanwhile, in South Carolina, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jim Rex, the state superintendent of education, has proposed raising the state cigarette tax by $1.27 a pack to the national average of $1.34 and using the more than $200 million raised to prevent a proposed five-day teacher furlough and to pay for health care coverage and anti-smoking programs, reported S.C. Politics Today.

In Utah, State Representative. Paul Ray (R) is sponsoring three bills that, if passed, would raise the tobacco tax and ban some nicotine products in the state.

The Utah House approved an amendment to remove electronic cigarettes from one of the bills, the Associated Press said. The bill originally banned electronic cigarettes, which emit a trace of smokeless nicotine, but smokers at a committee hearing last week said a ban could stymie their efforts to cut back or quit the habit.

One of the bills targets nicotine candies, which Ray said are not currently on the market in Utah. But he said he hopes the bill will give the state a head start in blocking their sale.

Another of the bills would ban the sale of tobacco “paraphernalia” to minors—products such as bongs, but not matches or lighters. The third measure, which Ray has sponsored for the third straight year, would increase the state tobacco tax from 69.5 cents per pack to about $1.70 a pack.

In Illinois, Governor Pat Quinn said he is still in favor of an increase in the state’s cigarette tax, a plan that has been talked about since last year, reported the Illinois Radio Network. The bill, which has already passed in the Senate, would increase taxes on a pack of cigarettes by $1, bringing the state’s take in taxes to $1.98 per pack.

In Oregon, a State Senate committee heard public testimony on a bill that would give local governments authority to tax tobacco and cigarettes, said The Oregonian. The State House narrowly passed a similar bill in the last session, but the Legislature adjourned before the bill reached the Senate floor.

The proposal, Senate Bill 1042, would lift a ban against local governments taxing cigarettes and tobacco.

One figure that has come up has been a tax of 25 cents per pack of cigarettes, which would raise between $7 million and $9 million a year, said the report.

Guam – If you’re a smoker get ready to pay more for your cigarettes.

Governor Felix Camacho officially signed bill 150 or the tobacco tax law into effect this morning. In about 60 days from now cigarettes will be taxed at $15 dollars per 100 sticks. That comes out to about an additional three dollars per pack of cigarettes.

Cigars will be taxed at .40 cents per mini cigar, .44 cents per regular sized cigar, and .50 cents per large cigar. Chewing tobacco will also cost an additional dollar per can.

Vice-Speaker BJ Cruz was the author of this legislation.He says that he knew it would make people upset but it was a piece of legislation that he had to push through when he heard that there is one diagnosis of lung cancer per week on Guam.

“This is a very important piece of legislation because it greatly supports with our attempt to discourage tobacco usage in our community,” said Governor Camacho. “Lt. Governor Cruz and I pledge to continue supporting all efforts that provide for a healthier quality of life for our people.”

“I want to commend Governor Camacho and members of the Legislature for ensuring that this became law,” said Lt. Governor Cruz. “This will help us decrease tobacco usage among our people, but more importantly, it will reduce the number of tobacco-related health issues we would otherwise have to address in the future.”

According to PL 30-80, a significant amount of revenue generated from the tax increase will be deposited into the newly created Guam Cancer Trust Fund to be used by programs that support cancer screenings, treatment, and support services.

Additionally, tax revenues will go to GMH, DPHSS, and DMHSA to support disease prevention programs and address future healthcare demands associated with tobacco use.

The “Tobacco buy-out,” helps tobacco quota holders and producers transition to the free market.

Washington, D.C. – infoZine – USDA announced that it will issuing more than $950 million in Tobacco Transition Payment Program (TTPP) payments to quota holders and producers in 2010. Quota holders and producers can enter into successor-in-interest contracts beginning Jan. 19, 2010, which will enable them to receive lump-sum payments by selling their remaining four TTPP payments.

Approximately $5.3 billion has been paid to tobacco quota holders and producers with this sixth round of payments. Since 2005, third parties bought more than 170,000 TTPP contracts worth approximately $2.9 billion.

TTPP, also called the “tobacco buy-out,” helps tobacco quota holders and producers transition to the free market. The Fair and Equitable Tobacco Reform Act of 2004 ended the Depression-era tobacco quota program and established the TTPP. The program provides annual transitional payments for 10 years to eligible tobacco quota holders and producers. Payments began in 2005 and continue through 2014.

Payments are funded through assessments of approximately $10 billion on tobacco product manufacturers and importers.

For more information on TTPP and other FSA programs, visit your local FSA county office or http://www.fsa.usda.gov .

British American Tobacco South Africa (Batsa) has attacked the National Council Against Smoking for issuing a statement that was “deliberately mischievous, provocative and misleading” regarding a constitutional challenge launched by the company against certain provisions of the recently promulgated Tobacco Products Control Amendment Act.

Batsa has filed an application before the North Gauteng High Court to have the legislation amended to allow one-to-one communication with its consenting adult smokers.

The ban came into operation last August.

The company said: “This is a matter between Bat South Africa and the Department of Health and we believe that sensationalising the issue in the media will not help to reach an amicable solution. To the contrary, it will only serve to further mislead the public.”

The council said that if the prohibition of one-to-one communication was declared unconstitutional, “such a contorted interpretation would expressly disregard the direct intentions of Parliament”.

Parliament amended the act to outlaw the “smoking parties” organised by the industry, said the council. The purpose of the “smoking parties” was not to convey accurate, factual information about tobacco products such as the price, but to make smoking appear social, cool, fun and an exciting experience, and so increase sales.

“Increased sales meant increased death and disease,” said the council.

It said one-to-one communication would mean that the industry would be able to use techniques known as viral or guerrilla marketing to target teenagers. “The section being challenged was specifically designed to protect youth from advertising campaigns designed to get them to start smoking or to smoke more,” said the council.

Batsa said that it had not taken any legal action anywhere in the world in relation to tobacco advertising bans. It had in fact accepted and complied with the law in all cases.

“This constitutional challenge in the South African High Court is an attempt to defend our rights as a manufacturer of a legal product to be able to communicate with our existing adult consumers. We do not and will not at any time in the future under any circumstances market to children. Smoking is risky and we agree that the sale and consumption of tobacco products must be regulated and, in particular, we support the ban of tobacco products to the under-aged.”

Batsa said one-to-one communication, which was the issue it was challenging, did not refer to parties or any other events. It was the one remaining avenue of communication which enabled consenting adult consumers of its products to receive information from the company about a product or brand they had chosen to purchase.

“In our court application, we have recommended that the Department of Health regulates how we conduct this information,” it said.

Salim Young, a legal director at Batsa, said: “We have on various occasions engaged with various regulators, including the Department of Health, on this matter in an attempt to avert any legal action. Our preference is still to resolve the matter amicably and through negotiation, but at this stage we have no option but to litigate.”

Batsa said it supported and was committed to sensible and enforceable tobacco regulation, and there were a number of provisions in the legislation that it supported.

The SA Medical Association also joined the fray by supporting the council.

It hoped the courts, such as their international counterparts, would issue a ruling that protected the broader public interest, especially in view of the fact that the right to health was enshrined in the constitution.

December 6, 2009
By Wiseman Khuzwayo

A new tobacco tax is doing just what its proponents envisioned: reducing cigarette sales while fattening state coffers.
Cigarettes sales are down 27 percent in Florida during the last four months, thanks to a new $1-a-pack tax designed to balance the budget and cut down on smoking.

But despite the drop in sales, tobacco-tax collections in Florida are high and holding steady. That’s because state economists accurately factored in the decrease in sales of smokes when they initially forecast the revenue from the surcharge that went into effect July 1.

The new tax, which helps fund Medicaid, will raise $881 million this year and $907 million the next, the economists forecast Thursday when they analyzed cigarette-sales data.

“This is working exactly the way we had hoped,” said Sen. Nan Rich, a Weston Democrat and leading proponent of the tax. “We wanted to cut down on smoking and keep healthcare programs from being cut.”

The money raised by the new tax far exceeds the estimated amount of revenue lost due to the overall decline in cigarette sales.

Not everyone is cheering the success of the tax.

James E. Smith, spokesman and lobbyist for the Florida Petroleum Marketers & Convenience Store Association, said cigarettes sales decreases hurt small stores. He said tobacco products — mainly cigarettes — trigger convenience-store visits that account for 34 percent of in-store sales of items such as snacks, drinks and bread.

“Any time you reduce sales by big percentages, you eliminate a significant portion of profit that retailers use for things like payroll and rent,” Smith said. “If you’re a customer and you’re not going in for cigarettes, you’re not going to go in at all. And a lot of sales at convenience stores are impulse buys. That cuts into the bottom line.”

Some North Florida cigarette buyers may simply drive across the state line. Smith said his counterpart in Georgia is boasting of a nearly five-fold increase in overall sales in some stores along the border with Florida.

Florida’s state tax now stands at nearly $1.34 per pack — about 91 cents more expensive than Alabama’s tax and about 97 cents more expensive than Georgia’s tax, which is the 47th lowest state tax in the nation. In the 14 Florida counties that border the other two states, cigarette sales have decreased an average of 34 percent a month since July, compared to the same four-month period last year, according to statistics released Thursday from the state’s Department of Business and Professional Regulation.

SLOWER SALES

The decrease in the border counties exceeds the average statewide percentage drop: 27 percent, or 112,000 packs.

In the six counties where Indian tribes operate — including Hillsborough and Miami-Dade — sales have fallen off by a smaller amount, 23 percent.

Tribes collect the tax for non-Indians, though tribal members can buy untaxed cigarettes for personal use in an amount equal to five packs a day, per tribal member.

In Broward County, home to the Seminole Hard Rock, sales have dipped by just 9 percent. Only two counties, Osceola and St. Johns, had increases in sales. Seminole County had the biggest drop, 54 percent.

OTHER FACTORS

But the declines aren’t all due to the new state tax, said Frank Lester, spokesman for Reynolds American Inc., which makes Camels, Winston, Kool, and Pall Mall cigarettes. He said a new federal tobacco tax this year — which he says forced a Tampa cigar factory to close — has hit the industry hard. And smoking has long been on the decline in the U.S., where there are now more ex-smokers than smokers.

Also, he said, cigarette buyers are changing their shopping habits.

“A lot of people aren’t quitting,” Lester said. “They’re buying cheaper brands. They’re going to the Internet. They’re going to other states.”

The state’s premier manufacturer of low-cost smokes, Dosal Tobacco, also has experienced a decline in volume, said spokeswoman Sarah Bascom.

By Marc Caputo

Anti-smoking advocates called on lawmakers Thursday to make bars and restaurants in Oklahoma smoke-free by closing loopholes in the state law restricting smoking in public places.

Officials from the American Heart Association and the state Department of Health said they will support legislation next year to ban smoking in bars and restaurants, similar to a bill that died in the Oklahoma House last spring.

Oklahoma was among the first states in the nation to regulate smoking in public places in 2003. But the legislation allows smoking in separate smoking rooms in restaurants and stand-alone bars. When the bill died in the House last spring, Rep. John Trebilcock, R-Broken Arrow, chairman of the House Public Health Committee, said he was not inclined to give it a hearing because of the investment restaurants had made to comply with state smoking restrictions.

Since Oklahoma’s law went into effect, 27 other states have adopted comprehensive smoke-free laws that ban smoking in public places, said Marilyn Davidson, government relations director for the American Heart Association in Oklahoma City.

Davidson said the bill will protect restaurant and nightclub patrons from the harmful effects of second-hand smoke, which she said kills 38,000 people a year and increases the risk of coronary heart disease by 25 percent to 30 percent.

“It’s just about health over money,” said Dr. Alan Blum, a family medicine professor at the University of Alabama and director of the Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society.

Blum said smoking is the leading preventable cause of death and disease. A report released earlier this month by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies in Washington said studies have shown a decrease in the rate of heart attacks after a smoking ban was implemented.

But some Oklahoma restaurant and nightclub owners have opposed an outright ban on smoking, claiming it would have a negative impact on their business.

“We view this as a health issue, not a private property issue,” Davidson said.

She said anti-smoking advocates are sympathetic with restaurant owners who spent thousands of dollars to build enclosed ventilated smoking rooms to comply with the 2003 law. But they are more concerned with the health of the people who work in those rooms.

Jim Hopper, president and CEO of Oklahoma Restaurant Association, did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment on the proposed smoking ban.

Blum said the restaurant association is influenced by big tobacco companies that have historically opposed smoking bans and restrictions in public places.

“The fingerprints of the tobacco industry are all over them,” he said. “We want to make it much harder on restaurants that don’t care about public health.”

Blum held up an oversized image of a $5 bill, about the cost of a pack of cigarettes, and criticized opponents of smoking bans for putting profits over health interests.

“It’s all they care about. It’s their blood money,” Blum said.

By TIM TALLEY, October 29, 2009 Sfgate

WATERLOO, Iowa – As a longtime nurse in the intensive care unit at Covenant Medical Center, Anne Pfiffner has seen her share of cardiac emergencies.

So she knew exactly what to do one morning in July when she began experiencing some troubling symptoms at work in the ICU. Feeling something akin to indigestion, she stole away to an empty room and performed an EKG on herself.

“I thought I’d have some milk to cure indigestion or take some Pepcid,” said Pfiffner, who had just celebrated her 47th birthday. “I was stunned. I was having a heart attack. I was doing the EKG to rule it out, not rule it in.”

She immediately went to her supervisor, Denice Jackson.

“She came into my office and threw (the EKG results) on my desk,” Jackson said. “I said, ‘You’re having a heart attack,’ and we immediately rushed her down to the emergency room.”

That afternoon, Pfiffner had open-heart surgery at Allen Hospital.

“They took a vein from my leg and bypassed the areas of my heart that were diseased,” she said.

Pfiffner spent eight days in Allen Hospital. A pack-a-day smoker since the age of 18, she was told to quit smoking immediately.

After leaving the hospital, Pfiffner stayed with her parents for three weeks. That’s when her colleagues got down to business. Wanting to clear Pfiffner’s home of all evidence that she had been a smoker, they began a makeover.

They started with cleaning. Then painting. Then someone made new curtains. And then the project grew. More than a dozen of Pfiffner’s fellow Covenant employees donated time, money, supplies and elbow grease to the project.

They weeded and mulched Pfiffner’s tomato patch. They scrubbed and painted every room and installed a new tub surround in the bathroom. The kitchen saw freshly painted cupboards, a new backsplash and a new stove.

“People were coming and going at all times to help fix it up,” said Covenant ICU nurse Terri Phelps.

In two weeks’ time, Pfiffner’s small home saw an HGTV-worthy makeover.

“I gave them free rein on color choices,” Pfiffner said. “All they had to do was make sure the paint didn’t clash with my mother’s water color paintings.”

The home is now a canvas of rich, bold colors perfectly accented with the original paintings Pfiffner treasures. Pfiffner was thrilled with the results.

“Before, all my walls were nicotine-stained white. Now, it’s just beautiful.”

After several months in cardiac rehab, Pfiffner has returned to work part time in the Covenant ICU. She has quit smoking for good, and credits her ICU family for helping her recover from the life-threatening event.

“When someone works that hard to show you how much they love you, it’s easier to recover,” she said.

For Phelps, the explanation for the generosity is simple.

“We are nurses, we are fixers of problems,” she said.

Information from: Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, http://www.wcfcourier.com

Smokers will be banned from lighting up in outdoor areas where food and drinks are served under new laws being proposed by the ACT government.

It will force smokers to move at least two metres away from eating and drinking areas if they want a cigarette.

The move – mirroring similar measures in Queensland and Tasmania – is about ensuring a smoke-free workplace for waiters and waitresses, the ACT government says.

But Health Minister Katy Gallagher concedes businesses have a tough time ahead should the laws be passed.

Under the draft laws, any outdoor area where food or drinks are served must remain smoke-free, with restaurants, cafes, clubs and pubs – not the smokers – facing fines if they don’t toe the line.

Ms Gallagher said she expected opposition from industry groups, but maintained no worker should be exposed to smoke in their workplace.

“There just simply isn’t an argument that you can run that says, `well it’s not okay to smoke in anyone else’s workplace, but we can smoke in a waiter and waitress’s workplace’,” she told reporters on Thursday.

Asked about the rights of smokers, she conceded it was “a balancing act”.

But other states had proved the system was workable.

“It’s made it more difficult for smokers to smoke in public, but the sky hasn’t fallen in,” Ms Gallagher said.

She was unrepentant about pushing the no-smoking message, with the government also introducing draft laws to ban smoking at all underage events.

It’s also considering following NSW’s lead in banning smoking in cars with children.

Ms Gallagher admitted the new change could force businesses to outlay cash to create new smoking areas, just three years after an indoor smoking ban compelled them to rezone service areas.

She denied the move was likely to deter customers from visiting Canberra’s entertainment spots.

“Change doesn’t come easily, but I believe that we have been as reasonable as we can whilst maintaining the position that we’re coming from, which is to reduce the harmful effects of tobacco smoke,” Ms Gallagher said.

The industry had been aware of the potential changes for at least 18 months, she said, meaning businesses would have plenty of time to adapt.

If passed in the legislative assembly, the restrictions will commence in December 2010.

TORONTO – The provincial government launched a lawsuit today to recover $50 billion in health care costs from tobacco manufacturers.

“Ontario is taking the next step towards recovering taxpayer dollars spent fighting tobacco-related illnesses,” Attorney General Chris Bentley said in a press release.

“We are joining British Columbia and New Brunswick in initiating a lawsuit to recover health care costs from tobacco companies.”

The lawsuit is based on legislation passed unanimously at Queen’s Park in March that enabled the Ontario government to sue tobacco manufacturers for alleged wrongdoing, recover health care costs and allocate liability among the manufacturers according to market share.

The companies, depending on where they are incorporated, have between 20 and 60 days to file a defence.

The government’s press release notes, though, that while the law clarifies the process, Ontario will still need to prove its claim in court.

Ontario previously tried to sue the tobacco firms in the United States under the RICO anti-racketeering statutes, but the case was dismissed in August 2000.

As recently as 2006, Premier Dalton McGuinty said the province would not try again, saying “it does not serve our purposes.”

That view has changed now and the province says it wants to get back some of the $1.6 billion it spends on tobacco-related health costs.

Smoking is blamed for about 13,000 deaths a year in Ontario.

By JONATHAN JENKINS, QUEEN’S PARK BUREAU, September 29, 2009

A LEADER of one of the teams that will enforce Shanghai’s coming smoking control law wants to completely ban tobacco use inside KTV parlors, video arcades, pubs and other entertainment venues.

“The law should ensure fairness. There should be no difference in smoking control among different rooms inside a karaoke bar or elsewhere in the industry,” Lan Yiming of the Shanghai Culture Market Administrative Law Enforcement Team said during a public hearing yesterday on the draft measure.

Without a blanket ban, he fears his agency and the others handling enforcement will have a difficult time persuading people to stop smoking in one area when they see people lighting up in another nearby.

Lan was among the 20-plus people brought together by Shanghai People’s Congress to give their views on the issue. Law makers may amend the draft based on what they heard yesterday as they continue discussion of the proposal. Their goal is to enact the measure by the end of the year, well in advance of the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, which starts on May 1.

Under the plan, smoking would be banned inside schools, hospitals and public places such as cinemas, museums, banks, malls, airports, railway and bus terminals and many privately owned businesses. Smoking would be allowed only in special areas in bars, restaurants and entertainment venues.

For the first time, individuals would be fined for violating smoking controls, with levies ranging up to 200 yuan (US$29.28). Operators of venues subject to smoking controls would be fined up to 30,000 yuan for failing to stop offenders.

Those speaking yesterday expressed widespread support for the measure. Even a department head for cigarette maker Shanghai Tobacco Group agreed that some controls were inevitable. But the official, Chen Chaoying, said the draft law goes too far, and he disputed the scientific consensus that exposure to second-hand smoke can cause health harm, a statement that drew sharp sarcasm from following speakers and outbursts of disapproval from the audience.

He was challenged by Zhao Yun, an emergency room physician, who said, “As a doctor, I say the harm from smoking is proven beyond any question,” referring also to second-hand smoke.

While most of the hearing participants agreed smoking controls were the right thing to do, some speakers stressed that changing ingrained habits won’t be easy.

Xia Xiangqing of the local restaurant association said the group plans for nearly 1,000 big-brand eateries to carry out strict smoking controls before the Expo, but the process will be gradual.

“Some restaurant owners are afraid of losing business, especially those running small ones,” Xia said.

NEW YORK With the feds taking fresh aim at tobacco marketing, the industry may hope for a public backlash against such governmental intrusion. But an AdweekMedia/Harris Poll, fielded in July, indicates such hope would be in vain.

Asked what the federal government should do about tobacco advertising, a plurality of respondents (31 percent) said it should ban such ads altogether. Another 14 percent said tobacco advertising should be regulated more strictly. Twenty-seven percent said they were satisfied with the current level of regulation, and 11 percent said tobacco advertising shouldn’t be regulated at all.

In a breakdown by age, 18-24-year-olds — who’ve grown up amid regulations on smoking — were the least likely to favor an outright ban on tobacco ads, with 24 percent endorsing that approach.

Even so, few of the 18-24s (8 percent) said tobacco ads shouldn’t be regulated at all. Those 55-plus were the most pro-ban (36 percent), but also had the highest number favoring no regulation at all (13 percent).

State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal called on consumers and retailers Tuesday to avoid electronic cigarettes, discounting claims that the devices are safer than real cigarettes.

The e-cigarettes, as they are known, are powered by batteries and produce a mist containing nicotine and propylene glycol, an organic compound. Users inhale the mist, satisfying their craving for nicotine.

”I will vigorously fight to ban e-cigarettes, unless approved by FDA, and any attempt to retail the devices in Connecticut, as well as work with federal authorities to regulate Internet sales,” Blumenthal said at a press conference in Hartford.

He cited the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s finding last month that two brands of e-cigarettes, Smoking Everywhere and NJoy, contain known carcinogens. An antifreeze ingredient, diethylene glycol, was found in a Smoking Everywhere cartridge.

Despite such warnings, some users continue to swear by the devices.

Jennifer Jarvis, 24, of New London, credits e-cigarettes with enabling her to break a 12-year-old smoking habit.

”I tried everything – patches, the gum – and I always went back to cigarettes within a week,” she said. “I’ve been using the e-cig since June and haven’t touched a cigarette except to see what it would be like. I couldn’t stand the smell. It was nasty.”

Jarvis, who was recently laid off, said she initially invested $58 plus shipping on e-cigarette equipment, including a charger, two batteries, two “atomizers,” which heat the liquid, and 10 cartridges. She also bought two bottles of liquid, which she has yet to use up, she said.

The devices are available online and at some mall kiosks, though not in Connecticut.

Stephen Benitez, also 24, said he was looking for a less expensive alternative to smoking when his research led him to the device.

”I actually believe they are a safer alternative,” said Benitez, a poker dealer at Foxwoods Resort Casino and a New London resident. “The liquid is nowhere near as dangerous (as tobacco).”

Benitez, who also makes his e-cigarette purchases online, said start-up costs can run as high as $150. Over the past three months, he said he’s spent $30 on the liquid.

Both Jarvis and Benitez said they like that the e-cigarette cartridges come in different flavors, a feature opponents like Blumenthal say can make them more attractive to underage users.

”I don’t see a young person spending $150 on e-cigarettes instead of video games or something,” Benitez said.

FDA warnings aside, e-cigarette users, some of whom communicate in an online forum at www.VaporTalk.com, point to physicians who have rallied behind the product, including Dr. Michael Siegel, a professor at Boston University’s School of Public Health. In a blog posting Tuesday, Siegel wrote that laboratory analysis “certainly suggests that there is no major contamination of these products with carcinogens, indicating that these products are much safer than conventional cigarettes.”

Copyright © 19 Aug, 2009 Theday

Omaha, NE: Action 3 News is digging deeper to see if Omaha could deal with its money mess by imposing a cigarette tax. An anti-smoking group wants smokers to shell out more cash to light up, saying a tax will boost the budget. The city attorney tells us it’s just not that simple.

A new tax on cigarettes? An idea that is a burning issue for smokers. Angry over the though, Bernard Tharnis asks, “We can’t afford didley as it is and you want us to pay more taxes?”

Mark Welsch is the president of GASP, Group to Allievate Smoking Pollution. Welsch proposed the new tax idea to city council this week. “There can also be a city tax on tobacco if the city council and the Mayor agree to it,” says Welsch.

Taxing wholesalers he claims, would add up. Those wholesalers would in turn raise prices for smokers. Welsch explains, “For every nickel that the city would put into place, every nickel on a pack of cigarettes, they would raise a million dollars. So if they put in a ten cent tax they would raise two million.”

The question is, does the city have the ability to raise taxes on cigaretts? City Attorney Tom Mumgaard says no. “The city does not have the authority to tax products,” begins Mumgaard. He says Omaha once had a law that would tax people who only sell tobacco, but that’s not the case anymore. “The state decides which products are subject to the tax and the city can only tax the products chosen by the state.”

Mumgaard says the city does regulate the sale of tobacco. “We have ordinances on the book that require licenses and licenses fees,” he says. Action 3 News asks, ‘ Could the city make a profit by raising those license fees?’

Mumgaard responds, “In general, the law says you can’t profit from licenses fees. License fees are intended to recover the cost of regualtion rather than raising revenue for general operations.”

Action 3 News called both Mayor Jim Suttles office and members on the city council to get their take on a possible cigarette tax, they have been meeting with the Mayor to work on the budget and haven’t returned our calls.

Reported By: Liz Dorland; ldorland@action3news.com

Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s proposal to raise beer and cigarette taxes to fight state budget woes is getting kicked in the ribs. Then the smokers pause to catch their breath and start kicking again.

Sin taxation is strange business and, as the state learned earlier this year, not really a sustainable source of revenue.

The logic involved can drive a person to smoke. Take the Michigan Quit Line, which earlier this year offered free smoking cessation products to anybody who wanted them.

The program was funded with $900,000 from cigarette taxes. Consider the Catch-22. Without money from smokers, where will the free gum and patches come from? If smokers fund stop-smoking programs that actually work, who will supply the lozenges for tomorrow’s smokers?

In all seriousness, though, sin tax proponents say the state could save money in the long term with fewer people lighting up. Tobacco Free Michigan says every 1 percent reduction in the number of smokers corresponds to $723 million in future health care savings.

Talk lately has turned to soda, which is an easy and untapped target. The U.S. Senate in May heard a proposal for a 3-cent tax on all soda purchases.

Opponents cry class warfare, since the tax — like those on cigarettes, beer, gambling, etc. — would disproportionately affect the poor.

Michigan doesn’t tax soda — are we still calling it “pop”? — because it’s classified as food. Overheard on the metro desk: “Why does the state consider soda a food but not beer? Beer at least has wheat in it.”

Most proposals so far would exempt diet soda from taxation, which is odd for two reasons.

First, it’s not that much better, if at all, than regular soda .

Second, does it really make sense to tax only non-diet soda when the government still subsidizes sugar? Isn’t that like paying Paul in order to rob Peter? Or having revenue from cigarettes fund your stop-smoking programs?


Copyright © 2009 Mlive

Australia has an excellent and efficient system of death registration, involving complete notification of the event of death and certification of the cause of death by a medical practitioner. Additional questions are completed by the funeral director. Concerns about privacy have been raised, but the next-of-kin or family informants are already being asked mandatory questions about personal details of the deceased (such as place of birth, Indigenous status, and names of the mother and father of the deceased). Thus, inclusion of additional questions about the smoking status of the deceased (eg, ever smoked and age stopped) and the informant’s own smoking status (with an option to refuse) could be readily integrated into this procedural requirement of the doctor or the funeral director. Any potential problems relating to the legal status of this form can be overcome by minor changes in regulations and a statement undertaking that the data would be used “for statistical purposes only”. Some registrars of Births, Deaths and Marriages have raised practical concerns about any changes to the existing information systems. The amendments we describe would only require very modest modifications, yet their value for public health would be enormous.

Our proposal requires the support of the state and federal Attorneys-General, the state and territory registrars of Births, Deaths and Marriages, the medical profession and, importantly, funeral directors. The latter perform many of the necessary, often invisible administrative and cultural functions for deceased people and their families. Their important contribution to the vital statistical record is often underestimated. Implementing our proposal would substantially enhance the evidence base for tobacco control in Australia.

Romanians spent more than 1.1 billion euros on cigarettes in the first half of this year, while the total value of the cars sold during the same period amounted to a little more than 860 million euros, according to an analysis by ZF.

Sales of cars on the domestic market revolved around 860 million euros in the first six months, according to ZF’s calculations, down more than 65% compared with the same time of last year, to a volume of about 70,000 units sold.
The decline in value, however, was more serious than the decline in volume, as the average price of imported cars fell by 15% as a result of the discount campaigns conducted by most dealers, as well as of the increase in the share of petrol-driven models in the total, which are cheaper than cars running on diesel.

In comparison, the market of cigarettes, which make up the largest consumer goods category in Romania, attracted more than 1.1 billion euros in the first half. In 2008, cars fared better, with sales of around 5 billion euros, while cigarettes stopped at 2.5 billion euros.
“In the case of Porsche Inter Auto (PIA), the average price of cars fell from 19,000 euros in 2008 to approximately 17,000 at the moment and we expect the decline to worsen to 15,000-16,000 euros in the second half,” said Alin Tapalaga, general manager of Porsche Inter Auto, the retail division of Porsche Holding, which sells from models from Skoda Fabia, whose price is 8,000 euros, to Porsche and Audi models whose prices are close to 200,000 euros.
As for the total imported car market, players on the market say their prices fell by 15% on the average to approximately 14,000 euros this year, while Dacia’s prices kept constant at around 8,000 euros.
Sales of cars fell by approximately 50% in the first half of this year to 70,600 units, players on the market say. The decline of the overall vehicle market stood at over 55%, to a little more than 79,000 units.
“We will see an approximately 60% decline of the automotive market this year. We cannot estimate an exact volume because variables change from month to month. As for next year, the decline will slow down to 10-15%,” said Mihai Bordeanu, Lexus manager for the Balkan region.

Copyright © 2009 ZF

An owner of three homes or more must pay income tax on rent generated from leasing homes through “jeonse,” or rental based on a lump sum key deposit, as early as next year.

The government is also considering “sin taxes” on alcohol and tobacco.

The Strategy and Finance Ministry yesterday said it is devising measures to tax home rent from jeonse just like tax on monthly rent to resolve a shortfall in tax revenue and reduce tax exemptions and cuts for high-income earners.

The Korea Institute of Public Finance, which was commissioned to conduct a study by the ministry, held a public hearing on reforming the tax system for home rental at the Korea Federation of Banks building in Seoul yesterday.

Announcing the interim results of its study, the think tank said, “We should impose a rental income tax on an owner of three jeonse homes or more, and exempt a home owner whose key deposit for jeonse is 300 million won (235,600 U.S. dollars) or less.”

It also suggested a plan to offer tax deductions to tenants who pay monthly and bimonthly rent to help ease rent costs for low-income workers.

Owners of two or more homes or expensive homes have had to pay tax on their rental income but owners of jeonse rental homes were exempt, leading to controversy over equity in taxation.

Joo Yeong-seop, head of the ministry’s tax policy bureau who served as a panelist at the hearing, said, “Since we are considering introducing the income tax on jeonse home rental for the first time, we believe it desirable to tax owners of three homes or more and on more than a certain amount of jeonse key deposits.”

If the government limits the payers of income tax on home rental to those with three or more homes, the number of such taxpayers is projected to reach 560,000. Chances are high that the taxes they will pay will reportedly be determined by multiplying 60 percent of a jeonse key deposit by a tax rate to come up with the amount of payable tax.

Since many oppose income tax on jeonse key deposits, however, the plan will likely face intense dispute before being introduced. Critics say landlords could pass the tax on tenants, which in turn will increase real estate costs.

The ministry is also considering a drastic hike in taxes on external non-economy items that are considered to have a negative effect on society, including tobacco and liquor.

Copyright © 2009 Donga

As expected, on June 22, President Barack Obama signed legislation to grant the authority over tobacco products to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Of course, health advocates were delighted at the legislation’s passage and the president’s signing. Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said, the president “struck an historic blow against the greatest public health menace of our time.” He added that the president’s action is the strongest that the federal government has ever taken to reduce tobacco use.

“This new law will protect our children from the tobacco industry’s predatory marketing, save countless lives and reduce the enormous health and financial burden that tobacco use imposes on our nation,” Myers said.

The passage of the FDA legislation creates mixed feelings among the two major domestic tobacco manufacturers. Altria Group called Obama’s signing of the legislation “an important and historic achievement.” From the beginning of this long fight to passage, Altria has supported FDA regulation of tobacco products and still believes it is the right action.

“We have consistently advocated for federal regulation that recognizes the serious harm caused by tobacco products, that helps ensure tobacco companies do not market tobacco products to children and that also acknowledges that tobacco products are and should remain legal products for adults,” said Altria Chairman and CEO Michael Szymanczyk in a prepared statement released to the press. “We believe a comprehensive regulatory framework, implemented thoughtfully, can provide significant benefits to adult consumers.”

What FDA will do in the future is what concerns Reynolds American, a strong competitor to Altria Group. Maura Payne, vice president of communications, says Reynolds American did not support the bill as it was coming through Congress because of two important reasons-was FDA the best agency and did the legislation address harm reduction?

Payne says FDA already has a full slate of duties on its plate without adding tobacco regulation to it. In fact, she says the agency has a difficult time managing its current duties. Reynolds American and other parties, including the former FDA commissioner, have also expressed concern that FDA regulation will create “unintentional confusion,” she says, and may lead the public into believing that tobacco products might be safer than they were in the past just because the product has FDA approval.

The second major concern by Reynolds American had about the bill was that it did not incorporate a tobacco harm reduction component in the regulatory structure. Payne says the bill focuses on tobacco prevention and cessation, but could have had a more significant impact if adults who use tobacco had access to reliable scientific information on the different levels of risk, different risks for different present. She says those who choose to continue using tobacco products need to be educated about the different levels of risk involved with each type of product.

With all that said, Payne stresses that Reynolds American will abide by the laws of FDA, now that the agency has authority to regulation tobacco products.

She says the company has had a decade to prepare and envision what compliance would be like under FDA regulation, “and what we need to do.”

Nonetheless, the concern is still there. Will it FDA regulation squelch new product development? Will it offer fewer opportunities for the companies to give tobacco consumers alternatives? Time will tell.
Copyright © 2009 Lancasterfarming

Contrary to their reputation, fewer Scottish teenagers are smoking, drinking and – amongst boys at least – taking cannabis than they were two years ago, official figures released yesterday show.

However, the 2008 Scottish Schools Adolescent Lifestyle and Substance Use Survey does show changes in habits which may worry health experts. While the use of drink and drugs continues to decline, those who do partake are highly likely to truant or be excluded from school.

There is also disappointment that despite the rise in the minimum purchase age for cigarettes from 16 to 18 in 2007, rates of smoking among 15-year-old boys have increased.

Where alcohol is concerned, more than half of teenage drinkers reported that they drank at home and 11 per cent of 13-year-olds and 31 per cent of 15-year-olds said that they had had a drink in the past week.

However, these figures are five percentage points down on the previous survey in 2006. Overall, there has been a steady decline in teenage drinking since 2002, with consumption almost back to 1990 levels.

The number of children reporting they had never had alcohol also went up (48 per cent of 13-year-olds in 2008, up from 42 per cent in 2006). Amongst 15-year-olds, 18 per cent cent reported they had never had a drink in 2008, a rise from 16 per cent in 2006.

Compared to two years ago, fewer 15-year-old girls (78 per cent compared to 74 per cent) reported that they had ever been “really drunk”.

But those who do drink are increasingly bingeing at home on alcohol which has bought for them by friends and relatives. While supermarkets and shops overtook off-licences as a favourite source to buy alcohol, the amount teenagers obtained from people who bought it on their behalf more than doubled from 15 per cent in 1998 to 32 per cent in 2008 and is now by far the most common source.

Those who did drink got into trouble. Nearly 40 per cent of 13-year-olds and 55 per cent of 15-year-olds reported being involved in at least one of the following: arguments, fights, visits to Accident and Emergency, being seen by a doctor for an injury, being taken home by police, staying off school, vomiting, taking any drugs, or being in trouble with the police.

These events were slightly more common for girls. A quarter of 13-year-olds admitted having an argument and vomiting, compared to 40 per cent of 15-year-olds. Between 3 and 5 per cent of young people reported being having to attend hospital as a result of alcohol misuse.

More than half of all the teenagers surveyed said they were most likely to drink at home. A third of 13-year-olds and more than 40 per cent of 15-year-olds drank in the street or a park.

Children who drank were four times more likely to show abnormal conduct and be excluded from school. Boys who drank were 15 times more likely to truant frequently.

Where cigarettes were concerned, the numbers of 13 and 15-year-old girls who are regular smokers continues to decline. The proportion of pupils who reported they never smoked has gone up from 69 to 75 per cent of 13-year-olds and 47 to 51 per cent of 15-year-olds.

However, although it is illegal to sell cigarettes to children under the age of 18, 42 per cent of 13-year-old regular smokers and 57 per cent of 15-year-old regular smokers reported buying cigarettes from a shop. A significant number also bought from vending machines.

Family and peer group pressure was evident: the majority of children who smoked had parents who did, and more than a third said all or almost all their friends smoked.

The prevalence of teenagers using drugs in the month before the survey has remained stable since 2006, with the only decline amongst 13-year-old boys (down from 4 per cent to 3 per cent).

Up to 20 per cent of 15-year-olds and 5 per cent of 13-year-olds reported they had used drugs in the last year. By far the most common drug was cannabis. Only 1 per cent reported using anything else.

Nicola Sturgeon, the Health Secretary, commented: “We know that too many people continue to smoke and drink too much alcohol and this survey shows that young people are no exception. That’s why the government has taken swift action to help tackle these issues.

“The continued decrease in the number of teenagers who are smoking is welcome news, as is the significant rise in the number of young people who have never smoked. However, the fact that teenagers are still smoking shows the need for action.

“We have raised the age for tobacco sales to 18 and introduced proposals to remove cigarettes from open display in shops. I believe these measures will help to further reduce smoking amongst young people.

“In terms of alcohol, I am encouraged by the fact that fewer young people say they are drinking. However we will continue to promote a zero tolerance approach to underage sales and tough action against those who buy alcohol on behalf of under age young people.”

Dr Peter Terry, Chairman of BMA Scotland called foir minimum pricing on alcohol. He said: “When alcohol is cheaper than bottled water, we have to worry about what message we are sending our children.”

Ross Finnie MSP, Liberal Democrat health spokesperson, said: “This report shows that we must not assume every child spends their evenings smoking, drinking and taking drugs. But this is no time for complacency as the report throws up some serious issues.

“It shows the influence that parental behaviour has on children; 80 per cent of 13 year olds who are regular smokers have at least one parent that smokes.

“The study also revealed worrying gaps in children’s understanding of the consequences of illegal drugs. For instance 24 per cent didn’t realise that injecting drugs could lead to HIV.”
Copyright © 2009 Timesonline

AT LEAST one parliamentarian is agitating for the makers of tobacco to depict, in bold letters and pictures, information on what he said was the “indisputable medical truth that smoking causes impotence”.

According to Central Kingston Member of Parliament Ronald Thwaites, this would serve as one of the most effective measures of deterring persons from smoking.

Thwaites had asked Health Minister Rudyard Spencer on Tuesday in Parliament to outline the Government’s plans to introduce legislation restricting the use of tobacco.

Responding, Spencer said the administration would, this parliamentary year, table comprehensive legislation dealing with the restriction of tobacco use locally.

Inducing more addicts

The Central Kingston MP cautioned that any delay in the tabling of the proposed law dealing with tobacco use would provide an opportunity for the manufacturers of tobacco to “induce more addicts and to inevitably cause more sickness and death”.

However, Spencer told his parliamentary colleagues that tobacco producers have been printing on their packets the harmful use of tobacco. He said there had been a four per cent reduction in the use of the product since 1978.

Thwaites was not convinced that the “small advertisement” on the cigarette boxes was a sufficient deterrent to smoking.

“You will appreciate that a four per cent reduction in the use of tobacco is very significant, and I must say we are moving in the right direction,” Spencer pointed out.

Copyright © 2009 Jamaica-gleaner

New York’s top court says New York City lacks legal standing to sue Internet cigarette retailers for lost taxes under state business laws.

The Court of Appeals says the city and state now charge $4.25 per pack in excise taxes, which are owed by purchasers in New York.

The city argued some online retailers misrepresent their cigarettes as “tax free” and claim that they don’t have to file state sales reports identifying buyers, which is required by federal law.

It may be riskier on the lungs to smoke cigarettes today than it was a few decades ago – at least in the U.S., says new research that blames changes in cigarette design for fueling a certain type of lung cancer.

Up to half of the nation’s lung cancer cases may be due to those changes, Dr. David Burns of the University of California, San Diego, told a recent meeting of tobacco researchers.

It’s not the first time that scientists have concluded the 1960s movement for lower-tar cigarettes brought some unexpected consequences. But this study, while preliminary, is among the most in-depth looks. And intriguingly it found the increase in a kind of lung tumor called adenocarcinoma was higher in the U.S. than in Australia even though both countries switched to so-called milder cigarettes at the same time.

“The most likely explanation for it is a change in the cigarette,” Burns said in an interview – and he cited a difference: Cigarettes sold in Australia contain lower levels of nitrosamines, a known carcinogen, than those sold in the U.S.

That’s circumstantial evidence that requires more research, he acknowledged.

But anti-smoking advocates are citing the study as Congress considers whether the Food and Drug Administration should regulate tobacco, legislation that would give the agency power to decide such things as whether to set caps on certain chemicals in tobacco smoke.

Smokers once tended to get lung cancer in larger air tubes, particularly a type named “squamous cell carcinoma.” Then doctors noticed a jump in adenocarcinoma, which grows in small air sacs far deeper in the lung. Initial studies blamed introduction of filtered, lower-tar cigarettes. When smokers switched, they began inhaling more deeply to get their nicotine jolt, pushing cancer-causing smoke deeper than before.

Burns’ study, presented at a meeting of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco, took a closer look. He compared smoking behaviors of different age groups over four decades – how much they smoked, when they started, when they quit – and how cancer-risk changed.

The risk of squamous cell carcinoma stayed about the same over those years, Burns found. But adenocarcinoma rose. It makes up 65 percent to 70 percent of newly occurring U.S. lung cancer cases, but no more than 40 percent of Australia’s lung cancer, he said.

While the nation’s total lung cancer cases have inched down as the number of smokers has dropped in recent years, the study suggests an individual smoker’s risk of getting cancer is higher.

It’s well known that cigarettes differ from country to country, because of different tobacco crops grown locally and smokers’ varying tastes. Nitrosamines are a byproduct of tobacco processing and levels vary for several reasons, including differences in curing practices.

Australian cigarettes contain about 20 percent of the nitrosamine content of U.S. cigarettes, making the chemical a prime suspect, concluded Burns, who has been scientific editor of several surgeon general reports on tobacco.

That doesn’t rule out a role for deeper inhaling, cautioned Dr. Michael Thun of the American Cancer Society: “There’s several strong suspects in the lineup. They may have acted in combination.”

Philip Morris USA spokesman David Sutton called the study speculative and hard to evaluate until it’s published in a medical journal, something Burns plans to do.

Still, Philip Morris, which supports FDA tobacco regulation, began taking steps with its growers in 2000 that have yielded “significantly lower” nitrosamine levels in recent years’ supplies, Sutton said.

Be careful in assuming lower-nitrosamine cigarettes are less lethal, said Dr. Neal Benowitz of the University of California, San Francisco, a well-known tobacco expert. Lung cancer is only one of tobacco’s many risks – it causes heart disease and other killer diseases, too.

“If you reduce someone’s (lung cancer) risk by 10 percent, that’s not really meaningful for an individual,” he said. “The goal still is to get them to stop.”

A Journal Sentinel investigation found that industry-funded doctor education courses offered at UW often present a slanted view by favoring prescription medications over non-drug therapies and by failing to mention important side effects.

Among the findings:

•  Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer is spending $12.3 million on an online UW course for doctors to tell them how to get their patients to quit smoking. A top priority is prescribing Pfizer’s drug, Chantix, which has been linked to serious side effects, including a rash of suicides. But mention of the side effects can’t be found in course materials.

•  The German company Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals paid more than $320,000 to fund a UW course on a condition known as restless legs syndrome. The course said 10% of adults have the disorder, when other research suggests the actual figure is much lower.

•  Two companies, Pfizer and Bayer, have spent more than $340,000 to fund a UW continuing education course for doctors that touts their drugs, among others, to treat an extreme form of PMS. Doctors taking the course online aren’t told that some of these drugs may not work much better than a placebo.

Four of the nine UW doctor education courses offered online are funded by industry. Those courses are free, while the university-funded courses require doctors to pay a fee. UW officials defend the relationship with drug makers.

“All CME (Continuing Medical Education) courses at UW are evidence-based, free of commercial bias, and are designed to help physicians provide optimal, state-of-the-art care of patients,” said George Mejicano, director of UW’s Office of Continuing Professional Development.

It’s in the financial interest of both academia and industry to join forces to teach doctors: Universities receive large sums of money from drug makers, while the companies get a stamp of legitimacy from the academic center. But critics see ethical problems with the relationship.

“What you are seeing in Wisconsin is just another example of what is going on all over the country,” said Arnold Relman, professor emeritus at Harvard Medical School and a former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine. “It’s unethical, and it is not in the public interest because it is going to bias doctors to use certain drugs.”

Drug companies spend about $13 million a year to fund UW medical education courses, and the university receives about 27%, or nearly $3 million of that money, according to records. The rest is going to private firms that put together the course materials.

And because doctors are required to earn continuing medical education credit, the drug companies have a captive audience, said Daniel Carlat, an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Tufts University Medical School.

In Wisconsin, doctors must take 30 credits every two years. The UW’s online courses run up to 2 credits per course.

“Drug companies have found this to be a highly effective way to attract the attention of physicians,” Carlat said.

Mejicano countered that the courses “are not educational venues for pharmaceutical companies, but in fact are developed with the aim of improving the health of the public.”

Jack Cox, a Pfizer spokesman, said continuing medical education helps improve understanding of disease, expands evidence-based treatment and contributes to patient safety. He said all grants made by Pfizer are unrestricted. “We don’t shape the curriculum.”

In January, the Journal Sentinel reported that a $12 million grant from Wyeth Pharmaceuticals was used to fund a UW course on hormone therapy that promoted its benefits and downplayed its risks.

The course ran for several years despite strong evidence that such drugs can cause breast cancer, heart disease, stroke and blood clots. Wyeth makes two of the most popular hormone therapy drugs. Course materials were taken off the Web site only after reporters began asking questions.

EFSA receives requests for opinions mainly from the European Commission and occasionally from the European Parliament. Member States can also request opinions. The request outlines what is being asked of EFSA: the issue, the terms of reference, the timeframe etc.

Upon receipt of a request, EFSA considers its contents, discusses it with the Commission and addresses any issues that need clarifying, such as the feasibility of the deadline. Following these discussions, EFSA and the Commission agree on a mandate, which includes the final terms of reference and a mutually agreed deadline.

A request normally results in the delivery of an opinion by one of EFSA’s Scientific Panels or its Scientific Committee.

Information about each request, including supporting documents and the current status, is available in the Register of Questions database.

EFSA to assess the risks to human health from nicotine in wild mushrooms
EFSA has received an urgent request from the European Commission for a scientific opinion in relation to the risks for human health from nicotine in wild mushrooms. EFSA has been asked to provide this advice because food business operators have found dried wild mushrooms to be contaminated with nicotine. It is not known what caused the presence of the nicotine, but it could be the result of factors including its use in pesticides. EFSA aims to answer this request by 7 May 2009 and its response will then be published.

Source: Efsa.europa

Camera! Action! But no lights?

Debate on a bill to ban smoking at many work places in North Carolina was delayed in the Senate Health Care Committee on Wednesday because the motion picture industry worries the bill would prevent actors from smoking on screen.

The bill, which cleared the House three weeks ago, could bar smoking at many work sites, including film lots, the industry says.

Sen. Bill Purcell, D-Scotland, the committee’s co-chairman, said he wanted to give the movie industry in Wilmington sufficient time to propose an amendment. The bill will be considered next week, he said.

The state is among the nation’s leaders in generating film revenues.

“This is a big issue with the movie makers in North Carolina,” said Purcell, adding that he had no problem. “The film industry is a very important industry to North Carolina.”

A spokesman for the Motion Picture Association of America, which sought the change, didn’t immediately return a phone call seeking comment.

The bill’s chief sponsor, Rep. Hugh Holliman, D-Davidson, said Wednesday he wasn’t taking a stand on a moviemaking exemption yet.

“We’ll take a look at it. We’ll see what it does,” said Holliman, who tried unsuccessfully to pass similar smoking bans in 2005 and 2007.

Purcell said a new version of the bill expected before the committee would restore tougher restrictions on smoking that were deleted when the bill passed the House. A House provision to bar smoking in businesses or restaurants that employ or serve anyone under age 18 likely would be broadened, he said.

Purcell also said the definition of private clubs, whose patrons would be permitted to keep smoking, would be narrowed in an attempt to satisfy the North Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association, which doesn’t support the House version of the measure.

North Carolina is still the nation’s top tobacco-growing state, but that heritage still hasn’t prevent legislators in recent years from raising tobacco taxes from 5 cents per pack to 35 cents and banning smoking inside state buildings and their own Legislative Building.

North Carolina has been the site for filming of such movies as George Clooney’s “Leatherheads” and Will Ferrell’s “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.” The television series “Dawson’s Creek” was filmed in Wilmington, followed by “One Tree Hill.”