Host Kid Rock definitely turned the CMT Awards show into a party last night in Nashville. He kicked off the night by rocking out in an opening number with Hank Williams Jr.

He told the crowd afterward, “Just to be forewarned,” he told the audience. “If there’re any, like, Kanye West-ism going on, I’m about to bring out two beautiful ladies. Anyone thinking about grabbing a mic, myself or Bochephus will personally punch you in the mouth. Maybe I can get Trace Adkins … and then your weekend is really messed up.”

Later, he came onstage smoking a cigar. “I know there’s no smoking,” he said to a fan. “I got the memo. Calm down.”

He was also seen backstage doing shots in his dressing room with Kellie Pickler and other stars. Toward the end of the show, he said, “I felt good at the beginning. Now I feel real good, you know what I mean?”

For the final award, he was joined onstage by Sheryl Crow. He grabbed her and said, “Will you just have my baby?” Sheryl replied, “I don’t know how to answer that. If it’s a girl, maybe.

COLONIE, N.Y. — NEWS10 caught a couple of protests on Tuesday over tobacco taxes.

First, the New York Association of Convenience Stores joined forces with several state lawmakers to demand that Governor Paterson finally collect taxes on cigarettes that are sold on Native American reservations.

Merchants who do collect the taxes say the Native Americans have an unfair advantage, claiming that lots of “mom & pop” stores are going out of business.

Paterson promised earlier this year that he would get the sales tax that’s owed the state, about $ 1 billion annually, according to lawmakers. But they say, so far, no action.

A couple of hours later, the New York Tobacconist Association said dozens of stores selling cigars and pipe tobacco will go out of business if lawmakers approve the governor’s proposal to nearly double the excise tax on non-cigarette tobacco products, from 46 to 90 percent.

A cigar that costs $7 now would then cost $13.

“Think about it, a 90 percent tax,” said Brad Gerstman of the association, “has anyone ever heard of such a thing?”

Jeff Blatnick of Ballston Lake, the gold medal wrestling champ from the 1984 Olympics, joined the protestors, saying he enjoys an occasional cigar, understands the health risks, but believes it is a personal choice.

By JOHN McLOUGHLIN
Wten, Jun 08, 2010

LANSING — Michigan’s statewide smoking ban, which is to take effect May 1, will allow established cigar bars to sell food and drink, the state Department of Community Health (DCH) announced Friday.

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But the law will not allow any new smoking cigar bars; they had to have been established by April 1.

And patrons in cigar bars can’t smoke cigarettes, pipes, so-called little cigars or any other tobacco products. Only tobacco-wrapped cigars that retail for more than $1 each can be smoked in cigar bars.

The rule clarification was sought by cigar bars that serve food and drinks. To qualify for the exemption, cigar bars must prove that at least 10% of their monthly income is from the sale of cigars and the rental of humidors.

“To fail to recognize how cigar bars will generate the other 90% of their gross annual income would be absurd,” DCH director Janet Olszewski wrote in a memo Friday.

She said the Legislature intended to allow eating and drinking in cigar bars when it wrote the new law. Tobacco shops and hookah lounges can’t serve food and drinks, according to the ban.

Gary Reed, a Lansing lobbyist who represents cigar bars, said he did not know how many cigar bars are in Michigan but guessed several hundred.

The smoking ban includes all workplaces, restaurants and bars and enclosed public places such as shopping malls, arenas and health facilities.

Smoking will be allowed on the gaming floors of Detroit casinos, and at cigar bars and tobacco shops that qualify under the rules. The casino restaurants and bars must be smoke-free.

The smoking ban does not apply to American Indian-owned casinos.

Throwing another idea into the budget ring, Councilman Darrell Clarke today plans to introduce legislation that would tax cigars and chewing tobacco.

Council members also said they were reviewing a budget report from Econsult Corp. that said the city could raise as much as $20 million by restructuring the business-privilege tax.

These two ideas are part of complex negotiations on how to close a budget gap projected at up to $150 million. Mayor Nutter has proposed an annual $300-per-household trash fee and a 2-cent-per-ounce tax on sugary beverages, which would be charged as part of a retailer’s business tax.

Council seems to have rejected the trash-fee plan. Many members prefer a proposal to raise property taxes. And the soda tax – which has drawn harsh criticism from soft-drink manufacturers, Teamsters and retailers – may be hanging by a thread.

Clarke said his tobacco-products tax, which would affect chewing tobacco, cigars, pipe tobacco and rolling papers, but not cigarettes, would be levied on retailers as part of the business tax and could raise $6 million annually.

“An overwhelming majority of Council members will support this measure,” Clarke said. “It’s at a point where we’re trying to find any measures we can find consensus on.”

Under Clarke’s legislation, chewing and pipe tobacco would be taxed at 36 cents per ounce and individual cigars at 3.6 cents per ounce.

Although there is no legislation on the table yet, Council members have also been seriously looking at the business tax, which has two components – a gross-receipts portion, which taxes firms on their sales, and a net-income portion, which taxes profits.

The report Econsult provided to Council states that if the gross-receipts rate went from 0.1415 percent to 0.2 percent and the net-income rate went from 6.45 percent to 6 percent, the city could realize $20 million in additional revenue.

Econsult stresses in the report that the data on the business-privilege tax is “very preliminary.”

Any change to the business-tax structure would mark a major shift in city tax policy. Since 1995, the city has been making small reductions to the gross-receipts tax, which reformers have long criticized for hitting businesses on their sales, even if they don’t make a profit.

But Council members Bill Green and Maria Quinones-Sanchez have been reviewing a change in course – eliminating the net-income portion of the tax and raising the gross-receipts levy. They argue that the current structure penalizes city-based firms and lets national retailers get away with paying little or nothing.

Sanchez said Council was reviewing the Econsult report, noting that the idea might work as part of a multiyear plan to reduce the net income and increase gross receipts.

“It is something I’m going to advocate very strongly that we look at,” Sanchez said. “I’m hopeful that over the next couple of weeks we will decide if this is a viable option.”

Finance Director Rob Dubow said the city had serious concerns about raising the gross-receipts portion of the business tax.

“Studies have shown that is a real job- killer,” Dubow said. “We haven’t had any real discussion with them about this. But we’d have real concerns about this.”

Havana, Cuba – Faced with a two-year slump in sales, Cuban cigar makers have unveiled a new weapon in the hunt for consumers: Julieta, a slim smoke made just for her.

The global recession, combined with anti-smoking laws, have put the squeeze on Cuba’s hand-rolled stogies, one of the quintessential symbols of privilege.

International sales fell 8 percent in 2009 to $360 million following a 3 percent drop in 2008, according to Habanos S.A., a joint venture between Cuba and Britain’s Imperial Tobacco Group.

Julieta, with its handsome gold and red bands, impressed distributors at Havana’s annual cigar festival.

“I think to come up with a product that is appealing to women in terms of it’s size, it’s blend, it’s packaging, can only be positive,” said Jemma Freeman, of the UK-based Hunters & Frankau distributors.

“I think it’s the right thing to do, I think there’s a demographic out there hat’s interested in smoking cigars, particularly women,” she added as she it up.

But others, like Cigar Aficionado’s James Suckling, were not optimistic.”It’s a bit of a girly cigar,” he said puffing on the thin cigar. “I find it little bit patronizing really. I mean the women I know who smoke enjoy great cigars just like the cigars that guys smoke.”

Women represent less than 10 percent of current consumers, something Habanos vice-president Manuel Garcia hopes to change.

Habanos produces 27 premium brands that can fetch more than $500 a box.

They get their start in the western province of Pinar del Rio, thanks to a combination of soil, climate, humidity and hundreds of years of tobacco-growing tradition.

“We’re looking at another quality year,” plantation director Maria Luisa Alvarez told CNN as she walked among the neatly planted rows of leaves.

The tobacco is then hung up in wooden drying houses that dot the lush countryside.

The cigars themselves are hand-rolled in traditional factories and converted mansions in Havana amid the clatter of tiny guillotines and the rich smell of tobacco.

Cuban stogies dominate the market for high-end cigars despite the U.S. trade embargo, which bans their sale in America.

Some U.S. consumers still manage to get their hands on the coveted merchandise, and even turned up at the recent Havana cigar festival, despite travel restrictions.

“It’s been a dream come true for me to be in the land where it all happens,” said a man, who declined to give his name.

“I hope in the not too far future, trade opens up and that Americans can enjoy like the rest of the world a product that they really desire,” he said.

Cuban cigar makers no doubt agree, considering the United States is by far the biggest market for stogies.
By Shasta Darlington, CNN
March 31, 2010

WICHITA, Kansas — The state taxation committee may vote Thursday on whether to recommend an increase in the tobacco tax.

The tax includes a $.55 tax on a pack of cigarettes but also a hefty tax on cigars.

The Humidor, cigar shop and lounge in west Wichita just opened up in November but owner Jason Webster fears an increase in the tobacco tax may force his entire investment to go up in smoke.

“With the way they have it written right now we would be gone there’s no way to stay in business if this goes through,” said Webster.

The bill would raise the tax on cigars from 10% to 40% enough to force even loyal customers like Joe Rulo to take his business to the internet.

“I would rather not do that, I would rather support my local businesses,” said Rulo.

In addition in July, store owners would have to pay a 30% tax on the retail price of every cigar in stock. For Webster, that would mean writing a check for tens of thousands of dollars.

“We can’t pass that through to the customers,” said Webster. “They won’t pay it. They’ll go on line. The state will lose all of the revenue instead of just a portion.”

Still the state estimates the tax could raise $69.5 million for the state’s strapped budget.

And health advocates argue a tax would reduce smoking rates especially among teenagers.

“When you increase the tobacco tax you increase the chances that someone will quit smoking or simply won’t pick up a pack of cigarettes because they can’t afford it,” said Diane Tinker of the American Lung Association.

She says the tax would save healthcare costs as well.

But business owners like Webster argue customers will only go somewhere else, killing his business and further sickening the Kansas economy.

Webster has sent out a mass e-mail urging all of his customers to contact their lawmakers and voice their concerns.

Grab the cigars and the brandy and let’s retire to the smoking room — ladies.

Nova Scotia cigar retailers were smiling Tuesday with reports of a new marketing focus on women by Habanos SA, the international distributor of Cuban cigars.

After reporting an eight per cent drop in sales for 2009 for a total of $360 million, the company announced a new focus on thinner and milder products for female puffers to pump up sales.

Special cigars made just for women will soon be appearing in your local tobacco store.

Word will go out that cigars are for men and for women.

“They could be on to something,” said Craig Sievert, at Sieverts Tobacco Store on Barrington Street in Halifax.

“Women like the little flavoured cigars and these are to be banned beginning July 1. There are concerns they are falling into the hands of too many minors,” said Sievert.

The international cigar distributor of popular brands such as Cohiba, Monte Cristo and Partagas, said a search for a new market is required as it is getting more difficult to sell more expensive brands in the post-recession economy, especially with aggressive anti-smoking laws being introduced around the world.

The company is hoping to increase sales with a new brand called the Julieta, a smaller and milder cigar designed with women smokers.

“Women could very well become a source of increased business,” said Bob Gee, who owns Mader’s Tobacco Store in Kentville.

The tobacco sellers agreed more high-grade cigars would be sold if the price came down. A Monte Cristo for those on a budget costs about $15, a Cohiba is about $60 (plus 13 per cent HST). By comparison, a carton of 200 (eight packs of 25s) cigarettes can cost almost $100.

A cigar designed for women would have to be priced right, they said.

Habanos said Monday about five or 10 per cent of its customers are women who buy the products to smoke themselves and not for gifts.

HAVANA, – With anti-smoking laws and the global recession causing sales to fall, Cuba wants to develop a largely untapped market for its famous cigars — women.

Habanos S.A. executives said on Monday sales fell 8 percent to $360 million in 2009, so they have created the Julieta, a smaller, milder version of the Romeo y Julieta cigar, aimed specifically at female smokers.

Women now make up only 5 to 10 percent of customers for Habanos, the worldwide distributor of Cuban cigars, marketing director Ana Lopez told a news conference kicking off the annual Habanos cigar festival.

The Julieta is an attempt to overcome perceptions among women that Cuban cigars are made up of “only strong tobacco for men,” she said.

The search for new markets is needed because even though Cuban cigars are considered the world’s finest, sales are slipping with the rise of anti-smoking laws around the world, said Habanos vice president Manuel Garcia.

The 8 percent sales drop in 2009 was preceded by a 3 percent fall, to $390 million, in 2008.

Even with the creation of the Julieta, Garcia said Habanos has only modest hopes for 2010 sales, due largely to a weak economy in Spain, the biggest market for Cuban cigars.

“We think it would be a very good result if we can at least maintain the (sales) we reached in 2009,” he said.

Habanos is a joint venture between Cuba and British tobacco giant Imperial Tobacco Group Plc.

Habanos — which produces other well-known brands such as Cohiba, Monte Cristo, Trinidad and Partagas — has about 71 percent of the sales in its markets, Garcia said.

The U.S. market, the largest in the world with 230 to 250 million cigars smoked annually, is off limits to Habanos due to the U.S. trade embargo imposed against Cuba since 1962.

In the Embajadores room at the Habana Libre hotel the air is thick with the sweet, honeyed smoke of cigars. Outside, Havana’s La Rampa street bustles with the sound of the early-evening crowd. A queue forms around Coppelia’s parlor, a favorite with the locals, reputedly making the best ice cream on the island. Beyond, a short walk away, lies the Malecón, the weathered promenade that snakes its way around Havana’s northern coastline, busy filling up with Cubans who go there to meet, flirt, smoke and exchange gossip.

Back inside the Habana Libre, once the headquarters of Fidel Castro’s revolutionary armed forces, the Embajadores room is virtually full. Around 500 cigar aficionados, a mix of distributors, importers, specialists and enthusiastic smokers have gathered for the premiere of Trinidad’s Robusto T.

On that evening a year ago, it is the first time the cigar is smoked anywhere in the world. Among the aficionados it is well received. Of the many descriptions heard that night is woody, spicy, full-bodied and creamy. Many people compliment it on having a wonderful draw.

As the cigars are handed out on trays, all eyes turn to a small group of VIPs notable for their late arrival. Among them is David Soul, better known as the actor who played Hutch in the television series “Starsky and Hutch.” For a moment he’s in danger of upstaging Fidelito, Fidel Castro’s son, a regular at such occasions. Welcome to night three of the Festival del Habano, a week-long celebration of the Cuban tobacco industry. If you thought the world of wine appreciation was niche, try cigars.

One year on, anyone who is anyone in the cigar world will this weekend be flying into Havana’s Jose Marti International Airport for the 12th annual festival. They will get five days of cigar tastings, tobacco-plantation visits, seminars, factory tours and smoking, lots and lots of smoking.

It is, says Simon Chase, a former director of London-based cigar importer Hunters & Frankau and a festival regular, a chance to rub shoulders with the movers and shakers in the Cuban tobacco industry and experience the tradition of Cuba’s cigar lineage first hand.

It was through Mr. Chase that I enjoyed my first experience of cigars in 2004. My first lesson was not to inhale — as with wine, cigar appreciation is all about the taste. (Although it is worth pointing out that the U.S. National Cancer Institute warns that there is no safe tobacco, and cigar smoke, like cigarette smoke, contains toxic and cancer-causing chemicals that are harmful to both smokers and nonsmokers.)

“One tastes a cigar and smokes a cigarette,” Mr. Chase told me. “In that sense it is an entirely different experience. Like a fine wine, each cigar is a blend of aged tobacco. So one doesn’t inhale, one gently puffs, rather like sipping vintage Bordeaux.”

With this in mind I was invited a few years ago to judge in a contest to ascertain which brand of Cuban cigars matched best with Scotch whisky. After sipping and puffing my way through a number of combinations, I found that the sweeter the beverage the better the match. So port and rum work very well with most cigars. Some whiskies and particularly red wine (although premium aged blends and sweeter single malts tend to be an exception to the rule) do tend to dry the palate, which can leave a nasty, bitter flavor. In the end we chose Macallan, a whisky noted for its mahogany color and distinctive nose of dried fruit, chocolate orange, wood spices and full, rich oak flavor; which we paired with a Partagas Piramides cigar.

It was on that first trip to the Festival del Habano that I was struck by the similarities between wine appreciation and cigar appreciation. Both are agricultural products, have long and distinguished histories, command the same attention to detail in production and packaging, and can age for many years.

Moreover, as a great wine is defined by the terroir of its vineyard, so the character of a fine cigar is intimately connected with the land where the tobacco grows.

A key fixture of the festival is a visit to one of Cuba’s tobacco-growing regions. The early-morning drive from Havana to Vuelta Abajo in the westernmost corner of the Pinar del Rio tobacco-growing province passes through a patchwork of fields filled with lush, green plants.

Visually, I found it reminiscent of Chile’s Maipo valley, although instead of vineyards there are tobacco fields. Around 80,000 acres of tobacco are planted each year in the region. The growing process lasts around 10 months ending with the harvest between January and March.

After the harvest, the leaf is taken to the farmer’s curing barn where it is hung, dried and gathered together before undergoing a natural fermentation. This process sweats out the impurities, reducing acidity, tar and nicotine, and creating a finer, purer flavor. The leaves are then hand-sorted into sizes before being baled up and transferred to the warehouse, where they are left to age for three years.

The next step mirrors the blending art found in the wine and Scotch whisky industry as each tobacco plot produces a variety of flavors, which the master blender, or ligador, selects. The final blend is then rolled in the many factory houses dotted around Havana. In that sense, it is one of the world’s last luxury-goods items to be produced on a mass scale by hand.

As a shorthand guide, those wanting a full-bodied rich cigar should look out for Partagas, Cuaba, Bolivar and Ramon Allones. Perhaps a little lighter, but still heavy are Cohiba, Montecristo, Vegas Robaina and Trinidad. Romeo y Julieta, Quintero, Punch and H. Upmann offer a lighter smoke. The most delicate flavors are achieved by Hoyo de Monterrey, San Cristobal de la Habana and Guantanamera, which creates a nutty, intense and fragrant flavor.

This year, at the 12th festival, there will be a presentation of a new size of Romeo y Julieta cigar created with women smokers in mind. Mr. Chase welcomes the development but says, ironically, it is the male interest that has fueled the recent interest in the product.

“One thing about cigar smoking is that it is predominantly a male preserve,” he says. “Over the years there have been quite a lot of male bastions assailed and taken over by the other gender. Here is one [cigar smoking] which is still a male preserve.”

Ranald Macdonald, managing director of the London-based restaurant group Boisdale, has been taking a group to the festival for the past 10 years. He says that the pace of economic change in Havana has been such that a decade has been comparable to 40 years in Europe. As a result there has been a general improvement in cigar manufacturing, and thus the overall quality of cigars has never been higher.

“Cigars now taste so much better than they did 10 years ago,” Mr. Macdonald says. “This is down to a number of improvements but to give one example, from 2002 they have been freezing cigars which has eliminated tobacco-eating pests such as weevil.”

This weekend, Mr. Macdonald’s group will be scouring the cigar shops of Havana to stock up on a year’s supply of tobacco.

“Havana is one of the most enigmatic places on earth,” he says. “And everything about it, from where it sprung from in the 17th century to what it went through in the 20th century to where it is now, makes Europe feel rather dull.” I’ll smoke to that.

The 12th Festival del Habano takes place in Havana from Feb. 22 to 26.

By Will Lyons
Printed in The Wall Street Journal

Athens – More than six months after Greece introduced a ban on smoking in public places, officials were conceding that the third attempt to stamp out the habit is failing, it was reported Friday. Greece, one of the last bastions of smoking in the European Union, introduced a ban on smoking in public places on July 1.

According to a report in the Greek daily Kathimerini, despite awareness campaigns that were initially well received by the public in the countdown to the ban, the necessary reforms have not been carried out to ensure that the restrictions are enforced.

As a result, smoking continues in most bars and cafes, public offices and hospitals, according to Panayiotis Behrakis, the head of the steering committee set up to oversee the implementation of the restrictions.

“The whole country is smoking,” Behrakis was quoted as saying to Kathimerini.

Under the new law, anyone caught lighting up will now be subject to a 1,000 euros (1,400 dollars) fine, whilst establishments that do not comply with the new regulations risk losing licences.

Britain, Ireland, France, Germany and other EU states have already introduced public smoking bans.

But, considering Greece’s patchy track record for implementing new laws, it appears that the new law, which allows for some loopholes and is largely unpopular has proved to be unsuccessful.

One of the problems seems to be that bar and cafe owners have submitted incomplete applications for revised operating licenses.

Small cafes and restaurants with premises measuring less than 70 square metres have had to choose between becoming tobacco-free or admitting only patrons who smoke.

In addition, companies with more than 50 employees will be able to set up dedicated smoking areas on their premises.

Similar laws introduced in 2002 and 2003 went largely unheeded in a country where nearly 45 per cent of adults smoke and where puffing on cigarettes in offices and cafes is seen as a traditional pastime.

Each year, 20,000 people in the nation of 11 million die from tobacco-related illnesses, according to European Commission figures that place Greece ahead of Bulgaria at 39 per cent and Latvia, 37 per cent of the share of adult smokers.

A 2007 survey found the number of smokers in Greece had risen 10 per cent in a decade while other developed nations were kicking the habit.

The number of teenagers who have never lit up a cigarette is rapidly increasing, leading some to conclude a sea change is occurring in young people’s attitudes to tobacco.

Surveys for the Ministry of Health show that just over half of teenagers aged 15 to 19 have never tried smoking – “not even one puff”. This is markedly higher than in 2006, when the figure was 39 per cent.

The trend, attributed to the increasing “denormalisation” of smoking through changes like the 2004 ban on smoking in bars, is even more marked among 14- and 15-year-olds. A survey of them in 2008 found that 61 per cent reported never having smoked – a figure that has nearly doubled in nine years.

The possibility of a radical shift in youth behaviour and attitudes to smoking coincides with a two-pronged push to plot the demise of tobacco.

The public health community and Maori Party MP Hone Harawira are campaigning for the eventual elimination of what they call an addictive poison that should no longer be considered a normal consumer product.

The National-led Government refused – in line with storekeepers’ wishes – to implement the recommendation to put tobacco out of public view in shops. Yet it is convinced of the importance of reducing the smoking rate, so much so that it is holding district health boards to account on their smoking-cessation support to hospitalised smokers.

This is because smoking is so destructive – to individuals and to the economy. By causing serious illnesses like lung cancer, cardiovascular disease and other breathing and circulation conditions, it kills 4200 people a year, and secondhand smoke is estimated to take another 300.

And it costs the economy more than $1.6 billion, of which $1.5 billion is spent on healthcare.

Smokers spend about $1.6 billion a year on tobacco products, of which more than $1 billion is taken by the government in excise tax and GST.

Campaigning by the Maori Party has led to Parliament’s Maori affairs committee deciding to hold an inquiry aimed at forcing the tobacco industry to reveal the methods it has used to promote smoking among Maori.

The committee is likely to recommend radical tobacco-control policies to the Government.

Smokefree campaigners such as Ben Youdan, the director of Action on Smoking and Health, are excited about the inquiry, which they see as a turning point in the history of smoking – and not just for Maori.

“This is a major opportunity to get tobacco manufacturers, who are the ones responsible for promoting tobacco and getting people addicted, to be publicly held to account.
“Traditionally, New Zealand has been a leader in tobacco control, for example banning advertising and introducing smokefree environments.

“Now we need to look at some of the end-game solutions for tobacco. The inquiry is a great opportunity to do that, to make tobacco a highly controlled product by 2020.”

Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia, who holds portfolio responsibility for tobacco control as Associate Minister of Health, last year put pressure on the Government by strongly suggesting that she favoured banning retail tobacco displays and increasing the excise tax, particularly on roll-your-own tobacco.

An acting deputy director-general at the ministry, Ashley Bloomfield, said discussions were ongoing with Mrs Turia and Health Minister Tony Ryall over displays, and a licensing regime for tobacco retailers was “on our radar”.

He asserted that the evidence from the surveys of 14- and 15-year-olds was compelling, that youth attitudes and behaviour had swung firmly against tobacco.

Although the adult smoking rate, currently around 20 per cent, was declining only slowly, Dr Bloomfield said he was confident the youth change would flow through into a lower adult rate.

But Otago University marketing expert Professor Janet Hoek said the increasing proportion of never-smokers among young people did not automatically translate into reduced adult smoking prevalence.

She said the fact that smoking prevalence remained quite high among those aged 18 to 24 indicated the initiation age of smoking had simply been deferred because of the restrictions that applied to younger people.

Dr Bloomfield accepted there had been some deferral, but said the increase in youth who had never smoked was critically important.

“The longer you delay initiation the better, because they are less likely to take it up the older they get – once you get over 18 and get through those teenage years with their very strong peer pressure to try these things.

“In the past, 80 to 90 per cent [of smokers] have been addicted by the time they turn 18.”

Smokefree Coalition director Prudence Stone said Ireland’s retail display ban, introduced in July, had led to a sharp change in youth attitudes.

“They were asked to recall tobacco products on display. Their recall dropped dramatically, from 80 per cent before the ban to just over 20 per cent after. And less of them had confidence they could purchase cigarettes from a retailer after the ban.”

Banning retail displays and applying progressive tax increases are key measures the Maori affairs committee will be asked to support.

Others include killing off tobacco brands, allowing tobacco packets to carry only generic text and health warnings, and capping the volume of tobacco released for sale, which would force up the price.

By Martin Johnston
Jan 4, 2010

AMHERST – On Saturday night, the North Amherst barn that for nearly 90 years held leaves of drying tobacco will become a beacon of light.

Called “Shedding Light,” the month-long nightly illumination will mark the end of the town’s 250th anniversary celebration. But it is also intended to call attention to the town’s farming history, and the need to support the family farm today. The barn is on the property of the third-generation Swartz Family Farm on Meadow Street.

When artist and architect Erika H. Zekos moved to town five years ago, she was taken with the tobacco barns of the area.

“I saw the sunlight streaming in” between the slats, she said, and she thought about what it would be like “flipping that around, to let the light stream out through the barn like a lantern.”

So she went in search of just the right barn. The Swartz farm grows most of its produce hydroponically, without the use of pesticides, and is able to sell greens year-round. She talked with farmer Joseph P. Swartz and his wife, Sarah, who loved the idea.

“Family farmers are struggling,” Zekos said. “I want to bring some attention to their value and what they have to do to make a living.”

Travelers tend to drive past the tobacco barns without really looking at them, Zekos said. With the lighting, she hopes people “will stop and take the time to see their value.”

When Zekos approached the Amherst Public Arts Commission with the idea two years ago, chairwoman Terry Rooney said she loved it. “I wanted to push the boundaries of (what is) public art in the Valley.”

She too liked the idea “of bringing attention to a vanishing heritage.” Without attention, the barns might not be around for the town’s 300th anniversary celebration, she said.

Initially Rooney proposed lighting the barn with solar panels, but in October the Commonwealth Solar Rebate Program canceled any further applications for solar rebates. Instead of costing $1,000, the project would cost $20,000.

She wrote an opinion page piece about what happened, and since then a contractor has offered to do it for half the cost. But instead of being lit by solar power, now the barn will be illuminated with low-energy lights. The commission, however, will continue to raise money to bring solar panels to the farm to help reduce the farm’s energy cost, Rooney said.

“It’s really a great project,” Swartz said. “The display is really dramatic. It’s nice to see a public art project like this celebrating our agricultural heritage.”

Town Manager Laurence R. Shaffer said “I think it’s tremendous.” He credits Zekos and Rooney for being able to bring this forward. “It takes an historic architecture … and tries to bring it forward into the 21st century … It’s a very interesting concept. It will demonstrate the singular beauty of these sheds.”

The barn will be lit from sunset to 10 p.m. from Saturday until the end of December. As part of the opening Saturday, the farm will be open for tours beginning at 3 p.m. Also, a panel discussion will be held in conjunction with the display at the Nacul Center, 592 Main St., beginning at 2 p.m.

Anyone wishing to help with the solar panels can send or bring checks to Town Hall or the Jones Library, Rooney said.
December 04, 2009
By DIANE LEDERMAN, Masslive

Opening a retail outlet to sell a product that many people consider harmful might seem risky in the best of times, let alone in a down economy.

But at least four tobacco-related businesses have opened recently in Wichita or are close to doing so.

Jason Webster and Neil Edwards recently opened the Humidor Cigars & Lounge at 8558 W. 21st St.

It’s a spin-off from the smoke shop next door to ABC Discount Wine & Spirits, Webster said. “We kept expanding the humidor and finally we just ran out of space” and moved the cigar part of the business to a separate building. The front half is the retail area; the back half is a cigar lounge.

A Humidor also opened recently at 2221 N. Woodlawn. That one is owned by Rick Daugherty.

Mary and Maher Gerges just opened Shesha Tobacco Shop in Towne West Square.

It’s in a space where another tobacco shop was a few years back and offers a variety of tobacco, including cigars and tobacco for hookah water pipes.

Space at 2821 W. 13th St. is being remodeled for Steve’s Smoke Town, according to signs outside.

Webster said business at the smoke shop has been steady through the years.

But “I see fewer smoke shops than there used to be” around Wichita. “That’s probably helped us maintain some of our business.”

David Flax, who owns four Tee Pee’s Smoke Shops in Wichita and two in Newton, has seen others leave the business and said it would be tougher to open a new store now than it was 15 years ago, when he started.

“There’s so much stuff in the last 15 years that has changed,” he said, mentioning attitudes about smoking, the number of products available, state regulation and the price of cigarettes.

He has seen customers switch to roll-your-own tobacco and electric cigarettes that give the user a dose of nicotine without smoke. And to stay in business, he has to stock those as well as the cigarettes that they can buy anywhere else for the same price.

“You have to have everything the customer wants,” he said, and a customer who can find only two of the three things he wants will shop elsewhere.

Valeria Stanford manages Central Smoke Shop, which has been open about two years. She said the first three months or so were a struggle, “but we’re doing well.”

Customers complain about increasing prices but keep buying, she said.

The shop offers some convenience store products as well as tobacco, she said, but “what’s keeping our doors open is the cigarettes.”

Webster, of the Humidor, said he thinks people — especially younger ones — are looking for inexpensive ways to indulge themselves, and cigars and other tobacco products give them a way.

“I think it’s a younger generation that’s driving our business now,” he said.

With more space for cigars and a lounge in which to smoke them, he said, “we’ll increase our sales enough to hopefully make this thing work.”

BY KAREN SHIDELER
November 25, 2009, Kansas

Hartsville native and President of Gold Leaf Seed Co. Marion Hawkins gave the Hartsville Kiwanis a lesson in the history of the tobacco industry and his company at the group’s weekly meeting on Thursday at the Hartsville Country Club.

During colonial days, Hawkins said, tobacco was one of the nation’s biggest exports. In the mid 1800s, tobacco was booming when Duke Co. in Durham began making cigarettes. Since early 1900s it’s grown in lower part of South Carolina.

“U.S. tobacco is still sold at a premium. It has a different aroma, smell, and it’s excellent for making cigarettes,” Hawkins said.

U.S. tobacco has a unique quality compared to other places, even when the same variety is planted, he said.

In South Carolina, the majority of tobacco grown is flue-cured. The leaves are cured with heat, and the name comes from the flue in the back of the barn used to cure the tobacco. Flue tobacco makes up 75 percent of cigarettes. The second type of tobacco is burley, which is air-cured. The leaves are darker in color and are used mostly in pipes and snuff.

Today, there are 220,000 acres of flue-cured tobacco in the United States, which represents less than 5 percent of the world market. China and Brazil are now at the top of the market.

“Tobacco is a very unique plant,” Hawkins said.

In 90 days, under normal conditions, it should grow to 35 pounds.

“It’s a weed. No other plant grows that big that fast,” Hawkins said.

In 1900s, at mercy of tobacco companies, farmers would receive 5 cents a pound one year and 25 cents a pound the next. The farmer was at a disadvantage with the major companies.

In 1933, the government instituted price supports for tobacco, and tobacco was graded. From 1933 to 2004, farmers brought tobacco to auction sales that helped farmers hold the price.

Until the 1940s, the United States had 70 percent of the world’s tobacco production. Once the price supports were implemented, the U.S. technology went to Brazil, Canada and other countries.

Over the years, the U.S. flue tobacco acreage dropped from 440,000 acres in 1970 to 220,000 acres in 2004.

“We priced ourselves out of the market,” Hawkins said.

In 2004, tobacco was $1.86 per pound from the United States but only 96 cents a pound in Brazil.

To help fix the problem, farmers received a buyout financed by the major tobacco companies based on their market share in 2004. At the time, $10 billion was to be paid to farmers over a 10-year period to do away with the price supports.

“This opened a closed market,” Hawkins said.

Those with a quota were paid $7 to $10 per pound or around $20,000 per acre. Once the quotas ended, farmers had to get contracts from the major companies.

In 2004, the average age of farmers was 57, and most got out of the business with the buyout, Hawkins said. Now there are fewer farmers, but they’re bigger.

“It’s dropping down to just a few, but they’re very proficient,” Hawkins said. “You can make good money, but you have to have equipment, barns … it’s a lot of investment.”

In the United States today, there are two major companies, but internationally there’s a lot of competition.
“Our acreage has dropped,” Hawkins said. “We had to put emphasis on international sales.”

Tobacco is no longer grown from raw seed in the United States either. It’s done 100 percent in greenhouses.

Gold Leaf Seed sends raw seed to a California company that uses a float system to coat the seed to make them 25 times bigger, large enough to be picked up by machines. The machines place exactly one per slot in divided trays of potting soil.

The seeds can produce plants in 50 days that are ready to go to the field. The greenhouses allow a lot more control over the elements for farmers, Hawkins said.

Gold Leaf Seed Co.’s sales are 90 percent domestic and 10 percent international to countries such as Italy, Spain, Brazil, Argentina and Poland. It employs eight full-time and six part-time workers and has $2 million in annual sales.

A container of 180,000 open pollinated variety tobacco seeds retails to farmers for $250 with the hybrid version costing $360. That container can produce 25 acres of plants.

“There’s no other crop that the seed is as cheap as tobacco,” Hawkins said.

One acre of tobacco can produce 2,000 pounds of dry leaf that makes 400 to 600 million cigarettes. On average in the early 1990s, tobacco generated $46,000 per acre in state and federal taxes. As cigarette taxes climb, so do government revenues from the tobacco industry.

Gold Leaf Seed licenses varieties of tobacco seed to be competitive. The company ships seed by UPS and FedEx daily. In the four state area, Hawkins said, if he receives the order by 3 p.m., he can get the seed to you the next day.

“Our marketing strategy is to keep a low inventory,” Hawkins said.

Hawkins purchased his tobacco business from Norfolk King in 1995. At the time, the company, after several mergers, had 85 percent market share of flue-cured tobacco.

To those who may want to purchase Hawkins’ seed and make their own cigarettes, he warned, “I’m selling only one ingredient to cigarettes.”

Hawkins was born in Byrdtown, graduated from Hartsville High and Clemson University, and has been in agriculture his entire life. He lives in Hartsville with his wife Greta and three children.

Here’s the good news, smokers: You’ve got over a year to get used to puffing outside.

Voters in St. Louis County have overwhelmingly approved a ban on smoking in restaurants and most other indoor businesses. The vote means that smoke-free legislation approved by St. Louis aldermen — which was contingent on a similar proposal passing in the county — will also become law.

Both the county and city prohibitions will not go into effect until January 2011. And both measures contain plenty of exceptions.

In the county, “drinking establishments,” defined as bars who make a quarter or less of their sales from food, can still allow smoking. In the city, “small bars,” those with no more than 2,000 square feet of service space, will have five extra years to comply.

Casinos floors in St. Louis city and county will also be exempt.

The margin of victory leaves little room for interpretation. Though turnout was relatively light– about 20 percent — the smoking ban won with 65 percent of the vote.

By Jake Wagman, Stltoday

Some 36 million Americans are on food stamps, an increase of nearly 10 million over the past two years. The program at a glance:

_ Food stamps were established by Congress in 1964.

_ The program pays for most foods. It cannot be used for household or personal hygiene products, pet food, prepared hot meals, alcohol or cigarettes.

_ Some 66 percent of those eligible participate.

_ The average recipient last June got more than $133; the average household, more than $293. The U.S. Department of Agriculture distributed more than $4.6 billion in food stamps that month.

_ Income limit is 130 percent or less of U.S. poverty level ($2,389 monthly for a family of four). There are adjustments for deductions and households with an elderly or disabled member. Some states have raised income limits to as much as 200 percent of the poverty level.

_ Nearly 200,000 retailers participate, up 20 percent since 2005.

Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture

The New York City Council is considering whether to outlaw sales of all flavored tobacco products — going a few steps beyond a federal ban.

The Food and Drug Administration recently banned manufacturing, importing, marketing and distribution of cigarettes made to taste like candy, fruit and cloves.

The City Council is voting Wednesday on a bill that would include all flavored tobacco products, like small cigars and chewing tobacco. The law would ban sales in New York City.

The FDA is looking at whether to add more of those products to its ban.
Officials and health experts say flavored products are more appealing to young people and can hook children on smoking and tobacco at young ages.

Meanwhile, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been on an anti-tobacco crusade since becoming the city’s mayor. Bloomberg, a former smoker turned tobacco hater, has waged a war on smoking since taking office in 2002. His administration banned smoking in bars and restaurants, raised taxes on cigarettes and has tried to scare smokers with gory advertising campaigns about smoke-related health problems. His next goal is to make the city’s parks smoke free as well.

Bloomberg’s health commissioner, Thomas Farley, said parents shouldn’t have to breathe smoke while standing on the sidelines of their children’s soccer games, and children shouldn’t even have to look at adults smoking, he said.

“Smoking is responsible for killing over 7,000 New Yorkers a year,” Farley said. “We don’t think it’s too far to say that people shouldn’t be smoking in parks, and to try to protect our children from getting addicted to tobacco.”

New York City wouldn’t be the first local government to ban smoking in parks — other states, counties and cities have already done it, including in Utah, Louisiana, Maine and California.

But the nation’s largest city would be among the most ambitious urban efforts — New York has hundreds of parks and 14 miles of beaches.


Oct 14, 2009

The Food and Drug Administration has announced a ban on the sale of flavored cigarettes. “These flavored cigarettes are a gateway for many children and young adults to become regular smokers,” said Dr. Margaret Hamburg, commissioner of the FDA.

Well, sure. That’s the whole idea. Let the kids ease into the habit. You can’t expect them to jump right in with unfiltered Pall Malls. Maybe the Greatest Generation did, but kids have more options today. With that in mind, R.J. Reynolds has introduced such flavors as Twista Lime, Kauai Kolada and Warm Winter Toffee.

As regular readers know, I have certain libertarian leanings, and among those leanings is a belief that if a person wants to ingest something harmful, he or she should have the right to do so. That goes for a double cheeseburger, a joint, a chocolate malt, a gin and tonic or a plain old cigarette.

I understand that secondhand smoke is a legitimate health concern, and I believe that a health-conscious consumer should have the right to not patronize an establishment that permits smoking. But I also believe that the decision to permit or not permit smoking should be left to the owner of the establishment.

But you don’t have to have libertarian leanings to wonder about the wisdom of the federal government’s decision to discourage people from smoking.

In the first place, we tax tobacco. That is a tax that nonsmokers do not have to pay. So you would think that nonsmokers would encourage smoking. “Have another one, why don’t you? It looks very cool.” Personally, I like all sin taxes that are levied on sins in which I do not indulge. Thank you, smokers. Thank you, gamblers.

There is something else, too, something more difficult to discuss.

In a strictly economic sense, longevity is not exactly a good thing. Consider Social Security. We’ve all heard the scare stories. The system is headed toward insolvency. Most often, people blame politicians. “What happened to the lockbox? Those scoundrels have spent the money!”

Truth is, Social Security was always meant to be a pay-as-you-go sort of thing. Today’s workers pay today’s retirees with the promise that tomorrow’s workers will step up for them. What went wrong was not any treachery by politicians, but the bugaboo of longevity.

People didn’t used to live much past 65. They’d collect Social Security for a couple of years, and that was it. In 1945, there were 41.9 workers for each beneficiary. Today, the ratio is a little more than 3-to-1.

Not long ago, I got a call from the wife of a man who had retired at 55. He had retired from a union job under the so-called Rule of 80, which states that a person can retire with full benefits when his years of service and age add up to 80. The wife had called in response to something I had written, and she wanted to point out that her husband had played by the rules and it wasn’t fair for me to suggest that the rules now be changed.

She had a point, of course, but still, her husband had worked for 25 years and now expects to continue a middle-class lifestyle for another 25 years without working.

As a society, we can’t afford that.

Yet all sorts of research goes into increasing longevity. Well, fine. That’s human nature. Cure cancer? That’s a great idea. Like knocking out malaria in the Third World. But then what? Let’s not pretend these things won’t have economic repercussions.

Can we afford to be a nation of centenarians who spend 35 years on Social Security and Medicare?

Perhaps some of us can be centenarians, but certainly not all of us. So if you have a group of people who say, “We’ll give up a few years, and we’ll pay extra taxes along the way,” I’d think you’d say, “Let me light that for you.”

But no. We’d rather be scolds. We act disrespectful, rather than grateful, to people who voluntarily shave a few years off their lives by smoking. We treat them like lepers. We’re mean to people who pack on a few extra pounds. We criticize people who like sugared drinks. We try to shame people who like tasty, fatty foods.

You know that will be the next target. Tasty, fatty foods. We won’t stop at smoking.

Don’t kid yourself about health care costs. Sure, people who smoke and eat fatty foods have health problems, but everybody eventually has health problems. You think people who live “right” don’t eventually get sick and die? Maybe it happens at 90 instead of 65, but it still happens.

Now we’re going to do what we can to prevent the next generation of smokers. So more and more people will live into their 90s. And how are we going to replace the tobacco taxes?


We’re intent on getting older, not wiser.
Bill McClellan
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

LINCOLN — It will be at least October before the first patron can legally light up in a Nebraska cigar bar.

Hobert Rupe, executive director of the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission, said Thursday the wait will depend on how quickly a set of rules and regulations moves through the approval process.

He commented after a commission hearing on draft rules and regulations. The commission is expected to vote at its September meeting on adopting — and possibly amending — those rules.

A new state law takes effect Aug. 30 exempting specially licensed cigar bars from the statewide public smoking ban.
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The exemption is in addition to those for tobacco shops, some hotel rooms, laboratories used for research on smoking and home-based businesses.

Charles Kline of Omaha said cigar bar owners recognize the opportunity the Legislature has provided and will put their best foot forward. Kline owns the S.G. Roi smoke shop and hopes to open a cigar bar.

But Mark Welsch, president of the Group to Alleviate Smoking Pollution, urged the commission to close potential loopholes in the draft rules.

Among his suggestions was a rule banning people from bringing food into cigar bars or smoking thin cigars, which are similar in size to cigarettes. Under the new law, cigar bars cannot sell food or allow cigarette smoking.

They also must get at least 10 percent of their gross revenue from selling tobacco products other than cigarettes and cannot boost tobacco revenue by offering drink specials with tobacco purchases.

The bars must have walk-in humidors — special rooms with temperature and humidity controls for storing and displaying cigars. The draft rules would require the humidors to be large enough for two adults.

Welsch said the rules should require cigar bars to keep their smoke from infiltrating other businesses.

The cigar bar law also faces a pending legal challenge. Big John’s Billiards, an Omaha pool hall, has argued in Lancaster County District Court that exemptions to the smoking ban are arbitrary and amount to special legislation in violation of the Nebraska Constitution.

Contact the writer:

402-473-9583, martha.stoddard@owh.com

The anti-smoking group Ash Ireland has criticised the decision of former Bank of Ireland chairman Richard Burrows to accept the chairmanship of British American Tobacco (BAT).

Mr Burrows has been a key figure in Irish sailing for several decades.

Ash Ireland chairwoman Dr Angie Brown highlighted Mr Burrows links with sport and said she was surprised that “such an esteemed figure” had decided to link up with the tobacco industry.

“Mr Burrows will be well aware that millions of people die from the effects of smoking around the world each year and many of these cigarettes are developed and manufactured by BAT,” she said.

“This is an industry which aggressively markets an addictive killer product – and still endeavours to maintain that passive smoke is harmless – despite it being graded as a class one carcinogen by the WHO [World Health Organisation].

A spokeswoman for BAT said Mr Burrows was on holidays and was therefore unable to respond to the criticism. She said there was no suggestion that Mr Burrows was going to promote smoking, or to link sport with tobacco, when he took up his new role.

“Lots of our directors working for this company have outside interests.That doesn’t preclude them from holding such positions,” she said.

In a statement announcing his appointment, Mr Burrows said: “I am delighted to have been given such an exciting opportunity at such a world class company. I look forward to working with my new colleagues on the board and getting to know the rest of the executive team led by Paul Adams”.

Copyright © August 19, 2009 Irishtimes

Just when you thought we were out, a judge pulled us back in.

Last month, after several weeks of acrimony regarding the biennial state budget, Gov. Ted Strickland signed a new budget – complete with a divisive racetrack slot machine plan, deep cuts to social programs and libraries, painful hospital and nursing home fee increases and heavy use of one-time federal stimulus money.

Now, just a few weeks later, we may have to go through the whole thing again.

A judge’s ruling Tuesday permanently prevents Ohio from spending $250 million in anti-tobacco funds on Medicaid and other programs, potentially blowing a hole in the state budget leaders approved last month.

We’re not quibbling with the reasoning behind the ruling. The judge believes pulling the funds from tobacco money “would result in a substantial increase in tobacco-related premature death and disease in Ohio.”

While the state plans to appeal the ruling, it appears Ohio’s idea for expanding health care for children from low-income families, optional Medicaid services such as vision and dental coverage and county child welfare services will have to wait.

But will it stop there? More importantly, is anyone surprised?

Strickland knew the ruling was likely because the same judge had issued a preliminary injunction in February that said lawmakers couldn’t revoke the trust they set up for the tobacco money when it was awarded in 2000.

Why did Strickland put so much stock in keeping the tobacco money in the new budget?

The apparent losers in this struggle are the people, who now must endure another round of outcry from agencies and service providers, while continuing to worry about the economic hardships they are suffering.

It appears, however, that’s exactly where we’re headed.

So, buckle up everyone, it appears the road just got a little rockier for Ohio.

It’s a growing trend among cities across the country- the trend of more business establishments going smoke free.

But changes like these don’t just happen, they require a lot of work and a lot of feedback from the public.

The STAMP Community Tobacco Prevention Coalition and Safe Communities of North Central North Dakota are hoping to gain more feedback by conducting an online community survey.

The survey covers topics like tobacco use and policy, underage drinking, and seat belt use.

It takes about ten minutes to fill-out and is completely anonymous.

The survey is also in conjunction with Measure 3, which involves tobacco prevention and education. STAMP organizers believe it will provide good insight as to what people want, and what changes need to be made.

(Holly Brekhus, STAMP) “One thing that the legislature says, is that it’s a local issue, it’s something that they want the local people to decide, so this is a way that we know how the public is actually feeling.”

(Carolyn Bodell, STAMP) “We want young people, and parents, and retired people, everyone to take that so we can get a broad spectrum of what people think.” FULL CG The group is also offering some extra incentive to take the survey.

Those who complete the full list of questions can register to win 1 of 5 gas cards valued at 100 dollars a piece.
Copyright © 2009 Kxmc

Abdul Qadar of the Tobacco Retailers Alliance, which is funded by the tobacco industry, is correct in saying that there should be a focus on tackling tobacco smuggling, but he is confusing that problem with the issue of removing promotional displays of cigarettes. There is no evidence to link the two from countries that have already banned displays.
A display ban is about stopping advertising to young people, not stopping adult smokers buying tobacco or shops selling it. Every year in Scotland 15,000 young people take up smoking, and tobacco kills half of its long-term users.

Tobacco marketing has a disproportionate impact on young people. It is strongly correlated with an increased risk of smoking initiation, and young people, unlike adult smokers, tend to smoke the most visible and actively marketed brands of cigarettes. Tobacco companies have invested heavily in packaging and increasing their brands since advertising was banned.

Stopping the promotion of cigarettes to children is part of a package of measures aimed at preventing young people from starting to smoke. Alongside that are new sanctions including large fines of up to £20,000 for unregistered sellers, aimed at clamping down on illegal sales. All these measures will support Scotland’s health in future and should be welcomed.

Copyright © 2009 Scotsman

A new survey finds that cigarette smoking among Indiana’s high school students has dropped by about 40 percent since 2000.

The Indiana Youth Tobacco Survey says that 18.3 percent of the state’s high school students smoked last year, down from 31.6 percent at the start of the decade. The drop was even bigger among middle school students, falling from 9.8 percent in 2000 to 4.1 percent in 2008.

The Indiana Tobacco Prevention and Cessation agency’s report also found that fewer than 10 percent of teens are established smokers, meaning they smoked on 20 of the past 30 days.

Agency director Karla Sneegas tells The Indianapolis Star that likely means fewer youths becoming one- to two-pack-a-day smokers.

Copyright © 2009 Chicagotribune

The duty-free group has urged the industry to contact governments in the final days before talks begin on the World Health Organization illicit trade protocol.

The European Travel Retail Council (ETRC) has issued a final rallying call for the duty-free industry to contact governments in the days leading up to the third round of negotiations on the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) protocol on illicit trade that threatens a ban on the sale and import of duty-free tobacco products. ETRC secretary general Keith Spinks asked companies “to make a final round of intensive contacts”, particularly in countries “where political engagement has been difficult or where there is still no clear indication from governments on their policy on duty-free sales”.

Proposals for the prohibition of duty-free tobacco sales were initially tabled at the second negotiating session in October 2008, but ETRC and other global industry stakeholders have since lobbied the relevant authorities to refute allegations that duty-free sales at airports, on board airlines and in border shops contribute to illicit trade, succeeding in changing the draft text of the protocol to remove an outright ban on tobacco sales to travellers.

Tobacco control activists including the Framework Convention Alliance (FCA) have now published their positions in advance of the third round of negotiations calling for the inclusion of a new article specifically to ban duty-free tobacco sales to international travellers, as well as condemning the duty-free trade association’s efforts to prevent such a prohibition from being implemented.

Spinks said that “ETRC makes no apology for defending our business and will continue to vigorously support the rights of legitimate duty-free operators”, adding that FCA used misleading arguments about “growing government and international action on the [duty-free] issue” as justification for a ban.

“The purpose of this protocol is to combat illicit trade, nothing else. The duty-free industry is not involved in illicit trade so therefore should not be subject to any ban from this protocol”, Spinks added. “A worldwide ban on duty-free tobacco sales to international passengers will have no impact whatsoever on illicit trade and the criminal elements that control the illegal tobacco market.”
Copyright © 2009 Dfnionline

If you’re a smoker in Florida, something is about to happen.

And watch out, because you’re going to feel it in your wallet or purse. In about a week, buying a pack of cigarettes is going to cost you more money here in Florida.

This upcoming cigarette tax hike is the biggest of its kind in Florida history.

Florida smokers are being hit with a state tax hike that could leave some of them burning mad, or at least smoldering.

Starting July 1, a tax hike of $1.00 a pack goes into effect in the Sunshine State.

Some convenience stores, such as a 7-11 in West Palm Beach on Southern Boulevard, are posting signs urging cigarette smokers to stock up now before the tax increase.

“I was actually with a friend of mine who’s a chain-smoker and he’s like, oh let me get as many packs as I want right now,” said Mike Schaetzle of West Palm Beach.

Floridians who smoke were just hit with a federal tax hike in April, which added 62-cents to the cost of a pack of cigarettes.

Now, with cigarettes going up another dollar a pack, some smokers say enough already. Give us a break.

“Personally I think taxes are too high with everything, ” said Schaetzle.

Others say they don’t mind the $1.00 state tax increase, saying it may be just the incentive they need to finally quit smoking.

“I’m a smoker myself, have been for 15 years, and I’d like to quit too and it’s quite hard and I think with the money goin’ up, it’ll make it a little bit easier,” said John Agueros of West Palm Beach.

While some say a dollar is a little steep, one smoker says he doesn’t really have a problem with it. “A dollar is not too much at all. It should go up maybe a couple of more bucks actually.Just to make people quit. Keep it out of the kids’ hands, make it a little tougher for kids to get ahold of ‘em,” Agueros said.

The extra $1.00 tax on a pack of cigarettes is expected to bring in over $900 million annually in Florida, which will be used to pay for cancer research and offset Medicaid costs.

With this latest tax increase, it will push the price of cigarettes in Florida to $5.00 to $6.00 a pack depending on the brand.

Lawyers for Star Scientific Inc. (STSI) and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. made their final bid Monday to sway jurors in a high-stakes case involving Star’s patent claim to a new tobacco-curing method that substantially reduces the formation of certain cancer-causing toxins.

Star, which is seeking several hundred million dollars from RJR for patent infringement, said its patented method for reducing certain toxins in cured tobacco, known as tobacco specific nitrosamines, was a revolution in the tobacco industry.

“Nobody could believe it,” Star lawyer Richard McMillan said in his closing argument to jurors. “It was completely surprising to the industry.”

McMillan said RJR, a unit of Reynolds American Inc. (RAI), “got wind” of the small company’s patent and encouraged its farmers to practice Star’s invention without permission.

McMillan told the jury that Star was a different kind of tobacco company, one dedicated to making products that are less harmful to tobacco users. “We need to have our patent rights respected if we’re going to have an impact in the future, ” he said. “That’s just a fact.”

RJR lawyer Richard Kaplan said his company had invented its own tobacco-curing method that reduced the toxins and didn’t need to copy Star’s.

“Star is taking credit for the hard work and diligent efforts of other people, ” he said.

Kaplan said RJR had been looking at the toxin problem for years and invested substantial time and money coming up with a solution.

He called Star’s tobacco-curing method unconventional and prohibitively expensive.

Kaplan also argued that Star’s patent was not valid, saying it wasn’t specific or tangible enough for anyone to understand the invention or how to practice it.

Monday’s closing arguments, which took place in a small federal courtroom packed with spectators, concluded four weeks of trial proceedings. The case was submitted to the jury late in the afternoon.

The outcome could go a long way to determining Star’s fortunes. If it prevails, it hopes to reach lucrative licensing agreements with other tobacco companies. If the jury decides that RJR infringed Star’s patents, the case will proceed to a second trial phase to determine how much RJR owes in damages.

U.S. District Court Judge Marvin Garbis, who has presided over the trial, said Monday that Star and RJR haven’t found a single point of agreement throughout the whole trial. Garbis said the sides were still arguing Sunday night and into the wee hours of Monday morning on the proper jury instructions to guide the deliberations.

“It has been a struggle of Titanic proportions,” Garbis said.

A box of Obama Presidential Series 44 cigars, made in honor of President Barack Obama, lays on a table at the Segovia Cigars tobacco company in Esteli, Nicaragua, Feb. 4. The Corona, California, based-Granada 1524 Cigars company hired Nicaragua’s Segovia Cigars to produce the Obama series which retails for between $15 and $20 a cigar, depending on the size.

Camel ads coupled with illustrations promoting rock music in Rolling Stone magazine violated the tobacco industry’s decade-old promise not to use cartoons to sell cigarettes to minors, a Philadelphia judge ruled Wednesday.

A spokesman for Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett said the ruling is a full victory over R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., and the first decision in lawsuits filed by attorneys general in nine states that ordered monetary damages.

An R.J. Reynolds spokesman said the Winston-Salem, N.C.-based company will appeal.

Judge William J. Manfredi ordered R.J. Reynolds Tobacco to pay $302,000 or run a full-page anti-smoking ad in a Rolling Stone edition that circulates in Pennsylvania.

In his decision, Manfredi said R.J. Reynolds violated its pledge not to pitch cigarettes to children because the Rolling Stone-produced and placed illustrations were cartoons and the cigarette maker should have avoided their placement next to a Camel ad.

“Because R.J. Reynolds had the ability and the duty to avoid such indivisible commingling of its tobacco advertising and promotions with such indisputable cartoons, the advertisement must be deemed to be in violation of the Consent Decree and the Master Settlement Agreement,” Manfredi wrote.

A landmark 1998 settlement between 46 states and the tobacco industry includes a provision against using cartoons in advertisements to prevent them from appealing to minors.

In question is a Camel ad in Rolling Stone’s November 2007 edition.

The cigarette ads in Rolling Stone touted Camel’s “The Farm: Free Range Music” campaign and support for independent record labels while using photographic images of people in 1950s dress, farm animals, an old-fashioned tractor and furnishings like a phonograph against a farm backdrop. Those pages fold out to reveal a four-page illustrated spread of an “Indie Rock Universe” with animals, imaginary beings and other drawings.

R.J. Reynolds’ defense has proved more successful in other states.

Judges in Maine and Washington ruled in favor of the tobacco company. A California judge found that R.J. Reynolds violated the Master Settlement Agreement, but was not responsible for the ad placement, while an Ohio judge found the opposite, R.J. Reynolds spokesman David Howard said.

Neither judge ordered damages, but the company is appealing both decisions, Howard said.

Suits in Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland and New York are still pending.

The Department of Health (DOH) urged Congress to pass immediately the bill mandating that picture-based health warnings be placed on half of the packaging of tobacco products, a health official said.

“We urge both chambers of Congress to discuss the bill in plenary and pass it because the Philippines ratified and signed the FCTC provisions on tobacco control,” Asuncion Anden of the DOH’s National Center for Health Promotion said in a forum Wednesday.

She was referring to the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) in which the Philippines, as a signatory, should have passed a law supporting the mandate in September 2008.

“Why are images of health warning important? A picture of a health warning will convey a message that will bring out less confusion with words. Take for example the warning: ‘Smoking causes cancer.’ Not all people can read and not everyone who has read something has the same understanding of what they read. Ipakita ang totoo sa pakete (Show the truth of tobacco ills in picture warnings),” said Anden.

The packaging of tobacco products in our country only includes text warnings while those we export to Thailand, for example, include picture-based health messages, she added.

“We are glad to say that the Philippines is a tobacco exporter and follows regulations of other countries but in our country, bakit wala (why is there none)?” asked Anden.

When Senator Pia Cayetano chaired the committee on health, the reading for the bill went through smooth sailing but when the Senate leadership changed and the committee was handled by Senator Loren Legarda, it seemed Legarda was not anymore interested in pushing for the bill, said Anden.

The North bloc in the House of Representatives reportedly opposes the lobby for the bill’s passage because of the lack of “alternative livelihood” programs for the tobacco farmers or traders who have been benefiting from the P2-million industry, said Anden.

As a country in the Southeast Asian region, the Philippines is being eyed as an emerging market for tobacco use because it is already a sunset or mature industry in the West, said Anden.

“Worldwide, one person dies from exposure to tobacco smoke every six minutes and the tobacco industry is targeting the non-smoking youth to replace the consumers who die. The incidence of picking up the habit is increasing due to the perception that smoking is cool and they are enticed by glossy advertising from manufacturers,” said Anden.

Anden lamented that while 90 percent of Filipinos are aware of the ills of tobacco use, it has not been translated into behavior.

She said they plan to tap the youth to advocate tobacco control and possibly create another mascot, like “Yosi Kadiri,” which showed tobacco ills explicitly and had memory recall among the people.

In July 2002, the Philippines passed Republic Act 9211 to regulate the packaging, use, sale and distribution, and advertisements of tobacco products and for other purposes but “implementation is not yet full blown.”

“It is a very good law — that promoted smoke-free areas, informed the public on tobacco-related diseases, banned all tobacco advertisement and sponsorship and protected the youth from the smoking habit — but it had loopholes,” said Anden.

The local law mandated the removal of huge billboards advertising cigarette products except in point-of-sale (POS) or stores selling the products. However, manufacturers “found a way to go around the law” by distributing signs, posters or calendars featuring cigarette advertisement on the side, said Anden.

“For the tobacco industry, POS is the entire premise of the store—but the moment you advertise outside the store, that is against the law,” said Anden.

Anden cited that while billboards in Makati City, Silang town in Cavite province and Davao City don’t display tobacco products, “the battleground is so vast.”

As part of its campaign against cigarette smoking, the DoH is inviting the youth to attend a free concert featuring anti-smoking bands like Hale, SinoSikat and Itchy Worms at the Quirino Grandstand in Quezon City on May 31, with a walk-for-a-cause in the morning.

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