TOKYO – Eleven out of 25 electronic cigarettes sold in Japan have been found to contain small amounts of nicotine, which is banned in such devices, the National Consumer Affairs Center of Japan said Wednesday.

Test results show there is not sufficient evidence to confirm the safety of the 11 varieties of e-cigarettes so consumers are advised not to use them readily, the center said.

The health ministry subsequently called on prefectural authorities to instruct marketers of the e-cigarettes in question to recall or refrain from selling them because such devices can be categorized as pharmaceuticals or medical equipment by law if they contain nicotine.

An e-cigarette is shaped like a cigarette and lets a user inhale steam generated with electricity from liquid inside it.

In 2008, the World Health Organization released a statement saying, “Contrary to what some marketers of the electronic cigarette imply in their advertisements, the WHO does not consider it to be a legitimate therapy for smokers trying to quit.”

ALBANY — New Yorkers who like to smoke will have to dig a little deeper to light up next month, after the Legislature passed a bill on Monday that will give the state the highest cigarette taxes in the country.

The new law, part of an emergency budget measure to keep the government running, adds another $1.60 in state taxes to every cigarette pack sold starting on July 1, pushing the average price of a pack to about $9.20.

The average price in New York City, which imposes its own cigarette taxes, will be even higher, nearly $11 a pack.

Those who prefer other tobacco products will also be forced to pay significantly more.

The tax on smokeless tobacco will more than double, to $2 an ounce from 96 cents an ounce, starting on Aug. 1. And the wholesale tax on cigars, dips and other kinds of tobacco will rise to 75 percent from 46 percent .

And in what may be the legislation’s most controversial provisions, starting on Sept. 1, the state will begin collecting — or try to collect — taxes on cigarettes sold on Indian reservations to off-reservation visitors, an issue that led to violent protests during the early 1990s.

One Indian chief has said that trying to collect taxes would be considered an act of war.

Gov. David A. Paterson had proposed a smaller increase of $1 a pack in his executive budget proposal, saying it would forestall deeper cuts to state health care spending. But with the state budget now nearly three months overdue, Mr. Paterson and leaders of the Legislature agreed to insert the revised proposal into a pair of emergency bills to finance a week’s worth of government operations, putting pressure on lawmakers to support or risk a government shutdown.

The taxes will provide $440 million in revenue for health care programs, including subsidies for AIDS drugs, money for tobacco cessation programs and $71.6 million for the state cancer research center in Buffalo.

In the Senate, where Republicans and many rank-and-file Democrats had opposed the tax increase, the bill including the higher taxes passed narrowly along party lines, with all 32 Democrats voting yes and all 29 Republicans present voting no.

As for the other emergency bill, which included only appropriations, one Republican, Roy J. McDonald, joined the Democrats in voting yes.

The two bills also passed with only a few votes to spare in the Assembly, where Republicans assailed their Democratic colleagues.

“You’ve never met a tax you didn’t like,” Assemblyman Jim Hayes, a Republican from the Buffalo area, said to Democrats. “The governor proposed a buck. You hiked it to a buck-sixty!”

But Democrats said that the bill would provide needed revenue and begin closing a legal loophole that let New Yorkers buy cigarettes tax-free on reservations, undercutting other retailers.

“Because of the step we took in the Senate today, New York State will now have the added muscle it needs to collect this vital source of tax revenue in full and on time,” said Jeffrey D. Klein, a Democrat from Westchester County and the Bronx who had pushed separate legislation enabling the collection of cigarette taxes from reservations.

Higher cigarette taxes have been hailed by health advocates who say they will persuade many smokers to give up their habit. But critics, including tobacco retailers, said they would drive more customers to the black market.

It was the 12th emergency bill approved since the state’s fiscal year began on April 1. Mr. Paterson has pledged that if the Legislature fails to reach a budget agreement by next Monday, when the next emergency bill is due, he will insert the remainder of his budget proposal into that legislation.

The Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, told reporters that he remained confident that budget negotiations were progressing. “I think they’re going well — maybe a little slower than I anticipated last week, but I think they’re going well,” he said.

Reflecting the secrecy of the negotiations between Mr. Paterson and the Democratic majorities in the Senate and Assembly, Republican senators repeatedly pressed Democrats during a floor debate to explain how they would make up the rest of the gap — roughly $3.65 billion, according to Senate Democrats. They also accused Democrats of negotiating the budget piecemeal to hide the true cost of their budget priorities and lay the groundwork to claim that only new borrowing or higher income taxes could bring the budget into balance.

“I just don’t see how this process is going to result in anything other than taxes and fees and borrowing,” said John A. DeFrancisco, the Senate Finance Committee’s ranking Republican member. “This is not a way to run state government.”

The Senate also appeared poised on Monday night to approve a series of other budget bills introduced by Mr. Paterson last week and approved by the Assembly on Friday. Those bills involve spending for the criminal justice system, general government operations, the Transportation Department and state economic development efforts.

Officials said those bills closed about $1 billion worth of the state’s budget gap of more than $9 billion for this year, achieved through a mix of cuts, new revenue and consolidations.

One of the largest cuts would result in New York City’s losing its entire allotment of direct state aid, about $302 million. The bills would also close two upstate prisons, while the State Police would delay, for the second year in a row, training a new class of recruits.

The bills also include what are known as “sweeps,” where lawmakers in effect take money out of accounts that aren’t technically part of the state’s budget. For example, the legislation will transfer $65 million from the New York Power Authority into the state’s general fund.

By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
Nytimes: June 21, 2010

A tobacco giant that exhausted its inventory of small cigarette packets in anticipation of a ban threatened Thursday to take legal action against the Malaysian government for reportedly deciding to delay the prohibition.

The Malaysian affiliate of Philip Morris International voiced disappointment with what it called a “precipitous” decision that would be “a devastating blow not only to our business but to foreign investor confidence in Malaysia.”

Tobacco companies in the Southeast Asian country have been phasing out parts of their inventory and manufacturing equipment in recent months ahead of a government ban on cigarette packets containing fewer than 20 cigarettes that was supposed to take effect June 1.

However, the financial newspaper The Edge reported Thursday that the government had decided to postpone the ban. The Malaysian Insider news website later quoted Health Minister Liow Tiong Lai as saying that authorities feared the ban would spark a surge in demand for illegally produced cigarettes.

Health Ministry officials said they could not immediately comment on the reports, and that Liow was traveling late Thursday and could not be contacted.

“In the absence of clarity surrounding this decision, (we) will have no choice but to evaluate all possible avenues, including legal recourse, to recover any losses the company may suffer,” Richard Morgan,the managing director of Philip Morris in Malaysia, said in a statement.

“How can any corporation plan for its future and maintain its viability in an environment of such legal uncertainty, where decisions that are supposedly set in concrete can be overturned so rapidly and without any consultation?” the statement added.

The government had been planning the ban for years as part of efforts to curb smoking among young Malaysians who consider smaller cigarette packs more affordable.

The Malaysian Insider quoted Liow as saying the government would make a final decision in “a few months” on when the ban might be enforced.

HONG KONG – A eulogy to lung pollution, “Love in a Puff” makes sharing a pack of cigarettes look sexier than sharing a bed as it chronicles how two chain smokers fall in love over a week in the wake of a government crackdown on tobacco in Hong Kong.

While smokers can relish the nicotine nirvana created by every smog-filled frame, even non-smokers will be riveted by director Pang Ho-Cheung’s wry dramatization of a bona fide smoking sub-culture among Hong Kong urbanites with an inventive use of colloquial obscene discourse.

Given a restrictive rating excluding the under-18 demographic, the film scored a so-so $515,000 within two weeks of domestic release, but generated critical hype for its fresh and adult way of handling romance.

It’s hard to recall any film that makes refuse bins a sizzling dramatic focal point. Yet in “Love,” one witnesses the curious phenomenon of “Chinese hotpot” — the activity of people from different backgrounds gathering around a public bin near their offices to smoke and swap tall tales and dirty jokes — an after-effect of a law banning indoor smoking in 2007.

At one such session, a spark is ignited between cosmetics lady Cherie (Miriam Yeung) and advertising executive Jimmy (Shawn Yue). They keep making excuses to see each other until Cherie’s live-in boyfriend notices something fishy. Whether the protagonists finally take the plunge to be together is of less interest than the painfully truthful way Pang depicts their suggestive body language, their guessing games and how their spontaneous rapport is offset by calculated moves to avoid being hurt.

Adeptly paced, there are no big dramas, just slyly droll vignettes like Jimmy wheedling Cherie’s mobile number out of her, or the hidden meaning found in an SMS, or their night out raiding convenience stores to buy up all their cigarettes a few hours before tobacco tax skyrockets. These are punctuated by mock-documentary interviews with their friends, which has the juvenile feel of student films. Technical credits are ordinary but outdoor scenes have a zingy, bustling feel.

By reveling in political incorrectness, sexual obscenity and defiantly homegrown verbal profanity, Pang blows a big raspberry at the local film industry, now fettered by considerations about the China market (and consequently its censorship system). However, some of his typical smart alecky gags backfire.

The salacious details in which Jimmy’s colleagues describe his girlfriend’s infidelity are smutty but not funny. The tone in a scenario where Cherie’s friend Brenda is stood up by her Facebook date is downright mean, yet Pang degrades her further in post-credit shots of her keening wails.

The film partly owes its offbeat humor and candor to emerging writer-director Heiward Mak, who co-wrote the screenplay. Her youthful perspective can be detected in the dialogue, which pins down the restless pulse of Hong Kong’s so-called ‘”instant cook” culture of speedy dating with uncanny accuracy.

The happy-go-lucky Cherie is played fetchingly by Yeung. She is the most sympathetic and least objectified heroine among Pang’s films. Yue is just right as the regular guy capable of both chivalry and commitment phobia.

The American Association of Public Health Physicians submitted a petition to the US Food and Drug Administration on February 23rd in response to their official stance concerning electronic cigarettes. They cite many concerns, including legal, ethical, epidemiological, medical, and the impact on public health the products could have in the future.

The AAPHP’s recent petition dealt with their request that the FDA reclassify the products from a “drug-device combination” to a “tobacco product.” They are currently urging all supporters of electronic cigarettes to leave the FDA comments on the docket for their petition so the will of the people may be made known . The AAPHP believes in and promotes harm reduction, unlike other mainstream health organizations who reject the concept.

According to the AAPHP, all tobacco products are “nicotine delivery devices” and that the largest portion of illness and death from conventional cigarettes is due to the products of the combusted tobacco, not the chemicals and other substances found in tobacco cigarettes. The carcinogens are not what cause the majority of the health problems; the smoke causes it when it is inhaled deeply into the lungs and held there.

“E-cigarettes, more than any other tobacco or tobacco-related product, satisfies both the habituation and nicotine addiction,” says the organization in their petition. They state that they believe that many smokers struggle with a second addiction to smoking, which is the habit of carrying a pack of cigarettes and lighter, holding the cigarette when it is lit, and the act of smoking it. It is said in their report that there is a significant number of electronic cigarette users who have been successful in switching over to e-cigarette liquid which contains no nicotine while they continue to perform the ritual of “smoking.”

Continuing on through the petition, they state that electronic cigarettes, unlike conventional cigarettes, produce no sidestream smoke; that is, smoke that is emitted from a cigarette when it is not being puffed on. The fact that electronic cigarettes also have no combustion is mentioned again, this time in reference to the amount of property damage done every year due to fires caused by lit cigarettes.

The AAPHP states that classifying electronic cigarettes as tobacco products would enable the FDA to impose manufacturing quality regulations, much in the same way pharmaceutical companies are expected to produce their products.

“Objections to FDA approval of e-cigarettes as tobacco products are speculative and largely based on misinformation,” states the petition.

SATIRIST Auberon Waugh argued that smokers are heroes because they die young and don’t clutter up hospitals, put a terrible strain on their children, or spend everything they have on nursing home fees.

The late great Waugh is quoted in The Cigarette Book as suggesting that “passive smoking” is no more a danger to health than “passive hamburgers” or computer games.

Here at last is a book by Camden authors Chris Harrald and Fletcher Watkins that celebrates the glory of one of the most disgusting, dangerous habits known to man, with fascinating nuggets of information and a wry sense of humour.

Famous writers like Camden Town’s own dear Beryl Bainbridge, as well as Martin Amis and journalist Lynn Barber, own up to their fag addiction.

Ms Bainbridge is described as a “true folk hero” among smokers. Her closely observed novels owe much – as she would be the

first to say – to the kick-start effect of her cigarettes. “You’re sitting at that damned machine, you know, you’re stuck and you light up and you put it out and you light up.”

When she tried to give up smoking: “…suddenly all the words drifted out of my head.”

Amis says in a quote taken from the Paris Review: “I think someone must have told me at some point that I write a lot better when I’m smoking.”

Lynn Barber from the Observer is a shameless two packs a day smoker. “Cigarettes have given me constant, reliable pleasure for over 40 years,” she says.

Stalin, according to writer Simon Sebag Montefiore, was a “furious” smoker who decreed that only he would be allowed to light up at important meetings. No doubt this would increase the feeling of stress and unease among his underlings.

The legendary Soho boozer and smoker, the late Jeffrey Bernard, fell on his head in the street – not for the first time, by any means – and needed 17 stitches. When he was in the Middlesex Hospital, again not for the first time, his doctor brought a group of students to his bedside announcing: “This gentleman is Mr Jeffrey Bernard, who closes his veins each day with 60 cigarettes and opens them again with a bottle of vodka.”

Poet, drinker and bon viveur Dylan Thomas is reported as seeing a sign in a Swansea pub: “Please don’t drop cigarettes on the floor as they burn the hands and knees of customers as they leave.”

This can be compared with the official sign seen hanging over a urinal in a US military bathroom: “Please don’t throw cigarette butts in toilets.” And scrawled underneath: “It makes them soggy and hard to smoke.”

Who remembers Dr Kildare, played by dashing Richard Chamberlain? In 1961, in the early episodes, we’d see him handing a cigarette to a patient, and together they would light up and bond in smoke.

More recently, Britain’s most famous smoker is probably Bet Lynch from Coronation Street, played by Julie Goodyear. When Ms Lynch finally left the show, the Manchester Evening News calculated that in 26 years the fictional character smoked 569,400 cigarettes.

Actor Sir Laurence Olivier (1907-89) had a cigarette brand-named after him. The deal for Olivier-tipped cigarettes, made by Gallaher, the makers of Benson & Hedges, was that he received two pence for every 1,000 cigarettes sold. He was given a £2,000 advance against the first year’s royalties – money for old smoke.

He also received 500 packs of 20 every week, for his own use and to distribute to his friends – a handsome 10,000 cigarettes a week.

Olivier was loyal to his brand. Ian McKellen remembers starting work at the National Theatre Company founded by Olivier and finding that “there was a cigarette machine only ever filled with the Olivier brand, although it was capable of dispensing half a dozen different ones.”

Everyone of a certain age remembers the 1959 TV advertisement “You’re never alone with a Strand.”

It featured a moody man, who looked like a cross between Frank Sinatra and James Dean, in a raincoat and hat. The music was a big hit, but the campaign was a failure.

People associated the brand with the wrong kind of loneliness – a loser’s loneliness rather than the Dean/Sinatra kind.

US President Lyndon Baines Johnson managed to manipulate the Senate with a phone in one hand and a cigarette in another. An observer described him at a dinner party “chain smoking one cigarette on top of another and pouring down Scotch whiskey like a man who had a date with a firing squad.”

When he finally gave up he was asked if he missed smoking.

“Every minute of every day”, was the poignant reply.

Perhaps the greatest question of all is: Why do people smoke? Many smokers fail to provide a satisfactory answer, beyond mumbling about habit. Writer David Krough says there’s none of heroin’s ecstasy, alcohol’s sudden brightening of personality, or marijuana’s giddiness: “To the casual, non-smoking observer, it’s as if smokers have gotten the worst of both worlds: drug addiction, without drug euphoria.”

• The Cigarette Book. By Chris Harrald and Fletcher Watkins. ­Quartet £17.50

One of the hottest new alternatives to smoking — electronic cigarettes — may deliver little of the nicotine they promise, a study at Virginia Commonwealth University is finding.

And because they lack the jolt of tobacco cigarettes, users may be modifying the electronic devices to deliver more toxic nicotine, VCU researcher Thomas Eissenberg said yesterday.

The study, to be presented this month at an academic conference, also suggests that e-cigarettes, when used according to directions, don’t suppress the craving to smoke very much, Eissenberg said.

“These data scream out for the need for regulation of these devices,” said Eissenberg, who is director of VCU’s Clinical Behavioral Pharmacology Laboratory.

“They say they are giving people nicotine, but based on our study, with the two brands we looked at and tested the way we did, that’s not clear.”

Nicotine is the addictive compound that hooks tobacco users.

E-cigarettes use small heaters to vaporize a mix of nicotine and alcohol, usually propylene glycol, a common ingredient in antifreeze, for a smoker to inhale. Because e-cigarettes do not burn tobacco leaf, users believe they avoid the toxins and cancer-causing compounds in cigarette smoke.

“There’s millions of people who use e-cigarettes, and he’s studied 16,” said Amy A. Linert, a spokeswoman for the Electronic Cigarette Association.

Eissenberg tested nicotine in the smokers’ blood streams after they used two different kinds of e-cigarettes, as well as after smoking.

He said the results from the first 16 were so surprising that he fired off a letter to the journal Tobacco Control with his preliminary findings. The letter is being published in this month’s edition of the journal. He’ll present the full results to the Society for Research in Nicotine and Tobacco this month.

His blood tests found smokers averaged 16.8 nanograms of nicotine per milliliter of blood plasma five minutes after smoking conventional cigarettes, but only 2.5 nanograms or 3.4 nanograms with the e-cigarette devices.

While nicotine affects heartbeat, he noticed an increase only after his subjects smoked tobacco but not after using the e-cigarettes.

The only significant reduction in craving for a cigarette came, briefly, after his subjects tried one variety of e-cigarette within an hour of their first attempt.

“We have hundreds of thousands of customers, and their collective experience and purchasing decisions strongly indicate that our products meet the needs of people interested in an alternative to combustible, smoke-producing cigarettes,” said Jack Leadbeater, chief executive officer of NJOY, the company that made one of the two devices Eissenberg tested.

Leadbeater said half his company’s sales are to repeat customers, and that 94 percent of customers say they continued using the product after their first trial.

Eissenberg said he’s concerned about how people are using the devices.

“If people are reporting what they are reporting about cravings, the data suggest it’s not because of the drugs in the device,” he said.

But Eissenberg said he’s concerned about comments he has seen on blogs that some e-cigarette users are “dripping,” or letting liquid from the devices’ cartridges fall directly onto the heating element.

That means they may be getting relatively large doses of nicotine, which can be toxic in amounts of about 50 milligrams, Eissenberg said.

While the cartridges contain 16 milligrams, they can be refilled from bottles labeled as containing 500 milligrams, or 10 times the toxic dose, he said.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has seized imports of e-cigarettes, saying they are unapproved drug-delivery devices. NJOY and another firm are challenging those seizures in federal court.

Maryland’s recently enacted $1-per-pack cigarette tax increase has been a budgetary and public health success for which Gov. Martin O’Malley and the General Assembly should be proud. In the year after it took effect on Jan. 1, 2008, the cigarette tax increase brought $144 million in additional funds into the state coffers, which have helped to fund Maryland’s recent health care expansion. This expansion brought health care coverage to more than 52,000 Marylanders and brought Maryland from 44th to 16th in the nation in health care coverage for adults.

In addition, during the year after the cigarette tax took effect, there were 74 million fewer packs of cigarettes sold in Maryland, and partly as a result, Maryland now has the fourth-lowest smoking rate in the nation. Some have argued that more people just bought their cigarettes in neighboring states with lower cigarette taxes. Not so.

During 2008, total cigarette sales dropped by 103 million in Maryland, Delaware and the District of Columbia, all of which raised their cigarette taxes that year. At the same time, in the three neighboring states that did not raise their cigarette taxes, Virginia, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, cigarette sales went up by 37 million packs. Therefore, the vast majority of the net drop in cigarette sales in Maryland, Delaware and D.C. was from people smoking less, which saved thousands of lives and hundreds of millions of dollars from tobacco-caused illness and death.

Of course, there is some tobacco smuggling in Maryland, although we have no idea how much. What we do know is how much additional money the state has raised and how much the tax increase has reduced smoking. We are pleased that Comptroller Peter Franchot is doing all he can to stop this illegal activity. He could use more effective tools to reduce cigarette smuggling.

Fortunately, there are relatively simple, cost-effective measures Maryland could implement to prevent and reduce cigarette smuggling and other tobacco tax evasion. California, for example, instituted a new high-tech tax stamp for cigarettes and enjoyed a $100 million increase in its cigarette tax revenues (without any tax increase). But Maryland is still using hard-to-see and easy-to-counterfeit tax stamps based on technology from the 1950s. A high-tech tax stamp would shut the door on the tax-free sale of contraband cigarettes by Baltimore retailers by enabling enforcement officials and others to quickly and definitively identify any contraband cigarettes that are in transit or on retailer shelves.

Maryland could also increase statutory penalties for trafficking in contraband tobacco products; require better record keeping by wholesalers and retailers; set up hot lines for consumers, retailers and others to report illegal cigarette sales; better protect whistle-blowers from retaliation; and allow enforcement agencies to keep some of the penalties and fines they collect from contraband traffickers to support expanded enforcement efforts.

With a high-tech tax stamp and enhanced enforcement, Maryland would become a state that criminal smuggling organizations would avoid entirely. It would simply be easier and more lucrative for smuggling syndicates to sell their contraband cigarettes in states like New Jersey or New York that have even higher tax rates than Maryland and still use old-fashioned tax stamps that are easy to copy.

Plainly, Maryland’s past tobacco tax increases have worked well to save lives and raise money to expand health care. It would be a shame if exaggerated fears about smuggling, such as those raised in a recent column by The Sun’s Jay Hancock, stopped the state from again raising its cigarette tax. Such an increase would bring in desperately needed new revenue that could further expand health care coverage. It would also improve worker health and productivity, save lives, reduce government and business costs, and protect more of our kids from a lifetime of tobacco addiction.
By Vincent DeMarco
February 3, 2010

A new state law aimed at making cigarettes less of a fire hazard is leaving a bad taste in the mouths of many Metro Detroit smokers.

The law, effective Jan. 1, requires all cigarettes sold in Michigan to be engineered to automatically extinguish when left unattended. Most cigarette companies are using a method that involves adding two or three bands of special paper in cigarettes’ paper wrap.

As the lit end crosses over the bands, they lower the flow of oxygen through the paper to the tobacco and slow down the cigarette’s rate of burn. If left unattended, the cigarettes will put themselves out.

The law is intended to reduce the number of cigarette-ignited fires. Gov. Jennifer Granholm approved it in June, making Michigan the 49th state in the country to pass fire-safe cigarette legislation.

But some local smokers are going out of their way to avoid the new safer cigarettes, even scouting from store to store for the old version.

It’s meant daily earfuls of grousing for retailers like Joe Odisho.

“I’ve had people come in ask if I have a brand without (the fire-safe cigarettes) and then turn around and walk out when I tell them ‘no,’” said Odisho, who owns Smokers’ Planet, a cigarette, cigar and tobacco store on Gratiot Avenue at 13 Mile in Roseville.

Smoker Ashley May isn’t impressed by the fire-safe smokes.

“I don’t like them,” the 22-year-old from Roseville said after a drag from a Kool. “You have to constantly puff on them every 30 seconds or else they’re going out. And then when you try to re-light them, they taste horrible.”

Her husband, Ed May, 29, also of Roseville, is of the same mind. “I hate them,” he said as smoked his Marlboro Medium.

Fires started by smoking products are the second leading cause of home fire-related deaths and injuries in the country.

Fires ignited by cigarettes claimed 780 lives in the United States in 2006, according to the Massachussetts-based National Fire Protection Association. Smoking-material fires also injured 1,600 and destroyed $606 million in property, the association estimates.

Closer to home, fires caused by smoking-related materials in Michigan killed four people last year, but they injured 33 — including seven firefighters, according to the state’s Bureau of Fire Services. The state recorded a total of 319 fires started by cigarettes, which resulted in more than $8.4 million in destroyed property.

The new cigarettes aren’t a silver bullet for fires started by smoking materials, but they will go a long way towards lowering the numbers of deaths and injuries caused by them, said Ronald Farr, Michigan’s Fire Marshal and an early proponent of the law.

“It’s a life-safety issue,” he said. “That’s the single biggest point for them.”

Under the new law, cigarette manufacturers that want to sell their products in Michigan have to register them with the state’s Bureau of Fire Services. They also must certify their cigarettes were made with the self-extinguishing technology.

The law focuses on cigarettes instead of other tobacco products because they are the most common smoking material behind fires, Farr said.

The state will charge cigarette makers a $1,250 fee to register each family brand of their products they want sold in Michigan. The companies will also have to recertify their products every three years.

The packaging for cigarettes must carry a special mark on them — FSC for Fire Standard Complaint — as well.

Any manufacturer, distributor or retailer who continues to sell unsafe cigarettes after Jan. 1 faces fines of $100 per pack and seizure of the product, according to the law.

The nation’s largest American tobacco companies, including Philip Morris USA and R.J. Reynolds, are already complying with the state’s new law and similar legislation elsewhere. R.J. Reynolds plans to make and sell only fire-safe cigarettes by the end of this year .

In other states with FSC laws, smokers weren’t keen on the safer cigarettes at the beginning, either. But over time, they become accustomed to them and the same thing will happen in Michigan, experts say.

Despite having to constantly fight to keep their cigarettes lit when they smoke, Ashley and Ed May said they thinks fire-safe cigarettes are a good idea.

“I’m all for preventing house fires,” said Ashley May, who has been a smoker since she was 12. “There are neglectful people who fall asleep with their cigarettes.”

They also said their cigarettes’ new fire-safety feature isn’t enough to make them kick the habit.

“We’re still going to smoke,” she said. “Maybe we’ll switch to rolling our own. We have friends who do it. It’s not too bad and it’s a little cheaper than buying backs now.”

LONDON -The U.K. government’s failure to reverse last year’s tobacco and alcohol duty hike while at the same time raising sales taxes will result in a further increase in the illicit tobacco trade in the U.K., an industry trade body said Wednesday.

The Tobacco Manufacturers’ Association, which represents cigarette makers like British American Tobacco PLC (BTI) and Imperial Tobacco PLC (IMT.LN), slammed the tax moves as “a return to the bad old days.”

When the U.K. sales tax was cut in December 2008 to 15% from 17.5%, tobacco and alcohol excise duties were raised in order to compensate for the cut. U.K. Chancellor Alistair Darling Wednesday returned sales tax to 17.5% without reversing last year’s duty rise.

The TMA said this would effectively mark the largest tax increase on tobacco products in ten years, with between 13 and 18 pence added to a pack of cigarettes.

“Not only will this increase be significantly above inflation, but it will also take place against a backdrop of rising unemployment and falling incomes, providing further incentives to criminals to illegally import and distribute cheap tobacco to adult smokers and potentially children,” said Christopher Ogden, Chief Executive of the TMA.

The TMA estimates that 24% of the U.K.’s cigarettes market and 62% of handrolling tobacco products are purchased without the payment of U.K. duty.
DECEMBER 9, 2009

TRENTON — Electronic cigarettes look like the real thing. And in New Jersey, lawmakers want to treat them the same way.

That’s why the Assembly voted unanimously today to ban the sale of e-cigarettes to people under 19, and prohibit adults from smoking them at work and in public places.

The Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee also gave unanimous backing to the legislation.

E-cigarettes look like the actual cigarettes but don’t contain tobacco. A metal tube with a battery heats up a nicotine solution allowing smokers to breathe in vapor. They have not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, which in July issued an advisory the devices contain carcinogens and toxic chemicals such as diethylene glycol, an ingredient used in antifreeze.

Assemblywoman Connie Wagner (D-Bergen), a sponsor, said she’s concerned e-cigarettes are being marketed to children because they offer flavors like chocolate, banana and strawberry and could serve as a gateway to real cigarette use.

“These are dangerous devices and I want to make sure our children are protected,” Wagner said. “I’m very concerned that young people who use these things will get hooked on the nicotine and eventually move onto the real thing, opening the door to a lifetime of expensive and debilitating health problems.”

The Senate version of the bills (S3053 and S3054) now heads to the full Senate for a floor vote.
By Susan K. Livio
December 07, 2009

The Philippines and Thailand were given a final opportunity until December 7 to comment and respond to questions before the WTO Dispute Settlement Panel is set to issue a ruling early next year over the countries cigarette tax dispute.

Philippine Ambassador to Geneva/WTO Ambassador Manuel AJ Teehankee relayed this in an email after the panel conducted the second substantive meeting last Nov. 4 to 6 in Geneva.

The panel hearing the (DS 371 Philippines versus Thailand on cigarette customs valuation), is chaired by H.E. Ambassador Roberto Acevedo, Permanent Representative of Brazil to the WTO, and its two additional members are Alvaro Hansen of Uruguay and Richard Gottlieb of Canada.

The panel heard rebuttal arguments and fielded searching questions on the facts, claims, and defenses presented by both parties since the first substantive meeting last June.

During the meeting, Teehankee highlighted issues of transparency, discrimination, and domestic protection in Thailand’s regulatory regime, which affects the entry of Philippine-made cigarettes in the country. The Philippine tobacco industry is a major employer and contributor to the Philippine economy.

The Philippine Delegation included Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Assistant Secretary Jose Antonio Buencamino, officials from the Permanent Mission of the Philippines to the WTO, DTI-Bureau of International Trade Relations, and the International Economic Relations office of the Department of Foreign Affairs.

The Thai delegation was headed by Chawewan Kongcharoenkitkul, Senior Official from the Ministry of Finance, and is comprised of officials from the Thai Ministries of Commerce, Finance, and Foreign Affairs.

“The Philippines remains confident that the WTO legal panel will review all facts and hopefully requests Thailand to correct its tax measure,” Teehankee said.

One-third of the stores that sold tobacco products in 2008 have stopped doing so, and the remaining tobacco merchants would have to pick up the tab to monitor them under a proposal going before the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.

The number of outlets went from 78 to 58 in the unincorporated county — those areas not within a city limit.

The county pays staff members to regulate tobacco sales, and to make that program break even, stores that still sell the product should absorb a fee increase of $54, or 14 percent, according to Nikki Schmidt of the County Administrator’s Office. That would bring the cost to $394 per retail license.

County departments reviewed 3,191 fees. Department heads are recommending that 2,043 remain unchanged, 236 increase and 280 decrease. They want to introduce 51 new fees and drop 581.

Among the other changes suggested are:

• Golf: While 77 fees will remain unchanged, six others, all related to golf cart rental, could increase by 50 cents to $1.

• Parks: Eighty-five of 108 fees would not change. Nine could be eliminated as the county streamlines its camping fee structure to two rates — base and high-use. Ten fees could increase because of extra staff time needed to guard against quagga mussels. Yearly passes for boats would jump from $80 to $100.

• Agricultural Commissioner: The fee for processing a minor use permit would drop by $91, “due to a reduction in staff time required to provide this service.”

• Airport: At the San Luis Obispo Regional Airport, vehicles that have access to the airfield could have to pay $10 more, from $35 to $45.

• Animal shelter: The impound discount for owners whose animals have a current license would disappear, shifting the cost back to the owner. Twenty seven of 79 fees would increase, with the average boost being $23. A pet shop permit fee would rise from $275 to $360 a year.

• Killing livestock: For the first time, Animal Services will ask the Board of Supervisors to suggest a fee for euthanizing livestock. It has a fee schedule for “owner-requested euthanasia” of pet animals, rabbits and rodents.

• Planning: Appeals fees on Planning and Building Department decisions would jump in some case by as much as hundreds of dollars, and the cost of removing property from an agricultural preserve also would increase.

• Sheriff-Coroner: The department would add two fees: a low-level urine test for drug-endangered children; and a rave and rape drug screen urine test, at $179.

There are thousands of other recommendations, ranging from hundreds of dollars down to the library late fee for children’s books, which would now be 15 cents a day up to $8.

The full proposed fee schedule can be viewed in a 314-page staff report on the county Web site.

In her message to supervisors, Schmidt wrote that fees help “offset the cost of providing county services to those who benefit from services that exceed basic tax-supported services.”

Money from fees and permits makes up approximately 11 percent of the county’s revenue, she wrote.

By Bob Cuddy, Nov. 01, 2009, Sanluisobispo

WASHINGTON — Smoking bans are effective at reducing the risk of heart attacks and heart disease associated with exposure to secondhand smoke, says a new report from the Institute of Medicine. The report also confirms there is sufficient evidence that breathing secondhand smoke boosts nonsmokers’ risk for heart problems, adding that indirect evidence indicating that even relatively brief exposures could lead to a heart attack is compelling.

“It’s clear that smoking bans work,” said Lynn Goldman, professor of environmental health sciences, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, and chair of the committee of experts that wrote the report. “Bans reduce the risks of heart attack in nonsmokers as well as smokers. Further research could explain in greater detail how great the effect is for each of these groups and how secondhand smoke produces its toxic effects. However, there is no question that smoking bans have a positive health effect.”

About 43 percent of nonsmoking children and 37 percent of nonsmoking adults are exposed to secondhand smoke in the United States, according to public health data. Despite significant reductions in the percentages of Americans breathing environmental tobacco smoke over the past several years, roughly 126 million nonsmokers were still being exposed in 2000.

A 2006 report from the U.S. Surgeon General’s office, The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke, concluded that exposure to secondhand smoke causes heart disease and indicated that smoke-free policies are the most economical and effective way to reduce exposure. However, the effectiveness of smoking bans in reducing heart problems has continued to be a source of debate.

The IOM committee conducted a comprehensive review of published and unpublished data and testimony on the relationship between secondhand smoke and short-term and long-term heart problems. Eleven key studies that evaluated the effects of smoking bans on heart attack rates informed the committee’s conclusions about the positive effects of smoke-free policies. The studies calculated that reductions in the incidence of heart attacks range from 6 percent to 47 percent. Given the variations in how the studies were conducted and what they measured, the committee could not determine more precisely how great the effect is. Only two of the studies distinguished between reductions in heart attacks suffered by smokers versus nonsmokers. However, the repeated finding of decreased heart attack rates overall after bans were implemented conclusively demonstrates that smoke-free policies help protect people from the cardiovascular effects of tobacco smoke, the committee said.

The report also provides a detailed discussion of the evidence from animal research and epidemiological studies showing a cause-and-effect relationship between secondhand smoke exposure and heart problems. The committee was not able to determine the exact magnitude of the increased risk presented by breathing environmental tobacco smoke, but noted that studies consistently indicate it increases the risks by 25 percent to 30 percent. Although there is no direct evidence that a relatively brief exposure to secondhand smoke could precipitate a heart attack, the committee found the indirect evidence compelling. Data on particulate matter in smoke from other pollution sources suggest that a relatively brief exposure to such substances can initiate a heart attack, and particulate matter is a major component of secondhand smoke.

The report was sponsored by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Established in 1970 under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine provides independent, objective, evidence-based advice to policymakers, health professionals, the private sector, and the public. The National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council make up the National Academies. A committee roster follows.

# # #

This news release and report are available at http://national-academies.org

INSTITUTE OF MEDICINE
Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice

Committee on Secondhand Smoke Exposure and Acute Coronary Events

Lynn R. Goldman, M.D. (chair)
Professor of Environmental Health Sciences
Bloomberg School of Public Health
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore

Neal L. Benowitz, M.D.
Professor of Medicine, Psychiatry, and Biopharmaceutical Sciences, and
UCSF Comprehensive Cancer Center
University of California
San Francisco

Aruni Bhatnagar, Ph.D.
Professor of Medicine and Distinguished University Scholar
Department of Environmental Cardiology
University of Louisville
Louisville, Ky.

Francesca Dominici, Ph.D.
Professor of Biostatistics
Bloomberg School of Public Health
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore

Stephen E. Fienberg, Ph.D.
Maurice Falk University Professor of Statistics and Social Science
Department of Statistics and Machine Learning Department
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh

Gary D. Friedman, M.D., M.S.
Research Scientist Emeritus
Division of Medical Methods Research
Kaiser Permanente
Oakland, Calif.

S. Katharine Hammond, Ph.D.
Professor
Division of Environmental Health Sciences
School of Public Health
University of California
Berkeley

Jiang He, M.D., Ph.D.
Joseph S. Copes Chair and Professor
Department of Epidemiology
Tulane University
New Orleans

Suzanne Oparil, M.D.
Director
Vascular Biology and Hypertension Program
Division of Cardiovascular Disease, and
Professor of Medicine, Physiology, and Biophysics
University of Alabama
Birmingham

Eric D. Peterson, M.D.
Professor of Medicine, and
Associate Vice Chair for Quality
Division of Cardiology
Duke University Medical Center
Durham, N.C.

Edward Trapido, Sc.D.
Professor and Acting Division Director
Department of Epidemiology and Public Health
School of Medicine
University of Miami
Miami

INSTITUTE OF MEDICINE STAFF
Michelle Catlin, Ph.D.
Study Director

SALT LAKE CITY – More people are turning towards Utah’s Medicaid program at a time when there’s fewer dollars to go around. Since the recession began, the program has seen a 20 percent enrollment increase. The program went from 160,000 participants to 200,000 participants. “What Medicaid does in times like this is it catches those people who can’t get health care coverage on their own anymore,” said Lincoln Nehring, Utah’s Medicaid Policy Director.

A new report by the Utah Health Policy Project made several recommendations as to how the state can not only save money but raise revenue for Medicaid. The report suggests the state work harder at preventing Medicaid fraud, revise the program’s preferred drug list, and increase tobacco taxes from 70 cents per cigarette pack to two dollars per pack.

“If you look long term for the state of Medicaid, a tobacco tax increase will probably serve the program and the health of Utahns well.” says Nehring.

Last year, a similar tax increase failed, but Medicaid advocates believe the state’s current budget deficit will force lawmakers to act.

Top senate leadership responded to the tobacco tax idea. Senator Wayne Neiderhouser says he doesn’t think it will solve Medicaid’s problem in the long term. He would only support a tobacco tax increase if the money went towards Utah’s tobacco trust fund.

Senator Michael Waddoups says the plan would likely have enough votes to pass the senate, but only if the governor approves.


September 28, 2009

If you’ve ever seen someone holding an electronic cigarette, blowing “smoke” in a nonsmoking area, they are not defying the law. Why? Because it’s not smoke, it’s water vapor that contains the drug nicotine along with other chemicals. People who use e-cigarettes say that “vaping” – e-cigarette lingo for smoking – satisfies their nicotine craving. But the FDA warns that e-cigarettes may not be safe.

Ask someone why they are puffing on an e-cigarette and they are likely to tell you it’s just like smoking or that it tastes good. Some e-cigarettes are flavored. They may tell you they e-smoke to help them quit cigarette smoking. There’s no tobacco, like in a regular cigarette. But it does deliver nicotine and other dangerous chemicals from a device that the FDA has not approved. The FDA tested samples from two brands of e-cigarettes currently on the market. Samples contained cancer-causing chemicals and other toxic chemicals such as diethylene glycol, an ingredient used in antifreeze.

What is an e-cigarette?

An electronic cigarette is a battery-powered device for delivering a very addictive drug: nicotine. It looks like a cigarette. It’s actually a metal tube and contains no tobacco.

Each e-cigarette comes apart into two pieces: a battery portion and a cartridge containing nicotine. You place the cartridge end in the mouth and puff on it like a real cigarette. When you inhale, a heating element produces a fine mist that contains nicotine. At the moment you inhale, colorless, odorless water vapor enters the mouth and delivers the nicotine. At the same time, an LED light turns red at the other end, simulating a glowing cigarette.

What is the difference between electronic cigarettes and nicotine replacement therapy?

Nicotine replacement therapy is an approved method to help you quit smoking. In this therapy a measured dose of nicotine is delivered to the body to help you get over symptoms of nicotine withdrawal that set in soon after you quit smoking. The aim is to cut your dose of nicotine over time until you are free of the drug completely. For example, if you are using a nicotine patch, you absorb nicotine through the skin. You wean yourself off of nicotine by switching to a lower dose patch over a few weeks and wear the patch for a shorter amount of time. At present, there are five FDA-approved forms of nicotine replacement therapies: The patch, nicotine gum, nicotine spray and inhaler and nicotine lozenges.

How does the e-cigarette differ from the nicotine inhaler?

Nicotine inhalers are another form of FDA-approved nicotine replacement therapy. You need a doctor’s prescription to use them. The inhaler consists of a thin plastic tube. Inside is a cartridge that holds a measured amount of nicotine. You inhale on the mouth end of the tube and nicotine is delivered to the mouth. Again, the cartridges use gradually reduced amounts of nicotine as you withdraw from the drug.

The nicotine inhaler is a proven effective method to help you quit smoking. E-cigarettes are still being researched in clinical trials.

What else do I need to know about e-cigarettes?

* E-cigarettes are not an FDA-approved nicotine replacement therapy.
* Any statement that e-cigarettes are a safe and effective smoking cessation aid is not proven by the FDA or the World Health Organization.
* The exact amount of nicotine inhaled through an electronic cigarette is not known. It and other chemicals in the cartridges likely vary among brands.
* Nonsmokers may get hooked on nicotine if they start using electronic cigarettes. Smokers may increase their dose of nicotine if they also use other tobacco products while using e-cigarettes.
* Young smokers may get hooked on e-cigarettes (and nicotine) due to their enticing flavors.

View the original Vaping’ and e-cigarettes: A new nicotine habit article on myOptumHealth.com

SOURCES:

* U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Electronic cigarettes

* American Cancer Society. Guide to Quitting Smoking

* American Lung Association. American Lung Association joins public health advocates to urge FDA to pull e-cigarettes from marketplace.

* World Health Organization. Marketers of electronic cigarettes should halt unproved therapy claims.

* U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Import refusal report

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SALT LAKE CITY — A new report is casting doubt on whether a higher cigarette tax would be a good idea in Utah.

The report from the Utah Tax Review Commission was released Thursday. It acknowledges raising the cigarette tax from 69.5 cents per pack to $2 could add an additional $50 million to the state budget. But the commission’s report says the tax targets a narrow base of taxpayers, it’s regressive in nature and squeezes money from people with an addiction.

Lawmakers now are debating whether buying a pack of cigarettes is a function of addiction or choice. The commission also questions other research showing a link between higher cigarette prices and lower demand.

The Deseret News reports even though the number of smokers in Utah has decreased since the late 1970s, the state collected $54 million from cigarettes alone last year.

Last year lawmakers tabled a bill that would have raised the cigarette tax. Legislators will address the issue again in January.

Copyright © September 11th, 2009 Ksk

Ohio has a seriously costly problem with smoking, which makes the state’s decision to liquidate its $230 million tobacco prevention fund a very bad idea.

The fund — in the form of an endowment, not an annual budget — is what’s left for smoking prevention out of the $10 billion the state won from tobacco companies in court.

Judge David W. Fais of Franklin County Common Pleas Court now says the state is not entitled to shift this cash to other things. But Gov. Ted Strickland — desperately trying to hold together a shaky state budget — quickly said the ruling would be appealed.

The budget slates the money for worthy causes. And the budget problems certainly are tough. Nevertheless, giving up on any serious effort at smoking prevention is a bad idea for a state ranked eighth-worst for tobacco addiction. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says nearly a quarter of Ohio residents smoke.

In fact, the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids estimates smoking costs the state more than $4 billion a year in health care expenses. The same study estimates 18,000 new youth smokers take up cigarettes in Ohio every year. If all those kids keep smoking throughout their lives, the diseases and health complications they assuredly will develop will guarantee that spending will keep going up.

The state has won praise from anti-tobacco activists for its ban on smoking in public places. But that does not address the core problem, which is the need to dissuade and prevent young people from picking up the habit.

On this front, Ohio falls short. A recent report on retail sales to youth found that Ohio was worst in the nation for the ease with which minors can get cigarettes, with 17 percent of stores selling to undercover inspectors who were younger than 18.

Coincidentally, one of the best ways to discourage new smokers is to raise the cigarette tax. Studies show a correlation between high cigarette taxes and low smoking rates.

Higher tobacco taxes would have the added benefit of bringing in new state revenue that potentially could fill the budget gap left by Judge Fais’ ruling.

Although Ohio has recently raised taxes on cigarettes, its $1.25-a-pack tax is less than some of its neighbors, such as Pennsylvania ($1.35) and Michigan ($2). It’s also far behind the most aggressive states, including New York ($2.75) and Rhode Island ($3.46).

Just by matching Michigan’s $2 tax, Ohio could raise half a billion dollars in new revenue.

Ohio should also extend the tax to dangerous non-cigarette tobacco products — a big growth area for the tobacco industry.

Some combination of all these strategies — including beefing up penalties and enforcement of laws against underage tobacco — are better strategies than appealing Judge Fais’ decision.


— Cox News Service

MEMBERS of Parliament have adopted a law to regulate the import and export of cigarettes.
The MPs said the regulations would help clean the country’s image as Swaziland was now seen as a conduit for the smuggling of illegal cigarettes.
The motion to adopt the regulations was moved by Nkilongo MP Trusty Gina and seconded by Lobamba Lomdzala MP Marwick Khumalo.
Khumalo said since it was recently said that the country loses at least E40 million a month because of failure to have the regulations, it was essential that something be done speedily.
“We should not lose such amount of money just because we do not have regulations,” he said.
MP Gina said she had gathered from the South African media that the neighbouring country’s police were worried that Swaziland had bonded warehouses yet the country does not have regulations.
“This implies that the cigarettes in these warehouses may not have been declared.”
She said the regulations would also help put an end to the illegal cigarettes that are in circulation.
Currently, companies who have bonded warehouses import cigarettes from Zimbabwe and sell them to Mozambique.


Copyright © 2009 Observer

Some towns down the Jersey Shore have banned smoking on their boardwalks. Others, like Belmar, have set up smoking zones on the beach but away from most sunbathers.

But little Bradley Beach is about to one-up everybody.

The mayor and town council say they will soon pass an ordinance to ban smoking on the beach, the boardwalk, in fact, all the way out to the curb of Ocean Avenue (that includes a sidewalk).

“I usually don’t come here that much because I have bad asthma and I really can’t take it,” says Calli Dobrzynski, a member of the Mayor’s Youth Advisory Board.

So Calli asked her fellow board members to support smoking zones for their beach.

But when they took the idea to the council, the adults decided to go a step further and just ban smoking. Period.

“Why stop at a partial ban? Why not just say we are committed to keeping our beach clean and our people healthy,” said Mayor Julie Schreck.

When the council formally passes it in the next few weeks, it will be the first such complete ban on beach and boardwalk smoking anywhere in New Jersey.

Smoker Mike Mortimer is none too happy. “At least give is a choice,” he said.

But youth board member Paul DePiano said “Usually adults don’t listen to kids. It’s pretty exciting and thrilling.”

As for losing smoking tourists, the mayor said, “if the ability to smoke on the beach is your criterion for which beach you’re gonna go to, we’ll be very sorry to see you go but the rest of the people here will enjoy clean air and a clean beach.”

The total beach and boardwalk smoking ban won’t take effect until after this summer’s season is over.

But by next summer, smokers will have to cross Ocean Avenue in order to light up.
Copyright © 2009

MORRISVILLE, N.C. — Leaf tobacco producer Alliance One International Inc. said Wednesday that it plans an offering of $75 million senior notes due 2016.

The company said it plans to use the proceeds to pay off borrowings under some short-term seasonal credit lines from foreign financing sources that mature over the next two to ten months.

The notes are part of the same series as some outstanding senior notes due 2016 that were issued on July 2.

There will be $645 million outstanding notes in the series once the offering closes.

Alliance One International buys, processes, stores and sells leaf tobacco to cigarette manufacturers and other consumer tobacco products in the United States, South America, Europe and Asia.

Its shares closed at $3.86 Tuesday.

BUTTE, Mont. (AP) Montana Tech is gearing up to be a tobacco-free campus.

Montana Tech Chancellor Frank Gilmore sent a campus-wide e-mail Tuesday announcing the Butte campus intends to outlaw cigarette smoking and chewing tobacco starting July 1, 2010. The ban will prohibit the use of tobacco products anywhere on campus.

Gilmore says he and school administrators have been considering an all-out ban for more than eight months. He said the prohibition is all about public health.

The campus already has a smoking ban in all of its buildings, including dormitories. But smokers are allowed to smoke outside, at least 25 feet from doorways.

Gilmore says the new policy, still being drafted, would also make it illegal to use tobacco products in a personal vehicle parked on campus.


Information from: The Montana Standard, http://www.mtstandard.com

WASHINGTON — Smoke ’em if you got ’em. The Pentagon reassured troops Wednesday that it won’t ban tobacco products in war zones.
Advertisement

Defense officials hadn’t planned to eliminate smoking. But fear of a ban arose among some troops after the Defense Department received a study recommending the military move toward becoming tobacco-free.

The study, commissioned by the Pentagon and the Veterans Affairs Department, recommended that the military make incremental moves toward becoming smoke-free.

Criticism of the proposal spread across the Internet and among troops.

“Our troops make enough sacrifices to serve our nation,” said Brian Wise, executive director of the advocacy group Military Families United.

Copyright © 2009 Newsok

The Indian government will provide assistance to farmers diverting area under tobbaco towards medicinal plants to cut area under the leaf, a government release said on Tuesday.

The government will support tobacco growers to switch to other crops and will use a 6-billion-rupee fund for promotion of medicinal plants, Anbumani Ramadoss, federal health minister, was quoted as saying in the release.

However, higher tobacco prices are prompting Indian farmers to increase area under the leaf.

The average price of the premier grade used for cigarette-making, flue cured virginia (FCV), has risen to 84.67 rupees per kg from 47.47 rupees a year ago.

Global tobacco companies like British American Tobacco, Japan Tobacco Inc., Philip Morris International and Imperial Tobacco Plc are main buyers of Indian leaf, and they have kept prices firm in the Indian market.

India is the second biggest producer of tobacco after China and the fourth-biggest exporter of unmanufactured tobacco.

Copyright © 2009 Chiroeco

As of today, it will cost more to smoke in Vermont, and there are fewer places you can do it. New laws take effect that increase taxes and restrictions, which many believe will help more people quit, and protect non-smokers from second-hand smoke.

But some are resentful of the changes.

Two words sum up Rob Doekel’s opinion of the changes to Vermont’s smoking laws and prices. A 30-or-so year smoker, he says he feels shunned.

Rob Doekel\Richmond, VT “Basically they’re just pushing us away- making us seem like lower class of society.”

Wednesday – July 1st – some new laws went into effect- including one that bans smoking in the workplace entirely- amending a previous, partial ban.

Vermont was a leader on anti-smoking legislation when it passed a Smoking in the Workplace law in 1987. But that law included an exception for designated smoking areas indoors. Now- Vermont is following a number of other states that have full workplace bans.

They also decided to increase Vermont’s cigarette tax, by 25-cents– bringing the state tax to $2.24.

Chelsea Ressler says she welcomes the new tax and restrictions– she thinks they may, in fact, benefit her… And she’s a smoker.

Chelsea Ressler\Burlington “The price increase definitely encourages me to cut back and stop smoking- so I’m happy with it.”

But others say they don’t think it’s enough to price them out of the habit, even
though cigarettes often go for 7 or 8 dollars a pack.

Sheri Lynn of the Vermont Department of Health says the aim is to make people healthier. She says recent research has found secondhand smoke to be more dangerous than previously thought.

Lynn says she’s encouraged to see a drop in adult smoking rates in Vermont since 2000. And is hoping the new laws will drive them down even further.
Copyright © 2009 Necn

When it comes to advising children on smoking, U.S. President Barack Obama’s message is turning out to be less than ideal — do as I say, not as I do.

A day after signing new anti-smoking legislation to prevent tobacco companies from marketing to children, Obama admitted to the nation he is still battling his addiction to cigarettes.

“Look, I’ve said before that as a former smoker I constantly struggle with it. Have I fallen off the wagon sometimes? Yes,” Obama said during a White House news conference.

“You know, I would say that I am 95% cured. But there are times when I mess up.”

Mr. Obama’s acknowledgment that he has not quite kicked the habit came as the White House is touting the bipartisan passage in Congress of the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act.

The bill, for the first time, gives the U.S. Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate the tobacco industry, under a new Center for Tobacco Products.

Like similar legislation now before the Canadian Parliament, the U.S. bill bans tobacco companies from adding candy and fruit flavours in cigarettes, which critics say are targeted primarily at children and teenage consumers.

It requires new warning labels on cigarette packs, forbids descriptions like “mild” or “light” on packaging and prohibits the marketing of cigarettes at U.S. sporting and entertainment events.

At a Monday signing ceremony, Mr. Obama criticized tobacco companies for the “constant and insidious barrage of advertising” directed at young people, and said he knows personally “how difficult it can be to break this habit when it’s been with you for a long time.”

But he refused Monday to answer a reporter’s question on his own habit and became perturbed when the White House media persisted at Tuesday’s news conference.

“First of all, the new law that was put in place is not about me. It’s about the next generation of kids coming up,” he told the reporter who asked the question. “So I think it’s fair . . . to just say that you just think it’s neat to ask me about my smoking, as opposed to it being relevant to my new law. But that’s fine. I understand. It’s an interesting human interest story.”

Mr. Obama said he is not a daily smoker and tries to set an example for his children.

“I don’t do it in front of my kids. I don’t do it in front of my family,” he said.

Mr. Obama’s smoking has been a steady source of fascination for the U.S. media and public since the presidential campaign, when he acknowledged difficulty breaking the habit while keeping a constant and stressful schedule.

First lady Michelle Obama said during the campaign that she hated his habit and that the couple had struck a deal that he would seek the White House only if he quit smoking. As president, he presumably needs to ask for cigarettes from staff or friends, since he does not buy his own.

On Tuesday, Mr. Obama compared his addiction to nicotine to an alcoholic’s need for a drink.

“I don’t know what to tell you, other than the fact that, you know, like folks who go to [Alcoholics Anonymous] you know, once you’ve gone down this path, then, you know, it’s something you continually struggle with, which is precisely why the legislation we signed was so important, because what we don’t want is kids going down that path in the first place.”

© Copyright Canada

Utah’s U.S. senators voted against anti-smoking bill that give the Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate tobacco and cigarettes products. Only 17 senators voted against it, some from the tobacco states. And people say that this votes can’t be bought. Our two senators are beholden to the tobacco industry for campaign contributions. I defy any thinking person to give me any other rational, logical reason for these two to vote this way. “Follow the money.”

A few days ago, WCAX filed a brief story whose title and contents summarize everything that is wrong with our society’s current attitude toward smoking. I’ll reproduce it here in full.

It turns out there is an upside to higher taxes; it may be the key to getting people to quit smoking.

A year after New York raised its cigarette tax to $2.75-per-pack, which is the highest in the nation, the number of adult smokers is at the lowest rate ever recorded.

The Health Department says the state saw the number of adult smokers drop 12 percent between 2007 and 2008.

And the title? “High Taxes are the New Nicorette.”

First off, let me say that that analogy alone is horrendously dishonest. Nicorette is a product; people choose whether or not to buy it. It’s a successful product because many, many people want to cut down on smoking, or quit altogether. They choose to spend their money on bitter, foul-tasting gum because they believe in the benefits associated with it. So they voluntarily part with their money.

High taxes, on the other hand, are not a choice. If you refuse to pay them, you go to jail. Comparing a voluntary business transaction based on the promise of mutual benefit to a government-enforced act of coercion and theft is akin to comparing apples to razor blades. One is good for you; the other will cut you if abused.

Ah, but sales taxes are different, and can be avoided by choosing not to buy the taxed product in question! That, the social engineers say, is the “key” to forcing a lifestyle change upon free individuals. And that is why we need to look very skeptically and critically at the motives of these nanny statists, and at the constitutional ethics of their coercive actions.

It’s time to back up a few steps and look at the big picture here.

Could high tobacco taxes “encourage” people to quit smoking, and decrease the number of overall smokers? Sure they could. Taking the New York figures at face value isn’t difficult; making a product artificially more expensive will naturally decrease its usage. This basic truth alone is touted by nanny statists as the “proof” that higher taxes are the answer to creating a better, more healthy society.

Is it though?

I’ve read the United States Constitution. More than once. It’s a beautiful document, and much more pleasurable to read than the current U.S. tax code. Unlike that mammoth, depressing document, Article I, Section 8 gets right to the point: “The Congress shall have the Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States.”

And no, the “general Welfare” does not mean “anything the governor of New York, the Congress, or Barack Obama thinks it should mean.” When the Constitution was being drafted, the anti-federalists were right to be concerned that this clause would be abused, and that it would serve as a loophole for unlimited and oppressive government. James Madison calmed their fears in Federalist No. 41:

It has been urged and echoed that [the power to collect taxes for the “general welfare”] amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the… general welfare… But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon?… For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power?

If forcing people to quit smoking had fallen under the purview of the “general welfare” clause, the Framers would have specifically included it. It doesn’t, and they didn’t.

That being the case, the near-rape of smokers with high tobacco taxes, federal or state, is unconstitutional. Any power not specifically afforded to the federal government by the Constitution is automatically reserved for the states, but not if that power happens to violate the Constitution. That’s why federal intervention was necessary to overturn state segregation laws during the turbulent Civil Rights era.

The Constitution is not an obsolete or irrelevant document; it is the bedrock of liberty upon which this nation rests. Adherence to it, and observance of it, is critical to safeguarding that liberty. It’s the main source of principles in politics.

Unfortunately, too many control freaks in all levels of government have abandoned those principles in favor of Pragmatism – the overrated “practical” doctrine that encourages the use of whatever approach “works,” principles be damned. Well, as WCAX demonstrated, high tobacco taxes “work,” but are they constitutional? Are they ethical? Are they right?

The Framers say no.

Millions of people in this country choose to smoke, and millions choose to quit. People appreciate and value their freedom to choose, and nowhere in our founding documents is there a justification for abusing the tax code to micromanage their lives for the sake of some elusive common good.

It’s time to cut down on Pragmatism and focus on principles again.

Plus, if using tobacco taxes to pay for socialized medicine is still “in,” then that’s another reason the federal and state governments should think twice about forcing their unwilling benefactors to give up the habit that will supposedly help create a perfect, fair, government-run rationing scheme.

Copyright © 2009 Examiner

As new HIV therapies prolong the lives and improve the health of sufferers, patients have been urged to consider long-term health factors.

Patients with HIV are twice as likely to smoke and also more susceptible to the detrimental effects of smoking due to a swifter decline in lung function, new research shows.

“Early in the epidemic, HIV was a different disease – with few effective drugs, the best that an HIV-positive patient could hope for was a relatively painless death after a brief period,” said Syed Kadri of Ohio State University medical centre.

“The long-term effects of HIV were therefore fairly obvious: death. But with the advent of a new class of anti-retroviral drugs called ‘highly active anti-retroviral therapy,’ or HAART, the clinical picture of HIV has changed. The disease has gone from being an automatic death sentence to a chronic condition, and like all chronic conditions, it brings with it other complications that can seriously affect the lives of those who have it.”

Today’s study evaluated declines in lung function among HIV-positive patients.

Patients involved in the study, mostly men in their 40s, half of whom were smokers, were assessed at baseline for two measures of respiratory status, FEV1 and DLCO, and had been followed for two years at the time of reporting. FEV1 is a measure of expiratory flow in one second, a standard gauge of lung capacity, whereas DLCO is a measurement of diffusing capacity of the lungs and is decreased in patients with emphysema.

At the end of two years, the 63 patients displayed marked declines in lung function, going from an average FEV1 of 88 per cent predicted to 83.2 per cent and a DLCO of 77.6 to 70.0.

“This is the type of decline you might expect to see in elderly individuals who have a long history of smoking,” said Mr Kadri.

“These results indicate that HIV-positive patients are more susceptible to lung-related problems than HIV-negative individuals and that HIV-positive smokers are even more susceptible to developing early emphysema. We don’t know when these differences begin to manifest in HIV-positive individuals who smoke, but the severity is likely a function of the time that they have lived with the disease.”

Managing biodiversity
Being dependent on the natural world for our raw materials gives us a responsibility to avoid and minimise business impacts on biodiversity. Our primary biodiversity focus is the maintenance of ecosystems where tobacco leaf is grown, to ensure healthy soils, timber and water sustainability.
BAT Group Biodiversity Statement reflects aim of embedding biodiversity conservation principles across businesses worldwide. They have developed tools and guidelines for our companies to assess their biodiversity impacts and to devise action plans to avoid, minimise, mitigate or offset these. Since 2007, companies have been required to review biodiversity impacts at their locations using Group best practice guidance in their assessment.
During 2008, our efforts to develop measures for reporting biodiversity impacts led us to conclude that having additional Group-wide biodiversity measures is not as effective as local biodiversity indicators that will result from our risk assessments.
The agronomy support we provide to farmers enables us to help minimise the biodiversity impacts that growing commercial crops can cause. Social Responsibility in Tobacco Production (SRTP) programme includes soil and water conservation and integrated pest management, as well as many other elements intended to mitigate farmers’ impact on biodiversity.

The British American Tobacco
Biodiversity Partnership. They have worked for eight years with respected conservation NGOs – Fauna & Flora International, The Tropical Biology Association and Earthwatch – in the British American Tobacco Biodiversity Partnership. In the five years to 2005, we donated £1 million a year to the Partnership and have committed £1.5 million a year for the five years from 2006. Through the Partnership, they are currently involved in 33 biodiversity projects in two categories:
- Internal projects designed to embed
biodiversity assessment, management and
conservation within our own operations; and
- External projects, selected by our NGO
partners, which we support to achieve
improved biodiversity conservation around
the world.