HELSINKI, – Finnish President Tarja Halonen approved Friday a new tobacco act proposed by the Finnish government on Aug. 18, aiming to totally end smoking in Finland, the first country to write the aim of completely banning smoking in a law.

The purpose of a new tobacco act is to prevent in particular children and youngsters from smoking. The new act restricts selling and supplying tobacco especially to children and youngsters under 18 years old. Neither shops nor private persons are allowed to sell or provide tobacco products to persons under 18. According to the act, person who sell single cigarette or buy a packet of cigarette from a shop to a minor person should be fined or sentenced to prison for a maximum of 6 months. It is also forbidden to supply tobacco to minor persons for free.

According to the new act, persons under 18 years old are banned to import and possess tobacco products, importing tobacco products can be fined. In addition, sellers of tobacco products must be aged at least 18 years in the future. The new act also prohibits tobacco products and their trademarks being displayed in retail stores in the future. In addition, the sale of tobacco products from vending machines will be banned.

The total ban on the sale of snuff in Finland will continue. Ordering snuff through the Internet will also be forbidden.

The bans on smoking will be extended also in places used by children and youngsters, the public venues of residential areas, outdoor public places and hotel rooms.

The new act comes into effect from Oct. 1 this year. The ban on display of tobacco products and their trademarks, as well as the restrictions on smoking in hotel rooms become effective at the beginning of 2012. Sale of tobacco products in vending machines will be prohibited from the beginning of 2015.

Thailand Tobacco Monopoly officials have been accused of accepting bribes of over US$1.93 million (62 million baht) from US-based companies to ensure Brazilian-grown tobacco was sold locally, says the US Justice Department.

The accusations came after two American tobacco companies agreed on Friday to pay nearly US$30 million to settle charges that they bribed foreign officials to get lucrative overseas tobacco sales contracts.

Local officials could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Universal Corp of Richmond, Virginia, and Alliance One International of Morrisville, North Carolina, face civil and criminal charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice Department.

Universal was accused of bribing officials in Thailand, Malawi and Mozambique, while Alliance One was accused of bribing officials in Thailand, China, Greece, Indonesia and Kyrgyzstan.

Alliance One pleaded guilty to three counts of conspiring to violate the US’s Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).

“The charges relate to bribes paid to Thai government officials to secure contracts with the Thailand Tobacco Monopoly, a Thai government agency, for the sale of tobacco leaf,” the Justice Department said.

Alliance One was formed in 2005 from the merger of Dimon Incorporated and Standard Commercial Corporation, two tobacco wholesalers.

It buys, processes and sells tobacco to manufacturers worldwide.

The guilty pleas relate to the conduct of employees and agents of foreign subsidiaries of both Dimon and Standard prior to the 2005 merger, the US Justice Department said.

The department said that it had also filed two counts against Universal Brazil for conspiring to violate the FCPA by paying bribes to Thailand Tobacco Monopoly employees for the sale of Brazilian tobacco.

It didn’t say how many Thai officials were involved.

The Justice Department said that from 2000 to 2004, Dimon, Standard and Universal Brazil sold Brazilian tobacco to the Thailand Tobacco Monopoly.

No Thai officials were named by the department.

“Each of the three companies retained sales agents in Thailand, and collaborated through those agents to apportion tobacco sales to the Thailand Tobacco Monopoly among themselves, co-ordinate their sales prices, and pay kickbacks to officials of the Thailand Tobacco Monopoly in order to ensure that each company would share in the Thai tobacco market.

“To secure the sales contracts, each company admitted it paid kickbacks to certain Thailand Tobacco Monopoly representatives based on the number of kilogrammes of tobacco sold to the Thailand Tobacco Monopoly.

“To obtain these contracts, Dimon paid bribes totalling $542,590 and Standard paid bribes totalling $696,160, for a total of $1,238,750 in bribes paid to the Thailand Tobacco Monopoly officials during the course of four years.”

Universal admitted paying $697,000 in kickbacks to the monopoly officials, the Justice Department said.

It had agreed to pay a $4.4 million fine and retain an anti-corruption monitor for three years.

Universal Corp said the company voluntarily reported the problems to authorities and that it has cooperated with the investigation.

“We have absolutely no tolerance for this type of activity,” chief executive officer George C Freeman III said.

ust over half of Ohio residents want to let tobacco back in the state’s bars, a new statewide poll finds, though support remains strong for continuing a smoking ban in restaurants and workplaces.

Voters in 2006 approved a constitutional amendment that banned smoking in indoor public spaces, including workplaces, restaurants and bars.

Since then, there’s been discussion of revising the law.

The Ohio Health Issues Poll, conducted on behalf of the Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati, found that 53 percent of adults surveyed favored repealing the ban in bars.

But while most Ohioans want to have a smoke with their beer, they’d like to keep their jobs and meals out smoke-free, said Jennifer Chubinski, director of health data improvement for the Health Foundation.

The survey found 77 percent of respondents favored continuing the smoking ban in workplaces, and 78 percent favored continuing it in restaurants.

Support for the ban in those locations remained strong even among current smokers, results showed: 60 percent of smokers favored continuing smoke-free workplaces, while 62 percent favored smoke-free restaurants.

There’s also been talk around the state about increasing the state’s cigarette tax. Supporters say a 40-cent hike per pack will generate more revenue for the cash-strapped state and reduce smoking rates, especially among teens.

The Health Foundation’s poll found 48 percent of Ohio adults support the tax increase.

Not surprisingly, support is highest among adults who’ve never smoked – 65 percent – and lowest among current smokers – 14 percent.

Chubinski was surprised to see anyone in favor of increase.

“It’s a tough time to ask people to increase taxes on anything,” she said.

Ohio’s cigarette tax is $1.25 per pack, compared to 60 cents a pack in Kentucky and 99.5 cents in Indiana. Nationally, cigarette taxes range from 17 cents a pack in Missouri to $4.35 in New York.

Swedish Match North America is stepping up its efforts to introduce Americans to snus, the traditional Swedish dipping tobacco.

The Chesterfield County-based company has expanded by sixfold the number of stores where it sells snus, even as it ended a joint venture with Lorillard Tobacco Co. to test demand, company officials disclosed yesterday.

This winter, it has crews at Vail and Aspen, Colo.; Jackson Hole, Wyo.; and other ritzy ski resorts, passing out silvery sample cans of its General brand snus.

Snus, which is a type of snuff made from tobacco cured by steam instead of heat in the usual American way, could become one of the hottest new tobacco products on the market. It has a different aroma than moist snuff and does not require users to spit.

Last week, Michael E. Szymanczyk, chairman and chief executive officer of the nation’s No. 1 tobacco company, Henrico Countybased Altria Group Inc., said expanding spitless tobacco products was a top priority.

Altria sells a brand of snus using its potent Marlboro brand name, while No. 2 Reynolds American Inc. sells snus named for its flagship Camel cigarettes.

But Stockholm-based Swedish Match AB thinks it has an important edge — it has been making snus for more than 200 years.

“It’s safe to say that there is a demand for the real thing from Sweden there in the U.S. market,” Lars Dahlgren, president and CEO of the parent company, told analysts yesterday.

“We see that in e-commerce channels, we see that in stores, and they are well-informed U.S. consumers. They are prepared to pay a premium for their real authentic and Swedish type of products,” he added.

Swedish Match’s now-ended joint venture with U.S. cigarette-maker Lorillard Tobacco Co. experimented with marketing snus from cigarette racks in Georgia and Ohio.

“The market has moved on a bit since we went into that,” Swedish Match AB Vice President Emmett Harrison told the analysts.

He said the company now sells snus from refrigerated cases in more than 600 stores, rather than jockeying for space on the same shelves as cigarettes. Snus keeps fresh longer when refrigerated.

The number of stores carrying Swedish Match’s snus is up from just 100 stores at the start of the year, Rich Flaherty, Swedish Match’s locally based president-U.S. sales, said by e-mail after the conference call ended.

Swedish Match believes the U.S. market for snus is running at about 16 million to 18 million cans a year, Harrison said. In contrast, Americans buy more than a billion cans a year of moist snuff.

Meanwhile, Swedish Match expects overall U.S. demand for snuff will continue to grow, probably by about 5 percent this year.

Swedish Match plans to launch peach-flavored Timber Wolf brand pouches next month, Dahlgren said.

Earlier, Swedish Match reported worldwide profit last year rose 39 percent to $435 million, as net sales rose 13 percent to just less than $2 billion.

In the United States, its sales of moist snuff rose 5.9 percent during 2009, buoyed in part by its sponsorship of Ron Hornaday’s No. 33 Chevy in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series as well as of the Bassmaster fishing series.

The company’s mass-market cigar sales rose 23 percent in 2009, while premium brands increased 3 percent.

Its loose-leaf chewing tobacco sales declined 9.3percent, hit hard by steep tax increases in Texas and Florida.

Guilford County may have banned smoking from area bars and restaurants at the first of the year, but technology is giving county health officials and other anti-smoking advocates fits. “E-cigs” – also known as “electronic cigarettes” – are becoming the nicotine dispenser of choice now that smoking traditional cigarettes has been declared illegal in most public buildings.

Electronic cigarettes are meant to simulate the experience of smoking a cigarette, and many designs look like the real thing, light up like real ones and release a puff of vapor. They’re battery-powered nicotine dispensers that “vaporize” the nicotine but, since there’s no tobacco and no combustion, e-cigs aren’t covered by state laws that ban smoking.

According to Guilford County Tobacco Prevention Coordinator Mary Gillett, the product can cause confusion when bar patrons light up their electronic cigarettes because, while it’s not illegal to do so, anti-smokers at bars can get upset with the fact that people are apparently smoking.

Gillett said bar owners can order patrons to put them out – or, rather, turn them off.

“They can do it the same way they can say, ‘No shoes, no service,’” she said.

Gillette said that, since the product is relatively new, there are a great deal of questions about the safety of the device and how it compares with cigarettes.

Health claims about the product at this point are all over the place – from “There’s nothing in the product that causes cancer,” to, “It’s just as bad if not worse for you than a traditional cigarette.”

And, though an e-cig does put off a “vapor,” that only happens when someone takes a drag on it – it’s not a continuous stream of smoke as with a lit cigarette, and advocates of the product say there’s no danger for those around the e-smoker as there is from secondhand smoke put off by traditional cigarettes.

The legislation that banned smoking in most public buildings starting at the first of this year defines “smoking” as, “The use or possession of a lighted cigarette, lighted cigar, lighted pipe, or any other lighted tobacco product.”

Electronic cigarettes aren’t the first loophole – if they are indeed one – in the law that someone has tried to use to get around the ban. Some argue that an ambiguity in the smoking ban allows clubs to ignore the ban simply by declaring an establishment a county club – as one Greensboro club owner has already done; and others may follow suit if the name-change maneuver holds up in court.

Guilford County Sheriff BJ Barnes said the law is the law, and he added that, since using electronic cigarettes isn’t illegal, it must be legal.

“The law is not supposed to be subjective,” Barnes said.

Guilford County Security Director Jeff Fowler said he hasn’t seen anyone smoking electronic cigarettes in the Guilford County Courthouse or in other county buildings.

“I did see someone smoking one in line,” said Fowler, who added that he did a double take when he saw it.

The courthouse lines often get very long and all the people with lengthy waits on cold mornings need something to occupy their time. (If Fowler and his guards do ever need to break up an argument between an e-cig user and anti-smoking advocate in line, they’ll soon have a pair of $7,000 Segways to whisk easily to even the very distant end of the line if need be.)

According to Guilford County Health Director Merle Green, as of yet, the health department has no stance on electronic cigarettes.

“The county hasn’t taken an official position on e-cigs,” Green said. “This has not been an agenda item on county board meeting agendas so far.”

The new cigarettes were invented about six years ago but are only now becoming popular in this country.

Companies marketing the electronic nicotine dispensers say it’s a product that can help people quit smoking, in much the same way a nicotine patch might help wean someone off cigarettes.

However, as traditional smoking becomes banned in more places, more and more smokers are apparently using e-cigs simply to get their nicotine fix in places where smoking real cigarettes isn’t allowed.

By Scott D. Yost
February 04, 2010

LONDON – The UK government launched plans on Monday to halve the number of smokers by the end of the decade and said it would consider removing branding from cigarette packets and banning cigarette vending machines.

At the moment, 21 percent of the population smoke and ministers want to reduce that figure to 10 percent by 2020, with a particular focus on young people.

“We’ve come so far and now we’ll go even further — to push forward and save even more lives,” said Health Secretary Andy Burnham.

“One day, in the not too distant future, we’ll look back and find it hard to remember why anyone ever smoked in the first place.”

The number of people lighting up in Britain has fallen by a quarter in the past decade as a result of various policies including a ban on advertising, putting grisly pictures on packets and raising the age of sale for tobacco to 18.

In 2007, the government joined several others throughout the world in introducing a ban on smoking in virtually all enclosed public places and workplaces.

But despite falling smoking rates, the number of deaths attributed to smoking is still 80,000 a year.

Now restrictions will be reviewed to see if they should be extended to include entrances to buildings so non-smokers do not have to run a gauntlet of smokers.

The government is looking at protecting children from second-hand smoke by promoting smoke-free homes and cars.

Ministers are also to consider the case for plain packaging, and banning the sale of tobacco from vending machines as part of the moves to deter young people.

“Now that we’ve banned advertising and will soon see an end to attractive displays in shops, the only remaining method of advertising tobacco is the packaging,” Burnham said.

“So we will carefully consider whether there is evidence for making tobacco companies use plain packets.”

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — National Tobacco Co. LP has announced the recent additions of two long-term industry professionals to its sales management team in 2010. Steve Towle will be assuming the role of key accounts manager in the eight-state South Central region of the country. And Tom Meyer has also joined National Tobacco and will be assuming the role of regional sales manager for the nine-state Midwest region of the country.

Towle will be charged with building business with the Louisville, Ky.-based company’s most strategic chain and wholesale customers in this geography. He will be headquartered in the Kansas City area, where he remains active and very involved in the area’s charity and community programs.

Prior to joining National Tobacco, he spent three years as the regional sales manager for the eastern United States with Prime Time International. Before joining Prime Time, Towle spent the majority of his business career with U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Co. During his 23 years with USST, he held positions of increasing responsibility in sales, promotion and brand management.

Upon graduating from the University of Kansas, Towle “spent eight years making a living and terrorizing opponents as a linebacker with the Miami Dolphins and Detroit Lions of the NFL.”

Meyer will be managing a region of nine territory sales managers and will be charged with the overall business development of the company’s brands in this geography. Prior to joining National Tobacco, he spent the past 24 years with USST. His professional background includes positions in sales and account management with increasing responsibility for USST. Meyer’s knowledge and long-term relationships with the key strategic business partners in the Midwest will be of value to the company immediately, it said.

Meyer will be headquartered in the Chicago area.

Also, National Tobacco has announced that Ron Tully has been elected to the board of the National Association of Tobacco Outlets (NATO) as a manufacturer’s representative. Tully has been with National Tobacco for eight years and serves as the company’s vice president of public affairs. He will be working with the NATO board to assist retail partners in their efforts to deal with local, state and federal legislation that impacts their business and to ensure that adult consumers can continue to purchase their preferred tobacco products.
January 20, 2010

SANTA CRUZ — Despite a smoking ban on Pacific Avenue that took effect in October, the city of Santa Cruz got a “D” in 2009 from the American Lung Association for overall efforts to control tobacco.

Capitola, Scotts Valley and Watsonville didn’t fare any better. Each got a “D,” as did Santa Cruz County.

Paul Knepprath, vice president for advocacy and health initiatives at the association, explained that the grades took into account licensing of tobacco retailers and smoke-free housing policies along with smoke-free outdoor air. Santa Cruz rated a “B” for smoke-free air due to the ban, but got a subpar grade overall due to failing or close to failing scores in the other areas.

Knepprath said he hoped the grades, released Tuesday, would motivate Santa Cruz County leaders to do more to protect residents from the deadly toll of tobacco. The city of Richmond, in one year, adopted ordinances in all three areas recommended by the association, earning an “A” for 2009.

The public “strongly supports increasing protections,” Knepprath said, noting only 14 percent of Californians smoke.

The local cities scored higher than two-thirds of cities and counties in the state, which rated an “F.” So far, 59 citations have been handed out in Santa Cruz since Oct. 20, according to police spokesman Zach Friend. The Santa Cruz ban covers West Cliff Drive, Beach Street and the wharf, outside dining areas, and city property including parks along with Pacific Avenue, the downtown business district.

Capitola’s smoking ban, which took effect Jan. 1, covers the Esplanade, the wharf, city parks, the Rispin Mansion property, the library, City Hall and the Stockton Avenue Bridge.

“We’re getting compliance,” said Capitola Police Chief Mike Card.

Capitola Councilman Dennis Norton, who advocated the smoking ban, was surprised at the low grade.

“I thought we were moving in the right direction,” he said, noting he’s taken heat from the owner of Havana Village cigar shop.

Scotts Valley Mayor Jim Reed said he was pleased to see Santa Cruz County jurisdictions ranked in the top one-third of the state.

“Obviously there’s more that can be done,” he said, noting he was on the short end of a 2007 attempt to ban smoking in the parking lots at parks. “It’s a classic question of how to strike the right balance between the individual and the overall community.” Natasha Kowalski, senior health educator with Santa Cruz County, lobbied for the local smoking bans, pointing to the U.S. surgeon general’s 2006 warning about health hazards from secondhand smoke.

“Research shows it’s not safe. Evidence is mounting,” she said, adding, “Santa Cruz and Capitola “deserve recognition for the strong outdoor ordinances” they adopted.

Other institutions going smoke-free include the fairgrounds in Watsonville and Dominican Hospital.

“Two of our Rehab campus neighbors would like to join forces with us and will go smoke free as well,” said Mylene Sakamoto, Dominican’s employee health services manager.

Kowalski hasn’t talked with officials in Watsonville or Scotts Valley about a smoking ban.

“We’d be excited if they were interested,” she said.

She called retail licensing “the next step” in tobacco control.

After San Luis Obispo adopted such a policy, sales of cigarettes to minors dropped from 17 percent to zero, she said.

The rate in the city of Santa Cruz and unincorporated areas of the county in a March 2008 survey was 17 percent, twice the state rate, she added.

She said it’s not too late for smokers to sign up for the health agency’s free quit-smoking class that starts at 5:30 p.m. today at 1060 Emeline Ave. Bldg. F Solarium Conference Room.

By Jondi Gumz
Posted: 01/12/2010

For quite some time, drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes in a bar or restaurant have been complementary activities for many people. Bars often have a near-constant haze and aroma of cigarette smoke due to many patrons’ preference for smoking, and everyone in the bar is exposed, whether they like it or not. But this smoking-and-drinking relationship will come to an end on May 1, when a statewide smoking ban takes effect.

Smoking will be prohibited in all workplaces, including bars and restaurants, according to legislation passed by the House and Senate on Dec. 10. The “workplace” is defined as any place that serves food or drink and has at least one employee, according to the Detroit Free Press. Other places that will not allow smoking include the following:

• Hookah bars: They can continue to operate if they do not serve food or drink.

• Restaurant patios

• Hotels: All rooms will now be non-smoking.

• Construction sites: Smoking is only allowed if workers are outside.

The Free Press reports people are still allowed to smoke in vehicles, home offices, the gaming floors of the three Detroit casinos, cigar bars and specialty tobacco shops. Michigan is the 38th state to pass some type of smoking ban.

Michigan’s lawmakers have tried to pass a smoking ban in the past, but have always hit some kind of obstacle. A major stumbling block has been negotiating a compromise about smoking in the casinos — a legitimate concern, seeing as how the casinos are a prominent draw for visitors and bring business and traffic into the city. Although smoking will be permitted on the gaming floors, it will not be allowed in casino hotels, restaurants or bars.

Both supporters and opponents of the ban have poignant arguments. Supporters say a smoking ban will encourage more patrons to come to bars and restaurants, if they know they will not be breathing smoke or take its odor on their clothes on the way out. There’s the health factor as well. Smoke can irritate the lungs, throat and eyes, especially if people have breathing ailments or other medical conditions, or simply aren’t used to the environment.

Opponents’ major points of contention are that the ban can hurt businesses and also that it tramples on individual freedoms. If smokers aren’t allowed to light up in bars like they always have been, they’ll stop going, opponents say. Revenues of many bars and similar establishments will fall, further damaging the economy. And while the act of smoking is not illegal, any restrictions on where people can do it are infringements on smokers’ rights, opponents say.

It is very likely that some workplaces will choose to ignore the smoking ban, and if owners are caught, they will face tickets and fines. However, some establishments in other states with smoking bans choose to have smoking “tip jars” or other devices so smokers can continue lighting up and contribute financially to any possible future fines.

The roots of this action come from fears of losing revenue if people are not allowed to smoke in workplaces. There are certainly some places that have an ambiance because of heavy smoking, and have a higher proportion of smokers versus non-smokers in the regular customer base. However, the rates of adults who smoke in the country has been falling, and according to a 2006 CDC report, about 23.7 percent of adults — less than a quarter — in Michigan were smokers.

In addition, I have been to bars and restaurants in other states with smoking bans, including Illinois, and these places definitely do not seem to be lacking business. In Chicago, for example, many bars have a space right outside the door for smokers to step out for a cigarette break and come back in when they’re done. If anything, the smoking ban will make these areas more appealing to non-smokers, and bring in business in that way. Many people avoid bars strictly because they will come out smelling like a cigarette.

What do you think? Will the smoking ban be detrimental to the state’s economic health, or will it create a clean atmosphere that everyone will enjoy?

By Jessica Sipperley, Mlive
December 15, 2009,

Tobacco makers being sued in Canada over the health risks of smoking won a partial victory on Tuesday in their efforts to have the Canadian government share in the potential liability.

A divided British Columbia Court of Appeals panel overturned part of a lower court’s ruling that the federal government could not be drawn in as a defendant in two cases over the health costs associated with smoking and the promotion of “light” cigarettes.

The court in two related cases said the government may have to share in any possible liability related to Agriculture Canada’s role in the development of strains of tobacco used to make “light” and “mild” cigarettes.

The first case involves British Columbia’s attempt to collect damages from several cigarette makers and their international parents for the cost of treating smoking-related diseases.

The second case is a class-action by smokers against Imperial Tobacco, who allege they were mislead into believing that cigarettes labeled “mild” or “light” were safer to smoke than regular cigarettes.

The tobacco industry argues that government should share in any responsibility for damages because they were “partners” in the sale of tobacco by keeping it legal and collecting tax revenue from it.

“The B.C. decision will demonstrate that the government of Canada has known about the risks associated with smoking for decades and that it instigated and promoted the development and sale of lower-tar tobacco products.” Imperial Tobacco’s vice-president, Donald McCarty, said in a statement.

The rulings, which divided the panel 3 to 2 in both cases, allowed portions of the industry’s appeal. The dissenting justices would have rejected the entire appeal.

Several of Canada provinces have sued the industry for billions in damages, but the British Columbia case was the first filed and is being used as the lead case in the courts.

In addition to British American Tobacco’s Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd, the cases involve Rothmans Benson & Hedges Inc, a unit of Philip Morris International and Rothmans Inc, and JTI-Macdonald Corp, owned by Japan Tobacco Inc, but which is itself not named as a defendant.

The Florence City Council rejected an ordinance Monday that would have banned smoking in public places. The 4-3 vote raised the prospect of revisiting the issue with a compromise to balance the rights of individuals and business owners with the need to provide a healthy environment in the city.

The ordinance, proposed by councilman Buddy Brand and councilwoman Octavia Williams-Blake, was misconstrued as a referendum on smoking.

Those who smoke have a right to do whatever they want in the privacy of their own home. This push was about keeping public places smoke free and preventing inconsiderate smokers from infringing on the rights of others.

Those involved in the debate seemed to misunderstand the finite difference.

Smoking and second-hand smoke cause hazardous health consequences, including cancer and death, and it’s certainly within the bounds of government to restrict it.

Legal challenges to the ordinance proposed in Florence, which was similar to ones adopted in 29 other jurisdictions across the state, have been rejected by the South Carolina Supreme Court.

Local politicians, including ones in Columbia, Charleston and Hilton Head, have voted to ban smoking in public because the State Legislature has been unwilling to consider bans.

The Florence ordinance was patterned after one passed in Greenville. If passed, a person who violated the proposed ordinance would face a fine of $10 to $25. A business that’s cited more than four times would face loss of its occupancy permit or business license.

Critics zeroed in on the severity of the penalties on business owners. In retrospect, they’re right. The penalty for a business owner should not be the loss of a license, especially in harsh economic times.

A phase-in period for a smoking ordinance should be 90 or 120 days, in our opinion, to give restaurants and bars time to adapt.

There also should be wiggle room about allowing restaurants and bars to provide a fresh-air patio for smoking. Non-smoking sections in restaurants do not work.

Other arguments about individual rights and the role of government were not as persuasive in the debate.

When governments pay billions in taxpayer money to cover health care costs, and when hospitals write off millions in uncollected bills because of conditions related to heart and lung disease, the public has more than a passing interest in the health of the community.

“I believe liberties extend about as far as your nose,” Florence Mayor Stephen J. Wukela said in voting for the ordinance.

And he was right. Workers in smoking environments often have no choice except to be subjected to health risks. Smoking might be legal, but common sense says a practice so nasty and dangerous should be limited to certain sections of society.

The council voted on a non-smoking ordinance in 2005. It was rejected, with members at the time encouraging customers and businesses to forge their own consensus on smoking. Some have. Unfortunately, most have not.

Tobacco has been a huge cash crop in the Pee Dee for decades. But this debate is not about the elimination of tobacco and its products. It’s about fresh air in public places.

For the sake of a healthy community, we support the no-smoking ordinance. We think it would be progressive and bold for Florence to become the first city in the Pee Dee to ban it.

We applaud city leaders for elevating the issue and ask them to tweak the ordinance for another vote in the near future.

November 10, 2009 2.scnow

New Delhi, Over 60 percent of bars-cum-restaurants across the country have been found to be openly flouting the ban on smoking in public places, a year after the law was implemented, says a study.

The Air Quality Monitoring (AQM) study conducted by an NGO, Voluntary Health Association of India (VHAI), along with 11 partner organisations revealed that out of the 211 restaurants surveyed across 16 cities, 127 flouted the no-smoking ban.

Binoy Matthew of VHAI said: “We found that fine particle air pollution is 32 times higher than the WHO recommended guidelines for air quality in non-compliant bars-cum-restaurants.”

“Consequently, employees and customers in those places are at increased risk of adverse health effects, especially heart attacks, lung cancer and serious respiratory illnesses,” he added.

In Delhi, of the 12 restaurants and bars visited, five were found to be flouting the law by allowing smoking without following the Designated Smoking Room (DSR) norms.

“The level of fine particle air pollution in the places where smoking was observed was 64 times higher than the WHO target air quality guidelines,” Matthew said.

On the positive side, among all the 211 places surveyed, pollution levels were found to be 81 percent less in smoke-free bars cum restaurants and air quality significantly better.

“The government should effectively implement smoke-free laws and increase compliance through proper enforcement mechanism. Without enforcement, laws are of no use,” Matthew added.

Odessa, Texas – The City of Odessa is considering big changes for public parks: a possible ban on tobacco products.

The city parks department’s received more and more calls as the cigarette butts continue to mount in city parks. It’s led to the possibility of tobacco being stomped out of Odessa park grounds.

“There are a lot of cigarette butts at Progressive Park, we’ve got one area just covered in cigarette butts and that’s from the employees as well as people going to the hospital. They smoke in the park and immediately flick their butts onto the pavement”, says Parks and Recreation Director, Steve Patton.

He says the city will listen to the public at two meetings, after which an advisory board will forward a recommendation, one way or the other, to the city council.

“It’s going to be important that we get a consensus from several different people and groups for a strategy that we need to use to implement such a policy into our system”, says Patton.

A tobacco ban would apply to public swimming pools and athletic fields, where some parents have complained of second-hand smoke and litter.

“I think it would be a very good idea to ban smoking in the public parks, especially where children play”, says parent, Melanie Holson.

Randall Gardner also supports the ban.

“Kids shouldn’t have to play in dirty areas and everything and smoke is bad for them anyway”, he says.

Still others say that banning smoking in parks, punishable as a misdemeanor carrying a $250 dollar fine, is going too far.

“I can understand in restaurants and some of the stores, I can understand that, but not outside, everybody has a right to be a citizen”, says Bill Hopkins.

Cleaning up the butts in fountains costs the city and its taxpaying citizens, according to Patton.

“It’s a real problem for us trying to keep the facilities clean and very costly to the taxpayers when people will not extinguish their cigarettes in the proper container”, he says.

Terry Moore doesn’t like the look of cigarette butts in the park.

“The bad thing about it is throwing the cigarette butts down and people have to come by and pick them up and it’s bad for the city, makes it look bad”, he says.

Soon, everyone can weigh in, on whether the ban is good or bad for Odessa.

“You’ve got to have pride in your community and keep it clean”, says Patton.

Two other West Texas cities, Abilene and Amarillo, have introduced tobacco bans at their city parks.

Other cities are trying partial bans, with designated areas for smoking and Odessa will consider that option as well.

Beau Berman, October 6, 2009

China – Hunan Tianrun Chemical Industry Development<002113>, which recently resumed trading after a 20-day suspension, has announced that it plans to pay more than RMB 80.18 million in cash for a 64.74% stake in a tobacco firm based in Hunan Province, sources reported.

However, the Shenzhen-listed enterprise is still waiting for approval from the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the Hunan provincial government, the China Securities Regulatory Commission and a chemical firm that holds a 17.26% stake in the tobacco firm.

If the reorganization is successful, Hunan Tianrun Chemical will reap RMB 635 million in core business revenue this year, and net profit will reach RMB 16.06 million.

In the first half of this year, the firm suffered net losses of RMB 9.8 million, and loss per share was RMB 0.08, according to a statement filed with the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.

The tobacco firm, whose net asset value was RMB 118.1 million as of Aug. 31, reaped RMB 186.26 million in core business revenue in the first half. The firm’s gross profits were RMB 20.84 million, and net profit was RMB 9.43 million.

Copyright © 2008 www.chinaknowledge.com
Send feedback or comments to: news@chinaknowledge.com

As the legislature struggles to find enough revenue for the state’s overdue budget, a tax on cigars and smokeless tobacco should be a no-brainer. But this is Harrisburg, where common sense usually faces an uphill battle.

Pennsylvania is the only state in the nation that doesn’t impose an excise tax on smokeless tobacco. It is one of only two states – the other is Florida – that doesn’t tax cigars.

Gov. Rendell has proposed taxing the products to bring in $38 million per year. A proposal by Rep. Dan Frankel (D., Allegheny), who is on the House Appropriations Committee, would use the same tax rate as cigarettes, raising $70 million annually.

But Senate Republicans yanked the stogies out of their mouths long enough to voice their opposition to this tax. They said essentially it’s too small a number with which to concern themselves. Democratic leaders have resisted the tax, too.

Meanwhile, legislators are picking up sofa cushions in search of loose change to fill the state’s budget gap. For example, they found $25 million for general operations hiding in the state liquor-store system. That’s how small a number legislators are scrounging for. Yet, they forgo the tobacco tax.

The need for that levy is greater because the legislature is intent on making dumb moves such as granting certain large corporations in Pennsylvania a tax break. A proposed change in the “single sales” tax policy would drain $165 million from state coffers over two years. It should be ditched in favor of a more comprehensive overhaul of corporate taxes.

One stumbling block to reaching a final budget deal with Rendell is that the governor claims the legislature’s revenue projections don’t add up. As the week began, the two sides were about $400 million apart in their revenue estimates. A tobacco tax that adds $38 million, or $70 million, to the pot would certainly help.

Even better, the proposed tax on smokeless tobacco and cigars is what’s known to policy geeks as “recurring revenue.” That means it raises a predictable amount of revenue from year to year.

The tentative budget deal relies on many one-shot revenue sources, such as emptying the state’s Rainy Day fund of its entire $750 million. That’s an easy call for legislators this year, but it leaves the cupboard bare for next year, which increases the likelihood of having to raise another tax.

Aside from the math, there is an important policy statement to make with this tax: Snuff and cigars are bad for your health. The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids said 16- to 25-year-olds in Pennsylvania use smokeless tobacco at twice the national average. Some smokeless tobacco brands are flavored to appeal more to youths. Raising the tax on cigarettes, but failing to tax cigars and snuff, could encourage more young people to use these products.

Pennsylvania’s tobacco industry, based in Lancaster County, is not large. Imposing this sensible tax would hit a relatively small number of consumers, and would raise needed revenue in a budget year filled with unkind cuts.

One year after a controversial smoking ban took effect for most Pennsylvania businesses and public places, the clear winners are celebrating while self-proclaimed losers are burning with anger over what they see as inequities in the Clean Indoor Air Act.

Health and government officials along with anti-smoking forces are cheering the results, which include cleaner air inside restaurants and taverns, healthier workplaces for their employees and growing evidence that reductions in second-hand smoke are saving lives and improving health.

State Health Secretary Everette James said second-hand smoke “has a deadly impact on workers and costs our health-care system billions of dollars.” He said the new law, which took effect Sept. 11, 2008, “protects the health of millions of Pennsylvanians from the well-documented dangers of second-hand smoke.”

The Pennsylvania Alliance to Control Tobacco did a study which, it said, showed that air pollution in the state’s “hospitality industry” — bars, taverns, restaurants, bingo halls and bowling alleys — decreased by an average of 87 percent due to the new law. The results are based on air samples taken before and after the ban took effect.

The alliance contends that the ban will save the lives of 52 hospitality industry employees each year.

But neighborhood taverns that are unable to qualify for an exemption from the smoking ban say that state gambling casinos and private clubs — which can still allow smoking — are luring away their customers.

Amy Christie, executive director of the Pennsylvania Tavern Association, estimated that hundreds of taverns have closed in the past year: Six years ago there were 16,000 taverns in Pennsylvania. Today that number has dipped to 12,500, with much of the recent decline linked to the smoking ban.

Those still open had to spend up to $100,000 in a poor economy to tailor their businesses to the new law, she said.

The law states that restaurants with bars can allow smoking in the bar as long as it is walled off from the restaurant, with separate outside entrances to each.

Ms. Christie also criticized the Legislature for not allowing taverns to have video lottery terminals — gambling machines that would be operated through the state lottery. Such machines would provide taverns with another source of revenue, while generating up to $500 million a year in tuition relief for some of the state’s college students. That was a proposal by Gov. Ed Rendell, but it has stalled in the Legislature.

Taverns can be exempt from the ban only if their food sales make up 20 percent or less of total gross sales.

“Taverns got the short end of the stick, while casinos and private clubs can do whatever they want,” Ms. Christie contended.

So far, nine slots casinos have opened in Pennsylvania, the latest being the Rivers Casino in Pittsburgh, which opened in August. The Clean Indoor Air Act allows smoking on 25 percent of the gambling floor.

But after 90 days, a casino can seek state permission to expand its smoking area to up to 50 percent of the gaming floor, and eight casinos have done so.

Expanding the smoking area is based on the “gross terminal revenue” from slot machines in the smoking section versus the machine revenue from the non-smoking section. If the non-smoking “gross terminal revenue” is 25 percent or more below that of the smoking section, a casino can increase the size of the smoking section.

At The Meadows casino in Washington County, the “average win per day” from slots in the smoking area was $543 for a 90-day period in late 2008, compared to an average win of only $269 per machine in the nonsmoking area. That’s a difference of 102 percent. At Presque Isle Downs in Erie, the difference in revenue from the smoking and nonsmoking areas was even bigger, 121 percent.

Clubs such as the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion, plus various ethnic and fraternal organizations, can also allow smoking, unless they open the facility for a public event, such as a bingo or public dinner.

However, Ms. Christie said, it’s still the taverns that are suffering.

She said 80 percent of the customers in such establishments are smokers, and taverns are reporting the loss of 60 percent of those customers.

She said the economy, the smoking ban and the Legislature’s unwillingness to address problems for the tavern industry have produced “a horrible time for small liquor-license establishments in Pennsylvania.”

“The government should treat adults like adults,” Ms. Christie said. “What they imposed made the market even more unbalanced for small taxpaying businesses to be able to compete.”

Cindy Thomas, executive director of Tobacco Free Allegheny, agreed with Ms. Christie that discomfort with the law stems from the inequities it created in the hospitality sector.

“It’s not a level playing field,” Ms. Thomas said. “But we have heard from a restaurateur who was forced to comply (with the new law) and he said that if he had realized how much this would have benefited his business, he would have banned smoking years ago.”

Efforts are under way to persuade the Legislature that the existing exemptions should be reduced or eliminated, she said. Casinos have been adamant about retaining their smoking areas, and legislators aren’t likely to change that.

Ms. Thomas said that only about 21 percent of the state’s adult population smokes.

Ms. Thomas said that last September confusion about the law created problems, but she said she’s now satisfied that most businesses have received the necessary information, with studies showing they are complying with the law.

The state Department of Health said it has issued eight citations for smoking-ban violations in establishments such as bingo and pool halls, which do not have liquor licenses. The state Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement, which is under the state police, has issued 249 citations for violations and 288 warnings, so far, to establishments with liquor licenses.

Citations carry fines of $50 to $1,000 per incident, said the bureau’s Sgt. John Kean. He said many of the warnings pertain to a lack of proper signage as to whether a bar is smoking or non-smoking. He said he doesn’t know of any establishment that has lost its liquor license over a smoking violation.

He said the bureau oversees about 4,100 establishments with liquor licenses in nine districts around the state. The Pittsburgh-area district, which includes Allegheny, Beaver, Fayette, Greene, Washington and Westmoreland counties, has the largest number of liquor licensees.

Health officials said air-quality improvements inside restaurants are evident.

Sgt. Kean thinks the year-old law is working well.

“Obviously there are places that violate the law (by continuing to permit smoking), but by and large, I absolutely think it’s helped clean indoor air. I can notice the difference when I go into restaurants” that used to allow smoking.

Copyright © September 14, 2009 Post-gazette

NITRO, W.Va. — Nitro City Council members passed an ordinance Tuesday night for Tri-State Casino and Resort to allow smoking in designated areas within the casino.

“The city of Nitro has our cooperation 1,000 percent,” said Dan Adkins, who represented the resort. “We’re breaking new ground and definitely setting a precedent here tonight.”

Adkins, the vice president of racetrack owner Hartman & Tyner, has told county health officials he is convinced the air regulation is responsible for a big chunk of a $15 million loss in revenue at the Nitro racetrack and casino.

According to Adkins, air monitoring is under way to ensure a completely safe environment. Adkins also added that separate facilities with separate air conditioning and filtration systems are already in place.

“The ball is in Tri-State Casino’s court now, whether they move forward to allow smoking or not,” said Mayor Rusty Casto.

Casto added that the resort would perhaps look into seeking an exemption from the state similar to the smoking allowances given for bingo halls. In West Virginia State Code, there is a law that provides for smoking and non-smoking sections in all larger organized bingo halls.

It remains unclear when facilities at the resort could be opened to smokers, as all sides await a response from the Kanawha County Health Board.

In a letter to state Alcohol Beverage Control Administration Commissioner Dallas Staples early this month, county health director Anita Ray said health officials believe the county smoking ban trumps any town ordinance that Nitro might pass.

Under state law, the ABCA can pull the liquor license of any establishment that is in violation of county health regulations. Staples sent letters to about 180 bars and gaming parlors last year saying he would pull the licenses of establishments that continue to allow smoking in violation of the smoking ban.

Although the question of whether a city can pass an ordinance rescinding a county smoking ban has never been specifically addressed by the state Supreme Court, courts have generally held that a smaller body like a city or town can’t pass a law that is less restrictive than a law passed by a larger body like a county or a state.

Also Tuesday, council members passed a land-use covenant allowing for the construction of a parking lot and commercial boat launch ramp southeast of the intersection of Main Avenue and Lock Street.

The covenant, between the city and the state Division of Natural Resources will reportedly speed up the final construction stages, which could begin as soon as September. The ramp is expected to be finished around the summer of 2010.


Copyright © August 18, 2009 Wvgazette

BROOKLINE – Tobacco Haven isn’t a cigarette manufacturer despite claims by the state, says the attorney for the small tobacco shop in Brookline facing an unusual legal action against its use of roll-your-own cigarette machines.

Acting Attorney General Orville “Bud” Fitch filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the tobacco shop in Merrimack County Superior Court, alleging that the operation sidesteps the federal settlement between tobacco manufacturers and the state.

The company has a pair of 4-foot tall “roll your own” machines in its store. Customers buy one of three types of loose tobacco and paper tubes with filters, then use the machines to turn them into cigarettes at about half the cost of name-brand cigarettes.

Jeffrey Burd, of Cincinnati, one of several lawyers who will represent Tobacco Haven in court, said this business doesn’t make Tobacco Haven a manufacturer.”Tobacco Haven rents its machine to customers. They can buy or rent,” said Burd. He contrasted the shop’s operation with a hypothetical cigarette manufacturer in North Carolina that can produce several hundred cigarettes in seconds, while it takes minutes to roll the same number at a tobacco shop.

Burd will make his case in Merrimack County Superior Court at 11 a.m. Oct. 13, when the state brings its case against the tobacco shop.

The state filed the suit this week, about three weeks after contacting the tobacco shop’s owner, Joseph Correia Jr., asking if the business was manufacturing cigarettes.

Burd said he responded with a four-page letter that explained why Tobacco Haven is not a cigarette manufacturer.

Under two state laws, the Non-Participating Manufacturers Act and the Directory Act, tobacco manufacturers must make payments to the state based on the number of cigarettes they sell.

Burd argues that stores all over the country are operating similar machines that allow customers to make their own cigarettes at a significant savings, without paying the federal tobacco settlement taxes levied on manufacturers.

The in-store rolling machines are larger and faster than the ones consumers buy for home use, Burd said.

Burd and New Hampshire officials both say they believe the Brookline case is the first of its kind in the nation.

Sales of personal cigarette-rolling machines in the U.S. skyrocketed about 10 years ago, following the national tobacco settlement that required manufacturers to pay millions of dollars to states for healthcare for Medicaid patients suffering from tobacco-related illnesses.

Americans have been rolling their own cigarettes for decades, although the rise in sales of the machines 10 years ago was the first since the Great Depression, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Federal and state taxes on cigarettes have continued to climb over the past decade.

New Hampshire has collected roughly $50 million in tobacco-settlement money. Little of it has gone for health care. Instead, it has been placed in the general fund.

The future of this fund was a major concern of the state in filing the lawsuit, Assistant Attorney General David Rienzo said Tuesday.

Failing to take action against small cigarette manufacturers, he said, could lead to complaints and legal action against New Hampshire from the large companies that pay the bulk of the settlement money.

Copyright © August 20, 2009 Nashuatelegraph

Cigarettes and cell phones have become such a hot commodity in state prisons that even state lawmakers are trying to get their hands on them.

The state House of Representatives passed a bill by a vote of 75 to 40 Wednesday that would make it illegal for inmates and employees to have tobacco products or cell phones on the grounds of state prisons. The bill would make it a criminal offense to provide inmates with either.

The bill still requires concurrence of the Senate, which passed a version of the bill this year.

A story in The News & Observer in December highlighted problems that arose from prisoners obtaining cell phones. In North Carolina and other states, inmates have used phones to set up attacks on one another, coordinate escapes or continue to run illegal enterprises.

In 2008, prison guards confiscated about 140 cell phones from inmates.

No representatives spoke against banning phones, but several members objected to provisions in the bill that ban tobacco products, saying they are another strike against tobacco industries in North Carolina.

“This is just another way to say we are trying to get rid of cigarettes,” said Rep. Leo Daughtry, a Smithfield Republican, who added that lawmakers banned smoking in public buildings this year and increased taxes on all tobacco products. “If we are known for anything this session, it will be [for] an effort to wipe out the use of tobacco products in 2009.”

Rep. Thom Tillis, a Mecklenburg County Republican, introduced an amendment to the bill that would have limited banned tobacco products to cigarettes, but the amendment failed.

Proponents of the bill argued that it is as much about safety as it is about health and saving money, as the state must provide health care for all inmates.

“It is a vote for preserving the health of people who work and people who might be inmates,” said Rep. Angela Bryant, a Rocky Mount Democrat.

Here’s an item you shouldn’t include in your ever-growing arsenal of electronic devices: the e-cigarette.

The Food and Drug Administration released an analysis of 19 varieties of electronic cigarettes that said half contained nitrosamines and many contained diethylene glycol, the poisonous ingredient in antifreeze. Some that claimed to have no nicotine were found to have low levels of the drug.

E-cigarettes are promoted by their manufacturers as safer than traditional cigarettes because they do not burn tobacco. Instead, a lithium battery in the cigarette-shaped device heats a solution of nicotine in propylene glycol, producing a fine mist that can be inhaled to deliver nicotine directly to the lungs. An LED glows red at the tip and they even emit puffs of white smoke similar to that seen in stage shows. The devices are available in more than 4,000 retail outlets nationwide, as well as on many websites, with a starting cost of $40 to $70.

Over the last year, sales have grown from about $10 million to $100 million, according to the Electronic Cigarette Association, the industry’s trade group. They also come in a variety of flavors, including chocolate, mint and apple, which make them appealing to children and adolescents.


Copyright © 2009 Miamiherald

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has made it clear he does not plan to restrict tobacco use among troops in war zones, the Pentagon’s press secretary said today.

Gates has yet to see a report commissioned by the Defense Department that proposes a ban on smoking in the military, Geoff Morrell said.

The National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine completed the study last month, which reportedly recommends strict controls to limit new users from entering the military and to curtail use among those already serving.

The secretary is likely to consider some of the report’s recommendations, but none that ban tobacco use among deployed forces, Morrell said.

“[Gates] has been very clear to me up front that one of the things he is not prepared to do is to restrict use of tobacco products in combat zones,” he said.

“We are fighting two wars right now using a force that we are demanding more of than we ever have before,” Morrell said. “They are under enormous stress and strain, and the secretary does not want to compound that stress by taking away one of the few outlets they may have to relieve that stress.”

The secretary shares the concerns of those who prepared the report about the health and well-being of the force and understands the administration’s goal of a smoke-free America, Morrell said.

“Obviously, it is not our preference to have a force that is using tobacco products,” he said.

Morrell noted the enormous cost to the department in terms of health care. “By some estimates, it costs us nearly a billion dollars a year in tobacco-related health problems,” he said.


Copyright © 2009 Emilitary

WASHINGTON — US soldiers serving in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will still have access to cigarettes despite a report urging a tobacco-free military force, the Pentagon has said.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has no plans to ban the sale of cigarettes or chewing tobacco for troops doing combat duty, his press secretary Geoff Morrell told reporters Wednesday.

“He knows that the situation they are confronting is stressful enough as it is, and I don’t think he is interested in adding to their stress levels by taking away one of the few outlets they may have to relieve stress,” Morrell said.

“And that may be chewing tobacco or smoking a cigarette.”

The comments came after a recently released report by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) report called for adopting measures that could make the military “virtually tobacco-free within 20 years.”

The Defense Department spent 564 million dollars in 2006 treating tobacco-related illness in the military, the report said.

It found the proportion of smokers in the US armed forces is higher than in the civilian population, with around 32 percent of soldiers using tobacco products, compared to 20 percent of civilians.

Military personnel on deployments were twice as likely to be smokers than their home-based counterparts, said the report, which was sponsored by the Pentagon and the Veterans Association.

Morrell said Gates would carefully study the report, which cites subsidized tobacco products on military bases as a contradiction to the Pentagon’s stated policy to discourage smoking.

Price coefficients, which measure price elasticities, lie between -0.82 and -0.84 and are in line with the expectation that demand for cigarettes is price inelastic. Per-capita income is found to exert negative and significant influences on sales. Unemployment and smoking ban variables do not exert significant effects. Smuggling is found to exert the hypothesized negative effect on sales in all estimations. Coefficients on both measures of tobacco control spending are all positive and significant. Positive coefficients run counter to cdc arguments that sales fall with higher spending.
The implication is that higher contemporaneous spending raises cigarette sales, and this result is found for estimations with and without instrumental variables. At least two possibilities might explain positive coefficients on spending and adequacy measures: A “James Dean” effect might exist whereby spending on tobacco control raises social taboos against smoking and then (perversely) causes more smoking. There is some evidence that this happens with younger smokers following the introduction of smoking bans. Cumulative effects of spending and adequacy on sales are estimated to be either negative or zero, and so positive coefficients are likely the result of specification error. It is also apparent that t-values associated with spending and adequacy coefficients are lower in instrumental value estimations.
This commonly occurs because standard errors are biased downward in ordinary least squares estimations when endogeneity is present. This suggests that endogeneity is a problem and so only instrumental variable estimation of cumulative effects from spending and adequacy are displayed in the following tables.

The newly created Tobacco Control and Cessation (TCC) Centre at the department of Psychiatry, Institute of Medical Science
, Banaras Hindu University (IMS-BHU), organised symposium on tobacco use and health hazards under Tobacco Awareness Programme (TAP) on Tuesday.

Addressing the symposium, IMS director prof Gajendra Singh highlighted the importance of the centre and said that tobacco was a major health hazard and silent killer. The TCC figures prominently in the national programme being undertaken by the central government. He added that to raise awareness about tobacco and various health hazards and related issues, the TCC Centre would organise a series of activities as part of the TAP.

The centre coordinator and head of the department prof Sanjay Gupta said that looking at the fact sheet, tobacco estimates to have caused three million death a year in early 1990s and is currently responsible for death of one in 10 adults worldwide (about five million deaths each year). If current smoking patterns continue, it would cause some 10 million deaths each year by 2025, 70 per cent of these deaths would be in the developing countries alone and 500 million would die prematurely due to tobacco use, most of these being the children and young adults of today.

He further said that threatening menace of tobacco use needs to be addressed through collective efforts and sensitization of the community. In this region chewable tobacco, pan masala and beedies are growing hazards. He said that the centre would function from 9am to 2pm all working day providing counselling and health tips to the needy persons, who want to get rid of tobacco addiction. The function was also addressed by Dr JS Yadav, Dr AK Pandey and others.
Copyright © 2009 Timesofindia.indiatimes

This afternoon, President Barack Obama will sign the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2009, which among many good things noted after the jump, will allow the Food and Drug Administration to regulate cigarettes. It’s a particularly important day for the bill’s chief sponsor, Representative Henry Waxman, who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which, however logically, has jurisdiction over health issues. This weekend I read Waxman’s forthcoming legislative memoir (a burgeoning and exciting genre), written with the assistance of Atlantic reporter Joshua Green, The Waxman Report: How Congress Really Works. It’s a very useful primer on Congress and the long battles Waxman has led on behalf of a variety of key progressive causes. You also learn, strangely enough, that Waxman was one of the first Members of Congress to undertake the now common practice of donating to his colleagues’ campaign funds in an effort to keep around representatives he saw as effective and curry favor. For all Waxman’s idealism, you can’t say he isn’t savvy.

Waxman began his attempts to regulate tobacco in the early 1980s, with oversight hearings featuring Captain Kangaroo, and continued his work through then-Representative Dick Durbin’s controversial 1987 amendment to ban smoking on airplane flights shorter than two hours, Waxman’s own groundbreaking 1994 hearings where tobacco executives lied under oath, Newt Gingrich’s torpedoing of a 1998 tobacco regulation compromise, and finally President Bush’s threat to veto this bill last July that left it hanging…until today.

It says something about Waxman’s tenacity and how political change comes about in the face of entrenched interests that it has taken nearly thirty years to achieve federal regulation of something most people will concede is a drug. Harold Meyerson has written eloquently about Waxman’s work in the past, and you really have to concede that in terms of sheer legislation, if with Waxman’s help we see successful health care reform and/or a Cap-and-Trade bill, he could very well be the the single greatest liberal legislator of the last half century — especially when you consider the Clean Air Act, the earliest HIV/AIDs legislation, Tobacco regulation, nutrition labeling, not even to mention protecting medicare throughout the Reagan and Bush years and his exemplary oversight work when the Democrats took back the congressional majority in 2006. Who else would you nominate?
Copyright © 2009 Prospect

Big Tobacco is closely tied to the small group of lawmakers who opposed recent legislation allowing greater FDA regulation of tobacco products and advertising methods. And last week McClatchy Newspapers cited OpenSecrets data to document these extensive connections. Here are our own observations:

Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), has received more money ($359,100) since 1989 than any lawmaker but one from tobacco companies, many of which are based in his Tar Heel State Burr spearheaded the effort to defeat the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act according to the McClatchy story. Despite Burr’s opposition, however, the bill eventually passed the Senate 79-17 after receiving the House’s support earlier this year. Capital Eye previewed that vote at the end of March.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is the all-time leader in reaping the tobacco industry’s contributions. Over the senator’s career, he has received $419,000 from PACs and individuals associated with major tobacco companies. Reynolds alone gave the Kentucky Republican $18,750 during the 2008 election cycle, while the industry as a whole gave the senator $132,400 during the same period.

In addition to Burr and McConnell, 14 other Senate Republicans also voted against providing the FDA with more regulatory authority. They include: Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, who has received $228,700 from the industry over time and Jim Bunning of Kentucky, who has collected $194,150. One Democrat, freshman Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina, joined them in opposing the legislation. Hagan received $19,200 from Big Tobacco during her 2008 cycle campaign.

The GOP traditionally receives more money than Democrats from tobacco companies. In the 2008 election cycle, Republicans collected 62 percent of the industry’s contributions. At that time, the Republican presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain, received $119,650, more than any lawmaker but McConnell. That is nearly triple the amount the tobacco companies gave to then-candidate Barack Obama.

While the industry used to rank as one of the most generous campaign contributors, tobacco companies have decreased their donations to candidates since a string of devastating lawsuits in the ’90s. In 1996, only 25 other industries donated more money to federal candidates than tobacco, which poured a total of $10.6 million into their coffers. Yet the $4.2 million tobacco companies spent in the 2008 cycle actually represented an increase from the past two election cycles. Big Tobacco companies have also scaled back their lobbying operations. In 1998, tobacco companies spent $67.2 million lobbying Capitol Hill and the White House. Ten years later, the amount was $28 million. In the 1st Quarter of 2009, the industry shelled out $7 million to elite lobbying firms such as Womble Carlyle and Alston & Bird, among others.
Copyright © 2009 Opposingviews

The Louisiana Healthier Families Act just passed the House Ways and Means Committee.

Louisiana Speaker Pro Tempore Karen Peterson made the announcement Monday morning.

The act imposes a $.50 increase on tobacco products in Louisiana. The tax is said to help the state’s funding crisis, especially in healthcare, according to Louisiana legislature officials.

Stay with KSLA and KSLA.com for more on this still developing story.

ZIMBABWEANS puffed up close to 200 million cigarettes during the first quarter of the year, figures release by a leading cigarette maker showed.
Savannah Tobacco sold half a billion cigarette sticks in Zimbabwe and other markets during the first quarter of this year, executive chairman Adam Molai said.

Savannah Tobacco, which produces the Pacific brand of cigarettes, launched the cigarette brands a few years back buoyed by an aggressive product mix targeting both low-end to top-end consumers.

In Zimbabwe the company sold 168 million cigarette sticks in the first quarter while 322 million cigarettes found their way into foreign markets, according to figures released by Savannah.

“Total sales volume for the first quarter of 2009 is 490 million sticks. Total Zimbabwe sales volume in the same quarter is 168 million sticks,” said Molai.

He said his company was enjoying a near majority share of the market for long dominated by British American Tobacco, who also claim to possess the lion’s share of the market.

But the figure of just how much tobacco went up in smoke in the first quarter is understated since it does not take into account British American Tobacco’s numbers.

Savannah Tobacco owns the Pacific Storm, Mist, Breeze and Blue brands. The company’s Pacific Storm has been widely accepted by formerly BAT customers.

“Our brands have been extremely well accepted on the market hence our need to further increase capacity after having done the same last year,” Molai said.

The company also has the Pegasus Cigarettes brand.

Despite strong health disclaimers on tobacco products, tobacco based firms continue to achieve record sales worldwide.

Copyright © 2009 Thezimbabweindependent

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