Tobacco News

Anti-smoking groups are urging Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq to stick with her department’s plans to increase the size of warning labels on cigarette packages, rather than capitulate to the tobacco industry.

“The research commissioned by your department shows clearly that the larger the warning, the greater the positive impact it will have on its intended target audiences,” eight of the organizations said Wednesday in a letter to Ms. Aglukkaq. Ream more »

Celebrities like Johnny Depp and Katherine Heigl have claimed it helped them quit smoking. Maybe you’ve seen people in non-smoking bars exhaling what seems like smoke from one. It often looks like a cigarette, even tastes like it, but it’s not. It’s an electronic cigarette, an alternative to cigarette smoking that supposedly has fewer chemicals and is becoming increasingly popular.
Ream more »

Jurors in a lawsuit by the family of a Massachusetts woman who accused a tobacco company of enticing black children to smoke have resumed deliberations.
The jury said Friday it was deadlocked, but a Suffolk Superior Court judge asked jurors to keep deliberating and they resumed Monday.
Ream more »

SAVANNA Tobacco, a local cigarette manufacturing company, has doubled cigarette production since March following increased production at its new Harare factory.
The company moved to a new complex in Harare in March, which is six times bigger than where it was operating from in the same city.
Savanna general manager (sales and marketing), Mr Amos Phiri, said production at the new complex has shot to 16 000 cigarette per minute. Ream more »

State troopers stopped a tribal truck in Bixby on Tuesday, seizing more than $150,000 in contraband cigarettes, an official said.

The Oklahoma Highway Patrol pulled over a delivery van believed to be owned by the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, said Paula Ross, spokeswoman for the Oklahoma Tax Commission.

Ross said the van was carrying cigarettes without an Oklahoma state tax stamp.
Ream more »

Bihar government has set up a state tobacco control cell in view of the growing number of deaths due to tobacco-related diseases. National Tobacco Control Programme (NTCP), which has brought positive impact in other states, will be implemented both in letter and spirit in the state soon.

The government decision to set up a cell follows publication of a report in TOI highlighting virtual non-implementation of the smoking ban in Bihar.
Ream more »

In a shocking revelation, it has been learnt that top tobacco companies and organisations lobbied with the Ministry of Health to delay the implementation (from December 1 this year) of stricter pictorial warnings on tobacco products. New warnings featuring a cancer-stricken mouth were to replace the image of a scorpion on the tobacco products from December 1. The Union Cabinet last week deferred the stricter warnings by a year.
Ream more »

Born out of an internal tobacco-free policy, the Center of Excellence for Tobacco-Free Campus Policy at Ozarks Technical Community College has found itself growing beyond the mission of the community college.
And, keenly aware of the financial challenges its parent college will face, the center is spinning off the OTC’s organizational chart to become a separate not-for-profit entity renamed as the National Center for Tobacco Policy, said Ty Patterson, director of the center.
Ream more »

Hawaii’s Health Department reported the lowest level ever recorded for retailers caught selling tobacco to youths, the Associated Press reports.

An annual survey conducted by the state’s Alcohol and Drug Abuse Division and the University of Hawaii Cancer Center revealed that 4.6 percent of randomly sampled stores across the state sold tobacco to teenagers aged 15 through 17, a steep decrease from 1996 when the survey began and 44.5 percent of the sampled stores sold tobacco to minors. Last year, the rate was slightly above 6 percent. Ream more »

Ron Carroll prefers to smoke cigars and pipes. But when he can’t do that, he says he manages to unobtrusively get his nicotine fix by slipping a packet of tobacco, about the size of a tea bag, under his upper lip.
“I use it all the time — movies, planes,” said the Chicagoan, who adds that he likes the fact he can remove the packet as easily as a piece of gum. There’s no chewing, spitting or mess, he said.
“It’s discreet, and you don’t look like an addict,” he said. “Smoking’s definitely more about the flavor; the whole experience. With this, it’s just taking the edge off.” Ream more »