Tobacco News

Quitting smoking ranks as one of the nation’s top New Year’s resolutions, among 12 self-improvement goals that are popular year after year.
In a quest to quit tobacco, some smokers are replacing cartons of cigarettes with cartridges of nicotine, used in electronic cigarettes. E-cigarettes are odorless, cigarette-sized, battery-powered tubes that release liquid nicotine as a vapor.
Cary Lee, a longtime smoker and owner of The Electronic Cigarette Store, with kiosks in the Fashion Square and Bay City malls, sells the product to people who are trying to quit smoking. Ream more »

Federal Judge Jed Rakoff of the U.S. District Court in Manhattan has held that the New York City Health Department cannot adopt a rule which would require that gruesome photographs of smokers suffering from various forms of cancer be placed beside cash registers in more than 11,000 bodegas and convenience stores in the city. “Even merchants of morbidity are entitled to the full protection of the law, for our sake as well as theirs,” the judge ruled — although he agreed with the harm of tobacco, noting, “Within New York City, roughly 7,500 people die from smoking annually — more than from AIDS, homicide and suicide combined.”
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With our state now dead last in how much we tax tobacco products, it seems ridiculous to have to write this editorial.
It should already be clear that the tax rate is outrageously low. It should already be clear that state lawmakers need to act. It should already be clear that the benefits from increasing this tax far outweigh any perceived detriments.
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Archeologists at Jamestown have unearthed a trove of tobacco pipes personalized for a who’s who of early 17th century colonial and British elites, underscoring the importance of tobacco to North America’s first permanent English settlement.
The white clay pipes — actually, castoffs likely rejected during manufacturing — were crafted between 1608 and 1610 and bear the names of English politicians, social leaders, explorers, officers of the Virginia Company that financed the settlement and governors of the Virginia colony. Archeologists also found equipment used to make the pipes. Ream more »

Few would question that tobacco smoke is harmful to health (“Report: Just one cigarette is bad,” News, Dec. 9). However, it is extremely hypocritical for some across the country to push for the legalization of marijuana, which can be even more harmful than tobacco. The medical profession has been relatively silent on this because it is becoming more politically correct to accept marijuana, not criticize it. This in itself is a sad statement.
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