Tobacco News

The National Master Settlement agreement with the tobacco industry promised to be a landmark public-health event. Forty-six states would receive $246 billion over the first 25 years to address America’s greatest public health problem.

But the settlement included no requirements on how states must utilize the funds. The states promised the state attorneys general and concerned members of Congress that sufficient monies would be used for tobacco use prevention; that promise was terribly broken.
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As 13-year-old Thadeus Kirkland lugged around a bucket filling up with discarded cigarettes, he got a whiff of their stench. “It smelled like old coffee that had sat out for a long time, said Kirkland, a seventh-grader at Plaza Park Middle School. He was one of 10 Evansville students who picked up cigarette butts around the Downtown YMCA Thursday afternoon as part of the YMCA’s annual Youth Summit. Ream more »

A 24-year-old man and two teens have been charged with robbery and burglary in a takeover robbery of a West Seattle marijuana dispensary.

Seattle police say the three entered the dispensary last Saturday evening, pulled out handguns and tied up three employees and two customers. The robbers took the victims’ wallets and the store’s marijuana.
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The war of words over Washington State basketball player DeAngelo Casto’s misdemeanor marijuana citation escalated Thursday, with Pullman police Chief Gary Jenkins releasing more information concerning the incident at Casto’s residence and Casto’s attorney firing back.

Jenkins confirmed that the police report of the incident indicates Casto was holding a child on his lap when a police officer looked through a window early Tuesday morning and observed Casto at a table with marijuana and rolling papers.
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A U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory panel has advised the FDA that the tobacco industry is marketing menthol cigarettes in a way that allows them to be perceived as healthier than other cigarette options.
Menthol cigarettes are now known to be no healthier than any other type of cigarette or tobacco product, but the report has revealed that they are being marketed in that light. Ream more »

How dissolvable tobacco products are made could determine whether or not they fall under the jurisdiction of the Food and Drug Administration.

Star Scientific Inc., a maker of dissolvable tobacco lozenges, announced Wednesday that it received an FDA notice saying that two of its products are not subject to regulations in the federal Food Drug & Cosmetic Act.
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Today Senator Julie Rosen (R – Fairmont) and Representative Jenifer Loon (R – Eden Prairie) introduced the Cigarette Uniformity Act to address a problematic loophole that allows “little cigars” to skirt the same regulations placed on cigarettes. Already gaining bipartisan support at the Minnesota Legislature, this bill will help keep cheap and candy-flavored tobacco products out of the hands of kids and ensure proper compliance with state law.
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They look like cigarettes. They include nicotine like cigarettes. And they are puffed on like cigarettes.

But instead of smoke, they emit vapor. Instead of using a lighter, they use batteries. And instead of being prohibited for people younger than 18, they have no regulations.

They are electronic cigarettes or e-cigarettes. And they’re popping up in Clark County.
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Three teens get caught smoking marijuana at a local school, another throws a fit when he fears he’s about to lose his Internet, and a man gets arrested for throwing a cell phone at his girlfriend.
Drug possession: While patrolling Margaret Mead Elementary School early Sunday morning, a King County Sheriff’s deputy working for Sammamish police spotted a Chevy Avalanche parked in the back parking area. When the deputy approached the vehicle, he found three male teenagers inside. Ream more »

Every year, 6,600 teens in Louisiana start smoking. And one of every four students in high school is a regular smoker.
Now the doctors who care for seriously sick smokers are doing something about it.
Why would doctors bring young teenage girls to the morgue to see jars of organs, and to a heart cath lab to see a choked off blood vessel in a woman who smoked? Well, it all started in a classroom at Chabert Medical Center in Houma, where a lung doctor and tobacco educator are serious about how crippling and deadly smoking is. Ream more »