The Board of Health wants to introduce a new anti-smoking amendment, but they wants the the public’s opinion first.
New Yorkers are being called upon to give their opinion in a public hearing on July 30 on a new Health Code amendment that would put graphic anti-smoking warnings wherever tobacco products are sold. The warnings would include images depicting the adverse health effects of smoking and information on how to quit.

The measure, which is expected to be voted on in September, would require the city’s 12,000 tobacco retailers to display these large “point-of-sale warnings and cessations messages” at eye-level wherever tobacco products are displayed and at the point of purchase is made, such as a cash register. It is also described as the first regulation of its kind in the nation.

According to the Health Department, these displays will force the customer to see the health effects of smoking and visually contemplate their tobacco purchase. They say the signage also promotes a greater understanding of the toll tobacco takes on the body and encourage current smokers to quit.

“While the tobacco industry spends billions of dollars every year to glamorize smoking, we will show New Yorkers the harsh realities,” Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley, stated, “These warning signs will help persuade smokers to quit and show children why they shouldn’t start smoking.”

But Mohamed Shody, mignight manager of midtown Manhattan’s Omniall Deli said to PIX News, “It’s never going to stop people from buying cigarettes because the smokes cannot quit immediately. It takes a long time. And, by the way, I’m a smoker too and it’s not going to affect me.”

The new signs also targets the city’s youth population. Most smokers start taking puffs during their adolescence and by age 19. According to the Health Department, two-third of that group become daily smokers.

Nearly 2 million of the city’s 8.3 million residents are under the age of 18, according to the Department of City Planning.

The city recorded its lowest adult smoking rate in 2008, with only 15.8% of New Yorkers smoking. But the Health Department says that there are still 950,000 New Yorkers who smoke.

About 7,400 New York City residents die from tobacco-related illnesses each year, which is more than the death toll of AIDS, homicide, suicide and drug-related deaths combined.

“Smoking continues to be the leading cause of preventable death in New York City,” Farley said.

The proposal is the latest from New York City’s ongoing campaign to help New Yorkers quit smoking.

The Health Department’s television ad campaign, for example, include commericals with children, surgical procedures and testimonials from a man who was left with a hole in his throat from throat cancer and a woman who had to have her fingers amputated.

© Wpix

After years of relentless struggles against smoking addiction in America, The FDA recently was entitled to regulate tobacco products, meaning that menthol cigarettes, preferred by the overwhelming majority of African Americans and in general almost 12 US smokers, could be outlawed like other flavorings in tobacco products.

The Senate approved the legislation providing the Food and Drug Administration with the authority to oversee tobacco products, and President Obama pledged to sign it into law within next weeks.

In conformity to the bill, flavorings, including, chocolate, vanilla and cherry would be prohibited as they are claimed to lure teenagers to pick up the pernicious habit. However, menthol flavor was exempted from that list. It needs to be mentioned here that menthol cigarettes account for almost 30 percent of all cigarette sales across the nation.

The FDA would have to perform numerous researches on menthol cigarettes and the impact on the consumers’ health and especially on African and Hispanic Americans. The research results should be published at least within a year. After performing the tests, the FDA could theoretically prohibit menthol flavoring, however, many anti-smoking advocates are pessimistic about that.

Prof. Jeffrey Wilkin of the American Cancer Foundation said he has been skeptical that menthol would be outlawed.

Jon Fredericks of the National Smoking Prevention Program said they sought to prohibit menthol flavoring but legislators promised to vote against such bill.

Fredericks added that tobacco companies managed to impact on some lawmakers to get a compromise concerning menthol cigarettes.

According to a reliable source of the upper Chamber of Congress, the FDA could prohibit menthol flavoring shortly after completing all the corresponding tests.

The source said the legislators outlawed other flavorings because they appealed to minors seducing them into smoking.

However the FDA wanted more time to investigate the consequence of outlawing menthol-flavored products, stated Larry Cohen of the American Heart Institute.

He said the legislators were worried that smokers addicted to menthol cigarette would switch to black market to obtain precious menthol smokes.

Nevertheless, whether The Food and Drug Administration ban menthol cigarettes or impose other restriction, it would inevitably hit Lorillard Inc, the leading menthol cigarette maker in the US, whose top brand Newport is the best-seller among menthol cigarettes.

Lorillard spokesman has already named the latest tobacco regulation bill as the “Altria Protection Act” stating that it protects Altria dominance on the cigarette market and prohibits invention of new reduced-harm tobacco products.

However, Lorillard promised to give the FDA all the necessary information to help investigating menthol features.

According to annual statistics by the Department of Public Health, almost 20 percent of adult African American population is regular smokers, with the majority of them preferring menthol cigarettes.

African American smokers are more likely to suffer from health complications related to smoking than other groups, yet it could be explained by fewer possibilities to access good health care.

There is almost no scientific prove that menthol cigarettes are more hazardous than regular-flavored cigarettes, but anti-smoking advocates claim menthol flavor conceals the strength of tobacco, what makes smoking them more difficult to give up.

With unprecedented support, Congress recently passed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which aims to protect children and teens.

However, some store owners, smokers and even a few non-smokers aren’t so sure the reasons are valid.

The act, which President Barack Obama, a former smoker himself, signed on Tuesday, allows the Food and Drug Administration to regulate the tobacco industry, eliminate the sale of candy and fruit-flavored cigarettes and cigars, force judgement on menthol cigarettes within a year and reduce tobacco advertising to text only ads.

Lawmakers justify the act by citing the numbers of tobacco-related deaths per year, the possibility of reducing health care costs and the tobacco industry’s need for a new market, in other words: American youth.
“Kids today don’t just start smoking for no reason,” the president said. “They’re aggressively targeted as customers by the tobacco industry. They’re exposed to a constant and insidious barrage of advertising where they live, where they learn, and where they play. Most insidiously, they are offered products with flavorings that mask the taste of tobacco and make it even more tempting.”

Said UNL sophomore music major Zach Smith: “The only way for tobacco companies to continue turning a profit on the oldest drug in America is to advertise to a younger audience so the nicotine can take hold earlier.”

The FDA will have the power to delve into what exactly is going into tobacco products and control it.

“(If) the FDA can control the amount of harmful carcinogens in cigarettes, that would be a tremendous step forward toward healthier lives for all Americans, smokers and nonsmokers alike,” Smith added.

Conversely, some see this as an infringement on rights.

“I have a right to potentially endanger myself,” said Grant Anderson, a Nebraska Wesleyan University student who rarely smokes but feels strongly about his rights.

“Why else are we still allowed to own motorcycles? And why can’t I smoke a candy-flavored cigarette while I ride that motorcycle through a ring of fire? Guns are dangerous, too. Next thing you know, they’ll be taking away our right to own guns because of that. What we need to do is educate people better, and let them make their own choices.”

Store owners also have a negative take on this act.

“Yeah, it’ll hurt business. Lots of people get the grape cigars and the strawberry ones. They like those flavors. And if they get rid of menthols, it’ll ruin everything,” Arik Cox, a manager at Kabredlo’s, said.

Menthols will not be included in the initial ban until it can be proven that the justification for getting rid of them is not racist. Seventy-five percent of black smokers smoke menthols.

Ted Wright, owner of Ted’s Tobacco doesn’t think the justification behind the act is valid.

“I think it’s lousy,” he said. “Kids aren’t using these products; I don’t see it. It’s an adult product. You can’t buy it until you’re 18, and I hardly even see 18-year-olds in here, usually thirties or up.

“It’s all an agenda. They use the kids to demonize the industry. Really, they could regulate alcohol for the same reasons. There are a lot of things that they could regulate before tobacco. This is just one more government interference where they already interfere a lot.”

Ted’s Tobacco will no longer be able to sell clove, vanilla, chocolate or cherry cigarettes after the ban is enacted, but the other products should remain.

While senior psychology major Noah Cypher doesn’t necessarily support or condemn the act, he does feel that the causes of underage smoking are not being addressed in this act.

“I think the reasons behind it are more peer pressure and screw the system rather than, ‘Ooo! I want to smoke something that tastes like candy!’ We need to address the real reasons behind using the drug itself. We need to be against usage, not flavor.”

All in all, the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act has polarized the community with those for it heralding it as a great advance and those against it bemoaning its reasons.
© Statepaper

Congress passed a bill that increases requirements for warnings on cigarette packages and dramatically limits the ways that the tobacco industry can target teens. The legislation requires cigarette packages to display warnings that cover at least 1/2 of the front and back of the package. “Point of sale” advertising is limited to adults-only venues.

The law also bans flavored cigarettes, and stops companies from billing cigarettes as “light.” Cigarette advertising is banned within 1000 feet of schools and playgrounds, and tobacco companies are forbidden from being sponsors of sports or entertainment events. Though the bill is not perfect, we applaud Congress for taking decisive action to stop young people from becoming smokers.

According to the Center for Disease Control, 20 percent of American highschoolers have smoked a cigarette in the past month. Ninety percent of smokers start before 18, according to one health official. The time is right to take action to stop young people from starting. The health risks of smoking are well-documented. Now we need to combat the impression of smoking as attractive.

Reducing the availability of products that are attractive to young potential smokers (like flavored and “light” cigarettes) and limiting the exposure young people have to tobacco ads will be a significant step in the right direction. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the new law will reduce youth smoking by eleven percent and adult smoking by two percent over the next ten years.

The director of the Tobacco Research Network described the bill as “a historic step changing the nature of tobacco in society forever.” It sets a precedent not only in its limits on sales and advertising but in allowing the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco products for the first time.

The law comes over forty years after the U.S. surgeon general first called smoking a health hazard. The FDA could force tobacco companies to remove some of the cancer-causing substances in cigarettes, or deter users through bad-tasting additives. An effort to introduce a bill similar to the current one failed in 1994. These restrictions took far to long to become law, but now that they are, will have a significant positive impact.

The new legislation has its limits. It is unlikely that adult smokers will be deterred by the absent of cherry or orange flavored smokes, and tobacco companies will undoubtably come out with other code words to take the place of “light.”

Most people are well aware of the dangers of cigarettes, but the new law seems well equipped to serve its goal of stopping young people from starting to smoke. The US government has been slow to see the light in the regulation of smoking, lagging behind European countries that already require extensive warning labels. It’s about time that Congress is finally catching up.

© Copyright: Dailyillini

Two years ago, Oregon legislators banned smoking from bars, expanded smoke-free workplace laws and passed a big tax on cigarettes to pay for health care for uninsured kids.

But this year, the state’s budget problems have stolen the spotlight and another attempt to raise taxes on cigarettes is dead.

The outcome is a sharp contrast to the beginning of the session, which saw a bevy of bills targeting cigarettes, smokeless and chewing tobacco – and smoking in general. The tobacco lobby, which spent a record $12 million to persuade Oregon voters in 2007 to kill the last cigarette tax proposal by the Legislature, scored some more victories this time around.

“The question was how many tax bills would we be able to take,” says Rep. Mitch Greenlick, D-Portland. “We were battling uphill from the beginning.”

Besides the cigarette tax, however, Rep. Carolyn Tomei, D-Milwaukie, and others said lawmakers got some small wins against tobacco this session.

“We did a lot in 2007,” says Tomei. “We passed some really good legislation, and now we’re just finishing up.”

For one, Congress and President Barack Obama increased the federal tax on cigarettes by 60 cents this spring. With that increase, the average price of a pack of cigarettes is $5.02. Of the $5.02, $1.01 is federal tax and $1.18 is state tax.

Democrats worried about too many tax increases. Legislators feared a cigarette tax hike would end up before voters again.

Mark Nelson, a lobbyist for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., calls the cigarette tax failure “the big victory” of the session.

Sen. Larry George, R-Sherwood, disputes the reach of the tobacco bills passed this session and says that bills such as the vending machine ban “are bills seeking headlines.”

“They don’t make a lot of public policy sense,” he says, adding that few of them were proved necessary with data. George disagrees with taxes on beer and cigarettes because he says they target working-class Oregonians.

“You don’t hear about a wine tax, do you?” he says. “That’s why these things are dying.”

Nelson says the Senate lacked the votes to pass the cigarette tax increase. Even if it did, he says, the tobacco industry would have taken the measure to the voters.

In November 2007, voters rejected the “Healthy Kids” plan, a measure to amend the state constitution that would have raised a tax on a pack of cigarettes by 84.5 cents to cover the cost of health insurance for children.

This year, Rep. Sara Gelser, D-Corvallis, says it was more a matter of circumstance – not lobbying – that killed the 60-cents-a-pack tax.

“In the end, this was not the right session for the tobacco tax,” she said. “We pursued other things. It’s not about anything the tobacco industry or the tobacco lobby did.”

Nelson and Gelser do agree on something: The cigarette tax bill is likely to return in February.

Most tobacco bills that did pass this session either limited minors’ access to tobacco or addressed the rising popularity of smokeless tobacco.

With the smoke-free workplace laws, tobacco companies have increasingly marketed smokeless products. Philip Morris USA, R.J. Reynolds and others target the young audience with candy-tasting flavors and in cell phone-shaped dispensers.

Portland is one of three test markets for smokeless tobacco because of its young, hip reputation and its free-sample-friendly laws, according to Dr. Mel Kohn, acting public health director for Oregon.

With the passage of the moist snuff bill, smokeless tobacco will be taxed by weight, with a $2.14 minimum per container. Under the law, tobacco companies must abide by youth marketing restrictions or pay an additional 40 cents a can.

Bill Phelps, a spokesman for Altria, the parent company of Phillip Morris USA, said the company testified in favor of this change.

In Oregon, statistics show that young people buy smokeless tobacco at a higher rate than adults. According to state reports from 2007, nearly 4 percent of Oregon adults used smokeless tobacco, as did more than 8 percent of Oregon 11th-graders.

Dana Kaye, executive director of the American Lung Association of Oregon, calls smokeless tobacco “the wave of the future” for the tobacco industry as indoor clean air laws are passed around the country.

Statistics show youths taking up smokeless tobacco at a higher rate than adults.

“Raising the price of cigarettes is a way to get people to quit and help prevent kids from starting,” Kohn says, deeming it the “biggest disappointment” of the session.

George says that it is a slippery slope to punish people through taxes “for bad choices” because eating fast food and skiing can be dangerous, too. A Centers for Disease Control study reports that young adults are two to three times more sensitive to price changes than other adults.

“I’ll never give up on the tax,” Kaye says. “We haven’t seen the end of their marketing, which means you haven’t seen the end of our legislative work.”
© Oregonlive

Citing safety as the reason for the legislation, a new Indiana law taking effect July 1 will require all cigarettes sold in Indiana to burn out more quickly when left unattended in an effort to reduce the number of smoking-related fires.

Cigarettes are the No. 1 cause of fatal residential fires in the country, killing approximately 800 people annually. One-quarter of victims of smoking-material fire fatalities are not the smokers whose cigarettes started the fire; 34 percent are children of the smokers, 25 percent are neighbors or friends, 14 percent are spouses or partners and 13 percent are parents.

Last year, there were 138 smoking-related fires in Indiana, leading to four deaths, 11 injuries and $3.4 million in property damage, according to the National Fire Incident Reporting System. In 2005, NFIRS showed that 124 reported smoking-related fires occurred. Those fires caused two civilian deaths, 16 civilian injuries and five firefighter injuries with property loss at almost $1.5 million.

The new design of cigarettes contains the same amount of tobacco as before but force a smoker to inhale to get the flame through two strips of paper incorporated into the cigarette. The two (or sometimes three) thin bands of less-porous paper act as “speed bumps” to slow down a burning cigarette. If a fire-safe cigarette is left unattended, the burning tobacco will reach one of these speed bumps and self-extinguish. The change in design isn’t expected to change cigarette prices. The law doesn’t apply to cigarettes that consumers roll themselves.

“The cigarettes are made from the same blend of tobacco as regular cigarettes,” Jim Greeson, Indiana state fire marshal and Indiana Department of Homeland Security Division of Fire and Building Safety director, said. “The only difference to the consumer is they need to puff it more often or relight it.”

Indiana’s law was signed in March 2008. Forty-eight states either have similar laws in place or will have new regulations in effect by August 2010.

To know which cigarettes are fire safe, check the UPC code for either the marking “FSC” (most common); a heavy black line above the UPC; a diamond symbol; or the letters FS, LIP or RIP.

Copyright © 2009 Corydondemocrat

Hot smoking, on the other hand, can be the simplest thing in the world, a re-creation of any Stone Age meal. An open fire will do. If you have a grill, you can throw a handful of sawdust or wood chips on the burning coals and cover it with a lid to concentrate the smoke.

A couple of years ago, we were filming a segment on smoking for an episode of my television series “New Scandinavian Cooking.” The location was a remote, road-less farm, and there was no room for the smoker in our helicopter; all we had was a camping stove, a pot and some wood shavings. By throwing those shavings into the bottom of the pot and hanging small river trout from the top, we managed to achieve the same perfectly cooked and smoked fish that our smoker would have produced. But I am afraid the pot will never be the same again.

The idea of smoking food indoors is intriguing but impractical; there is almost no way to flavor your food without also seasoning your home. Before you try, you might want to ask yourself how much you really hate being outdoors and whether you would allow a dozen people to smoke a pack of cigarettes in your kitchen if they promised to stand near the kitchen fan or window.

I have tested several indoor contraptions, and even though I quit smoking cigarettes 15 years ago, you would never guess it if you visited me the weeks after these experiments. Enough smoke managed to seep into my kitchen to give it a real pre-smoking-ban-dive-bar character.

But you can always cheat. If you do not want to smoke but want more or different flavor from what can be achieved by adding smoked salmon, bacon or smoked salt to a dish, liquid smoke is an alternative. I had always felt that the bottles of often-overpowering condensed smoke were the result of some sinister process, like the manufacture of artificial vanilla. But Kent Kirshenbaum, an associate professor in chemistry at New York University, tells me liquid smoke is completely natural, insofar as putting smoke into a bottle can be natural.

Kirshenbaum says he initially was repulsed by the product. But after researching it for a recent Experimental Cuisine Collective workshop in New York, he found it to be little more than carefully controlled smoking of water. The problem of liquid smoke is mostly one of scale; it is very easy to use too much, rendering food almost inedible.

And whereas all smoke, as we know, contains carcinogens, the controlled smoking plus an ensuing filtering process has removed if not all, then most of these compounds. So, at least from a health perspective, the best approach might be to pretend that you are smoking rather than to actually light up.

Smoking isn’t even half as bad as it has been made out to be. The 19th-century satirist and Know-Nothing Party activist George D. Prentice put it succulently: “Much smoking kills live men and cures dead swine.”

Although smoking cigarettes has nearly become anathema in modern society, smoking foods is more in Vogue Style than ever. Smoke, it seems, is like a fifth flavor (or sixth, if you allow for umami), with the ability to transform, contrast with and accentuate the food that has been exposed to it, whether that is salmon, pork, fruit, chili peppers or tea. In gastronomy, smoke is the door to another room, a lively, hazy space that is at once promising and almost limitless, yet also dark and dangerous.

Today smoking is done mainly for flavor, or rather for the distinctive aroma compounds it imparts. That has not always been the case. Smoking has been a part of our cooking for as long as we know. With an abundance of game and fish at certain times of the year and an acute, often life-threatening scarcity at others, our ancestors used smoke as a way to preserve food. By hanging meat or fish over an open fire, one would speed the drying process and keep flies away. After prolonged smoking, the meat would be not only dry but also coated in tarry substances with the dual ability to kill bacteria and form an impervious layer that sealed out air and hence protected against oxidation.

The flavor was only a pleasant side effect in a world where enjoyment always came second to survival. In my native Norway, where the smoking of foods seems to have been the rule and not the exception, it was not until the 18th and 19th centuries, when British and German “salmon lords” started visiting the country to fish its rich waters, that the ubiquitous smoked salmon was upgraded to delicacy status.

Exactly what makes smoked foods so appetizing to us is still a scientific unknown. Like smoking cigarettes, it just doesn’t make sense: Why would we deliberately expose ourselves — and with such great pleasure — to the impurities left on our food by fire? Perhaps it is genetically implanted in us from a time when all cooked food was slightly smoked and all uncooked food was unsafe.

Smoked food does allow for more and different flavors. Few savory dishes do not benefit from the addition of a little bacon. But the smoking process itself seems inaccessible and mysterious to many home cooks.

I discovered the joy of smoking food by chance about 10 years ago, on a visit to the basement of the apartment block where I was living. There, in searching for the water main, I found a dark room, one of those places that give you the shivers but also a vague, exciting feeling that a treasure might be nearby.

And so it was. After I flicked the light switch, the room remained nearly as dark as before: The walls were completely covered in tar. I had come across the smoking room of a long-abandoned butchery. The smokers there still seemed to work, so I bought some wood shavings, returned and started a fire. On my trial run, I set off the fire alarm at 11 p.m., resulting in a rear court full of sleepy and worried neighbors.

But after I started closing the door more efficiently, I quickly progressed. With professional-grade equipment, smoking was not difficult, and in the following months I exposed everything but my neighbors to my new hobby: curing my own bacon and smoked salmon and also lamb shanks, cheese and even an ice cream base, in a strange and not altogether unsuccessful attempt at smoked vanilla ice cream. (It was just as good when I simply cured the vanilla bean.)

The most surprising result was a green apple that managed to remain as fresh as ever, its characteristic cool, crisp acidity combined with deep, rich smokiness reminiscent of an Islay malt whiskey.

Smoking without special equipment can be more of a challenge. But it is far from impossible. The most important thing is to know your limitations. Broadly speaking, there are two main techniques. One is cold smoking, in which the food is smoked at temperatures under 100 degrees Farenheit (37 Celsius), often at specific, even lower temperatures. That is how most smoked salmon is produced and how the flesh manages to keep that silky, uncooked texture.

According to my experiments and all the experts and books I have consulted, cold smoking is very difficult without the right equipment, such as an abandoned smoking room in the basement. You can build your own smoker from cheap or free parts, such as an old metal pipe and a refrigerator. But it will take hours of construction and calibration for it to work properly and for you to be able to control the temperature.

© Washingtonpost

Kentucky burley growers, including those in Scott County, are expressing concerns over a bill pending in Canadian Parliament that would essentially ban all burley exports from the United States to Canada.

The bill would ban only candy-flavored cigars but the broadness of the bill’s language will apply to all cigarettes and will ban all flavorings used with Kentucky grown burley, prohibiting the manufacture and sale of American blend cigarettes.

Roger Quarles, a Georgetown tobacco farmer and president of Burley Tobacco Growers Cooperative, said, if passed, the bill would have far reaching, negative implications for the burley growing industry.

“Burley is a very strong leaf used in minority amounts when they make consumer products. (Canadian Parliament) has for some reason put everything in the same pot as candy cigarettes, but burley has an undetectable amount of flavorings. You can’t taste it,” Quarles said. “There certainly ways for the Canadian government to achieve their goal of banning fruit flavored products aimed at kids without wiping out the market for American burley tobacco and threatening American jobs.”

The amount of burley exported from Kentucky to Canada is unknown but Quarles said 80 to 85 percent of all exported American burley is from Kentucky and the tobacco industry generates hundreds of millions of dollars each year in the Commonwealth with more than 8,000 tobacco growers in the state.

“We grow burley in 110 of 120 Kentucky counties and we’ve seen tobacco under attack from a number of sources. This bill would have a devastating economic impact on burley growers in the state and our congressional leaders must do something about it,” Quarles said.

Burley tobacco co-op representatives also expressed concern the Canadian legislation would violate international trade agreements.

“Canada has a problem with people smuggling elicit cigarettes. We feel like this would encourage more elicit cigarette smuggling and since there are no health claims that say burley is anymore harmful than the next type of tobacco we feel pretty sure this will be an illegal act as far as trade agreements,” Quarles said.

The Georgetown farmer also noted the recent proposed Food and Drug Administration regulation bill President Barack Obama is expected to sign into law. The legislation would place new federal regulations on the tobacco industry to prevent children from becoming smokers and reduce the number of deaths associated with tobacco use.

Once signed into law, FDA will have the power to reduce nicotine levels, administer product safety tests and issue recalls if necessary, but will not have the authority to ban the sale of cigarettes, cigars, smokeless tobacco and other tobacco products.

“Everybody hates tobacco except those that use it, which still is about 20 percent of the population. The FDA regulation bill is something that’s been in the works and on the pathway for 15 years,” Quarles said. “There are certain items we as growers are apprehensive about but things we are excited about as well with this legislation.”

Burley growers are pleased all tobacco imported into the United States would have the same standards as tobacco grown here.

“Cheaper cigarettes use imported tobacco leaf, which is not inspected with the same scrutiny as leaf produced in the United States,” Quarles said. “There are plusses and minuses. We as growers in the burley co-op always have been in support of certain things such as protecting the health of our consumers because it doesn’t do us any good if they are sick.”

Quarles said while consumption of tobacco products slightly declines each year in the United States, it increases 5 percent internationally.

“There are certain parts of the world that actually are growth areas of smoking. There has been a decline in production since the tobacco buyouts in 2004, which probably would have happened anyway since American-made tobacco is the most expensive in the world,” Quarles said. “As a tobacco producer, it’s more profitable than it’s ever been. Tobacco still is grown on more farms than any other single crop. It’s worked very well for tobacco farmers since the buyouts.”
Copyright © Georgetownnews