A ban on the sale of flavored cigarettes is now in effect, and one would think the rights of people have been irreversibly diminished.
Rather, the intent of the Food and Drug Administration was to pull those candy-sweet projects from shelves to stop youngsters from starting what could be a lifelong addiction to smoking.

The ban has upset anti-government types who claim they have a right to smoke what they want. The ban, required under a law enacted in June, gave the FDA the power to regulate tobacco products. Despite what some think, it’s a welcome first step to rein in what has become in effect a rogue industry that sells death to individuals, and drives up public health care costs.

And as could probably be expected, there are signs some manufacturers, distributors and retailers are trying to circumvent the ban by shifting young smokers to other flavored products, such as small cigars, that may not fit the legal definitions of a cigarette.

Let’s remember that we’re talking about flavored tobacco, because artificial additives like cherry, grape, chocolate, and spices such as cloves, appeal to youngsters. Let’s also remember that in anticipation of the ban, cigarette makers had mostly stopped producing flavored cigarettes.

Unfortunately, the law itself is vague in that it doesn’t clearly define what a cigarette is. It comes down to wrapping. Cigarettes are wrapped in thin paper, cigars in tobacco leaves. While the cigars also are made with a different
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kind of tobacco, the taste is similar. The cigars come 12 to a pack, rather than 20 for cigarettes, but cost nearly half as much.

Kretek International Inc., which imports Djarum-brand cloves from Indonesia, holds a 97 percent U.S. market share with its line of Djarum clove cigarettes, a staple of Indonesian smoking culture. Now Kretek is making cigars close to the size of a cigarette and flavored with clove, vanilla and cherry.

The FDA is now examining options to regular both menthol cigarette and flavored tobacco products other than cigarettes. It makes no sense to ban flavors in cigarettes and then allow the industry to addict young people to flavored cigars.

Harare, – A Zimbabwe National Army Brigadier has ignored a court order to allow Headlands farmer, Charles Lock access to his USD 700 000 tobacco and maize crop.

Lock told Radio VOP at the weekend that Brigadier General Justin Itayi Mujaji had threatened to gun him down if he enters the farm despite a court on order on Thursday granting him an application to access his crop.

Soldiers deployed at Karori farm by Mujaji, barred Lock from getting on to the farm in full view of the police.

“Armed soldiers barred me from entering the farm when I went there on Friday after the High Court ruling,” said Lock, whose case mirrors the situation of thousands other commercial farmers who have been illegally and violently driven off their farms by top government and security chiefs.

High Court judge Bharat Patel ordered the police to assist the Sheriff or Deputy Sheriff to ensure that Lock is able to access and control all his movable assets, including crops on the farm in Headlands,Manicaland.

The ruling follows an application by Lock to the High Court seeking an order to bar Mujaji, from interfering with the control of the farmer’s goods.
“The applicant (Lock) has full and unfettered right to remove all and any of the goods, as well as any other move able assets, including his equipment and fittings in the tobacco barns, cattle handling facilities, household and personal effects, from the land referred to above,” ruled Justice Patel. “This order shall remain in operation notwithstanding the noting of an appeal against it. The costs of this application shall be paid by the first respondent (Mujaji) on an attorney-client scale.”

Lock wanted the court to force the army general to allow him to move about 150 tonnes of tobacco, grown under contract and financed by international tobacco companies to auction floors. The farmer had also asked the court for an order to allow him to move about 500 tonnes of maize to buyers such as the Grain Marketing Board.

Lock’s court challenge is one of many by white commercial farmers.

Before this latest High Court order, lock had obtained two eviction orders against Mujaji both of which had been ignored.

Mujaji’s action mirrors the lawlessness on the farms and disregard of the law by security officers most of whom are staunch supporters of president Robert Mugabe.

The often violent land seizures have been blamed for the country’s food shortages.

In November last year, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Tribunal ruled that farmers whose land was seized must be compensated by the government. But Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa said the SADC Tribunal ruling would not be enforced and that Harare had pulled out of the Tribunal.

However, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has since said Minister Chinamasa was misdirecting the nation through making unilateral decisions without cabinet authority.

On Sunday Britain’s Daily Telegraph said it had covered Mugabe’s secret farming empire, combining six farms that had been taken from white commercial farmers. One of the farms is being used as a dairy farm by his wife, Grace, who sells about one million litres of milk a year toSwitzerland based company, Nestle.

Mugabe told a United Nations General Assembly last week that Zimbabwe’s land grab was the best thing that ever happened to Zimbabwe.

September 27, 2009

Bingo parlors on opposite ends of Richland County are suing each other, claiming their competitors are ignoring a county law that prohibits smoking.

The two – Carolina Gold Bingo on Decker Boulevard and Mr. Bingo on St. Andrews Road – have hired well-known lawyers, as well as private investigators to spy on each others’ customers.

At the heart of the dispute is Richland County Council’s indecision about how vigorously to enforce a law that has generated few reports of violations and carries just a $25 fine.

Opposing each other in back-and-forth allegations of unfair competition are Columbia defense lawyer Joe McCulloch and James Smith, a local legislator who recently ruled out a run for governor.

McCulloch represents Carolina Gold owner Wayne Kirby, who opened his “mom and pop” bingo operation in June 2008.

Kirby said he thought there was room in the market for an upscale bingo hall.

“I like to go to Vegas, so I said, ‘We’re going to bring Vegas atmosphere to Columbia, South Carolina.’”

He put in flat-screened TVs, special lighting and a ventilation system allowing him to separate his smoking customers behind a glass partition.

Then the county passed a smoking ban.

That prompted Kirby to petition council to amend that ban, to exempt businesses like his with separate heating-and-air systems for smokers.

But health advocates convinced council to defeat that proposal earlier this month.

The lengths to which the bingo parlors are going hints at the lucrative and competitive nature of the business.

The two parlors – among four total in Richland County – each grossed more than $700,000 last year. Carolina Gold was only open part of the year.

The operators don’t keep all the profits, though.

Under state law, bingo games must benefit “fraternal, religious or charitable organizations,” said Adrienne Fairwell, a spokeswoman for the S.C. Department of Revenue.

However, the state agency is not privvy to the individual contracts that set out how much of the net proceeds a promoter shares with a nonprofit group, she said.

And McCulloch and Smith each said they didn’t know.

In May, Kirby was sued by Smith’s client, Mr. Bingo, on St. Andrews Road. The company has a Texas-based owner, which Smith characterized as a “professional and sophisticated operator” of bingo games.

The lawsuit said Carolina Gold was allowing people to smoke “for the purpose of increasing their market share and harming … competitors.”

The company’s violations were “so frequent and pervasive” that no one else in the industry could compete unless they were to break the no-smoking law, too, the suit said.

Indeed, one of the documents in the court file reveals other businesses are allowing their customers to smoke.

A private investigator hired by McCulloch went by three of the county’s bingo parlors one night, using his cell phone to take pictures of people smoking while they played bingo.

One of the places the investigator visited was a bingo hall right next door to Mr. Bingo.

Now, McCulloch has counter-sued, charging that Mr. Bingo made an arrangement with the tenant next door allowing smokers to step over there whenever they need a cigarette.

“It seemed odd to us, and meaningful to us, that the plaintiff would bring suit against a competitor across town – but not all competitors,” McCulloch said.

Smith said Mr. Bingo does not allow smoking and, to his knowledge, neither does the place next door. The businesses are owned by the Littlefield Corp. and one of its subsidiaries.

But all this could be avoided if Richland County started ticketing violators of its no-smoking law, which went on the books 10 months ago.

Since then, just 21 complaints have been lodged – 11 of them involving people lighting up at county bingo parlors.

So far, the county has issued warnings but no tickets.

“If they’re not going to enforce it, why have it?” asked Tom Sponseller, director of the S.C. Hospitality Association, who said allowing some businesses to ignore the law does set up a system of unfair competition.

County administrator Milton Pope has asked the council on more than one occasion to make time to hash out enforcement issues – like how many violations it would take before the county yanks a business license.

But Councilman Bill Malinowski said one of his biggest concerns in citing a business is that an underhanded entrepreneur could put a competitor out of business just by making a habit of going into their place and smoking.

Sponseller said cities and counties around the state have different approaches on who takes the blame if someone gets caught smoking at a business.

“Some cities and counties penalize the smoker. Some penalize the smoker and the business,” he said. “Some only penalize the business.”

Smith, representing Mr. Bingo, said without county enforcement there’s no mechanism to get competitors to follow the law.

“The ordinance as a policy decision is a good one,” Smith said. “It needs teeth to ensure it’s enforced.

“The good news is the vast majority of businesses in the county are following the law.”
Reach Hinshaw at (803) 771-8641.

A major tobacco company has rejected claims it is undermining the law by not following regulations on the use of graphic warnings on cigarette packets.

Researchers at Otago University said a new study of bought and discarded cigarette packs showed the regulations were not being met.

Graphic warnings became mandatory in August 2008 and tobacco companies are required to evenly distribute various images over all cigarette packs.

Otago marketing professor Janet Hoek said the most offensive graphics were printed less frequently than other “less disturbing” images.

British American Tobacco today rejected the findings.

“British American Tobacco’s graphic health warnings meet all legal requirements,” a spokeswoman said.

“The Ministry of Health has not raised any concerns with us in this regard.”

Dr Hoek said use of “less offensive” graphics, including images of a diseased mouth or eye, undercut the law and public health policy.

“Tobacco companies have made it clear they dislike the new regulations on graphic health warnings, and these findings suggest they may be trying to minimise the impact of the new law.”

Dr Hoek said tobacco companies should be required to submit the warnings’ print run information.

About 5000 New Zealanders die of smoking related illnesses each year.

Copyright © 28 Sep 2009 Odt

The “mints” in your child’s pocket might give much more than a sugar high, the Federal Drug Administration is warning.
They might provide a jolt of nicotine.
R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. is test-marketing tobacco-infused mints in Columbus and two other markets. The company says the mints are for adults who want an alternative to cigarettes.

Critics warn that the so-called “dissolvable tobacco” products will appeal to youngsters.

“It’s in a colorful candy box and looks just like candy,” said school nurse Eva Garchar of Cincinnati, who saw the Camel Orbs during a lecture at a nurses convention last spring. “All the people in the audience were disheartened by that.”
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Test-marketing of the mints started in the spring in Columbus bars, gas stations and markets. Two other flavored tobacco products, Camel Sticks and Camel Strips, joined them in the past few months.

David P. Howard, R.J. Reynolds spokesman, said the company does not target children.

“Those accusations are completely unfounded,” he said. “It is a guiding principle of this company that youth should not use tobacco. These products are only for adult tobacco consumers.”

Deb Strouse, president of the Ohio Association of School Nurses, doesn’t buy it.

“It’s something that looks like a treat, and we find it reprehensible that people put tobacco into these kinds of products,” said Strouse, a nurse in the Columbus school district. “Even if they say they’re not advertising to children, we know the products are attractive to children.”

Like cigarettes, the orbs, strips and sticks can’t legally be sold to anyone younger than 18.

A federal law that took effect this week bans the sale of candy- and fruit-flavored cigarettes, in part because of their attractiveness to children. But the ban doesn’t extend to the mints and other candy-flavored tobacco products.

The FDA began warning parents on its Web site this week that flavored tobacco products are “especially appealing to kids and can lead to a lifetime of tobacco addiction.”

On Wednesday, a coalition of anti-smoking activists said the products are another reason why state officials should continue to fund stop-smoking programs instead of diverting the money elsewhere.

Shelly Kiser, director of advocacy for the American Lung Association in Ohio, said the health risks of the products are not well-known.

“With the past history of the tobacco industry, we know they might put all sorts of dangerous things in there,” Kiser said.

R.J. Reynolds officials say the company doesn’t slip in secret ingredients but uses “finely milled tobacco mixed with non-characterizing flavors and food-grade binders,” according to the company’s Web site.

Kiser said the products can hook children and adults on tobacco, which could lead to smoking.

Also, the small size and minty flavor might encourage young people to take several at once, leading to a dangerous increase in their heart rate, Kiser said. “Nicotine is nicotine,” she said.

Four local businesses selling the new products said they have sold few despite numerous promotions.


jnash@dispatch.com
kgray@dispatch.com

HAVANA – They’re called “cigar-factory readers” and for almost 150 years they have entertained the workers who hand-roll cigars in factories all over Cuba.

The Cuban government has suggested that these unique readers be designated as part of the world’s Intangible Cultural Heritage that the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization will vote on, together with another 110 candidates, at a the meeting to be held in Abu Dhabi beginning next Monday.

In medieval monasteries, a monk read from the Bible or other sacred texts to the brothers while they were having their meals. In the same way, cigar-factory readers stand on a platform and read to their co-workers, often for their education, though time is also allowed for horoscopes, sexology, novels and kitchen recipes.

Documents show that the custom began in December 1865 when a learned magnate called Nicolas de Azcarate decided to provide entertainment for the workers during their tedious job of hand-rolling cigars hour after hour, and at the same time teach them about progress and reformist ideas.

In just six months the example spread across the island and more than 1,000 reader jobs were created. The workers chose whoever among them had the best enunciation and raised the money to pay the selected reader themselves, Zoe Nocedo, director of the Old Havana Tobacco Museum, told Efe.

The choice of books at the time was a matter of negotiation: there were employers who imposed dull tomes of Spanish history on the cigar-rollers, but factories with more active unions brought in works by Victor Hugo and Emile Zola and so helped incite the growing anarchy.

In 1886 Spain’s colonial Captain General of the Island, Francisco Lersundi, pressured by the conservative bourgeoisie, banned the custom with the argument that is “makes workers undisciplined and they stop paying attention to their work,” but in 1890 it was reestablished, this time forever, Nocedo said.

The birth of radio could have put an end to the reader, but the custom was so deeply rooted that the factories alternated, as they do today, periods of reading with radio programs.

The readers nowadays are state employees with an enviable status: they read 90 minutes a day and spend the rest of the time preparing new readings or debating with the workers the meaning of what they have heard.

Amid the sweet cigar aromas and standing on a platform with a microphone heard throughout the factory, Jesus Pereira, 44, entertains his fellow-workers by reading to them in three sessions: the first two obligatorily dedicated to the press and the third to novels or self-help books.

It is Thursday and today it is time to read “40 Tips about Sex,” a text suggested by a group of female workers who complained about certain bedroom habits, and that had to go through the filter of a “reading committee” before being voted on by the workers.

The advice being read sometimes gets a laugh or a smile, sometimes protests, and the cigar-rollers can show their agreement or disagreement by banging the table with the curved knives they use to cut tobacco. One bang with the knife’s edge means “I don’t like it,” while a bang with the flat of the blade is a sign of approval.

Pereira is proud of having read to his 630 fellow workers at the prestigious Partagas factory from novels like “The Da Vinci Code” and “The Count of Montecristo,” and says that detective and suspense novels are the ones they like best.

Once when he was finishing a novel, he realized that the last two pages were missing, so he invented an ending and nobody was the wiser – the tobacco knives banged loudly that day, he recalled proudly.

Jesus is very popular because in his 23 years on the job he has added “special effects” – he imitates gunshots and doors slamming, cries out in a woman’s voice and in many other ways adds drama to his reading.

Like all cigar-factory readers – there are 213 on the island – he had a 30-day trial to win the favor of his demanding audience and get those tobacco knives banging loud and strong. EFE

By Javier Otazu
© Aht

If you were making a movie about the Cuban tobacco trade, a movie that just happened to contain a role for a Canadian cigar tycoon, then you’d want to talk to Johnny Miller.

Not only does Miller resemble a cigar tycoon in dress, diction and demeanour, he is a cigar tycoon.

“The tobacco businesses is in a fight for survival because it is so persecuted,” grouses the owner of F. Correnti Cigars Ltd. – “Manufacturers of Handmade Cuban Cigars” – whose second-floor, brick-walled factory is hidden at the end of a narrow alley off King St. W. in the chic, sandblasted heart of Toronto’s Fashion District.

“The taxation has destroyed the business. It’s a persecuted business. It’s prohibition.”

Born in Copenhagen to a cigar-making family, the 64-year-old tobacco magnate swans into the antique, wood-floored premises of what he describes as Canada’s only remaining manufacturer of handmade cigars.

He clutches a cup of Tim Hortons coffee and wears a checkered sports jacket over a black-leather vest, black trousers, and black snakeskin boots.

A single strand of coffee-coloured beads encircles his neck, beneath the open collar of an off-white dress shirt. His dark hair is combed back in a confident pompadour.

It is 4:30 in the afternoon, and Miller is launching his working day – the very picture of a man who makes his living by manufacturing and purveying those aromatic hand-rolled icons of a bygone age, a time when men were men, women were women, and cigars were smoked, publicly and privately.

Those were the days, or maybe they weren’t. Either way, they’re gone.

“Politicians can’t walk around with a cigar anymore, like Winston Churchill,” Miller laments. “That’s not acceptable now.”

Miller is even barred from lighting a cigar in his very own factory – a cigar factory! And so, as a photographer busily snaps pictures of the tycoon in his now mostly vacant domain, the tycoon in question is reduced to posing with an unlit stogie.

“The business is too heavily taxed,” he complains “You can’t smoke anywhere.”

Still, the F. Correnti cigar company smoulders on, catering to a rump of loyal clients who have long counted on the firm to supply them with high-quality smoking material fashioned from Cuban tobacco exclusively.

It isn’t big business anymore.

“We don’t chase the market,” Miller concedes. “We just supply old, steady customers. We make custom orders.”

According to Miller’s 27-year-old son, Chris, those customers include a clutch of readily recognizable names, including U.S. film stars Charlie Sheen, Tommy Lee Jones and Adam Sandler.

Hockey executive Glen Sather is another faithful and long-time consumer of F. Correnti products, says Chris.

Loyal they might be, but such luminaries belong to a diminishing breed. Even Fidel Castro gave up cigars years ago.

“We were a full house back in the old days,” says Chris, who now helps run the cigar business along with his older brother Jeff, 32. “We were backed up six months.”

Not anymore.

Licenced as an insurance broker, Johnny Miller admits he does not rely on cigars alone to get by.

Neither of his two sons works at the cigar factory full-time, either. A daughter, Kelly, doesn’t work here at all.

Not many people do.

Located above the impressively renovated offices of Uniq Lifestyle – “a dynamic entertainment company at the forefront of Toronto’s upscale nightlife community” – the well-worn work floor at F. Correnti contains a dozen wooden tables that in busier times would have been occupied all day long.

They are mostly empty now, and just one employee has reported for work today.

She is Lien Trinh. Born in Vietnam, Trinh has rolled cigars at F. Correnti for the past 29 years, but the work these days is on the spotty side – just a single shift of gainful employment in an average week, she says.

“She just came in today because you guys were coming in,” admits Chris.

Nonetheless, Trinh has been hard at work, and a large stack of freshly rolled cigars is accumulating at her side, as she expertly cuts, moistens, and fashions one puro cubano after another, in what has become a rather lonely job.

“I come,” she says. “Nobody else comes.”

Only two cigar-makers remain in business in Toronto – F. Correnti and House of Horvath Inc., a manufacturer of machine-made cigars, located on Ossington St. just north of Queen St. W.

In addition to being the sole surviving producer of handmade cigars in Canada, F. Correnti also lays claim to being the country’s only extant maker of Cuban cigars. “Cuban tobacco is what we demand,” says Johnny Miller, whose father, Kai, established the business shortly after moving his family to Toronto from Denmark in 1956. “Tobacco has to go through its natural stages. There are very few countries in the world willing to take that time. That’s what makes Cuba so special. They don’t take shortcuts.”

Once upon a time, Miller travelled to the Caribbean island regularly to place his tobacco orders on the spot, but not anymore.

“I used to go a couple of times a year,” he says. “Now you can just send an email.”

Ordering Cuban tobacco via email – it seems to lack a certain romance. But that’s the cigar business for you. It’s not what it used to be.

“I don’t smoke that much anymore,” admits the last cigar tycoon in a cold and increasingly smoke-free land. “Now a cigar is more of a symbol. It’s part of your image. You don’t even need to smoke it anymore.”

In most places, of course, you can’t.

PASIR PUTEH, – Tobacco planters, especially those in the districts of Bachok and Pasir Puteh, should not continue to depend on the crop after the Asean Free Trade Agreement (AFTA) comes into effect starting Jan 1, next year.

International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Mustapa Mohamed said the government would not encourage planters to continue after that and instead was working on the introduction of alternative crops.

“This is because the production cost is too high compared to neighbouring countries,” he told reporters during the Pasir Puteh Parliamentary constituency Hari Raya Aidilfitri celebrations here, on Saturday.

Over 500 people including those of Chinese and Siamese descent participated in the celebrations, which was also attended by the Pasir Puteh Umno Division Chief Zawawi Othman.

Mustapa, who is also the Kelantan Umno Liaison Chairman, said the tobacco planters voiced their concern over the government’s move, as tobacco-planting had been their source of income for the past 50 years.

He said the higher production cost would make it difficult for them to compete with those from neighbouring countries who produced at a lower cost.

“Anyway, tobacco is hazardous to our health and is prohibited by the religion,” he said.

He said the government had helped the planters to move out of the industry in many ways including approving an allocation of RM5,000 to each planter over the past two years.

He said it was hoped that the aid would be incentive for them to venture into other fields such as breeding livestock or planting kenaf or sweet potatoes.

– BERNAMA

Candy- and fruit-flavored cigarettes are now illegal, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said this week. The ban is the first move by the FDA to enact the anti-tobacco initiatives outlined by the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, signed by President Obama in June.

“Big Tobacco for years has used candy- and fruit-flavorings in their cigarettes to attract and addict young smokers,” said John R. Seffrin, PhD, CEO of the American Cancer Society and the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN). “The ban on cigarette flavors that are blatantly intended to hook children is a critical first step toward reversing that trend.”

Research shows that the younger you start smoking, the more likely you are to smoke as an adult. Almost 90% of adult smokers started at or before the age 19. And people who start smoking at younger ages are more likely to develop long-term nicotine addiction than people who start later in life.

Flavored cigarettes are especially popular among kids and teens, in part because they are sold in enticing flavors such as chocolate, cherry, strawberry, and orange. Because of the flavorings, teens and kids often think these products are safer than regular cigarettes.

“Flavored cigarettes attract and allure kids into lifetime addiction,” said U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Health Howard K. Koh, MD, MPH. “FDA’s ban on these cigarettes will break that cycle for the more than 3,600 young people who start smoking daily.”

The bill requires tobacco companies to stop making, shipping, and selling flavored cigarettes and requires vendors to pull the products off their shelves.

The ban does not apply to menthol cigarettes or other flavored tobacco products like cigars at this time, but the FDA may rule on these areas in the future.

“The tobacco industry has spent the last 50 years misleading smokers about the dangers of tobacco use and marketing to youth,” said Daniel E. Smith, president of ACS CAN. “The ban on candy- and fruit-flavorings in cigarettes is only one aspect of this lifesaving new law that has the potential to break the deadly cycle of addiction and put an end to Big Tobacco’s targeting of our nation’s children.”

The bill will also eventually require cigarette makers to disclose product ingredients to the FDA and prohibit them from using misleading labels such as “low tar” or “light” on cigarette packages. And it will hold tobacco companies to marketing restrictions – for example, they will no longer be allowed to advertise near schools or sponsor entertainment and sporting events.

For more information about the legislation, see our story, “Tobacco Regulation Bill Becomes Law.” To learn more about tobacco use among children and teens, see this document. To find out what your lawmakers are doing to lessen the impact of tobacco in your community, visit the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN).


Reviewed by: Members of the ACS Medical Content Staff