NEW YORK -R.J. Reynolds is raising prices on Camel, Kool and other cigarette brands, joining competitor Philip Morris USA in continuing to boost prices to offset volume declines.

R.J. Reynolds is a unit of Reynolds American (RAI). The company is raising wholesale prices on brands such as Camel, Kool, Winston, Salem, Pall Mall and Doral by six cents a pack. Prices on some other brands such as Capri and Lucky Strike will go up by eight cents a pack.

Earlier this week, Altria Group Inc.’s (MO) Philip Morris USA unit announced price hikes on Marlboro and other cigarettes. For years, cigarette makers in the U.S. have faced falling volumes, hurt by smoking bans and higher taxes. They have sought to shore up profits by steadily hiking prices.

-By Anjali Cordeiro, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2200; anjali.cordeiro@dowjones.com

NEW YORK — Less than two weeks after New York Gov. Paterson expressed his desire to collect excise taxes from sales of cigarettes on Native American reservations, J.C. Seneca, co-chairman of the Seneca Nation Foreign Relations Committee, and Robert Odawi Porter, senior policy advisor and counsel, urged the New York Senate Committee on Investigations and Government Operations this week to honor Indian treaties as they relate to collecting taxes on Native American tobacco sales within the nation’s borders.

Addressing the hearing panel, Seneca said the recurrent question of “‘Why doesn’t the state collect taxes on commerce taking place on Indian lands?” has a simple and definitive answer: It lacks the authority.

“For over 200 years, New York State has tried to steal our lands, assert jurisdiction over what lands we have left and impose its taxes on us and our activities,” Seneca said in a statement during a hearing on the issue. “In response, and in our defense, the United States promised to protect us from any effort by the state to impose its taxes in our territories.

“Your oaths of office require you to uphold American laws and treaties. Whether you do so or not is up to you, but I assure you that we have no intention of compromising any of our treaty rights that have already been bought and paid for through the relinquishment of most of our aboriginal rights.”

The Seneca leader detailed the Seneca Nation’s effort to build its economy across its five Western New York sovereign territories, which the nation says contributed more than $1.1 billion to the statewide economy in the past decade.

The Seneca nation is the fifth-largest employer in Western New York, providing jobs for some 6,300 persons through its government, gaming and hospitality, gasoline and tobacco retailing and emerging private sector ventures, the group said in a statement. Hundreds of those jobs are held by non-Senecas.

Seneca told the panel the nation’s tobacco and motor fuel business segment, which generated an estimated $313 million in 2007, contributed nearly $200 million in spin-off dollars to the state economy.

“Even though the nation’s tobacco trade is not subject to state taxation, the ripple effects of the nation’s trade spill into the state and regional economy as the Seneca government and citizens spend net tobacco profits in the off-territory economy,” Seneca noted.

According to a recent study by Harvard economist Jonathan Taylor, Seneca tobacco sales in 2005 generated $195 million in state gross domestic product. The study concluded that for every $1 of gross profits accrued to the nation’s tobacco businesses, the state economy gained $1.67, the nation said in a statement.

The Seneca leader also detailed the nation’s efforts to oversee and control sales and distribution of tobacco products. In addition to voluntary reviews from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Enforcement, the nation has implemented an anti-counterfeiting stamping program. The nation also established its own tobacco business enforcement commission, which oversees compliance to retailer authorization and minimum pricing regulations, and a ban on sales to minors.

October 28, 2009

Roll-ups are making a comeback, as recession-hit smokers switch from expensive cigarettes to cheaper hand-rolled tobacco.

Customs officials cleared 159,605kg of rolling tobacco for distribution in the first nine months of this year, a 38% increase on 2008. They attributed the surge to a rise in the use of roll-your-own tobacco by smokers striving to cut costs.

A survey published last week found that Irish people are smoking more than ever, with one third of the population still lighting up, the highest rate in 11 years.

Despite hikes in tobacco tax, the ban on smoking in the workplace and a law against shops displaying cigarettes for sale, the number of smokers has risen since 2007, when 29% of the population smoked, the EU’s Help campaign found.

A 25g pack of rolling tobacco costs €8.74 but, according to Vincent Jennings, chief executive of the Convenience Stores and Newsagents Association, a thrifty smoker could roll as many as 150 cigarettes from it. Twenty cigarettes cost €8.45, though a preliminary ruling from the European Court of Justice last week found that Ireland’s policy of setting a minimum price for tobacco products distorts competition.

“I always smoked Marlboro Lights and it’s only in the last year that I switched to rollies because I couldn’t keep paying out €8.45 a pop,” said John Murphy, 33, who works in sales and advertising. “I used to spend €100 a week on cigarettes and now I spend €16.

“Ireland’s culture of overcharging is a disgrace and if they continue to rip us off I’m going to buy it on the streets.”

Customs seized 3,144kg of roll-your-own tobacco in the first nine months, double the amount in all of 2007. Illicit tobacco products now account for 30% of consumption, the highest figure in the EU.

Convenience stores say they are losing about €80m a year and are not benefiting from higher rolling-tobacco sales as much as they should be, Jennings says. “One member found that when a local gang got in on the act, his tobacco sales went down to 25% of what they had been,” he said.

Imperial Tobacco, maker of Golden Virginia, is enjoying a 15% increase in sales of the brand leader and has introduced discount brands such as Gold Leaf. Deirdre Healy of John Player & Sons, Imperial’s Irish business, said: “Unlike cigarettes, which are a standard size, roll-your-own gives greater flexibility to control spending by rolling a cigarette as small or as large as you like.

“Rolling tobacco has always been lower in Ireland than in the UK, accounting for about 2% of the market. But because of the times, we have increased our orders month-on-month.”

A recent analysis of smoking in the UK discovered a cultural shift in the use of tobacco, with more than one in four adult smokers using pouch tobacco.

One in five white-collar professionals who smoke now use roll-ups, as do one in five female smokers compared with one in 50 in 1990, suggesting that the roll-up, favoured by actors such as Jeremy Irons and Kate Winslet, is now hip.

“Rolling tobacco has become fashionable in certain quarters,” Jennings said. “I think, though, that for most smokers, it’s an inconvenience and they only go for it because of the value for money.”

Sunday Times
October 25, 2009

Senators are ready to vote on a bill that would require smokers to move more than 20 feet from the entrance of an enclosed public place before they can enjoy a cigarette.

There was little debate or objection to Bill 101 during session yesterday. The Legislature will vote on the bill the next time it is discussed.

Vice Speaker Benjamin Cruz, one of the senators who introduced the bill, yesterday said he didn’t want smokers standing by the door of a place if they can’t smoke inside. Because lawmakers don’t require a restaurant customer to tolerate cigarette smoke while eating, they shouldn’t have to walk through a cloud of smoke to get to the door, either, Cruz said.

“Though we cleaned up the inside of the restaurants, trying to go into the restaurant you’d have to go through a gauntlet of everyone standing outside and smoking,” Cruz said.

If passed, anyone who smoked within 20 feet of an enclosed public space could be fined the same as if they had smoked inside. The bill would also affect areas surrounding elevators, businesses, public meeting places, bus stops and other areas.

Cruz said most states had passed similar laws.

But Tommy Normand, owner of Caliente, a small Mexican restaurant in Hagåtña, worried the bill could hurt his business.

If passed, smokers would be pushed out of the shade by his front door.

“It’d be a discomfort to my guests to have to go that far and it would be very hot for them to be standing there in the sun with no shade or anything,” Normand said.

Normand, who is not a smoker, said he, too, is sometimes bothered if a group of smokers gathers outside larger stores. But his restaurant is too small to ever draw a crowd of smokers at the entrance, he said.

Coincidentally, Normand has been considering building a shaded patio to move the few smokers he had away from the entrance of his restaurant.

But that decision should be his own, not lawmakers’, he said.

Although senators discussed the bill with little opposition, Sen. Matt Rector questioned if existing smoking laws were being enforced.

By Brett Kelman, October 29, 2009

A study was recently done in Jamaica as part of the Global Youth Survey. In this study, seven in 10 students thought smoking should be banned in public places. We must commend our young people for their foresight and wisdom.

The fact is studies have shown that the person who inhales smoke either exhaled by the smoker or from a burning cigarette is also at risk for the diseases of the smoker.

The study also revealed some interesting findings about cigarette smoking among young people in Jamaica. Cigarette smoking is a growing among young people; 37 per cent of students reported that they had ever smoked cigarette and 22 per cent currently use tobacco products.

Cigarette smoking at an early age may lead to many problems. For example, when young people smoke, they are more likely to become addicted. In fact, 50 per cent of adults who smoke reported that they had become regular users of cigarettes by age 18. All smokers are at increased risk of smoking-related illnesses. Other studies on cigarette smoking have also made interesting findings:

Increased risk of dying

This is even greater among young people who smoke. Young people who smoke are therefore at greater risk from dying prematurely from smoking-related diseases such as lung cancer, heart disease and strokes. The difficulty we sometimes have in communicating illness and death to young people is that they are in the prime of their lives and many of them don’t appreciate the notion of illness and death as possible. Many of them feel invincible and think illness and death only happen to older people. The reality is, of course, that we will all grow old and with risky behaviours such as smoking, young people increase their risk of becoming ill or dying earlier than necessary.

Smoking is linked to other behaviours

Most studies indicate that cigarette smoking is associated with other unhealthy behaviours and habits such as cannabis smoking, being involved in fights, carrying weapons and engaging in high-risk sexual practices such as unprotected sexual intercourse. We are not saying that it is the actual smoking of cigarettes that lead to these behaviours but that the habit places some young people at greater risk of these behaviours than others.

Reasons for smoking

People smoke for several reasons. Here is a list of reasons given by young people.

1. Advertising: The advertisement of cigarettes is recognised as a major factor influencing youth smoking. Six out of every 10 Jamaican youth reported that they saw advertisements on billboards, in newspapers or magazines.

2. Influences: Children learn what they live. Three in 10 students live in houses where others smoke and six in 10 students reported that they are exposed to smoke in public.

3. Availability: Cigarettes and cannabis are too easily available to young people in Jamaica. About 35 per cent of students in the recent survey indicated that they bought cigarettes in a store and 70 per cent who bought cigarettes in a store reported that they were not refused purchase based on their age.

4. Influences in the wider society: The influences in the wider society are major factors impacting young people’s decision to smoke cigarettes. Some of these influences include the lack of a clear policy and the lack of legislation to restrict sale to minors and smoking in public. Interestingly, as stated above, seven in 10 students think smoking should be banned in public spaces in Jamaica.

Dr Wendel Abel is a consultant psychiatrist and head, Section of Psychiatry, Dept Of Community Health and Psychiatry, University of the West Indies, 977-1108; email: yourhealth@gleanerjm.com.

What can we do?

There are several things that we can do as a society.

1. Refer people who smoke for help. If you or someone has a smoking problem, then you should consult your health-care provider or an agency such as RISE (formerly Addiction Alert).

2. We need to support the call for a more effective media campaign to decrease smoking, especially among the youth.

3. We should support all efforts to reduce the sexy depictions of cigarettes in media and entertainment.

4. Use every opportunity to discourage family and friends from providing cigarettes to young people.

5. We need to strengthen our school-based anti-smoking programmes.

6. Support the call for young people to have cigarette smoking banned in public. This is a worthy venture our young people are calling for and, as adults, we should listen to their cries.

The faint scent of cherry, vanilla or chocolate can no longer be detected in the cigarette smoke that lingers over the small patch of asphalt leading past Rand Hall or the walkway adjoining Uris and Olin Libraries. The smoke of regular, straight tobacco prevails these days as a direct result of a recent federal ban on cigarettes enhanced with fragrances.

The ban, which took effect Sept. 22, applies to the manufacture, shipment or sale of cigarettes flavored to taste like cloves, candy or fruit. As part of a national effort by the Food and Drug Administration to reduce smoking in the United States, this provision belongs to the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which President Barack Obama signed into law on June 22.

Under this legislation, the FDA has the authority to regulate the marketing and manufacture of tobacco products, though it cannot ban regular cigarettes, cigars or smokeless tobacco.

“… A cigarette or any of its component parts (including the tobacco, filter, or paper) shall not contain, as a constituent…or additive, an artificial flavor or natural flavor (other than tobacco or menthol) or an herb or spice, including strawberry, grape, orange, clove, cinnamon, pineapple, vanilla, coconut, licorice, cocoa, chocolate, cherry or coffee, that is a characterizing flavor of the tobacco product or tobacco smoke,” according to the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act.

The FDA maintains that cigarettes flavored to taste like cloves, candy or fruit lure children into smoking. FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, M.D. stated that approximately 90 percent of adult smokers start smoking as teenagers in a news release last month. These flavored cigarettes act as a gateway for many children and young adults to become regular smokers, according to Hamburg.

While the ban also applies to flavored loose tobacco, which smokers can use to roll their own cigarettes, it does not extend its reach to pipe tobacco — such as the tobacco used in hookahs — chewing tobacco or cigars.

One notable exemption is menthol-flavored cigarettes, which remain legal in the wake of the month-old ban. Congress explicitly declined to prohibit mentholated cigarettes, which are statistically the most popular type of flavored cigarettes and a significant source of revenue to tobacco companies. A federal menthol ban could potentially spark an enormous bootlegging crisis, according to congressional aides and tobacco activists, the Wall Street Journal recently reported.

The legislation outlining the ban, however, fails to clearly define what constitutes a cigarette. The primary distinction between cigarettes and cigars is the wrapping: while cigarettes feature tobacco wrapped with paper, cigars feature tobacco wrapped in tobacco or paper derived from tobacco. Another tobacco product, the cigarillo, is smaller than a typical cigar but larger than a small cigar.

Confusion remains over whether cigarillos like Black & Mild — which manufactures cigarillos with flavors such as apple, cherry, and vanilla — fall under the scope of the ban. Clove cigars are also stirring controversy. According to Prof. Richard Klein, Romance Studies, “clove cigarette manufacturers, [primarily] based in Indonesia, have already found ways to circumvent the law by manufacturing little clove ‘cigars’ which do not fall into its purview.”

Kretek International, Inc., the top national distributor of clove cigarettes, has recently filed a lawsuit against the FDA for “deliberately obfuscating” the “definition of a cigarette.” The distributor’s new line of Djarum clove cigars have come under investigation by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

In the local Cornell and Ithaca communities, smokers and non-smokers alike question the effectiveness of the ban and its objective of deterring youth from smoking.

Mary Godec ’11 lauded the notion of trying to reduce smoking among youth, but doubted the impact the ban will continue to have. “The FDA ban is a step in the right direction, as far as preventing younger people from starting a bad habit is concerned, but it won’t be a particularly effective step,” she said. “New smokers will likely turn to menthol cigarettes, the only flavored cigarette left in the market.”

Godec also disagreed with the authority granted to the FDA to regulate tobacco products. “The ban hasn’t affected me directly, but it has made an impact in the sense that it’s yet another infringement on my freedom to smoke,” she said.

Admitting that the ban on flavored cigarettes could potentially deter a subset of the youth from smoking, Shachia Kyaagba ’11 still harbored some skepticism. “I believe the ban will reduce the number of children who start to smoke, but not by a significant quantity,” he said. “Peer pressure is still there, so kids will still start to smoke regardless of the flavor of the tobacco.”

Drawing from his personal experiences, Jin-Sung Kim ’11 noted that he has never observed somebody start to smoke with flavored cigarettes. “The effectiveness of such a ban seems tenuous at best. Most smokers [that I know] have experimented with flavored cigarettes only after smoking for a while,” he said. “It seems like this ban might be hurting clove cigarette aficionados more than it is helping keep the youth smoke-free.”

Local Ithaca smoke shops have felt the subtle effects of the ban, as consumers look for close substitutes to flavored cigarettes. According to Brian Watson, a sales employee at Mayers’ Smokeshop and Newsstand, “[the ban] has made a small dent [in sales], but the ban seems to be more punitive than anything to be concerned about.”

Eric Thorsen, a sales employee at Mayers’ Smokeshop and Newsstand, called the ban “silly” as well. “I think just as many kids are attracted to menthols as they are cloves,” he said. “I don’t think [the ban] will have much of an effect in terms of reducing the number of children who start to smoke.”

Patty McNally, store manager of Mayer’s Smokesshop and Newsstand, has observed changes in the buying habits of customers who prefer flavored cigarettes.

“Maybe 5 percent of my customers smoke clove cigarettes,” she said. “Those smokers have turned to other tobacco products, such as flavored cigars, now that they can no longer get ahold of what they want.”

“It’s a sort of substitution effect going on with this ban. Consumers will just buy other flavored tobacco products. Kids who want to smoke will still smoke,” Thorsen said.

October 28, 2009
By Lawrence Lan, Cornellsun

DENVER,- E-CigaretteDirect.com announces an unprecedented endorsement of their website and the electronic cigarette
products they carry by the organization of Physicians and Nurses Against Tobacco.

“We are thrilled that the medical community, especially such
prestigious doctors, would take a proactive, logical approach to this
industry. Our hope is that this logic and knowledge is spread throughout, from
people to governments,” exclaimed Gina King of www.E-CigaretteDirect.com.
“These renowned doctors have done their research, poured over the
documentation and concluded that the electronic cigarette is a wonderful harm
reduction alternative for those who cannot quit smoking.”

Dr. Claude Curran, a Harvard trained physician, wrote “we’d be delighted to
endorse your e-cigarettes as an important harm-reduction alternative to
tobacco products in the treatment of nicotine addiction.” He also wrote that
“the public has to be trained to think of smoking in terms of nicotine
addiction and this will take some time.”

What makes tobacco cigarettes so deadly is the smoke. Electronic cigarettes
have no smoke and no burning. The addictive properties of nicotine is what
keeps smokers smoking. The electronic cigarette allows smokers to still get
their nicotine, but without the harmful carcinogens and chemicals that are
inhaled with a normal cigarette. “The electronic cigarette also allows the
user to determine how much nicotine they inhale. We have cartridges that have
high to no nicotine levels, allowing users to naturally wean themselves off of
nicotine,” says Ms. King.

UnHolySmoke.org, Physicians and Nurses Against Tobacco has an informative
website that is dedicated to understanding tobacco and addiction.

MOORPARK, Calif. – Kretek International’s Djarum Clove Cigars, introduced in January 2009 after two-and-a-half years of development, testing and government approvals, are not covered under the FDA’s (Food and Drug Administration) new ban on flavored cigarettes.

According to the company, Kretek’s 12-pack, filtered clove cigars were evaluated and analyzed in 2007 and again in 2008 by the Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau of the Treasury Department, and an advanced ruling stating that they met the legal standard as a cigar product was issued.

The new FDA law prohibits cigarettes with a characterizing flavor other than tobacco or menthol, but cigars are not covered by the new FDA ban. During development, Kretek and Indonesian manufacturer Djarum were especially careful to avoid the likelihood that the new product would be sold as or purchased as a cigarette, a company spokesman told CSNews Online.

Djarum’s cigars are made with an HTL wrapper, different than cigarettes, air-cured cigar tobacco weighing more than 3 pounds per thousand sticks, and are packaged in 12-packs, not 20-packs like cigarettes are. The word ‘CIGAR’ appears on the package at least seven times, with a cigar excise tax structure and cigar label warnings. The carton and packs are designed so they won’t fit in a standard cigarette plan-o-gram and the new Djarum merchandising racks identify them as cigars.

The company maintains that the difference between cigarettes and cigars has been clearly defined by standing law for more than 30 years and that this longstanding legal distinction between cigarettes and cigars was included as part of the new FDA law.

The FDA ban on flavored cigarettes was the agency’s first act under a law giving it the power to oversee tobacco and it has caused confusion throughout the industry. According to The Wall Street Journal, Kretek filed suit against the FDA when the agency issued a letter saying the new law applied to anything that fits a cigarette’s profile, even if it’s labeled a “cigar.” The suit seeks a permanent injunction preventing the FDA from enforcing the flavor ban on these cigar products.

Kretek estimates the number of clove cigarette users at about 1.2 million, averaging 5.2 smokes a week — less than a tenth of 1 percent of U.S. cigarette consumption. A University of Minnesota study in 2006 actually found a 40 percent drop in 12th grade clove cigarette smokers since 2001.

October 27, 2009 – Csnews

Couples who smoke, or are overweight, should be denied taxpayer-funded access to fertility treatments until they take steps to improve their health, a visiting expert says.

Professor Nicholas Macklon says Australia should follow the example of New Zealand and other countries, which do not publicly fund assisted reproduction services for couples who are smokers or obese.

“I suggest that Australia should consider this model,” said Prof Macklon, who is head of obstetrics and gynaecology at Southampton University in England.

“… and patients should not expect to undertake infertility treatment unless they are prepared to give themselves the best chance of conceiving and having a healthy baby.

“We know, for example, that both male and female obesity is a factor in infertility and that smoking reduces IVF success rates by half.”

Prof Macklon spoke at the Fertility Society of Australia’s annual meeting, a three-day event which got under way in Perth on Monday.

He is considered a leader in the specialty of periconceptional medicine – an emerging field focused on the health factors that impact on fertility.

Prof Macklon said there was overwhelming evidence of the effects of poor diet, smoking and lack of exercise on reproductive health.

And that infertile couples seeking assisted reproduction should prepare for pregnancy by making lifestyle changes that give them the best chance to conceive.

“Leading a healthy lifestyle to achieve fertility fitness should be considered as much a part of assisted reproduction as high technology interventions such as IVF (in vitro fertilisation),” he said.

Prof Macklon also said the objective of infertility treatment should not solely be to help a couple have a healthy baby “but to ensure that the child becomes a healthy adult”.

“If a couple is fit and healthy, the chances of pregnancy are increased and the life-time health of the child will be greater,” he said.

One in six Australian couples experience infertility – defined as the failure to conceive after a year of unprotected intercourse or the inability to carry pregnancies to a live birth.

An estimated 10,000 children will be born as a result of assisted reproductive technology in Australia this year.

Dr Andrea Braverman, a renowned US specialist on the psychosocial aspects of fertility treatment, is also attending the conference.

She said for some people, the news they were unable to conceive was equal to being “diagnosed with cancer”.

The potential fall-out was not only personal, says Dr Andrea Braverman, as it often had a corrosive effect on relationships.

“For men it can cause feelings of sexual inadequacy, loss of potency and power (while) women can feel incompetent, useless and defective,” Dr Braverman said.

“Sex as an expression of love can become an expression of failure month after month.”

Dr Braverman said the medical or lifestyle factors contributing to fertility problems were shared equally by men and women.

Making the decision to seek help could also feel like their problem was being “taken from the bedroom and into a cast of thousands”.

“For some there are happy endings, but not all,” Dr Braverman also said.

By DANNY ROSE
October 26, 2009