The FDA has recently warned more than ten online cigarette stores that their operation will be halted if they keep selling banned flavored cigarettes, thereby violating particular provisions of federal regulation, according to which, sales of flavored cigarettes are prohibited across the United States.

The Agency gave those online stores fourteen days to prove that they have removed banned smokes from their stock; otherwise they would be subject to penalties.

Sales of all flavored cigarettes, besides the menthol smokes, are banned starting from September 22, 2009.
The corresponding ban is a component part of groundbreaking Tobacco Control Act that was ratified in July and gave the U.S. Food and Drug Administration the legal powers to control tobacco industry.

The law comprises provisions concerning advertisements restrictions, prohibition of misleading cigarette names like low-tar, mild and light, since they make smokers consider them healthier than full-flavor cigarettes.
The notifications were addressed to a dozen of internet cigarette retailers that have not stopped selling flavored cigs after the ban had been implemented.

The data about the offenders was collected by the agents of Enforcement Department of the Food and Drug Administration, which are involved in ensuring compliance with the regulations and punishing the violators.
Similar notifications had been earlier sent to local tobacco retailers and importers, warning them about the legal liability if they planned to continue sales of flavored cigarettes after the ban implementation.

Among those merchants who received the FDA letters were both domestic sellers and overseas ones, who reach US customer through their online stores. The notifications comprised an article from Tobacco Control Act declaring that any cigarette sold in US should not contain any flavoring agent of either artificial or natural origin, or any herb or spice that adds a peculiar flavor to the cigarettes.

If the cigarettes offered by the retailer’s web-store do contain any flavors besides menthol, they are regarded as illegal or fake and would be penalized. In addition, if the products have no flavor, but are labeled as flavored, they would be as well penalized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Merchants located outside of the country were warned that the Agency would continue to track the products available at their online cigarette stores, and in case of non-compliance with the legislation, their shipments will be confiscated by the Customs Services. In addition, the FDA will contact the authorities in their home countries and notify them that the shipments from their countries are to be halted at the border.

Many in Hollywood are up in arms over the decision by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) to give an “R” rating to the romantic comedy It’s Complicated. The decision had nothing to do with scenes of sex or violence in the film starring Meryl Streep, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin. Rather, the R rating was applied because of a scene showing two characters smoking marijuana. According to the MPAA, the act of getting stoned without consequences for the characters on screen was too much to give the movie a PG-13 rating.

The ruling has outraged those in the industry who disagree with the MPAA’s habit of awarding violent films, like Terminator: Salvation a PG-13, while branding It’s Complicated with the harsher R rating.

“It’s another outrageous example of the lunatic priorities of the MPAA, which claims to serve the interests of parents but actually dances to its crazy drummer, happily handing out PG-13 ratings to unbelievably violent movies like Terminator: Salvation while whipping out the R rating at the first sign of a few naked breasts or, God forbid, an unsheathed penis,” wrote Patrick Goldstein in the Los Angeles Times.

Examples cited by other critics of the MPAA include Woody Allen’s PG-13 Crimes and Misdemeanors, in which a man has his mistress murdered with no bad consequences, and the PG comedy 9 to 5, which shows Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin getting high without consequences.
-Noel Brinkerhoff

Millions of people around the country have been treated to the anti-debt ads run by one-time tobacco industry lobbyist Richard Berman. Mr. Berman, who has also worked to thwart minimum wage increases and managed to get on the opposite side of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, is now working alongside the Wall Street types who wrecked the economy.

Wall Streeters, like billionaire fund manager Peter Peterson, want to use the government debt burden created by the collapse of their credit bubble as an excuse to slash Social Security and Medicare. Therefore television viewers are being treated to an expensive ad campaign telling us that “debt stinks.”

While the ad seems to imply that we should reduce or dispose of our debt by just writing off an entry on the government’s accounting ledgers, in reality getting rid of debt means cutting important programs like Social Security and Medicare. These programs are more important than ever for our seniors, now that the wreckage caused by the Wall Street crew has taken away much of the wealth they had accumulated in their homes or in the stock market.

We can also start to work down the debt by cutting back funding for the education of children, like the cute ones in the commercial. That will be great for future generations.
By Dean Baker
Source: Truthout

Of course it is not just education that we provide to future generations; we give them a whole physical and social infrastructure. The quality of the society we pass on to our children is what determines their well being; not the government debt.

The generation that grew up in the decades after World War II was subjected to the largest debt burden in the history of the country. Yet they also enjoyed three decades of extraordinarily rapid growth. There is no reason that the debt burdens being projected at present should depress the living standards of our children and grandchildren.

In fact, the best way to limit the burden of the government debt on the economy is to support policies that promote growth. The federal government’s debt burden shrank from more than 110 percent of GDP immediately following World War II to less than 30 percent of GDP in 1980. This happened in spite of the fact that the government ran a deficit in all but three years over this period. The debt burden shrank because the economy outgrew the debt.

In short, the key to keeping our debt at a sustainable level is running sound economic policies that foster growth. We also need to contain health care costs. Our broken health care system is threatening to wreck our economy. It will also lead to impossible debt burdens if it is not fixed. But as every economist knows, the issue here is fixing the health care system, not whining about government debt.

But, the Wall Street crew’s agenda is not really about debt and deficits; it is about gutting Social Security and Medicare. They know that they cannot do this through normal congressional procedures, after all Congress is answerable to the people who depend on these programs. Instead, the Peter Peterson crew wants to do an end run around congressional procedure. They want to set up a special commission that will come up with recommendations to cut Social Security and Medicare.

Under this scheme, the commission’s report would be fast-tracked. There would be limited opportunity for debate, no amendments, and the vote would be taken by a lame duck Congress, after the November 2010 elections. That may not sound fair, but what else should we expect from the tobacco lobbyist/Wall Street gang?

So watch carefully for these folks. They have lots of money and they are prepared to use it to buy influence in Congress. They will use any conceivable tactic to achieve their goal of cutting Social Security and Medicare. (The commercial even tries to exploit nationalist sentiment by whining that half of the debt is owned by foreigners. The foreign debt is the result of the trade deficit and the over-valued dollar; it is not caused by the government debt.)

The people who depend on Social Security and Medicare (i.e. just about everyone) must realize that there is nothing benign about the Wall Streeters’ deficit commission. This is an end run around the normal congressional process to accomplish in backrooms what could never be done in full public view. If the public knew what is going on here then “commission” would be a four-letter word.

The smoking ban inside Southwest Florida International Airport’s passenger terminal could go outside.

Business people who advise Lee County’s Board of Port Commissioners on Tuesday unanimously recommended establishing marked no-smoking zones outside the terminal within 50 feet of the two main entry doors – numbered 2 and 5 – on both the terminal’s first and second levels.

“I don’t want to risk having a total ban,” said Airports Special Management Committee Chairwoman Fran Myers. She called Tuesday’s decision preferable to suggesting no change in airport rules, which some commissioners believe are too lax on smokers and distressing to people with breathing problems.

Bonita Springs winter resident Sophie DeWitt, 62, grabbed a smoke outside the terminal Tuesday afternoon while waiting for her son to arrive from Canada.

To move outdoor smoking farther away from the main entrances “is no problem for me,” said DeWitt, who described herself as a light, occasional smoker.

Still, the airport “should provide some area for people to smoke, and to have that last cigarette before they board a plane. That’s just fair,” DeWitt said.

Initially, most committee members endorsed the status quo, which restricts ash cans to no closer than 25 feet from any terminal entry door, and also provides for two employee smoking areas far from the doors.

“I think banning smoking is not the right move for us, at least not now,” said committee member Kitty Green. Noting that Lee Memorial Health System recently banned smoking on the grounds of its medical centers, Green said airport leaders should see how that works out for Lee Memorial, and “learn from their experiences.”

Committee member Dan Baggot said a total ban on smoking outside the terminal could hurt the region’s lifeblood tourism industry. “I don’t see where hassling (tourists who smoke) helps anyone,” Baggot said.

The committee’s proposal is less than the total ban Commissioner Frank Mann suggested airport managers consider at a Nov. 9 meeting between the airports committee and commissioners.

Mann could not be reached for comment late Tuesday afternoon. An aide didn’t know whether he’d heard the committee’s compromise recommendations.

Those recommendations will go to Lee County commissioners sitting as the port authority board at their next joint meeting with the airports committee. That meeting is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Monday, Jan. 11.

TORONTO — Writer-director Jason Reitman readily admits he can identify with the blithe loner who lives out of a carry-on bag and fires people for a living in the romantic comedy-drama “Up in the Air.”
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But the 32-year-old filmmaker is also honest enough to admit he knows nothing of what it feels like to lose a job.

It was easy directing George Clooney as Ryan Bingham, a guy who flies from city to city, sacking employees for downsizing corporations and reveling in his mobile lifestyle, free of such excess baggage as family, personal commitments or a home mortgage.

“The sad thing about me is that I actually do agree with these characters of mine,” Reitman said during a roundtable interview with reporters in September at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Reitman is no stranger to sympathetic anti-heroes, having found the human side of tobacco lobbyist Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart) in 2005’s “Thank You for Smoking.”

“So, that’s the heartbreaker, saddest probably for my wife, who has to be married to me, is that I probably do think like Nick Naylor of ‘Thank You for Smoking,’ and I do think like Ryan Bingham of this movie. And that’s why I like to bring humanity to them. I like to bring humanity to the characters that are vilified in other people’s movies.”

As an example, Reitman said he’s not a fan of Michael Mann’s “The Insider,” a fact-based film about a tobacco industry whistleblower. Beating up on “big tobacco” is too easy for the likes of Reitman. He’d rather find good in a seemingly unscrupulous spinmeister.

Same goes for Clooney’s self-centered, self-indulgent corporate terminator in “Up in the Air,” whose biggest goal in life is to accrue 10 million miles in the air and become a member of the world’s most elite frequent flier club.

“Certainly there’s tons of films about main characters who believe in the idea of family,” Reitman said. “I’d much rather hero-ize the man who says, ‘No, no, life is much better alone; you have it all wrong.’ And often I’m just dealing with a part of me that actually feels those things, or at least is tempted.

“I’m married, I love my wife, my daughter’s incredible, but I would be lying if I didn’t say every once in a while I’ve thought about the idea, when I’m walking through the airport, what if I hopped on that plane to who knows where, and I just landed with nothing and nobody, and just started fresh. And I think just as Ryan Bingham says, I think there is something exhilarating about that concept. I would have to imagine there’s a part of every person that feels that way. It’s easier for me to write that almost as a personal diary.”

An Oscar nominee for directing 2007’s “Juno,” Jason Reitman, son of director Ivan Reitman, confesses he was much more cynical when he first started adapting “Up in the Air” for the screen from a novel by Walter Kirn.

“I started writing this as a 24-year-old who was satirical and libertarian and unmarried when I started writing the first act,” he said. “We were in an economic boom, and I was a satirical writer. I was writing a satire, and the original firing scenes were satirical scenes. They were funny scenes.”

But Jason Reitman’s life has changed since then, and so has the economic climate.

“(The firing scenes) stopped being funny,” he said, “and I realized I needed to make those scenes more dramatic. I just simply knew I did not have the life experience to make these scenes as authentic as possible. And I thought the only way to make this feel real is to use real people.”

To that end, the production company ran newspaper ads in Detroit and St. Louis, two cities hardest hit by the economic downturn, looking for people who had been fired from their jobs and were willing to relive the experience in front of a motion picture camera. So, many of the men and women Clooney’s character fires in the film are real people, re-enacting their real-life reactions when they were handed their pink slips. Some show quiet resignation; others shout angrily or weep or throw tantrums or all of the above.

And their pain is obviously real.

“I don’t know what it’s like to be 53 years old, to have done the same job for half your life, and to suddenly think, ‘OK, I live in a city where half the population does what I do, and we’ve all lost our jobs, so it’s not exactly like I can go find another job (snapping his fingers) like that,’” Reitman said. “I have too much respect for all the people who went through that situation, to sit there and try to come up with bull—- dialogue that just doesn’t pay tribute to how scary that must be.”

Travel and accommodations provided by Paramount Pictures.

Many and new ideas about how to decrease smoking among American inhabitants appears since the Food and Drug Administration has taken over the regulation of tobacco use. One of the many other ideas is to ban flavored cigarettes and cigars.

Margaret Hamburg, commissioner of the FDA, explained: “Flavored cigarettes are a new gateway for many children and young adults to become real smokers.”

This is the main cause why they decided to prohibit these kinds of cigarettes. However there was approved before a legislation which bans minors from smoking.

Anti-tobacco researchers declared that they recently found that 11 businesses were failed in Charleston alone for selling cigarettes to minors. Such cases are met every day in many cities across the country.

Researchers explained that with the last anti-smoking legislation gets the job done, instead of creating severe penalties for those who sell to children. That’s why FDA decided to put into place a new law that bans flavored tobacco because, somehow, that is the cause for teens smoking.

In general, kids start smoking because bad parenting and a poor work ethic. That’s mean that only adults are guilty of increasing number of smokers among children.

Researchers can’t understand why the FDA thinks that putting a ban on flavored cigarettes will modify anything when businesses are still selling tobacco products to minors, indifferent of flavor. This is like telling that since the law against murder isn’t working we are going to ban all knives. Still the FDA doesn’t stop there, it will acts against smoking till will have good results.

Almost all scientists consider that even cigarettes packs attract kids into smoking. That’s why they proposed to put the image of a diseased lung on cigarette packs.

What they haven’t accounted for is the loss in tax dollars that is set to follow this ban on flavored tobacco. Some states are foretold to lose up to $140 million in tax money from the banning of flavored smoking products.

As it is known, the tobacco center at the FDA has issued numerous fees on tobacco corporations that fund the center’s very existence.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, it is predicted that by 2013 these fees will bring in up to $500 million annually.
In general, tobacco companies are censured with sales taxes much higher than alcohol or any other products on the market. And almost all people think that this is fair because the rise in health care costs because of tobacco-related illnesses.

Unfortunately they don’t pay attention on alcohol and fast food effects which lead to many health problems such as liver disease and heart disease.

While San Diego was Richard Nixon’s favorite city for political reasons, Copenhagen, may be Barack Obama’s worst. For it is the capital of Denmark where Obama’s last-minute pitch for Chicago’s bid to host the 2016 Olympics fell on deaf ears earlier this year. Today’s the “sky is falling” plea to 193 nations for a global climate warming pact most likely will suffer a similar fate.

Obama holds a poker hand the other players read. The joker is held by his own Senate which appears unlikely 1) to pass its own climate change bill any where near the one passed in the House, and 2) to ratify a treaty even if one is smoked out in Copenhagen.

In language a fifth grader can understand, poisons coughed into the air by carbon-producing fuels from vehicles and factories can only be reduced by universal cooperation. Doing it alone — or unilaterally in grown-up words — won’t accomplish anything.

The biggest stumbling block in Copenhagen has been resistance by China and some other rapidly-developing nations for reduction standard verification. No one trusts one another, especially the United States based on its record during the Bush administration.

The second hang-up is the cost. One proposal has wealthy nations paying $10 billion dollars annually until 2020 — about 20 to 30% of the total costs absorbed by the U.S. — to third world countries to help them achieve their goals in reducing pollution. From 2020 to 2050 the cost would be $100 billion annually.

The president is trying to take the lead but it is too late and not enough people and nation’s are following. At least the ones that matter: India, China and Brazil.

Obama in his speech to the world leaders today said their collective will to address global warming “hangs in the balance.”

“We are running short on time, and at this point the question is whether we will move forward together or split apart, whether we prefer posturing to action,” Obama said. “We are ready to get this done today, but there has to be movement on all sides.”

Whether it’s health care, rushing troops into Afghanistan when they’re not ready or climate change, Obama always is in a hurry-up crises mode, it seems. He’s right, of course, but in all cases the pushers and shovers outside his control are dragging their feet.

Before his arrival in Copenhagen, The Washington Post says it obtained a draft text of a basic agreement of general goals.

It provides a way for industrialized nations to commit “aggregate reductions of greenhouse gases” by 2020 and allows for this number to be judged based on both a 1990 baseline–which the European Union has insisted is the most meaningful date–and a 2005 baseline, which the United States, Japan and other developed countries have endorsed. The draft text includes all the near-term emission-cut pledges that industrial countries have made and would establish a 2050 target for reducing worldwide greenhouse gas emissions that would include all countries.

India, along with China the world’s second biggest polluter, is reluctant to even commit to emission reduction, according to French president Nicholas Sarkozy.

While it may make environmental advocates feel good, the Obama administration’s goal of reducing emissions unilaterally through the Environmental Protection Agency and other regulatory bureaucracies.not only will accomplish nothing on the global scope of things but politically dilute their bargaining power with other nations.

In an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times, David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey, two lawyers who both served in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, write:

Unilateral action may well be the right option in cases in which the United States itself, given sufficient commitment and will, can achieve a particular goal. In the case of global climate change, however, the United States can do nothing that is in the least effective without the agreement and participation of all of the other major carbon-emitting economies, including Europe, India and China. Until all are on board, unilateral cuts will simply make the American people poorer, with no benefit to anyone but our foreign competitors.

The next time someone tells you “It’s all or nothing,” think global warming.

Seldom in the history of mankind has there been a proposal so altruistic for the common good and fraught with paranoia and parochial economic interests. It’s a green issue, all right, but in this case the color of money and not saving the rain forests nor taking a deep breath without choking nor watching Manhatten under 10 feet of water.
Posted by JERRY REMMERS, Columnist in At TMV, Breaking News, Economy, Politics, Science & Technology.
Dec 18th, 2009

NEW YORK // Once home to smoke-filled shisha dens and cheap tobacco, the Middle East is increasingly becoming a nicotine-free zone with ever-fewer places to light up.

UN health chiefs say tough new anti-tobacco rules are being rolled out from Djibouti to Jordan, changing the stereotypical image of the Arab world as a smokers’ paradise where people can feed their addiction in offices, restaurants, buses – and even hospitals.

According to the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) latest report on anti-smoking policies, the Emirates is a regional trailblazer, where total smoking bans in enclosed public places covers almost one third of the population, slightly more even than in the United States.

“Change is happening, the political commitment is increasing and smoking is becoming less socially acceptable, although it is not happening fast enough,” said Fatimah El Awa, an adviser to WHO’s regional anti-tobacco project.

“Now, we are seeing pictorial health warnings on cigarettes that cover 50 per cent of the packets – in places like Djibouti, Egypt, Iran and Jordan. This would have been impossible to imagine five years ago.”

This year’s annual WHO Report on the Global Tobacco Epidemic paints a mixed image of smoking across a 22-nation bloc called the Eastern Mediterranean region, where Gulf Arabs are more restrained smokers than their counterparts across the Arab world.

The Bahrainis (where 6 per cent of adults smoke) and Saudis (7 per cent) light up considerably less than their brethren in Egypt (14 per cent) or the region’s puffing champions in Tunisia (32 per cent) and Jordan (36 per cent), in statistics that WHO asserts may not be wholly accurate.

As well as the addition of health warnings on cigarette packets in some countries, the experts laud Afghanistan, Djibouti, Iraq and Jordan for introducing or extending bans on smoking in public places, including restaurants, universities and official buildings.

The chain-smoking Jordanians have redoubled efforts this past year, with laws banning the sale of single cigarettes, introducing anti-smoking officers and ridding the capital, Amman, of billboards, vending machines and tobacco sponsorship advertising.

Sweeping curbs announced in August by the government of Iraq, where 11 per cent of adults smoke, proved controversial, with many questioning whether bans on smoking in public buildings or selling cigarettes to those under 18 should rank so high on the troubled nation’s agenda.

Syria’s president, Bashar Assad, who has also been concerned at the ill effects of tobacco, in October issued a decree that bans smoking in many indoor public places and US$45 (Dh165.2) fines against offenders – even extending the ruling to cover the beloved shisha pipes, known locally as argileh.

While the UAE’s patchwork of anti-smoking rules, absence of a federal law and occasional policy u-turns has attracted criticism within the country, the view from abroad is a success story in which 29 per cent of the population has been freed from the perils of second-hand smoke in public places.

This puts it towards the top of the league table ahead of the US (28 per cent) and below Australia (96 per cent), well ahead of a global average in which 5.4 per cent of the world’s population was covered by comprehensive smoke-free laws last year.

The 138-page report likewise lauds the Emirates, where 8 per cent of adults smoke, for becoming one of only 17 countries globally to offer comprehensive help to quit smoking last year, with nicotine patches and national telephone lines to help smokers kick the habit.

This region’s anti-smoking movement has witnessed its share of novelty initiatives, such as Bahraini officials handing out flyers to some 100,000 motorists on the King Fahd Causeway, which connects the island to Saudi Arabia, detailing the country’s new tobacco-free zones.

The Saudis got even more imaginative in June, when the charity Purity announced a competition in which would-be grooms quit smoking in a bid to win an all-expenses paid wedding – a cumbersome expense in the desert kingdom.

Religion has even entered the equation, with Dr El Awa describing a total ban on tobacco in Mecca and Medina since 2002, enforced throughout the Haj pilgrimages, as creating “the only two cities in the world that I would claim are completely tobacco-free”.

Opinions are divided as to whether the holy month of Ramadan, in which practising Muslims abstain from putting food, drink or tobacco past their lips during daylight hours, is a help or a hindrance to creating a smoking-free Middle East.

While Dr El Awa notes that “in Ramadan, every smoker thinks about quitting”, her colleague, Dr Hani Algouhmani, the regional co-ordinator for the Framework Convention Alliance against tobacco, warns the holy month also has its pitfalls.

“When Muslims break the fast, they also tend to smoke shisha, it has become a habit in some countries,” said Dr Algouhmani. “In the evening, they are sitting at home, in cafes or restaurants and smoking hubbly bubbly. They smoke a lot more than perhaps they would otherwise.”

The customary hookah pipes are seen as one of the biggest impediments to rolling out smoking bans, although Dr El Awa is in no doubt they are as dangerous as cigarettes, saying: “Smoking shisha in a room for one hour is the equivalent of smoking 100-200 cigarettes.”

Experts also cite the continued low-price of cigarettes as hampering efforts to rid the region of tobacco, as they try to convince officials to make capital cities from Tunis to Damascus and Beirut smoke-free zones over the next couple of years.

“In the coming 10 years, I would like to see a real reduction in prevalence,” said Dr El Awa. “We will focus our efforts in working with countries to strengthen legislation and enforcement, and make sure the tobacco industry is not interfering to stop the wheel that is turning on tobacco control.”

OKLAHOMA CITY – An Oklahoma investment company has unveiled what is believed to be the first Christian-themed line of exchange-traded funds in the United States.

FaithShares Trust in Oklahoma City announced two new products, FaithShares Baptist Values Fund and FaithShares Lutheran Values Fund, on Dec. 15. They join FaithShares’ recently launched Catholic Values Fund, Christian Values Fund and Methodist Values Fund, completing the initial family of funds.

“We created these funds to meet the needs of investors who want to participate in the potential of the stock market, yet be good stewards of their money,” said Thompson Phillips Jr., president of FaithShares.

Exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, have grown in popularity in recent years. They are similar to mutual funds, containing diversified investments in stocks and bonds that don’t require a manager, making them cheaper than traditional stocks. Unlike mutual funds, however, they trade on exchanges just like stocks, making them easier to track.

The funds start with the 400 largest U.S. stocks, which are then filtered down to 100 by avoiding companies involved in morally objectionable ventures like gambling or pornography. While large investors can give millions of dollars to a money manager and ask that their funds be managed in keeping with certain beliefs, smaller investors are more limited in their ability to invest in only socially conscious stocks and funds.

While Phillips said he knows of one other faith-based ETF — a Dow Jones Islamic Market International Index Fund that invests in keeping with Islamic law — he believes his are the first explicitly Christian products of their kind.

Phillips said he and Garrett Stevens, CEO and portfolio manager, came up with the idea after experiencing first-hand the frustration of Christian organizations as they seek to invest funds over the long term without violating their constituents’ consciences.

The individual funds are tailored around each denomination’s beliefs and investment policies, so they vary by tradition.

The Baptist fund, for example, has zero-tolerance for companies involved in ventures related to abortion, beverage alcohol, gambling, producing military weapons, pornography and tobacco.

The Methodist fund allows stocks that derive no more than 10 percent of their business from alcohol sales, such as restaurants. The Lutheran fund allows companies that produce beer and wine but not distilled alcohol.

The Catholic fund excludes businesses that manufacture contraceptive products, use embryonic stem cells or fetal tissue for research or are involved in predatory lending controversies or have a pattern of gender discrimination or poor labor practices.

A generic Christian fund tailored to non-denominational churches and other denominations not specifically represented by other ETFs excludes “companies involved in: the direct participation or support of abortion; manufacture of alcoholic beverages; ownership of, or support of, gambling facilities, products or services; production or distribution of violent media; production, sale or distribution of pornography, use of embryonic stem cell or fetal tissue for research in a product; and manufacture, sale or distribution of tobacco products or supply of key elements to the tobacco industry.”

“We did a great deal of research on the covenants of the various denominations in designing these funds,” Stevens said.

In addition to offering guilt-free investing, FaithShares pledges to give 10 percent of its net income to a ministry associated with the respective denominations.

Currently the funds carry operating expenses higher than the average ETF but lower than faith-based mutual funds. Phillips told the Wall Street Journal that expenses will decrease as the funds’ assets increase.
By Bob Allen
December 17, 2009

American teens believe that smoking cigarettes is riskier than using illicit drugs or binge drinking, a new government report shows.

That perception may increase the likelihood that they’ll experiment with alcohol or illegal substances, the report authors said.

“We are on the right track with cigarette smoking and need to keep raising awareness among teens about the dangers of other substances,” Pamela S. Hyde, administrator of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), said in a news release from the agency. “Understanding that perception of harm is a strong predictor of potential substance use among young people can help guide the development of substance prevention messages.”

Responses from 44,979 adolescents, aged 12-17, who took part in the 2007 and 2008 SAMHSA National Survey on Drug Use and Health showed that teens’ perception of cigarette-related risk was constant among all groups, but there was considerable age- and gender-related variation in perception of risk associated with other types of substances.

Among the key findings:

* Nearly 70 percent of all respondents believed smoking one or more packs of cigarettes per day posed a major health risk.
* Only 40 percent of participants believed binge drinking (having five or more drinks of alcohol once or twice a week) posed a major risk, and only 34.2 percent thought smoking marijuana once a month posed a major risk. Using cocaine once a month was seen as highly risky by 49.7 percent of the adolescents, while 50.9 percent believed using LSD once or twice a month was highly risky.
* Girls were more likely than boys to associate great risk with smoking one or more packs of cigarettes a day, having five or more drinks of alcohol once or twice a week, and smoking marijuana once a month.
* Boys were more likely than girls to perceive great risk from trying heroin once or twice.

More information

The American Academy of Family Physicians offers advice on how parents can prevent substance abuse in children.
SOURCE: U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, news release, Dec. 17, 2009

Bobby Labonte Racing (BLR) will be displaying some new colors during the 2010 dirt late model racing season. The team announced today the addition of Tantus Tobacco and their Red Buck Filtered Cigars brand as the primary sponsor of the No. 41 Red Buck Filtered Cigars machine driven by Brad Neat, who joined BLR last month. Red Buck will also be an associate sponsor of five-time dirt late model champion Earl Pearson Jr. and his No. 44 entry.

This is not the first time Red Buck has entered into the world of dirt late model racing. The 29-year-old Neat developed a relationship with Red Buck this past season and now looks forward to growing the successful partnership at BLR.
“The people at Tantus Tobacco and the folks who work on the Red Buck brand are truly passionate about dirt late model racing and its fans,” said Neat. “We worked together a little last season, and it’s great that they are joining us at Bobby Labonte Racing in 2010. I’m focused on winning races for them, but more importantly representing them throughout the year. They are giving us all the tools to be successful in every event we enter.”

“Tantus Tobacco is excited about the upcoming 2010 race season,” said Ross Haynes, Director of Sales for Tantus Tobacco. “We are proud to have the Red Buck name associated with two great drivers and avid outdoorsman such as Brad and Earl.” Neat was a two-time winner on the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series in 2009 on his way to finishing seventh in the national championship. Pearson won four times on tour and finished third in the championship chase. Team owner Bobby Labonte knows that the addition of Red Buck will only make the team stronger.

“Tantus Tobacco is a company that believes in quality,” said team owner Bobby Labonte. “That makes them a great fit to our race team and we’re proud to welcome them on board. We hope to deliver them wins and represent them to the millions of dirt late model fans all across the country. Their partnership will make us a better team and that is something we’re all looking forward to.”

Neat and Pearson will make their debut with Red Buck February 1 when the team travels to Florida for the 34th annual DART Winternationals.

BOSTON — When Massachusetts began offering virtually free treatments to help poor residents of the state stop smoking in 2006, proponents hoped the new Medicaid program would someday reap benefits.

But state officials never expected it would happen so soon.

New state data show a steep drop in the smoking rate among poor people. When the program started, about 38 percent of poor Massachusetts residents smoked. By 2008, the smoking rate for poor residents had dropped to about 28 percent, a decrease of about 30,000 people in two and a half years, or one in six smokers, said Lois Keithly, director of the state’s Tobacco Cessation and Prevention Program.

There are also indications that the drop has lowered rates of hospitalization for heart attacks and emergency room visits for asthma attacks, she said.

The data has not yet been peer-reviewed. But the numbers have already grabbed national attention, with several United States senators and anti-smoking advocates using the data to push for similar new Medicaid coverage for tobacco addiction in the national health care legislation.

Senators Richard J. Durbin of Illinois and Bernard Sanders of Vermont have introduced an amendment that would do so, and the Senate could vote on it by the weekend. If the amendment fails, Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa said he would try another avenue: seeking an expansion through a conference committee that will ultimately reconcile the House and Senate bills.

“We should be able to find an opening,” Mr. Harkin said in an interview. “This is one demonstrable way we can actually bend the cost curve and keep people healthy.”