Butterflies and moths are welcome visitors to many plant species. Plants attract insect pollinators with the colors, forms, nectars and scents of their flowers to ensure fertilization and reproduction. However, female moths are also threatening to the plant: Once attracted by the flower’s scent, they lay their eggs on the green leaves, and shortly voracious young caterpillars hatch. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology have now discovered how tobacco plants successfully solve this dilemma.

The researchers found that herbivory changed the opening time of the flower buds from dusk to dawn. In addition the emission of flower scents was dramatically reduced. This change in flower timing was elicited by specific molecules in the oral secretions of the larvae, and required the jasmonate signaling cascade, which is known to elicit a host of other defense responses in plants. Instead of night-active moths, these morning-opening flowers attract day-active hummingbirds which are also able to transfer pollen — without threatening the plant’s life.

Outbreak of tomato hornworms

During field experiments performed by PhD students of the Department of Molecular Ecology headed by Prof. Ian T. Baldwin in the Great Basin Desert of Utah (USA) in summer 2007, a massive outbreak of tomato hornworms (Manduca quinquemaculata) occurred. Almost every tobacco plant of the native species Nicotiana attenuata on the field site was attacked by these herbivores which prefer plants of the nightshade family. Danny Kessler intensively studied the infested plants and noticed that these plants had many flowers that opened after sunrise — although tobacco is typically a night-flowering plant and usually opens its flower buds after sunset. This finding resulted in experiments conducted in the following two years that showed that the flowering time postponed by 12 hours was directly related to herbivory.

Pollination wanted, but no oviposition

Ecologists had already noticed that female moths attracted for pollination laid their eggs, and shortly leaf-eating larvae hatched to feed on the same plant. The scientists considered whether plants would actually submit without reserve to this life-threatening disadvantage — just for pollination. They intensively studied the remarkable morning-opening flowers (MoF) which were only produced by plants that had been attacked by insect larvae and compared them to the usually occurring night-opening flowers (NoF). The first experiment already revealed an astounding result: MoF did not emit the attractant benzyl acetone anymore (see also Kessler et al., Science 321, 2008) and also the sugar concentration in the floral nectar was considerably reduced. Furthermore, it was striking that the petals of MoF only opened to a third of the size of NoF. All in all, the MoF were rendered literally unnoticeable by the moths — however, they may become interesting for different pollinators living nearby the field station: hummingbirds.

Hummingbirds visit the morning-opening flowers and serve as pollinators

To find out whether moths or birds successfully transferred pollen from flower to flower, the scientists determined the outcrossing rate of plants visited by moths or hummingbirds in field experiments. They removed the anthers from young flower buds to rule out self-pollination. Then an unattacked and an insect-attacked tobacco plant were covered with a mesh-covered wire cage until the morning of the next day to exclude night-active pollinators. A second pair of plants remained uncovered and thereby accessible to night-active pollinators. Before dawn the cages were exchanged, so that the plants that had been uncovered during the night were now covered and the plants that had been covered at night became accessible to pollinators during the day. In the evening all experimental plants were covered and the plants remained so until seed capsules were produced. Counting of the capsules revealed that a significant majority of capsules on plants that had not been attacked by caterpillars originated from flowers that were pollinated during the night between 8:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m., whereas in caterpillar-infested plants successful pollination had occurred in majority during the day between 6:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m., therefore by hummingbirds.

The scientists verified the assumption that actually hummingbirds visit the MoFs and drink their nectar by directly observing and counting out more than 1000 flowering wild tobacco plants. 18 humming bird visitations were intensively studied which showed hummingbirds visiting larvae-infested plants. As a matter of fact, more than 90% of the birds preferred the MoF compared to NoF, even if only a few MoF were on a plant. “It is likely that the hummingbirds can recognize the special shape of the partially open corollas of the MoF in the morning and associate these characteristics with the reliable quality and quantity of the nectar in these flowers,” says Celia Diezel, co-author of the study.

Experiments using larval oral secretions and transgenic tobacco plants

In further experiments the scientists studied how attacked plants recognize herbivory and subsequently change the developmental program of the flowers to favor hummingbirds. Instead of infesting the plant by putting caterpillars on the leaves, the researchers mechanically wounded a leaf with a pattern wheel and applied oral secretions from hornworm larvae on the wounds. The plant reacted as after direct insect attack: After approximately 3 days more morning-opening flowers compared to non-induced plants were produced.

“Maybe the fatty acid amino acid conjugates present in the oral secretions of the larvae elicit this reaction. We already know that they switch on the plant’s defense against herbivory, for instance by producing toxic substances to fend off the attacker,” Danny Kessler, PhD student at the institute, explains. In an additional experiment he used genetically modified tobacco, in which the signaling pathway between the messenger molecule in the oral secretion and the defense reaction was interrupted; these plants were unable to produce jasmonate, a plant hormone initiating plant defense responses. In fact, the transgenic jasmonate-deficient plants used in the field experiment did not produce MoF after spit induction, but could if the plants were sprayed with jasmonate, which showed that the reprogramming of the flower production is actually related to the pathway that switches on defense mechanisms.

Why do plants risk attracting tomato hornworm moths as pollinators, although the insects’ larvae feed on the plants? “We cannot answer this question from the perspective of one single plant, but, if at all, from an evolutionary and ecological background,” says Ian Baldwin.

Wild tobacco populations grow on vast areas after fires, comparable to synchronized monocultures with thousands of widespread plants. Hummingbirds may not be the most reliable pollination service the plant species needs for outcrossing and reproduction. Using volatiles, the plants can attract moths from large distances, whereas hummingbirds are only available, if their nests are accidentally in the vicinity of the tobacco populations. Moreover, looking at the special mode of hummingbird pollination, it is more likely that flowers of one single plant are pollinated with pollen from the same plant than from flowers of different plants. This can decrease the genetic variability of the seeds produced. Moths may move more frequently among plants and this behavior may results in greater genetic variability for the seed produced from their pollination services.

The Florida State basketball teams hit the road for Tobacco Road this week, and a match up with perennial conference powerhouse Duke. With both the men and the women trailing the Blue Devils in the ACC standings, they’ll be hoping for a similar performance as they had on their latest homestand, where they combined to win five of their six games played.

Men’s Coach Leonard Hamilton said, “I think anything is capable of happening when two ACC teams show up, regardless of whether they’re in the top spot or the bottom. You can take the words “ACC upset” out of your vocabulary this season, because every game is what you call a “white knuckler,” one of those ball room balls. Very physical, very aggressive.”

For the women, their run through the Tar Heel State also includes a stop in Chapel Hill, to face 12th ranked North Carolina. Being able to check off both stops on one trip Coach Semrau believes will play to her team’s advantage..

Coach Semrau said, “You know, we get to kind of be Duke and Carolina for a weekend. We can drive 10 minutes to get to a game. You’re not going to have to come home and go back and forth. We always feel like being a team in Florida and we have to travel so far, and for us, to go up there and be able to play them in one weekend, be in one hotel, have our mind on our business, we’re looking forward to it.”

With the conference wide open for both the men and the women, a solid run on the road this week will do a lot for the Noles positioning in the ACC.

WASHINGTON — The Seneca Nation of Indians is threatening to spend $250,000 against Sen. Kirsten E. Gillibrand this year because of her support for legislation that would ban the mailing of cigarettes.

The Seneca Nation Foreign Relations Committee last week unanimously passed a resolution recommending that the Tribal Council set aside that money for “voter education and outreach.” The council will consider the request Feb. 13.

The move came on the recommendation of J. C. Seneca, a leading tobacco entrepreneur and co-chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

“I propose that $250,000 be appropriated for a ‘get out the vote’ effort to educate and mobilize the thousands of workers, contractors, vendors and their families who are tied to the Nation’s $1.1 billion economy as to why Senator Gillibrand is harmful to the Seneca Nation and all of Western New York,” Seneca wrote in a Jan. 14 letter to the committee.

The Senecas are threatening to target Gillibrand, D-N. Y.,because of her support of the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking (PACT) Act, a bill that the Senate could consider that would ban the U. S. Postal Service from mailing cigarettes.

The Senecas depend on the U. S. mail to deliver about two-thirds of the cigarettes they sell, and in an interview, Seneca said the tribe was ready to fight to protect that business.

“The more we can do to educate people, the better,” he said, adding that the money could be spent on advertising or on campaign donations to Gillibrand’s opponents.

The $250,000 would be in addition to the $1 million the tribe earlier set aside to target state lawmakers seeking to collect taxes on the tribe’s cigarette sales.

Asked why the tribe was thinking of targeting Gillibrand, Seneca

said: “Sen. Gillibrand has made no effort at all to listen or to be willing to help.”

Told of the Senecas’ plans to target the freshman senator, her spokeswoman, Bethany Lesser, said: “Sen. Gillibrand’s No. 1 priority is economic development and the Seneca Nation is a partner to our efforts to create jobs and grow our economy. However, Sen. Gillibrand remains committed to preventing the illegal trafficking of cigarettes to children.”

Former Rep. Harold Ford is threatening a primary challenge to Gillibrand, and while no big-name Republican has vowed to run against her, the current political environment could make her a tempting GOP target.

The potential boost in Seneca political funding comes weeks after the tribe targeted both Gillibrand and Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N. Y., in a billboard campaign.

Asked why Schumer was no longer the target of the tribe’s ire, Seneca pointed to a recent interview with YNN Buffalo in which Schumer said: “If the Senecas have a really good and transparent way to prevent sales to minors — not using the PACT Act — I’d welcome it.”

That comment “did kind of break the ice” between Schumer and the tribe, Seneca said.

But the relationship between the Senecas and Gillibrand remains icy.

By Jerry Zremski
NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF
January 25, 2010

ALONG with buckets of money — more than $1.6 billion so far, worldwide — and a couple of Golden Globes, James Cameron’s “Avatar” has collected a smattering of controversy. Some of the hue and cry has involved matters of political allegory and theological implication, as pundits have divined that this globally popular blockbuster may represent a veiled ideological attack on America, capitalism, humanity, monotheism or all of the above.

But the fiercest attack on “Avatar” has focused on what may seem, compared to such lofty matters, like a minor detail. Of all the corny lines and ready-made catchphrases in Mr. Cameron’s script, perhaps none has turned out to be so provocative as one uttered by Grace Augustine, the scientist played by Sigourney Weaver: “Where’s my damn cigarette?”

In the view of anti-smoking activists, the correct answer should be: Nowhere, at least not in any real or imaginary world governed by a PG-13 rating. The logic of the Smoke-Free Movies campaign, which seeks an R rating for almost all instances of on-screen puffing, is straightforward enough. If the Motion Picture Association of America’s ratings board advises parents about sex, violence, language and drug use, why should it not also shield children from exposure to a lethal (if legal) product that hooks, sickens and kills hundreds of thousands of people a year? Since 2007 the M.P.A.A. has considered smoking when it makes its judgments, and one studio, Disney, has since then made all its family films smoke free.

Should that be true of all movies likely to be seen by children? Does it matter that Grace’s smoking, according to Mr. Cameron, is meant to emphasize the less attractive aspects of her temperament, including that she “doesn’t care about the human body”? And if that mitigation seems like a bit of a stretch (in the future, how likely is it that scientific laboratories on distant moons will allow what their earthbound counterparts forbid today?), what about some of the other recent instances tarred, as it were, by the opprobrium of Smoke-Free Movies? The principal smoker in the animated “Fantastic Mr. Fox” is a villain, and if the hero in “Sherlock Holmes” takes a draw or two on a pipe, well, he is Sherlock Holmes.

In the movie-smoking debate, even clear positions — that children must be protected from images that might influence their behavior, or that filmmakers should be immune from censorship and interference — tend quickly to be fogged with questions of context and nuance. That is because underneath the public discussion about smoking (or gun violence, or sexual promiscuity, or whatever social problem has seized the momentary spotlight) is another, much more confused discourse: about movies and about the ways they mirror and occlude reality.

The power of movies is undeniable, but also elusive. Even the children whose fragile psyches grown-ups fret about know that what movies depict is not real, and yet even the most sophisticated or jaded viewers habitually peruse the screen in search of designs for living. The screen is, among other things, a domain of glamour, in which ordinary actions are given a luster, a charisma, far beyond what they possess in the everyday world.

Social scientists doggedly pursue evidence of correlations between on- and off-screen behavior, while some commentators insist that no such connections could possibly exist. The rest of us know perfectly well that we don’t play with anvils and dynamite just because we see Wile E. Coyote do it, though perhaps those Looney Tunes are cautionary tales. But we also can acknowledge that our actions, our fantasies and the pictures we consume are not all that far apart. And it is for precisely this reason — in recognition of the unique and dazzling impact of an art form that is also a mass medium compounded of big pictures and good-looking people — that movies have always attracted the attention of censors. In the United States regulation has been voluntary, a way for private enterprise to forestall the interference of the government. Elsewhere the state weighs in, either with outright prohibitions on certain content or with restrictions on who can see what.

Hollywood’s self-imposed system has tried both approaches. From the mid-1930s to the mid-’60s the Production Code kept a tight rein on what all audiences could see, and promised that “no picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it.” It is easy enough, in retrospect, to laugh at the starchy Victorianism of that language. But at the same time the idea that movies might ennoble their audiences and even improve us as we watch them, affirms a faith in cinema that is almost Utopian.

The code may have withered, but the ideal of movies as a universal and fundamentally benign form of entertainment has hardly gone away, and is indeed what informs many of the efforts to broaden and strengthen the ratings system. That system, devised in 1968 by Jack Valenti, president of the M.P.A.A. for almost 40 years afterward, has undergone some tweaks over the years, replacing X with NC-17 and adding the PG-13 between PG and R. Such changes, and attempts to refine the criteria for any particular rating, represent an earnest attempt to keep abreast of public sensitivities even as they also suggest the quixotic nature of the enterprise. What committee could possibly take account of the often confused and contradictory mores and prejudices of a country of 300 million-plus people? And the M.P.A.A. has become an easy scapegoat for that very confusion. Critics of the association, including many filmmakers interviewed by Kirby Dick in his 2006 documentary, “This Film is Not Yet Rated,” accuse the ratings board of being more tolerant of violence than of sex, less tolerant of homosexuality than heterosexuality, and perversely fixated on shot lengths, camera angles and other technical matters that barely register with ordinary viewers.

Mr. Dick’s film, a critique of the ratings system in the name of artistic freedom, dwells on the commercially fraught boundary between the R and NC-17 ratings, which caused problems for the directors of films like “The Cooler,” “Boys Don’t Cry” and “A Dirty Shame.” But for the public — at least for children and their parents — the more embattled frontier is the one between PG-13 and R.

In actual ticket-buying practice, the difference between them is that a young-looking adolescent must be accompanied either by a full-fledged adult or by an older-looking adolescent. Otherwise it may take a practiced eye and ear to realize that a popular Anglo-Saxon expletive is acceptable in a PG-13 movie as long as it is only heard once and does not refer to a sexual act. Thus “Billy Elliott,” as wholesome and uplifting a film as you could hope for — its story about a kid who dreams of being a dancer is likely to inspire other kids with similar dreams — has an R rating because its proletarian English characters talk more or less as they would in the real world.

It is easy to scoff at that rating only if you have never received angry letters from parents or grandparents appalled by profanity. But of course the rules about specific rules allow a lot of leeway, and no one would claim that by taking your children only to PG-13 comedies, say, you would spare them sustained exposure to coarse sexual humor. Nor would a PG-13-only diet prevent them from seeing violent deaths and grisly images, including the genocidal warfare in “Avatar” itself.

On the other hand, a trip to see “It’s Complicated,” the midlife romantic-triangle comedy starring Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin, will expose viewers to no violence, no nudity (apart from a brief glimpse of Mr. Baldwin’s buttocks) and very little naughty language. That film’s R rating came about because of a sequence in which Ms. Streep and Mr. Martin smoke a joint and suffer no adverse consequences beyond some potentially embarrassing giddiness.

The argument for the rating board’s decision, I suppose, would be that children might conclude that smoking marijuana is an acceptable, risk-free behavior. But what the ratings system, with its quantitative, literal-minded view of movie images, seems unable to imagine is that exposure to the pot in “It’s Complicated” might have the opposite effect. If your grandparents are doing it, how cool can it really be?

And what the supporters of the Smoke-Free Movies position may underestimate is the extent to which a taboo creates temptation. The audience most susceptible to the glamour of the R rating is also the demographic most at risk of starting to smoke. Exiling cigarettes to the ostensibly forbidden but easily accessible land of the R might have the unintended effect of making them seem more alluringly grown up.

More likely, bringing tobacco further into ratings decisions will create new opportunities for ambiguity and confusion, since it seems unlikely that smoking will be any different from any other vice, dubious practice or habit of speech. Smoke-Free Movies has claimed that the R for tobacco is not only right but also inevitable, and such questions, and the quarrels that follow from them, are also inevitable. As are further attempts to expand the purview of the M.P.A.A., to include other products and behaviors. What about guns? What about trans fats? What about beer and Styrofoam and high-fructose corn syrup?

In 2154, when “Avatar” takes place, it is possible that tobacco use will no longer exist. But if movies are still around, there will still be arguments about what they should be showing, and to whom. Such arguments are built into the medium and our complicated bond with it. We want movies to acknowledge what is real, but also to improve on reality, to give us a vision of a perfect world in which everything is permissible — a world that’s sexy, dangerous, scary and smoky and safe for children too.

By A. O. SCOTT, Nytimes
Published: January 22, 2010

Nicotine is definitely addictive, but scientists have been debating for several decades the effect of menthol in hooking people on tobacco. Some researchers suspect that menthol allows smokers to take deeper drags or puffs on cigarettes, drawing in greater amounts of nicotine and its byproducts.

“It helps the poison go down smoother,” says Jonathan Foulds, the director of the Tobacco Dependence Program at the University of Dentistry and Medicine of New Jersey’s School of Public Health.

In a cessation program at his university, Foulds found that people who smoked menthol cigarettes seemed to have more difficulty quitting than those who smoked regular cigarettes.

Nearly 1,700 people were enrolled in the program. They signed up, Foulds says, because they wanted help quitting. Millions of Americans say they’ve tried to quit smoking, and some groups appear to have a harder time than others, such as low-income, less-educated African-Americans and Hispanics.

The current cost of smoking, particularly in the northeastern United States, would certainly be enough to make a poor person want to break the habit. In New Jersey, a pack of cigarettes costs $8; in Manhattan, a pack costs $11.

For many, those prices mean it’s time to quit or cut back. But Foulds says it’s not quite that simple when the body is addicted to a certain level of nicotine.

Over time, he says, “Your body tries to inhale more smoke per cigarette to get the usual dose of nicotine. With regular cigarettes, it becomes harsh because nicotine and the toxins in the smoke are harsh on your throat.”
Menthol smokers, it appears, don’t have the same problem. Those who smoke menthols say it creates a cooling, soothing sensation.
Menthol is a cooling agent, Foulds says, and that makes it easier to inhale more smoke per cigarette and perhaps get more nicotine.

Dr. Kolawole Okuyemi of the University of Minnesota has studied disparities in black and white smokers, and the effect of menthol cigarettes on biochemical markers.

A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that African-Americans who smoke menthol cigarettes inhale a higher volume of carbon monoxide compared to those who smoke non-menthol cigarettes, according to Okuyemi. They also take in more byproducts of nicotine that can be measured in the blood or the saliva.

“If you take a menthol smoker who smokes 10 cigarettes and a non-menthol smoker who smokes 10 cigarettes a day, the carbon monoxide, the nicotine and cotinine [a byproduct of nicotine] will be higher for the menthol smoker.” That suggests “there is something about menthol that makes it easier to smoke more intensely,” Okuyemi says.

One of the biggest indicators of a person’s addiction is how soon they light up after they get up in the morning, Okuyemi says. Studies show that menthol smokers light up sooner than regular smokers – as soon as five minutes after they get out of bed.

Among African-Americans who smoke, the vast majority smoke mentholated cigarettes, and many of these studies compared biochemical markers in black and white smokers. It may have more to do with the fact that African-Americans metabolize nicotine more slowly, says Okuyemi. That would mean that they are more likely to retain nicotine.

Andrew Hyland of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute isn’t entirely convinced that menthol aids addiction. Though not linked in any way to Lorillard, which manufactures menthol cigarettes, Hyland’s study was cited by one of the company’s representatives as evidence that menthol cigarettes are no more addictive than others.

Hyland followed 13,000 smokers for five years. He found that low-income and less-educated people had a harder time quitting, but he found no difference between whites and blacks, or menthol and regular cigarette smokers. He agrees that menthol’s role in smoking is not entirely neutral.

“If you look at how deeply people inhale or the puff volumes — how much smoke they bring into their lungs — some studies show that it is easier [to smoke menthol], but other studies show it’s not,” says Hyland. “To me, that means it is probably not a huge deal, especially relative to the thing that gets people hooked. The menthol is a tool, a marketing tool. Once they are hooked on the product, with the nicotine, that’s when they’re in trouble.”

Historical documents show that the industry did in fact target African-Americans in the late 1950s. At that time, African-Americans were no more likely to smoke menthol than white Americans. Lorillard maintains that a fourth of white Americans who smoke today smoke menthol cigarettes. About 75 percent of African-American smokers use menthol cigarettes now, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

They start later in life and quit later, like 56-year-old Larry Harrison, who gave up cigarettes after 38 years.

“Fourteen days clean,” he says. For those who don’t think that sounds like a very long time, he says, “When you’ve been smoking 38 years, one day is a long time without a cigarette.”

By Brenda Wilson, NPR
January 25, 2010

Mumbai: The Bombay High Court has disposed of Golden Tobacco Company’s appeal against a judgment of the Company Law Board (CLB) on January 19, 2009, which stayed resolutions passed by the company’s board.

The court on Friday asked the CLB to pass a judgment on the matter by February 2.

The Golden Tobacco board had sought to sell or jointly develop some of its land banks in Mumbai, Hyderabad and Guntur.
However, Pramod Jain, a minority shareholder in the company, filed a case against Golden Tobacco, Sanjay Dalmia, the company’s promoter, and Gujarat Heavy Chemicals Ltd (GHCL) in the CLB alleging foul play.

He alleged that GTC wanted to sell the land and use the proceeds to pay off its liabilities to Indiabulls Financial.

Jain urged the CLB to monitor the land sale and make sure that the money collected is used for the welfare of the company. “I want the CLB to appoint a real estate consultant and the company to invite a global tender to sell the land,” he said.

Sanjay Dalmia refused to comment when DNA contacted him on Saturday.

As per the resolution, Golden Tobacco has given powers to J P Khetan, the company’s managing director, and AK Joshi, director (finance), to take necessary steps for the sale or joint development of the land.

Dalmia had on January 20 told DNA that the company has entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with a real estate developer.CLB asked to pass judgment by Feb 2.

He refused to divulge details.

Golden Tobacco Company has, however, not yet informed the stock exchanges about the MoU. It has also not notified it about the CLB order.

Dalmia and Indiabulls Financial are in a legal tangle. Indiabulls had filed an FIR on July 25, 2009 against Dalmia and a few other directors of GHCL alleging he had duped it of Rs 641 crore. It alleged that Dalmia had issued bogus shares of Golden Tobacco Company and GHCL as collateral.

The two parties, however, reached an out-of-court settlement in which Dalmia agreed to pay Rs 25 crore cash to Indiabulls and Rs 235 crore as mortgage by March 31, 2010. Dalmia, wanted to sell the 7.5 acre prime property in Vile Parle and Marol areas in Mumbai to pay-off the Indiabulls loan.

If the matter goes to the Supreme Court, it is unlikely that Dalmia will be able to settle the IndiaBulls spat before the deadline.
Meanwhile, Jain is seeking to take over Golden Tobacco Company and has announced an open offer for 25% stake at Rs 101 per share. He is awaiting mandatory clearances from Sebi to start the open offer.
January 25, 2010

In “Avatar,” scientist Sigourney Weaver climbs out of a suspended-animation pod and demands a cigarette – which has enflamed an anti-tobacco faction led by Stan Glantz of the UC San Francisco School of Medicine.

Their problem is the film is rated PG-13, and kids are buying tickets by the millions.

Glantz and others are using “Avatar” to renew their call for movies with smoking to get an automatic “R.”

Now, you might be thinking, “These health fascists: What are they trying to do to our pop culture?” Movies and vices, especially tobacco, have a stellar history.

Bogie and Bacall in “To Have and Have Not”: That’s foreplay!

Bette Davis and Paul Henreid in “Now, Voyager”: Smooth!

A kneejerk “R” for cigarettes would be a threat to artistic freedom, a restraint on capitalism. It would be Puritanism! Censorship!

Right? Well, no. I think it’s a good idea.

Now, let’s be clear from the get-go. There should be one culture for all ages, and one for grown-ups. In an R-rated movie, I don’t care if people do things too vile to say on TV. I don’t care if they eat cigarettes. With kids, it’s a different ballgame.

We know from a Dartmouth Medical School study that there’s a strong association between adolescent smoking and watching smoking in movies.

Tobacco companies have always understood that influence. There was a time when they even made deals to put their products onscreen. It wasn’t disclosed publicly, of course . . . it comes out in court when files get subpoenaed.

In the ’80s, we learned Phillip Morris paid the makers of “Superman 2″ thousands to put its name behind the Man of Steel. Superman is Marlboro Man! Artistic freedom!

In the ’90s, companies agreed to stop paying, but there’s no way of keeping tabs.

Libertarians make the slippery-slope argument: Next you’ll ban alcohol! Car chases!

Well, no. No one’s banning anything, just saying, “Kids shouldn’t be able to see it so easily.”

The MPAA already restricts the language in PG-13 movies and there’s no wiggle room: You can shoot someone, but can’t use a naughty word for having sex with them. Frankly, I’d rather my kids hear bad words than see their favorite actors bleep their bleeping lungs with bleeping cigarettes.

There should be some wiggle room. No retroactive editing: Bogie keeps his smokes. Films about real figures like Edward R. Murrow might be special cases, although I wish there were a title saying Murrow died of cancer. So did Bogie at 57. So did the actor who played that beloved archetype, the Marlboro Man.

There’s no word on Joe Camel, but I heard off the record he’s very sick.

A Joe Camel biopic that ends in the ICU? PG-13.

January 24, 2010

Marlboro, Camel, Parliament, American Spirit. All these recognizable cigarette brands can currently be purchased from the Hawk Shop in the Kansas Union. Today, the Board of Regents will consider banning the sale of tobacco products on university campuses.

Although all students have the right to choose whether to smoke, the University should not be profiting from a product that is damaging to the students it is here to serve. The Regents should vote in favor of banning tobacco sales from university campuses.

Removing cigarettes from campus will not take away the right to choose whether to smoke. It will simply show that the University does not profit from a choice that is a health risk to students.

The money from the Hawk Shop goes directly back into the Union, which is an affiliate of the University. Although it is separate, some of the Union’s profits are used for student activities and go back to the University for programs such as new student orientation.

In a Kansan editorial from February 2009, David Mucci, director of KU Memorial Unions, said the profits from tobacco sales did not represent a substantial sum.

“We’re not afraid to lose the money,” said Mucci.

Losing this small amount would not hurt the University financially which lends even greater support for the ban.

In an obvious paradox, not only can students buy cigarettes on campus, they can also receive assistance to quit smoking through a Student Health Services’ program called Kan-U-Quit at Watkins Health Center. The University has recognized the problem but is still selling the product causing it.

As a leader in education and progress, the University should not benefit from or support a product that is ultimately a heath risk for students. Having tobacco products behind the counter is condoning and enabling the habit. Though the choice to smoke remains in the hands of the student, the Regents will be making the right decision in removing Kansas universities from association with tobacco sales.

Washington, D.C. – The International Premium Cigar & Pipe Retailers Association has come out in support of proposed Washington D. C. Council legislation to reduce under-aged smoking and against the same piece of legislation that would impact smokers’ rights outside businesses.

The proposal would assess new penalties on under-aged youth for purchasing or possessing tobacco products. At the same time, the bill allows shop owners to post no-smoking signs in front of their establishments to include 25 feet of their front door or from the sidewalk.

“As owners of premium cigar stores, we have very few people coming into our stores who are underaged and, if they try to make a purchase, they are carded without exception. So the part of the legislation regarding underaged youth and tobacco is not a problem for us, unlike the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids which, ironically, opposes this aspect of the legislation,” said Chris McCalla, Legislative Director of the IPCPR. “It’s the other part of the legislation that bothers us – no smoking outside of buildings – even though it contains no enforcement provisions.”

McCalla pointed out that the vast majority of premium cigar and pipe smokers are courteous and mindful of people around them when they are smoking. However, he said, legislated smoking bans of any kind are anathema to the group and its individual members.

“Anyone who says there are no safe levels of secondhand smoke, including that which is found outdoors, is totally misinformed. In fact, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has set safe standards for secondhand smoke. Those OSHA standards are 25,000 times higher than air quality levels found in restaurants and bars. So, whatever wisps of smoke may occasionally waft into a building cannot possibly be unsafe, according to OSHA,” McCalla said.

Referencing those people who cite the Surgeon General’s report regarding the alleged adverse health effects of secondhand smoke, McCalla said: “There is absolutely no evidence presented in the report that supports this claim. These misinformed people have been brainwashed by neo-prohibitionists and tobaccophobes into believing otherwise,” he said.

“If store owners don’t want smoking in their places of business, they have the right to declare their property smoke-free. And if these property owners don’t want people to smoke outside of their places of business, they have the right to ask people not to smoke there. We support that. But enacting legislation that gives the government authority over these individual property rights we do not support,” he said.

“Not only is it not justified from a medical standpoint, it is not a justified deprivation of our personal rights from a constitutional standpoint. Next thing you know, the government will be running our nation’s auto companies, financial institutions and the entire health industry – or trying to.”

Contact:
Tony Tortorici
678/493-0313
tony(at)tortoricipr(dot)com