Amy Winehouse is taking Blake Fielder-Civil to Cuba.
The ‘Rehab’ singer – who recently reconciled with Blake after they divorced in August last year – has reportedly decided to mark their reunion with a romantic trip to Havana for when his court ordered curfew is over, to celebrate their new-found passion for cigar smoking.

A friend told The Sun newspaper: “Smoking cigars is their new thing. It all started when Amy bought a pack of Romeo y Julieta for Blake, because she thinks they’re also tragic lovers. Amy and Blake have been spending their time reading up on the history and the culture behind them and followed it to Cuba. She thinks there’s a kind of romance to it and would love to go there with Blake.”

Blake was released from jail last February after serving time for assault and trial-fixing but had been ordered to remain in Sheffield , North England, to complete drug rehab treatment.

The friend continued: “She wants to go away to celebrate them being back together properly. It will be their ‘second honeymoon’. As soon as his curfew allows, they’ll be off.”

The 26-year-old star – who recently bought a new London home to live in with Blake when his curfew comes to an end – has also commissioned artist and Soho club owner Sam Shaker to paint a picture of them together to mark their reunion.

Sam, who has previously done paintings for the singer’s family, said: “She said she loved the paintings and gave me more pictures, including one of her with Blake. When they came to see them she took Blake by the hand and showed him the paintings. He said they were beautiful.”

© 2010 NZCity, Bang Showbiz

Cigarette maker Philip Morris USA says the Food and Drug Administration denied its request to remove four members of its tobacco-products advisory panel that the company said had conflicts of interest.

Altria Group Inc., Philip Morris’ parent company, said in its quarterly report filed Thursday that the nation’s largest tobacco company objected to four voting members of the committee. The company said the members had financial and other conflicts, including having served as paid experts for plaintiffs in litigation against tobacco companies.

Philip Morris USA’s targets included the committee’s chairman, Dr. Jonathan Samet, director of the University of Southern California’s Institute for Global Health and former director of the Institute for Global Tobacco Control at Johns Hopkins University.

The members have “disqualifying conflicts and biases arising from their active and zealous participation” in lawsuits “designed to destroy the tobacco industry,” Denise Keane, executive vice president and general counsel for Altria, said in a letter to the FDA dated March 22.

The FDA denied the request to remove the members of the committee, but said it would continue to screen members for potential conflicts of interest on topics the committee would be considering.

FDA spokesman Kathleen Quinn said the agency followed existing law and procedure to recruit the best scientific experts and to ensure that the committee has a “balanced composition of expertise to handle the many complex tobacco related issues it will face.”

The committee, which met for the first time last month, is tasked with advising the agency on a range of issues, including menthol cigarettes and dissolvable tobacco. Seven members are health professionals, one represents state governments and one the general public. It also includes three nonvoting members representing the tobacco industry.

The FDA won the authority in June to regulate tobacco including banning certain products, limiting allowable nicotine and blocking labels such “low tar” and “light” meant to convey that certain products are less harmful.

The law doesn’t let the FDA ban nicotine or tobacco, just regulate what goes into tobacco products ingredients be publicized and limit how tobacco is marketed, especially to young people.

Altria and Philip Morris USA, which makes the top-selling Marlboro brand, supported the law that created the panel.

But its chief rivals – No. 2 Reynolds American Inc., parent company of R.J. Reynolds, and No. 3 Lorillard, both based in North Carolina – opposed the law saying it would lock in Altria’s share of the market because its size gives it more resources to comply with regulations and limits on marketing under the law.

By MICHAEL FELBERBAUM, AP Tobacco Writer

More dramatic tax increases are needed to really tackle smoking, a health researcher says, but tobacco companies say the Government’s price rises will do little to stop smoking and only fuel the dangerous illegal tobacco industry.

The tax on cigarettes increased by 10 per cent yesterday, adding about $1.10 for a pack of 25s, with further 10 per cent increases next year and the year after.

From today the Australian Government is increasing excise tax on tobacco by 25 per cent and will force tobacco companies to use plain packaging from mid-2012.

Otago University public health researcher George Thomson said price increases were the strongest deterrent to smoking but they had to be substantial. Tobacco companies were constantly doing market research and had been known to wear some of the cost to avoid losing customers.

To retain poorer customers, British American Tobacco had even dropped the price last year of budget brand cigarettes Pall Mall by 50c and Freedom Limited Edition by more than $1, Dr Thomson said.

“Three or 4 per cent [price rise] hardly has any effect. Often tobacco companies have let the price increase flow very slowly, say, 3 per cent now and 5 per cent later. That’s one of the problems.”

The biggest period of quitting smoking in New Zealand was in the late 1980s and early 1990s after the tobacco tax went up 94 per cent in six years.

BAT said yesterday that it would pass on the full cost of the tax rise to customers, with pouch tobacco going up about $4 immediately and a pack of 20 up about $1.

Imperial Tobacco was unavailable for comment. It has said previously that high cigarette prices fuel the illegal tobacco-growing industry – which did not meet government health standards – but did not “significantly reduce” the number of smokers.

Price had little impact on deterring younger people, who got their cigarettes from friends and family.

Dr Thomson understood that big tax increases would hurt low-income people but said the Government had to spend more on complementary ways to stop smoking.

For example, visual cues could be removed – including psychologically appealing bright packets and cigarette displays in dairies – and Quitline-type services bolstered.

The Government made more than $1 billion from tobacco tax each year but spent only about $50 million on prevention strategies.

By BRITTON BROUN, Stuff

Ratcheting up world-wide efforts against tobacco, Australia’s government said Thursday it plans to ban brand labels and other marketing imagery on cigarette packaging by 2012, a move that would erase iconic logos like Marlboro red-and-white chevron from store shelves.

Under the proposal, the tobacco industry would be prohibited from using logos, colors, brand imagery or promotional text on tobacco product packaging. The brand name would be reduced to small, uniform letters at the bottom of each pack. The dominant image would instead be the often-graphic antismoking warnings that Australian government has required since 2006.

Cigarette companies vowed to fight the measure Thursday. A spokeswoman for British American Tobacco PLC, the largest cigarette maker in Australia by sales, said the company believes the plain packaging proposal will “not hold up to close scrutiny.”

But Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who has seen his popularity drop in recent months and will have to face an election within a year, vowed to press on. “Cigarettes kill people, therefore the government makes no apology whatsoever over what it’s doing,” he said Thursday. He also enacted Thursday an immediate 25% hike in cigarette excise taxes, a move that will raise 5 billion Australian dollars (US$4.62 billion) over the next four years.

Australian officials Thursday described the move as the first of its kind in the world, and it potentially marks a new front as governments around the world look for ways to curb tobacco use. Earlier this year in the U.S., a federal judge ruled that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration can’t block tobacco companies from using color and graphics in their advertisements, though he upheld other restrictions.

Two years ago, U.K. policy makers declined to pursue a ban on logos on packaging when they pushed forward a ban on in-store cigarette displays. However, in February the U.K.’s Department of Health said it would consider mandating generic packaging for all cigarettes as part of a campaign to halve smoking rates by 2020.

The move could be challenged on a number of fronts. Tim Wilson, an expert in intellectual property at the Melbourne-based Institute of Public Affairs, said there is a clear argument under Australia’s international trade obligations that even if tobacco companies’ property rights aren’t being taken by the government, they certainly are “being devalued.” He added, “there would be a very legitimate argument that you should seek compensation for that.”

Cigarette company executives in Australia Thursday complained that the rule would devalue brands but wouldn’t reduce smoking. They also said plainer packs are easy to counterfeit. “Our industry is already losing over 12% of market share to the criminal black market and the taxpayer A$600 million a year. And as everyone knows the criminal black market doesn’t pay taxes and doesn’t ask kids for identification,” said Louise Warburton, a spokeswoman for the Australian unit of BAT.

A spokeswoman for Philip Morris International Inc., the New York-based company that offers the Marlboro brand outside the U.S., said no executives were immediately available for comment.

Health Minister Nicola Roxon said the government is acting on World Health Organization advice that plain packaging of cigarettes should be considered as a measure to curb smoking. The legislation will be carefully drafted to withstand any legal challenge, she said.

“Information from tobacco companies themselves that they use their packaging as a way to market their products that kill people convinces us that this is the next step that should be taken,” Ms. Roxon said.

The government’s aim is to cut smoking rates to 10% or less of the adult population by 2018. The Australian government says smoking is the largest preventable cause of disease and premature death in Australia, killing over 15,000 Australians each year.

Australian tobacco regulations already are quite strict, with restrictions on tobacco advertising in broadcast and print media and in sponsorship of sporting and cultural events since the early 1990s. Since 2006, all cigarette packets have carried graphic images of smoking-related illnesses designed to motivate smokers to quit.

Mr. Rudd wants the legislation to be in place by January 1, 2012, with the ban to take effect by July 1 of that year—an extended time frame that suggests a confidence his government will win the next federal election due by April 2011 at the latest, but which also acknowledges the possibility of a protracted court battle with the tobacco giants.

The tax increase will raise the price of a pack of 30 cigarettes by around A$2.16. Cigarettes currently cost around A$12 to A$15 a packet, depending on the brand. Mr. Rudd said he hopes to use the A$5 billion from the higher cigarette taxes to fund public hospitals.

“Tobacco companies will hate this measure, they will oppose it, nonetheless this and other measures will help to reduce smoking,” he said. “This sort of thing should have been done by governments years ago.”

Australia’s main conservative Liberal-National opposition said Thursday it hasn’t yet seen evidence that introducing plain packaging would be effective in reducing cigarette consumption.

“There is evidence that an increase in [tobacco] excise can result in a reduction of consumption but we need to see the government’s evidence on the measures that they are proposing,” opposition health spokesman Peter Dutton said.

By RACHEL PANNETT, Online

At the Garden Bowl, bowlers have smoked since the first gutter ball in 1913.

Bowling and smoking are so intertwined that a player is as likely to be clutching a cigarette in one hand as a bowling ball in the other.

Until Saturday.
For the first time in 97 years, the Detroit bowling alley will be smoke-free. And so will most other public places in Michigan as the state institutes a smoking ban in 17,000 bars, restaurants and other establishments.

“We’re part of the last century,” said Joe Zainea, whose family owns the business, one of the oldest bowling alleys in the country. “The new century says smoking is out.”

With cigarettes already vanquished from most pop culture and workplaces, the statewide edict contributes to the passing of an era, say culture experts. Smoking has been part of the country’s social fabric for nearly a century.

People lit up with their morning coffee, while having a beer or after dinner. Cigarettes were omnipresent at various haunts: bars, bingo halls, VFW posts, pool halls, private clubs.

Its erasure from culture is even retroactive, say social observers.

The U.S. Post Office, before placing painter Jackson Pollock and musician Robert Johnson onto stamps, digitally removed cigarettes from their mouths.

“It’s OK to discriminate against us,” said Cathy Fenwick, 47, who was eating lunch at Smokies Restaurant and Lounge in Wyandotte. “People want to drive us away.”

On the eve of the ban this week, the owners of Metro Detroit’s smokiest provinces fretted about the future.

Phil Brigandi, who manages four bars in Detroit and the suburbs, said customers have told him that they’re going to start drinking at home.

“In these economic times, this is the worst thing that can happen to me,” he said.
Impact seen as low

Other states and cities that have snuffed out public smoking said businesses were hurt at first but bounced back. Michigan, where 21 percent of adults still smoke, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, is the 39th state to ban smoking

In New York City, some bars and restaurants lost a quarter of sales during the first few months after a ban was imposed in 2003, according to the New York State Restaurant Association.

But customers eventually returned and the retailers haven’t been affected by the law.

At Hall of Fame Billiards in Warren, manager Rudy Toma hopes the ban will draw new customers. That is, people who have avoided the pool hall in the past will now venture into the smoke-free environs.

“We’ll see a lot of people we’ve never seen before,” he said.
Old habits die hard

Among those raging against the dying of the light are the dwindling members of VFW Post 7546 in Dearborn Heights.

Few members are younger than 55. One is 94. The post was formed in 1946.

Their meeting place is a windowless, concrete bunker of a building half a block from St. Hedwig Cemetery.

“They’re not worried about smoking,” said Greg Belback, lounge manager. “They feel like they don’t have long to live anyway.”

Members believe that, as long as cigarettes are legal, people should be able to smoke them anywhere.

The next thing you know, one said, government will try to impose a two-beer limit on people.

One joked he might switch to marijuana because it’s becoming more acceptable than cigarettes.

“I need it for medical reasons,” said Ron McKenzie, 59, of Dearborn.
Ban hits across strata

The working class isn’t the only group affected by the smoking ban.

So are the longtime smoking bastions of the hoity-toity.

The white linen tablecloths of the Grosse Ile Yacht Club will be safe from cigarette ash Saturday.

Smoking was a sore point at the 75-year-old club long before the state ban, members said.

Three years ago, smokers were exiled to a second bar upstairs, said Kathy Walker, the club’s finance chairwoman.

Walker welcomed the state law because it meant club leaders wouldn’t have to decide on their own whether to impose a ban.

“It takes the sting out of it,” she said. “No ifs, ands or buts, we have to do it.”

She worried that some members may spend less time at the club and more at cigar bars, where smoking will remain legal. Also exempted from the ban are tobacco shops and the gaming floors of the casinos in Detroit.

Walker said the three-year banishment of smokers wasn’t that bad because the upstairs lounge had TVs, was fully stocked and, on a clear day, offered a view all the way across Lake Erie to Ohio.

She meant it as a good thing.
Workers’ health a bonus

Joe Zainea isn’t worried about the smoking ban hurting his family business, Garden Bowl.

He’s more concerned about the health of workers. Along those lines, he’s ecstatic about the smoking ban.

“Did you ever bowl next to a smoker?” he asked with a chuckle. “It’s horrible.”

Zainea, 76, is the voice of experience.

He has worked at Garden Bowl since his dad, Al, bought it in 1946.

He breathed in so much second-hand smoke that he lost part of a lung in 1972.

“What is the value of smoking?” he asked. “I don’t know why people do it. If they want to get high, they should drink. If they want to get dizzy in the head, they should smoke a little marijuana.”

Still, he allowed smoking because customers wanted it.

It remained through the decades as customers changed from Polish to southern transplants to Asians to blacks to hipsters.

It remained as ownership passed through three generations of his family.

The checkerboard ceiling was so stained by smoke it had to be repainted every year, Zainea said.

On Saturday, the family can put the paintbrushes away.

By Francis X. Donnelly, The Detroit News

Michigan’s statewide smoking ban takes effect this Saturday.

The law exempts some casinos and cigar bars. But establishments like hookah lounges are left out. Now at the eleventh hour, businesses are hoping they can carve themselves out of the ban.

Emad Shatara says hookah is a staple in Middle Eastern culture. It’s also a traditional pastime offered to customers at his lounge, Eastown Hooka.

“Water is in the base. We put the charcoal on top and it burns the tobacco, it sucks it in and it comes out of the pipe,” Shatara said.

Shatara and his partner have been in business for five years. They assumed hookah would be exempt from the state smoking ban like cigar bars, but it is not. The ban takes effect May 1. Matt Marsden, spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop of Rochester says no one person or group lobbied for the hookah industry.

“They didn’t come together on time and our main distributor there got everyone in too late for the ban,” Shatar said.

Mike Berry, Vice President of the National Heritage Association in Dearborn, representing Arab Americans, is hoping for a last minute exemption.

“What we’re trying to do right now is get a quick fix until the law is brought back up sometime next month in front of legislators again,” said Berry.

Berry says veterans around the state are also asking for an exemption, and the National Heritage Association plans to include their grievance as well.

Marsden, says the situation is unfortunate. He says Senator Bishop opposed the ban for this exact reason. Bishop argued the ban interrupts the free market process.

“I’m not sure however that there will be any desire by anyone to reopen the discussion on the smoking ban,” Marsden said.

The cigar industry successfully lobbied for an exemption, as did casinos.

Meantime, Shatara has filed for a Tobacco Specialty Store license. It means he can still sell hookah, but no more coffee, soft drinks or food.

“With an average hookah, people want tea, they want a Turkish coffee,” Shatara said.

Shatara estimates he will lose 30 percent of his sales. He’s already let go of most of his staff.

“We had to let go four of our employees as far as a host, our kitchen cook and our wait staff. Pretty much it’s a two man operation,” he says.

Other hookah lounges in the state operating as restaurants must stop selling the tobacco. Herbal, non tobacco hookah is also prohibited under the ban.

It’s a big hit to small businesses and Arab Americans who want to enjoy a time honored custom.

Berry says if the hookah is not added to the exemption list, business owners are prepared to file suit on the grounds the smoking ban is discriminatory towards Arab Americans.

By Christa Graban, Wzzm13

A report released last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention encourages states to implement coordinated, high-impact strategies to end the recent stall in the decline of U.S. smoking rates, a move that would prevent millions of smoking-related heart attacks, cancers, strokes and deaths.

The good news is that cigarette sales have declined in Oregon, according to data recently released by the Oregon Department of Human Services and reported by The Oregonian. But it’s essential that we not rest on our laurels. Tobacco use is still the leading cause of preventable death in the U.S. as it is in Oregon. For every one person who dies of a smoking-related disease, 20 more suffer with at least one serious illness caused by smoking.

Tobacco use costs Oregon more than $2 billion annually and accounts for more than 6,900 deaths in the state every year. Sixteen percent of high school students continue to smoke, and every day 20 youths start smoking. Further, smokeless tobacco is on the rise, along with the introduction of a new wave of smokeless tobacco products (some were test-marketed in Portland), which target children with candy flavors and discreet packaging.

There is excellent research that clearly identifies what needs to be done to eliminate tobacco use. CDC Director Thomas R. Frieden recently said: “Smoke-free laws, hard-hitting ads and higher cigarette prices are among our strongest weapons in this fight against tobacco use.”

The CDC report demonstrates that states that have invested in comprehensive tobacco-control programs have significantly reduced smoking rates, which in turn leads to decreased smoking-related diseases, deaths and health care costs. Stable funding for Oregon’s Tobacco Prevention and Education Program is critical to saving lives. Because of a variety of factors, however, less tobacco tax revenue is being allocated to that program.

The CDC has recommended that Oregon spend $43 million a year to have an effective, comprehensive tobacco prevention program. The program currently receives $7.7 million a year, including both state and federal funds, which ranks Oregon 25th among the states in terms of funding for tobacco prevention. Shockingly, Oregon’s spending on tobacco prevention amounts to just 2.3 percent of the estimated $243 million in tobacco-generated revenue the state collects each year from tobacco taxes.

Even more shocking is that none of the money from the 1998 Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement is allocated toward tobacco control. And Oregon’s tobacco tax of $1.18 per pack has not increased since 2002 and ranks 26th among the states. In contrast, Washington state just passed another $1 increase, bringing its tobacco tax to $3.025 per pack.

We know what to do. We know what’s effective. It’s time for Oregon to walk the walk of preventive health care. We must raise our state tobacco tax and invest the additional revenue in prevention, education and cessation. It’s also time to apportion a percentage of the Master Settlement Agreement proceeds to the state prevention program in order to create stable funding. By investing in tobacco-control measures that have a proven impact on decreasing the smoking rate, Oregon will be able to spread its health care dollars further.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and that amounts to better health for all of us.

By Brett Hamilton, Oregonlive

Anyone that has been around small children is sure to have noticed that if something looks like candy, a child will try to eat it. Imagine that if a child found a “candy” that was the approximate size of a Tic Tac, having mint or cinnamon flavoring and ate 10 or more of these little things, the child’s curiosity may prove fatal.

This is a probable scenario with the creation and marketing of Camel Orbs, a novelty tobacco pellet. This edible, dissolvable cigarette alternative is a new and reckless method to draw in a younger age group of tobacco addicts.

J.R. Reynolds Tobacco, the second largest tobacco company in the nation is marking these flavored, candy-like cigarette alternatives that are sure to be a gate to life-long nicotine addiction.

“Pediatrics: Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics” released a research study revealing the effects of Camel Orbs on children, the audience to which the product is seemingly directed.

With artificial flavoring and the size similarity to candy, small children could easily ingest Camel Orbs and the medical results can be shocking. According to the medical journal “Pediatrics,” the consequences of infant ingestion of Camel Orbs are “weakness, convulsions, unresponsiveness, and impaired respiration and ultimately may lead to death.”

A spokesman from the J. R. Reynolds Tobacco company, David Howard, argued to the New York Times that the products were, in fact marketed to adults and come in child-resistant containers.

That measure is a good try, but falls far from the mark of safety. All it would take would be one time of the container being left open and a child discovering and assuredly eating the contents.

These tobacco candies are not only harmful to children who are sure to confuse them with actual candy, but underaged teenagers are sure to be more likely to utilize these new novelty products.

This is especially apparent in one of the Camel Orbs advertisements, which says “Enjoy Anywhere. Anytime. Anyplace.”

With cigarettes, it is easy to detect minors who have used or are using tobacco products. However, Camel Orbs can be hidden in the mouth and have virtually no scent. Even if a teenager were caught ingesting a Camel Orb, it could easily be passed off as candy.

While the physical implications of the ingestion of Camel Orbs to children may be more readily apparent in young children, reason leads to the belief that repeated usage by teenagers could easily proved fatal through a lifetime of tobacco addiction.

In September of 2009, the sale of favored cigarettes was banned by the federal government, which were considered to be a gateway usage of tobacco for teenagers. That legislation was highly commendable. However, these novelty candy tobacco products are sure to be far more appealing to younger consumers.

When the September legislation was passed, the fruit, candy and clove-flavored cigarettes were removed from the shelves of distributors. Now, instead of purchasing candy-flavored cigarettes, addicts and beginning users can simply purchase the tobacco candy. Tobacco companies seem to be dancing the line between the banned cigarettes and this new candy.

The intentions of the tobacco companies is also apparent in their choice of magazines in which to advertise. They chose the popular magazines “Wired,” “People” and “Rolling Stone,” all of which are directed at younger audiences.

Are the tobacco companies replacing their past consuming generation of smokers, who have either reaped the medical consequences of tobacco usage or have realized the reckless error or their judgment, with a younger, less responsible generation of consumers? The answer is undoubtedly yes.

It is likely that new consumers of Camel Orbs, a product that is sure to be followed by equivalent products from other companies, will be a young generation of consumers. Thus, the project should be taken off the shelves of stores and quickly.

Baylor

The popularity of brands such as Lucky Strike and Pall Mall cigarettes continues to boost sales at British American Tobacco, although the company said that a shrinking tobacco market and cash-strapped consumers were denting cigarette volumes.

“Our consumers are finding economic conditions difficult and volumes suffered as a result of market size declines,” said Paul Adams, chief executive of British American Tobacco.“However, there was continued pricing momentum and good growth in market shares, leading to solid revenue growth. We remain on track for the year.”

Sales volumes of Lucky Strike grew by 8 per cent in the three months to the end of March, whilst Pall Mall grew by 10 per cent. The Dunhill brand increased volumes by 24 per cent, after BAT changed the brand of its Carlton cigarettes in Brazil to “Carlton by Dunhill”.

In the three months to the end of March, revenues in constant currencies grew, helped by the acquisition last year of the Indonesian tobacco group Bentoel Internasional Investama, although BAT declined to give figures for the increase in turnover.

However, in spite of this sales growth and the gains made in its major brands, total cigarette volumes fell in the period, with organic volumes down 4 per cent, whilst volumes from BAT’s subsidiaries down by 1 per cent.

BAT attributed some of the decline in volumes to a reduction in the size of the overall tobacco market, with total tobacco consumption falling fastest in the markets of Brazil, Japan, Ukraine and Romania.

Notwithstanding a reduction in the size of the Japanese tobacco market, Asia Pacific was the only region in the world where BAT increased its sales volumes, with the group selling 45bn cigarettes, up 5 per cent on the same period last year. The region now accounts for 25 per cent of sales volumes.

In eastern Europe, however, sales volumes fell 7 per cent to 25bn cigarettes, with volumes also falling in western Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, although stable in the Americas.

Shares in British American Tobacco fell 14½p to £21.26 on Wednesday.

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By John O’Doherty, Ft