Take a long drag of your Warm Mocha Mint Cigar – it might be the last you buy in the city. Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed the ban on flavored tobacco into law yesterday. But before you hyperventilate, read the fine print: the ban doesn’t include clove or menthol cigarettes or even flavored hookah.

The city council proposed the ban as a way to “to protect the children of New York City,” Council Speaker Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan) said during the vote. The number of high school students who smoke only cigars and cigarillos has tripled since 2001, the council said, and the fruity flavors might be to blame.

And experts agree. Michele Bonan, regional director of advocacy for the American Cancer Society, told the Daily News that flavored tobacco is “Big Tobacco’s version of training wheels.”

By: Rebecca Huval, NYpress

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

October 28, 2009
By Lawrence Lan, Cornellsun

Beware of nicotine posing as candy and alcohol that tastes like punch.

That’s the combined heads-up given this week by the state Department of Health and a grass-roots parents group trying to quell underage drinking and tobacco use.

Smoking and other uses of tobacco products continue to decline, but nicotine is coming at children in breath mints, candy and toothpicks, said Amy Sands, program manager for the health department’s Tobacco Prevention and Control Program.

“The products are designed to make tobacco addiction more accessible as well as to promote the dual use of cigarettes and smokeless products, creating an even stronger addiction,” she said.

ParentsEmpowered.org kicked off the fourth year of its ongoing public awareness campaign against underage drinking Thursday with some good news.

Statewide averages for underage drinking are down across all grade levels for lifetime use, including use within a 30-day time frame and binge drinking in general, according to the Student Health and Risk Prevention survey.

The survey also found that teens cited parents’ disapproval of alcohol in general as the main reason they don’t drink.

The survey, conducted by Dan Jones & Associates, also found an average 4 percent reduction in drinking among teens over the past two years and across every high school grade. That means about:

11,260 fewer Utah children reporting ever trying alcohol in their lifetimes.

5,520 fewer have used alcohol in the past 30 days in the last two years.

2,600 fewer underage binge/heavy drinkers in Utah than two years ago.

While most Utah parents don’t drink, 65 percent of them generally agree their child could be exposed to alcohol.

“This is significant since many Utah parents often erroneously believe their children are insulated from the dangers of underage drinking because of their upbringing and their children don’t need parents’ help to stay alcohol-free,” said Parents Empowered spokeswoman Sherri Clark.

Parents should continue to be vigilant about tobacco products as well, said Sands, adding “there is no safe tobacco product,” and in any ingested form tobacco causes heart and other organ diseases, cancer and death.

Sands specifically outed Camel Snus, a smokeless — and with the added attraction of being spitless — tobacco in tea bag-type pouches touting refreshing flavors such as “frost,” now available in convenience stores.

With its “pleasure for whatever” slogan and concealable size, kids can easily take it into the classroom, she said. It also comes in a container shaped like a cell phone.

There’s something particularly insidious about hiding the most addictive element in tobacco in candy, said Dr. Ellie Brownstein, a University of Utah Health Care pediatrician.

Because the products have arrived so quickly, not much is know about them, she said. But so-called “dissolvables” have three times the nicotine, and contain cinnamaldehyde, a toxic insecticide, fungicide, corrosion inhibitor and severe skin irritant. Coumarin, a food additive the U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned in 1978 and was removed from cigarettes in 1997, also has been found in the product.

Losing 400,000 smokers a year, the tobacco industry is busy figuring out ways to promote products to have an ever-young market, Sands said, noting that adults trying to quit shouldn’t be fooled into thinking they can be used to help them get off nicotine.

“Ironically, the cake mix in your cupboard is more regulated than these new smokeless products, which are known to be addictive and destructive,” she said. “We, and our children, are to be human guinea pigs in the tobacco industry’s pursuit of profits. The only way to eliminate risk is to quit or never start.”

Oct. 25, 2009 Deseretnews

Parents: Beware of nicotine posing as candy and alcohol that tastes like punch.

That’s the combined heads-up given this week by the state Department of Health and a grass-roots parents group trying to quell underage drinking and tobacco use.

Smoking and other uses of tobacco products continue to decline, but nicotine is coming at children in breath mints, candy and toothpicks, said Amy Sands, program manager for the health department’s Tobacco Prevention and Control Program.

“The products are designed to make tobacco addiction more accessible as well as to promote the dual use of cigarettes and smokeless products, creating an even stronger addiction,” she said.

ParentsEmpowered.org kicked off the fourth year of its ongoing public awareness campaign against underage drinking Thursday with some good news.

Statewide averages for underage drinking are down across all grade levels for lifetime use, including use within a 30-day time frame and binge drinking in general, according to the Student Health and Risk Prevention survey.

The survey also found that teens cited parents’ disapproval of alcohol in general as the main reason they don’t drink.
Story continues below

The survey, conducted by Dan Jones & Associates, also found an average 4 percent reduction in drinking among teens over the past two years and across every high school grade. That means about:

11,260 fewer Utah children reporting ever trying alcohol in their lifetimes.

5,520 fewer having used alcohol in the past 30 days in the last two years.

2,600 fewer underage binge/heavy drinkers in Utah than two years ago.

While most Utah parents don’t drink, 65 percent of them generally agree their child could be exposed to alcohol.

“This is significant since many Utah parents often erroneously believe their children are insulated from the dangers of underage drinking because of their upbringing and their children don’t need parents’ help to stay alcohol free,” said ParentsEmpowered spokeswoman Sherri Clark.

Parents should continue to be vigilant about tobacco products as well, said Sands, adding “there is no safe tobacco product,” and in any ingested form causes heart and other organ diseases, cancer and death.

Sands specifically outed Camel Snus, a smokeless — and with the added attraction of being spitless — tobacco in tea bag-type pouches touting refreshing flavors such as “frost,” now available in convenience stores.
With its “pleasure for whatever” slogan and concealable size, kids can easily take it into the classroom, she said. It also comes in a container shaped like a cell phone.

There’s something particularly insidious about hiding the most addictive element in tobacco in candy, said Dr. Ellie Brownstein, a University of Utah Health Care pediatrician.

Because the products have arrived so quickly, not much is know about them, she said. But so-called “dissolvables” have three times the nicotine, and contain cinnamaldehyde, a toxic insecticide, fungicide, corrosion inhibitor, and severe skin irritant. Coumarin, a food additive the U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned in 1978 and was removed from cigarettes in 1997, also has been found in the product.

Losing 400,000 smokers a year, the tobacco industry is busy figuring out ways to promote products to have an ever-young market, Sands said, noting that adults trying to quit shouldn’t be fooled into thinking they can be used to help them get off nicotine.

“Ironically, the cake mix in your cupboard is more regulated than these new smokeless products, which are known to be addictive and destructive,” she said. “We, and our children, are to be human guinea pigs in the tobacco industry’s pursuit of profits. The only way to eliminate risk is to quit or never start.”

By James Thalman, Oct. 22, 2009 Deseretnews

It’s incontrovertible: Tobacco smoke, if used as directed over a prolonged period, kills people.

The National Coalition Against Contraband Tobacco tells us one reason why smoking is still so prevalent. In a recently study the group found that nearly 30% of the cigarettes being used near city high schools were contraband — that is, illegal and ultra-cheap. Contraband smokes cost about eight times less than the legal kind that you’d buy over the counter in a variety store.

Yet nobody seems to quite want to step out and name this problem for what it is: Cowardice, on the part of politicians, bureaucrats, aboriginal leaders and a provincial police force that will do anything, just about, to avoid enforcing the Criminal Code of Canada on native reserves.

The Internet is rife with advertisements for cheap, “Indian Smokes.” So are provincial highways, here and there. The people who sell these cigarettes are flouting the law. So are those who buy them. But it’s easier for government to look the other way.

Three months ago, provincial police in Haldimand briefly tried to shut down an illegal smoke shack along Highway 6.

The smoke shack had been set up on private property, not reserve property, against the landowner’s wishes. There was a complaint and police responded. They were met by 20 aboriginal protesters. The OPP backed off.

According to the smoke shack’s operator, Six Nations people never surrendered the land upon which Highway 6 was built, back in the 19th Century.

Therefore he was within his rights to use it as a venue for his smoke shack, he figured. The law and the current property owner’s rights be damned.

Most fair-minded Canadians deplore the continuing inequity that afflicts aboriginal people in this country.

What more of us need to say, more loudly (‘us’ in this context meaning all Canadians, whatever our race) is that the segregationist, racist reserve system is at the heart of the inequity.

The heart of apartheid in South Africa was two systems of law, with distinctions based on race. We have that in Canada.

Each time police deal with aboriginal lawbreakers differently than they would if the suspects were white, black, Asian or East European, they uphold Canadian apartheid.

Contraband smokes are a small piece of a much bigger problem, in other words. In their avoidance of the bigger problem the authorities are reduced to wringing their hands about the smaller one.

They should not.

Of course police and political leaders should avoid stoking violence. Peaceful means should always be exhausted, compromises found. But at the end of the day, the law must be enforced.

Surely there are ways of applying pressure to aboriginal leaders, perhaps financial, to persuade them to root out the illegality in their midst?

And perhaps there are means of law enforcement that do not involve the threat or possibility of lethal force? Ten OPP officers may have been outnumbered in Haldimand. Fifty big men, heavily armoured and carrying only batons and shields, might not have been.

The law exists for a reason. It should enforced, without fear or favour. Aboriginal people also have a right to peace, order and good government.

By Michael DenTandt, Owensoundsuntimes

NEW YORK — The New York City Council voted earlier this week to ban the sale of flavored tobacco products within the city, going farther than recent federal legislation that bans the sale of flavored cigarettes and their component parts, Examiner.com reported.

The New York ban restricts all flavored tobacco products such as little cigars, chewing tobacco and cigarillos, to close off loopholes through adding flavoring agents to products, city officials said in the report. Menthol-flavored tobacco products are not banned, according to the report.

A spokesperson for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg told Examiner.com the mayor supports the legislation, which now goes to his desk. If it is signed into law, any New York City tobacco retailer, including convenience stores, found selling flavored tobacco will be subject to a $2,000 fine for the first offense, and subsequent offenses could result in a loss of its business license.

“No matter how you mask it, smoking tobacco, flavored or not, has irrevocable health effects. Companies are profiting by gambling on the lives of children and young adults, and it’s simply unconscionable,” Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn said in the report. “Our legislation will protect New Yorkers from harmful products disguised with attractive wrapping or sweet flavors and prevent the beginning of an addictive and useless habit.”

She added: “Anyone who tells you that these bubblegum, cookie dough, chocolate chip, little cigarillos shaped like a pink lip gloss — don’t tell me that’s not targeted at a young girl. These are not being bought by 50-year-old women, the data shows that.”

October 15, 2009 Csnews

The Food and Drug Administration has now banned flavored cigarettes in American in an attempt to lower the teen smoking rate. Clove and mint and chocolate flavored cigarettes will no longer be sold in the U.S. But already tobacco companies are finding loop-holes in the new FDA rules.

The packaging was sleek with the promise of a sweet smell and taste.

“I saw two of them,” says Adina, 15. “One of them was, like, Kahlua flavored, and one was, like, lime.

Another teen, who doesn’t want us to use his name, says he tried them once. “I guess ‘cause it had a flavor to it.”

Flavored cigarettes are now banned under new FDA legislation, but tobacco companies have found a way to keep their hands in the primarily under-30 market: flavored cigars.

Still, experts say, parents have the power to keep their kids from picking up the habit. “Sitting down and talking about how advertising works, how companies — regardless of what they’re advertising — what hooks they use in trying to manipulate you into buying products,” says Linda Lee, anti-smoking advocate.

Forrest, 18, says teens can take matters a step further. “They’re marketing towards us, and there’s not much we can do about it but just not buy it.”

Tips for Parents
Patrick Reynolds was the first tobacco industry executive to turn his back on the cigarette makers. His grandfather founded tobacco company R.J. Reynolds, but the family’s cigarette brands, Camel and Winston, killed his father and eldest brother. He has devoted his life to the goal of a smoke-free society and motivates young people to stay tobacco free. Patrick Reynolds first spoke against tobacco to Congress in 1986. Over the years he has reached over a million youngsters through his talks to school groups.

■One study shows that 25 percent of 12- to 13-year-olds who smoke as few as two or three cigarettes a day become addicted in just two weeks.
■It takes the average smoker 17 years to quit.
■Tobacco products cause mental and physical addiction in users.
■It’s very hard to quit: 95 percent who quit without an aid go back to smoking within a year, 85 percent of those who use a patch, gum or other program to quit are unsuccessful for more than one year.
■The average smoker spends $1,200 on the addiction each year.
■Most smokers started smoking as teens, and 40 percent of smokers will die from a disease resulting from their addiction.
■In the United States, smoking causes one of every five deaths. Cigarettes kill 1,200 Americans every day, or 420,000 Americans each year. Globally, deaths total 5 million annually.
Every day in the United States, 3,000 teens become newly addicted to smoking. Smoking ads are designed to manipulate minds. Teens represent any business’ future. Tobacco companies are extremely sensitive to this fact and look to find new users in young demographics.

■Today 75 percent of Americans do not smoke, and this percentage is even lower among teens. Remind children that being a non-smoker is normal and widely accepted.
■Eighty-six percent of teens say they don’t want to date someone who smokes.
■Movie characters are more likely to smoke than people in real life. Films mislead many teens into thinking that smoking is more popular than it really is.
■Stores are paid up to $100 a month for each countertop display of tobacco products in the store. Plus, they make a lot of money from the cigarettes their customers buy.
■In many places it is illegal to smoke indoors. Tell your child that he or she will be smoking outside of his or her future workplace and college and will be doing so in the heat, cold, rain, snow, etc.

Oct 7, 2009

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce is investigating whether two tobacco companies are trying to skirt a federal ban on flavored cigarettes by offering their products as cigars instead, according to letters sent to the companies by the committee’s chairman.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., sent letters to California-based Kretek International and North Carolina-based Cheyenne International targeting their products on Friday.

Both companies had previously sold flavored cigarettes, which were banned last month. They have recently released flavored cigars that are close to the size of a cigarette but are wrapped in tobacco leaves rather than paper and contain cigar tobacco.

Waxman is asking both companies to defend the products, provide sales figures and all communications about the decision to market the flavored cigars.

Kretek International, the largest distributor of clove-flavored tobacco products in the U.S., filed suit last month asking a federal court to decide whether its new Djarum-brand filtered cigars fall under the ban. A Kretek spokesman did not immediately return an e-mail message seeking comment.

A spokesperson for Cheyenne International did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment.

The noble intention of the most recent tobacco regulation is to stop the targeting of youth with the sweet flavors they love in solid form. The bill, signed by President Obama in June and in effect since last week, smartly recognizes the specific allure of flavored cigarettes; the hardbitten service employee likely doesn’t go for chocolate smokes, which are probably a more effective pitch than Joe Camel ever was.
Those involved might paint this as a result of Congress building bridges with a subsidiary of the responsible Altria Group, a large corporation, and Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, a nonprofit, to bring us the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act.

Well doesn’t that just sound precious.

Actually, the epitome of Big Tobacco slithered into the policy process in order to carve their own advantage into the bill.

You see, “Altria Group” was “Philip Morris Companies, Inc.,” until it rebranded in 2003. The new name (Latin for “high”) makes it sound like the kind of light, clean corporate entity that would “offer innovative solutions” or other such buzzwords — not the kind that makes the lion’s share of its profit peddling flavored cancer.
Under this moniker, Slate magazine and the New York Times report, it played a heavy role in the shaping of this regulation.

Want to know how you can tell? The legislation curiously omits a certain flavor from what would otherwise be a comprehensive ban. Strangely, the flavor left out is by far the most popular and has been found to be more addictive and potentially more harmful.

That would be menthol cigarettes, of which Philip Morris is a huge manufacturer. (One sees why rival R.J. Reynolds has dubbed the bill the “Marlboro Monopoly Act.” Slate’s Paul Smalera wrote an insightful piece on the unbalanced nature of the ban which goes into far more detail than I can here.)
Philip Morris’ policymaking role here wasn’t a one-off thing; it conforms to a long-term strategy of getting involved to ensure a measure of protection.

The Slate article mentions “Project Sunrise,” an initiative with the goal of working with, rather than against, legislators and the “antis” such as Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. In this way, they hoped to dilute legislation before they acquiesce to it, stomping out any chance of hard-hitting reform.
The company’s newest offering, Marlboro Blend No. 54 (minty Marlboro 27s introduced a week before the ban was signed) sits on shelves at this very moment as proof that Philip Morris has very much succeeded in that regard.

Look up “Sunrise.” The University of California, San Francisco’s Legacy Tobacco Documents Library hosts relevant documents online. One in particular, an outline of “Sunrise” written for a board meeting, is unnerving in its cold, manipulative calculations. It constructs multiple scenarios named in the creepy, operational style of classified government programs: “Bladerunner,” “New Game,” “Avalanche.” Some provide eerily prescient predictions of current American society.

All go well beyond the scope of simple advertising or market research.
Yet what would otherwise be sinister but abstract corporate schemes become reality when Congress, all-too-eager to appear responsive and all-too-ready to sell out, takes the bait as they did this time. Inaction is one thing, but doing little and marketing it as a lot is quite another.

There’s another loophole. Smokers of clove cigarettes might chafe at the prohibition on their delicious vice, but it’s nothing to worry about. The legal wording bans flavored “cigarettes,” so manufacturer Djarum now wraps its products in tobacco leaves and markets them as flavored cigars. And again, menthols — favored 75 percent among African Americans, yet the Congressional Black Caucus approved the bill —are as available as ever and now dominate the arena of accessible flavor.

Think about it. Who won here? Who lost? I’d say that Nick Naylor himself, the jive-talking antihero of “Thank You For Smoking,” couldn’t have asked for more.

Whitten Maher is a senior political science and media arts & design major and design editor at The Breeze.

Contact Whitten Maher at mahercw@jmu.edu