About 200 South Mississippi teenagers will soon be on the front lines in the battle against Big Tobacco.

“Second hand smoke affects the development of a baby’s brain.”

“Smoking while you’re pregnant affects the development of the child.”

Those were just some of the messages they heard Tuesday during a LEAD Conference in Biloxi. LEAD stands for Leadership, Engagement, and Activism Development. The high school students learned how to lead the movement against smoking, especially among young people.

“This is basically a call to action. We want to disseminate the message among as many people as possible. And with us reaching this group, we certainly hope we can make a difference,” said Dena Pope, Youth Programs Coordinator for the Mississippi Department of Health Office of Tobacco Control.

The teens created eye-catching posters and bandanas, with words that inform people about the deadly effects of tobacco use. They also learned how small, inexpensive toys can be effective tools in spreading the message that tobacco kills.

One instructor held up baby doll with a piece of paper attached.

“I put a fact on there, representing how second hand smoke affects children,” he explained.

According to the Mississippi Health Department, 20-percent of Mississippi youth are smokers. And 69,000 high school students in our state will eventually die from smoking.

Some of the teens at the conference know first-hand about the dangers of smoking. Jennifer Ladner of Ocean Springs High School lost her grandfather to a smoking-related illness.

“The tobacco industry is really targeting youth. They’re really using us as targets, as replacement smokers as they call us,” said Ladner. “We really need to step up and for our generation to speak and get the word out there that tobacco is not a good thing.”

Jennifer helped push for a no-smoking ordinance in parks around Ocean Springs. She wants to inspire other teens to join her and become an anti-smoking activist.

“They can stand up for anything they believe in and they can make an impact as youth,” said Ladner.

The LEAD Conference was part of the Mississippi Health Department’s Generation Free Program. Members will make other stops this week in Jackson, Greenville and Tupelo.

By Trang Pham-Bui, Wlox

The U.S. Department of Defense, caught off guard by the swift spread of the H1N1 flu virus last year and delays in producing a vaccine, is backing an unusual plan to use tobacco plants to make the vaccine.

Flu vaccines are typically grown in chicken eggs. Although the technique is slow and expensive, vaccine makers have done little to improve on this reliable method for more than 60 years. The urgent need for a better way became apparent last year.

“The response to H1N1 was a disaster,” said Brett Giroir, vice chancellor for research at Texas A&M University System, part of a consortium testing plant-based vaccines for H1N1, or swine flu.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency—which conducts research to protect soldiers from infectious diseases, and also is concerned about the U.S. capability to react swiftly to a bioterrorist attack, among other things—has awarded the consortium $40 million to make an initial 10 million doses of H1N1 vaccine.

Texas A&M and closely held firm G-Con will together invest a further $21 million. Details of the project, known as GreenVax, will be announced Wednesday.

For several years, vaccine companies have worked on harvesting vaccines in everything from caterpillar cells to cocker-spaniel kidney cells. Plants have certain advantages over animal parts, which may contain pathogens harmful to humans. The tobacco plant is particularly promising: It has been extensively researched, is cheap to grow and can yield large amounts of vaccine quickly—potentially reducing production time to weeks instead of several months.

Earlier this month, Arizona State University researchers showed a plant-based drug could prevent and treat West Nile virus infection in mice. In January, Germany’s Bayer AG said it was testing a plant-based vaccine for non-Hodgkins lymphoma.

In December, Medicago Inc. of Quebec City reported positive results for a tobacco-based vaccine for avian flu, or H5N1, which has killed more than 250 people world-wide. Biotechnology firm VAXX Inc. of Tucson, Ariz., says it soon plans to start a human trial of a tobacco-based vaccine for Norwalk norovirus—or “cruise ship virus”—which causes gastroenteritis in as many as 74 million Americans annually.

GreenVax is one of the more ambitious of the plant-based vaccine projects. It is partly based on research done at Fraunhofer USA Center for Molecular Biotechnology, in a partnership with the biotech firm iBio Inc., both based in Newark, Del.

As a first step, researchers at Fraunhofer isolated a protein from the H1N1 virus known to trigger a protective immune response in a patient without causing an infection. A gene for this protein was then introduced into a bacterium. Tobacco plants were placed in a special chamber and dipped into a soup of the bacteria, which caused the plants to get infected with the gene-carrying bacteria.

The infected plants then began to produce the protein from H1N1 in large quantities. The plants grew for about a week. Their leaves were then chopped up and crushed, and the protein from H1N1—the essence of the vaccine—was extracted from the slurry and purified.

Initial tests on ferrets, which can catch human flu, showed the vaccine was safe and effective. “The good news is that this vast amount of human protein isn’t toxic to the plant,” so it can keep producing large amounts of the vaccine’s raw material, said Barry Holtz, president of G-Con. And the plants don’t become “transgenic”—their seeds, for example, aren’t changed, so they can’t spread genetic alterations to normal plants.

The GreenVax project still has a long way to go. It needs to show that it can produce sufficient quantities of purified vaccine-ready protein quickly and safely. And such a vaccine would have to be tested in humans and get the approval of the Food and Drug Administration before it can be provided more widely.

The consortium plans to build a 145,000-square-foot vaccine production facility in Bryan, Texas, managed by G-Con. One innovation being developed: Mobile manufacturing “pods” that can be deployed swiftly in areas where the vaccine is urgently needed.

GreenVax hopes to produce the initial 10 million doses of H1N1 vaccine within 12 months. Large-scale human clinical trials are expected to begin in 2011, and could take up to 18 months to complete. The setup could be used to produce other vaccines as well.

“The science hasn’t yet been unleashed to get past chicken eggs for making vaccines,” says Dr. Giroir. “But now that the system is stressed, there’s a reason to get past it.”

By GAUTAM NAIK, Online.wsj

IN the Embajadores room at the Habana Libre hotel the air is thick with the sweet, honeyed smoke of cigars. Outside, Havana’s La Rampa street bustles with the sound of the early-evening crowd. A queue forms around Coppelia’s parlour, a favorite with the locals, reputedly making the best ice cream on the island.

Beyond, a short walk away, lies the Malecón, the weathered promenade that snakes its way around Havana’s northern coastline, busy filling up with Cubans who go there to meet, flirt, smoke and exchange gossip.

Back inside the Habana Libre, once the headquarters of Fidel Castro’s revolutionary armed forces, the Embajadores room is virtually full. Around 500 cigar aficionados, a mix of distributors, importers, specialists and enthusiastic smokers have gathered for the premiere of Trinidad’s Robusto T.

On that evening a year ago, it is the first time the cigar is smoked anywhere in the world. Among the aficionados it is well received. Of the many descriptions heard that night is woody, spicy, full-bodied and creamy. Many people compliment it on having a wonderful draw.

As the cigars are handed out on trays, all eyes turn to a small group of VIPs notable for their late arrival. Among them is David Soul, better known as the actor who played Hutch in the television series Starsky and Hutch. For a moment he’s in danger of upstaging Fidelito, Fidel Castro’s son, a regular at such occasions. Welcome to night three of the Festival del Habano, a week-long celebration of the Cuban tobacco industry. If you thought the world of wine appreciation was niche, try cigars.

One year on, anyone who is anyone in the cigar world will this weekend be flying into Havana’s Jose Marti International Airport for the 12th annual festival. They will get five days of cigar tastings, tobacco-plantation visits, seminars, factory tours and smoking, lots and lots of smoking.

It is, says Simon Chase, a former director of London-based cigar importer Hunters & Frankau and a festival regular, a chance to rub shoulders with the movers and shakers in the Cuban tobacco industry and experience the tradition of Cuba’s cigar lineage first hand.

It was through Mr Chase that I enjoyed my first experience of cigars in 2004. My first lesson was not to inhale – as with wine, cigar appreciation is all about the taste. (Although it is worth pointing out that the US National Cancer Institute warns that there is no safe tobacco, and cigar smoke, like cigarette smoke, contains toxic and cancer-causing chemicals that are harmful to both smokers and nonsmokers.)

“One tastes a cigar and smokes a cigarette,” Mr Chase told me. “In that sense it is an entirely different experience. Like a fine wine, each cigar is a blend of aged tobacco. So one doesn’t inhale, one gently puffs, rather like sipping vintage Bordeaux.”

With this in mind I was invited a few years ago to judge in a contest to ascertain which brand of Cuban cigars matched best with Scotch whisky. After sipping and puffing my way through a number of combinations, I found that the sweeter the beverage the better the match. So port and rum work very well with most cigars. Some whiskies and particularly red wine (although premium aged blends and sweeter single malts tend to be an exception to the rule) do tend to dry the palate, which can leave a nasty, bitter flavor. In the end we chose Macallan, a whisky noted for its mahogany color and distinctive nose of dried fruit, chocolate orange, wood spices and full, rich oak flavor; which we paired with a Partagas Piramides cigar.

It was on that first trip to the Festival del Habano that I was struck by the similarities between wine appreciation and cigar appreciation. Both are agricultural products, have long and distinguished histories, command the same attention to detail in production and packaging, and can age for many years.

Moreover, as a great wine is defined by the terroir of its vineyard, so the character of a fine cigar is intimately connected with the land where the tobacco grows.

A key fixture of the festival is a visit to one of Cuba’s tobacco-growing regions. The early-morning drive from Havana to Vuelta Abajo in the westernmost corner of the Pinar del Rio tobacco-growing province passes through a patchwork of fields filled with lush, green plants.

Visually, I found it reminiscent of Chile’s Maipo valley, although instead of vineyards there are tobacco fields. Around 80,000 acres of tobacco are planted each year in the region. The growing process lasts around 10 months ending with the harvest between January and March.

After the harvest, the leaf is taken to the farmer’s curing barn where it is hung, dried and gathered together before undergoing a natural fermentation. This process sweats out the impurities, reducing acidity, tar and nicotine, and creating a finer, purer flavor. The leaves are then hand-sorted into sizes before being baled up and transferred to the warehouse, where they are left to age for three years.

The next step mirrors the blending art found in the wine and Scotch whisky industry as each tobacco plot produces a variety of flavors, which the master blender, or ligador, selects. The final blend is then rolled in the many factory houses dotted around Havana. In that sense, it is one of the world’s last luxury-goods items to be produced on a mass scale by hand.

As a shorthand guide, those wanting a full-bodied rich cigar should look out for Partagas, Cuaba, Bolivar and Ramon Allones. Perhaps a little lighter, but still heavy are Cohiba, Montecristo, Vegas Robaina and Trinidad. Romeo y Julieta, Quintero, Punch and H. Upmann offer a lighter smoke. The most delicate flavors are achieved by Hoyo de Monterrey, San Cristobal de la Habana and Guantanamera, which creates a nutty, intense and fragrant flavour.

This year, at the 12th festival, there will be a presentation of a new size of Romeo y Julieta cigar created with women smokers in mind. Mr Chase welcomes the development but says, ironically, it is the male interest that has fuelled the recent interest in the product.

“One thing about cigar smoking is that it is predominantly a male preserve,” he says. “Over the years there have been quite a lot of male bastions assailed and taken over by the other gender. Here is one [cigar smoking] which is still a male preserve.”

Ranald Macdonald, managing director of the London-based restaurant group Boisdale, has been taking a group to the festival for the past 10 years. He says that the pace of economic change in Havana has been such that a decade has been comparable to 40 years in Europe. As a result there has been a general improvement in cigar manufacturing, and thus the overall quality of cigars has never been higher.

“Cigars now taste so much better than they did 10 years ago,” Mr Macdonald says. “This is down to a number of improvements but to give one example, from 2002 they have been freezing cigars which has eliminated tobacco-eating pests such as weevil.”

This weekend, Mr Macdonald’s group will be scouring the cigar shops of Havana to stock up on a year’s supply of tobacco.

“Havana is one of the most enigmatic places on earth,” he says. “And everything about it, from where it sprung from in the 17th century to what it went through in the 20th century to where it is now, makes Europe feel rather dull.” I’ll smoke to that.

By Will Lyons, Theaustralian
February 23, 2010

Valley smokers are incensed at two congressional Democrats’ proposal to increase the tax on pipe tobacco a whopping 775 percent.

Ron Rothermel, of Sunbury, is among Valley pipe smokers outraged by the plan to raise the tax from $2.8311 per pound to $24.78 per pound — the same rate that is imposed on roll-your-own tobacco products.

Many Valley smokers saw an opportunity to save money by buying special blends of pipe tobacco to make their own cigarettes after a higher roll-your-own tobacco products tax took effect last year.

“I smoke cigarettes and occasionally pipes,” Rothermel said. “I wish I hadn’t started smoking, but I did, and I resent the government’s actions. I feel they are picking on a certain class of people and taxing that class. The proposed tax is ridiculously high. It certainly could affect whether I buy pipe tobacco in the future.

“If this tax passes,” he fumed, “what’s next? Since excessive intake of sugar is unhealthy and leads to obesity, will they tax sugar? And what about fried foods? Are they going to tax french fries?”

Where is it all going to stop? Rothermel asked.

The widespread anger is a reaction to House Resolution 4439, or the Tobacco Tax Parity Act of 2010, introduced by U.S. Reps. Steve Cohen, of Tennesee, and Lloyd Doggett, of Texas.

Cohen, reached Friday in Washington, D.C., said the idea for his bill originated last year, after passage of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) Reauthorization Bill, which increased tobacco taxes to provide tens of millions of America’s children with health insurance.

Since its creation in 1997, CHIP has been funded through revenue generated by federal tobacco taxes.

As part of the CHIP law, roll-your-own tobacco is taxed at a $1.54 an ounce, while pipe tobacco — the exact same product — is taxed at 17 cents an ounce, Cohen said.

“Higher cigarette taxes have proven to be an effective way to discourage children from smoking,” Cohen said. “However, it was only weeks after President Obama signed the Children’s Health Insurance Program into law that the tobacco industry figured out a way to exploit a loophole in the bill that endangers the health of children.

“Roll-your-own tobacco has historically been a small part of the cigarette industry,” Cohen said, but “the exploitation of this loophole enabled roll-your-own tobacco to capture an increasingly large portion of the market. Further exploitation of this loophole has the potential to cost the government more than $30 million a month in lost revenue.”

Instead of folding in the face of high taxes, tobacco companies quickly responded to the roll-your-own tax increase by all but shutting down those brands and reinventing them under a less-taxed category — pipe tobacco.

The tax? About a tenth of roll-your-own tobacco, at $2.83 per pound.
Smokers of pipes and cigarettes responded by buying up pipe tobacco.

Roll-your-own brands disappeared overnight, replaced with pipe tobacco brands carrying the same names.

Tobacco companies on their Web sites said they were just trying to find a legal way to stay afloat after being saddled with an enormous tax increase.

This, Cohen said, is why he introduced the bill, which is now in the House Ways and Means Committee.

House Resolution 4439 has not yet been scheduled for a floor vote, and may not be, said Josh Drobnyk, an aide to U.S. Rep. Chris Carney, D-10, of Dimock.

After all, there is only one co-sponsor.

Of the legislation, Carney said: “I am focused on measures that will improve our economy and ease — not increase — the tax burden on our working families during these tough economic times.”

The tax burden is the point of contention, pipe tobacco users said.

If the bill passes, taxes on tobacco — sold both by the gram and by the ounce — would rise to:

n $2.43 per 50 grams

n $2.74 per 2 ounces

n $4.86 per 100 grams

n $10.98 per 8 ounces

n $24.78 per 16 ounces

These costs would be in addition to the price pipe smokers pay for those amounts of pipe tobacco. For example, with the average price of a 100-gram tin of McClelland Frog Morton about $13.20, the new price would be $18.06.

Government manipulating us, smokers charge

Buck Reibsame, of Selinsgrove, is steamed about the proposed hikes, as are many of his friends.

“I wouldn’t mind a fair tax, with maybe a 6 to 7 percent hike, but this one, if passed, would be outrageous,” he said Thursday.

“I’ve been smoking for about 40 years and I’ve never seen such an attack on a group of people like this one. If those politicians want to do something to raise revenues, how about cutting back on their perks?”

The government, added long-time smoker Jon McLaughlin, of Selinsgrove, is trying to legislate how he lives through tax manipulation.

“Last year they went after roll-your-own smokers,” said McLaughlin, a smoker for 41 years. “This year, they’re going after anything and everyone. It’s just about raising money. It’s always about money.”

What and who is to benefit from the tax increase? asked Bill Jennings, of Lewisburg.

“Don’t people in Congress have much more important things to worry about? And what could possibly be their justification for a tax amount of $24.78 per pound on something that often doesn’t cost that much to begin with?” he asked, and paused for a second. “Oh yeah, I get it. This tax is intended to make it so only the wealthiest can smoke pipes. Well how about that? Come on legislators. Be serious.”

Jennifer, a worker at a local smoke shop, who asked that her surname not be used, said she switched to pipe tobacco, instead of roll-you-own, and began rolling it into cigarettes. “The price was worth it,” she said. “And taste-wise, I didn’t find much difference.”

Now, she may have no choice but to pay higher prices.

Pipe tobacco is nominally coarser and somewhat moister than most blends of cigarette tobacco. But there are no regulations that say it has to be that way. The federal government says the only difference between the two is how the two tobaccos are labeled.

“The bill punishes pipe smokers and retail tobacconists,” said Jonah Johnstone, a smoker from Selinsgrove. Johnstone thinks this is nothing more than an attempt to rope in more taxes from roll-your-own cigarette tobacco re-labeled as pipe tobacco.

A tax increase of 775 percent on anything is ludicrous, Johnstone said.
“It could conceivably destroy an industry of pipe craftsmen, small farmers, tobacco blenders and retailers.”

A heavy hit for retailers and producers

“If this law passes, it could hurt out business a lot,” said Michelle Longenberger, an employee at Puff Discount, in Sunbury.

Pipe tobacco represents 30 to 40 percent of the shop’s business, Longenberger said.

“We sell everything from small pouches of tobacco, for 94 cents, to larger cans, for $16. Most customers who buy are simply rolling their own cigarettes. It’s what I do. You can roll a fair number for less than $2 total. Of course, that would all change if taxes were raised to the proposed levels.

“I really hope the bill doesn’t pass.”

By Rick Dandes, Dailyitem

The Obama administration wants the Supreme Court to allow the government to seek nearly $300-billion from the tobacco industry due to a half century of deception. We spoke with a local tobacco farmer about this issue and what might happen if the government gets the money.

The Obama administration wants the Supreme Court to allow the government to seek nearly $300-billion from the tobacco industry due to a half century of deception.
We spoke with a local tobacco farmer about this issue and what might happen if the government gets the money.

“As far as the 50 states, Kentucky ranks the highest in tobacco production, and if something like this were to happen, there’d be many families affected by this,” said Joel Cook, a local tobacco farmer from Simpson County.

Cook just recently sold the last of his tobacco crop, and he’ll start replanting mid-March to once again start the year-long process of growing tobacco.

“As a tobacco farmer, I’d have to strongly stand against that,” said Cook. “It sounds like they’re just trying to take the money away from the tobacco industry for the well-being of others, and I don’t think the tobacco industry should be penalized for anything that’s happened in the past.”

The government says the industry has cost millions of Americans their health and lives.

“Everybody’s aware of the health risks,” said Cook. “It’s on every pack of cigarettes. Smoking is a hazard to your health.”

If the government receives the money, Cook says it would poorly affect the industry which is already going through a crucial time.

“As a burley tobacco farmer, I’m seeing a decrease in the amount of pounds I’m able to grow in this current coming year,” said Cook. “I feel that if the tobacco industry is struck by anything like this, it could really take effect on the tobacco farmer.”

Cook, being one of those farmers, says there may be other crops or cattle he could fall back on.

“There are areas to increase so I can rely on that for my income, but as of right now, tobacco is very critical to my income and putting food on the table for my family,” said Cook.

The decade-long fight went to the high court this past Friday.

While the government wants $300-billion, leading tobacco companies want the court to throw out rulings holding that the industry illegally concealed the dangers of cigarette smoking.

By Lacey Steele, Wbko

A new study by a national anti-smoking group argues that states could raise more than $9 billion in new revenues if they all hiked cigarette taxes by $1-a-pack.

A new study by a national anti-smoking group argues that states could raise more than $9 billion in new revenues if they all hiked cigarette taxes by $1-a-pack. The levy wouldn’t come close to balancing recession-ruined state budgets, but it wouldn’t hurt. And, the group says, the higher tax would keep 2.3 million kids from becoming smokers and convince 1.2 million adults to quit, saving one million lives and $52 billion in health costs over the long-run. The study comes from the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.Sin taxes like this are always a two-edged sword. If government wants to maximize revenue, it can’t impose a tax so high that it will discourage too many sinners. On the other hand, if the goal is to discourage the sin, the state would want to maximize the tax rate–or flat ban the activity. Trouble is, if everyone quit smoking or drinking, revenues would eventually dry up.

Two more issues to consider: Very high taxes will encourage smuggling, Internet purchases, and—if neighboring states don’t raise their taxes too–a quick drive across the border to stock up on smokes. Finally, some economists worry that tobacco taxes unfairly target the poor.

The tobacco-free kids study assumes that every state raises its tax by $1-a-pack. And it recognizes that demand for cigarettes is relatively inelastic—even high taxes won’t discourage many addicted smokers to quit. The paper assumes that a 10 percent tax increase would reduce overall consumption by about 4 percent, and youth smoking rates by 6.5 percent. It also recognizes that higher taxes will increase tax avoidance.

Still, the paper finds that a big tax hike would generate significant state revenues, although the bang for the buck might vary from state to state. It found, for instance, that when Texas raised its tax from 41 cents to $1.41 in 2007, the number of packs sold dropped by 21 percent in the following year, but tobacco tax revenues rose by nearly 200 percent. South Dakota also raised its tax by $1 in 2007, and saw consumption fall by one-quarter and revenues double. In Maine, a $1 tax increase in September, 2005 generated 75 percent higher revenues—perhaps because it was much easier for people to get their cigarettes in New Hampshire, where the tax was much lower ( 80 cents in 2006 vs. $2).

Nonetheless, the paper argues that in every state, higher tax rates more than make up for lower consumption (either less smoking or more purchases somewhere else) and would generate more revenue. And an accompanying poll suggests a tobacco tax would be quite popular.

In a TaxVox post last summer, Ruth Levine looked at the avoidance problem with city-level sin taxes. It is probably less of an issue with states, and the paper suggests people are less likely to take the trouble to avoid the tax over time, due in part to what it calls “smoker tax-evasion fatigue.” Still, this is a matter of some concern.

There are two other problems worth thinking about: Some states that have securitized their tobacco settlement money may receive less income from these deals if their cigarette sales fall. So, while their tax revenues may rise, lower demand may temper their overall revenue benefits. In addition, states such as New Jersey that already have very high cigarette taxes may not see as big a revenue boost from a further increase.

My colleague at TPC, Kim Rueben, suggests a solution: Increase the federal tobacco tax and rebate some of the money to states. But whatever the design, it is hard to argue with a tax that raises revenue, reduces smoking, or perhaps does at least a little bit of both.

By Howard Gleckman, Csmonitor

COLUMBIA — In the era of e-everything, it’s no great surprise there is now an e-cigarette.
Known as an “e-cig,” the device is a battery-operated smoking substitute that looks like an ordinary cigarette but produces no smoke or ash. Smoking an e-cig is called “vaping.”
While it’s unclear if the e-cig is much safer than an ordinary cigarette, the device has advantages in a smoke-free city such as Columbia. Risks associated with smoking tobacco cigarettes, such as secondhand smoke or fire safety, don’t exist with e-cigs. There are no combustible products with e-cigs, which means no lighting up and no smoldering tobacco. That means laws that regulate smoking tobacco products might not apply either.

Aspiring nonsmokers seem to be embracing the e-cig.

At Aardvarx, at 17 N. Tenth St., sales of an e-cig brand called “Nova Smoke” have been pretty steady. Stefanie Sigrist, who works at the smoking supply and gift shop, said Aardvarx has sold one to three of the electronic cigarette starter kits each week since the store began stocking them in December 2009.

“We’ve been placing orders every week,” she said.

The Nova Smoke looks like a rechargeable cigarette pack and has a flip-out plug in the base. The e-cig inside weighs slightly more than a regular cigarette because it contains a small rechargeable battery. The part that looks like the filter is a cartridge containing nicotine and an atomizer.

Lighting up an e-cig is simple: The “vaper” — the e-cig smoker — just presses the cartridge onto the battery and takes a puff. A small bulb on the end lights up, almost like a real cigarette. What’s missing is smoke, ash and smoldering tobacco. There’s no noticeable odor.

What’s inhaled is mainly water vapor, which gives off a mist and delivers varying amounts of nicotine, depending on what type of cartridge is in the cigarette.

There are several brands available.

Chris Guebert, 30, of St. Louis tried “blu” brand e-cigs last year, but decided to go back to tobacco cigarettes after several weeks. “It was kind of a pain,” he said.

He found the brand he tried became clogged and didn’t deliver consistent puffs after he used it for several days.

“I would have stuck with it if you got a consistent puff every time” Guebert said.

Guebert said he is not a heavy smoker. But two of his friends who smoke heavily tried e-cigs as well. They also went back to tobacco after a short time because of the same problem: just not the same tobacco kick, Guebert said.

“You don’t get the same drag” as you do from a tobacco cigarette, said Jordan Allen-Baxter, 22, a computer science junior. “You don’t feel the smoke hit your lungs.”

But he felt an improvement in his breathing within a month. Now, roughly six months since he began using an “e-cig,” he has cut his tobacco smoking at least by half, going from a pack of cigarettes every day or two, to one every four days. He said one of his friends used e-cigs to quit smoking entirely.

“There’s a different pattern from smoking regular cigarettes. With e-cigs, you take a puff whenever you want,” Allen-Baxter said. He said by using cartridges with the higher level of nicotine, a smoker gets just as much, if not more, nicotine than from tobacco cigarettes. He hopes to step down his smoking and nicotine craving by switching to cartridges with lower nicotine levels.

Using the e-cig to cut down or quit smoking fits with what Sigrist has observed about people buying the device. More than half of the buyers have told her that they were buying the kit to help them quit smoking, she said.

For smokers looking for a way around Columbia’s smoking ordinance, in effect since January 2007, the “e-cig” might just work. The ordinance makes possession of lighted, smoldering materials in enclosed public places unlawful. A smoking device that isn’t lit and produces no smoke, however, would not violate the city ordinance, said Environmental Health Manager Gerry Worley from the Columbia Health Department.

There’s a start-up cost: Smokers have to purchase a $44 kit, which consists of the charging cigarette case, the e-cig and its rechargeable battery and a cartridge containing nicotine with an atomizer that produces the vapor that smokers inhale.

Each cartridge has the same number of inhalations as an ordinary pack of cigarettes, Sigrist said. The store also stocks refill cartridges, which cost $7 for a pack of five.

Questions remain about the regulation of e-cigs.Although the U.S. Food and Drug Administration began blocking e-cigs import into the U.S. in early 2009, a U.S. District judge granted a preliminary injunction in January allowing importation of e-cigs until a final decision is reached.

Two e-cig suppliers filed a lawsuit against the FDA by mid-2009 to stop the agency from blocking e-cig importation.

The FDA cited the 2009 federal Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which allows the agency to monitor tobacco products. However, the act specifically applies to tobacco products, and electronic cigarettes contain no tobacco.

There might still be people who wish they weren’t available. Allen-Baxter said nonsmokers sometimes give him dirty looks when he’s “vaping” because they can see the vapor, a slight mist given off by the e-cig but they can’t smell the difference, leading to confusion about whether he is actually smoking.

BY Doug Davis, Columbiamissourian

Smokers are two to four times more likely to develop heart disease than nonsmokers.

That said, quitting can start to turn things around almost instantly. “It’s really quite striking how rapidly you get benefits,” says Russell Luepker, a cardiologist at the University of Minnesota and an expert on smoking cessation.

Within just two or three weeks, a former smoker’s circulation improves. After just a year, the extra risk to his heart drops by half.

Smokers get it. Forty percent try to quit every year.

While the odds for success are long – less than 3 percent of quitters “stay quit” for a year, to use the voguish term for kicking the habit – research shows that several approaches can vastly improve the odds.

Cold, hard cash. Philadelphia researcher Kevin Volpp, director of the Center for Health Incentives at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the Wharton School, has gotten good results paying people to quit.

Last year, Volpp and his team reported a 9.4 percent long-term quit rate in a study of more than 800 General Electric Co. employees who were offered $750 each to stop smoking.

To help participants think long-term, “most of the money was held back,” Volpp says.

The researchers awarded $100 to GE workers who complete a smoking-cessation program, a further $250 to those who stayed quit for six months, and $400 more to those who succeeded for at least nine months.

Volpp says he hasn’t had any nibbles from local employers or health plans, but says GE has considered offering the program companywide.

Hand-holding and drugs. Smokers who get counseling and use smoking-cessation medication have better odds of quitting than those who try counseling or medicine alone, Luepker says.

An impressive 30 percent of former smokers who do both are able to quit for the long term.

In counseling, learning specific problem-solving skills, such as how to outlast a craving, has been shown to help quitters succeed. Getting help from a telephone “quit line” doubles the odds that they will.
Medicine alone has a long-term success rate of about 23 percent, according to a 2008 report from the surgeon general, which also found that some drugs are better in combination with other medications than alone.

Using nicotine patches along with either nicotine gum, nicotine nasal spray, or a nicotine inhaler is one combo that the report endorses.

Using nicotine patches plus the medicine buproprion SR (Zyban) is another.

On its own, the medicine varenicline (Chantix) has a success rate above 30 percent.

Both Zyban and Chantix carry black-box warnings from the FDA about a potential risk for “serious mental health events.” The agency cautions patients and their doctors to watch for signs of suicidal thoughts, depression, hostility or other changes in behavior.

Emerging apps for that. A free iPhone app called My Quitline, developed by a consortium of health groups, connects directly to the National Cancer Institute’s quit line, with live help in English and Spanish. (Search under “My Quitline” from an iPhone to find it.)

More ambitiously, researchers in the Game Research Lab at Columbia University Teachers College have begun to develop an app that aims to help smokers quit by giving them a near-smoking experience with their iPhones.

By breathing into the phone’s microphone, they’ll be able to control a video game called Lit, which can be played in either “rush” or “relax” mode.

Playing mimics the physiological effects that smokers get from cigarettes, including the relaxation response from breathing deeply.

“After you’ve played it, you don’t need a cigarette so badly,” claims researcher Jessica Hammer.

Beyond that, she says, “the game keeps your mind occupied” until a craving can pass. The Columbia group has already built some prototypes and hopes to go into large-scale testing by early next year.

By Becky Batcha, Philly

TV channel fined £21,000 over cartoon scene showing characters smoking, breaching strict anti-smoking laws in Turkey.
His do-gooder image as a scourge of ­villains has made him a mainstay of ­children’s entertainment the world over for more than 80 years.

But now Tintin, the evergreen fictional detective created by the Belgian writer Hergé, has found himself in trouble after an episode in the long-running cartoon series depicted him fighting hardened criminals who were smoking, in contravention of Turkey’s tough anti-tobacco laws.

An episode of Tintin has fallen foul of anti-smoking laws in Turkey.

The country’s broadcasting watchdog, RTUK, slapped a £21,000 fine on the private TV8 channel after ruling that Tintin Against the Chicago Mafia broke legislation banning broadcasters from promoting tobacco. Tintin single-handedly brings down the leaders of the 1930s Chicago mob, but the triumph of good against evil cut no ice with Turkish regulators.

Legislation introduced last year obliges Turkish broadcasters to obscure smoking scenes. Films – including famous Hollywood blockbusters – are screened with cigarettes concealed behind a mist, although it is often clear that the characters are smoking. Some broadcasters have appealed against fines on the basis that the rules should not apply to scenes filmed before the legislation was enacted.

The law exposes Tintin cartoons to further possible fines, especially over the detective’s sidekick Captain Haddock, who famously smokes a pipe. One episode features Professor Hector Alembick, who is depicted as a chain-smoker.

By Robert Tait, Guardian