What do the wine and tomato industries have in common? Besides the fact that they both play a major role in California agriculture, both could potentially be courted by cigarette manufacturers looking to market a safer, more “green” product. Here’s why: Cornell University scientists have found a way to dramatically reduce the amount of cancer-causing free radicals that pass through cigarette filters by (literally) stuffing conventional filters with grape seed extract and lycopene, a compound that occurs naturally in tomatoes.
Researchers used an electron spin resonance spectroscopy (ESR) to quantify radicals that were trapped in smoke samples obtained by a machine that “smoked” their modified cigarettes. It was determined that the grape seed/active-carbon-treated-lycopene combo scavenged up to 90 percent of free radicals that would have otherwise made it through the filter. Their research noted that both grape seed extract and lycopene can be obtained in large quantities – byproducts of wine producers and tomato processors.
Research associate and study co-auther Boris Dzikovski said of the results:
“The implications of this technique can help reduce the hazardous effects of tobacco smoke.”
This isn’t the first time that scientists have achieved significant reductions of free radicals in smoke, but it is the first time they did so in a cost effective manner. The lab of Physical Chemistry Professor Jack H. Freed published its research in the Jan. 2 issue of the Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE). The work was supported by the National Institutes of Health.
THE ban on the display of tobacco products in large stores could be delayed for as long as three years due to legal wrangles with tobacco manufacturers, the Scottish Government has admitted. Public health minister Michael Matheson said the government had been forced to put back the original launch date for larger retailers of 1 April this year – but said today that it hoped to bring in the ban in all stores within three years. An exact date will be finalised in due course. Smaller shops already had a later start date of 1 April 2015 to give retailers time to prepare.
The ban, which will now be introduced in the same year as similar laws in England, will make it an offence for retailers to display tobacco or smoking related products.
The government also revealed that retailers will be able to access tobacco products through a window measuring no more than 1,000 cm sq – about the size of eight to 12 cigarette packets – and confirmed that shopkeepers who breach the ban would face a £200 fine – rising by a further £200 for every offence committed under the legislation within a two year period.
“Combined with the range of other measures set out in the Tobacco and Primary Medical Services (Scotland) Act 2010, this will make cigarettes less attractive and accessible to young people,” said Matheson. “We recognise some retailers had concerns about the practicalities of limiting display size during a sale. We listened and believe we have now struck an appropriate balance between making cigarettes less attractive and retailers’ views.
“Following these discussions and bearing in mind the need to notify new regulations to the EU and the fact of the ongoing legal proceedings, we feel it prudent to defer the ban from the original implementation date for large stores to a date to be announced.”
Vicky Crichton, public affairs manager at Cancer Research UK, said: “Displaying cigarettes next to ordinary groceries can encourage young people to take up smoking, a deadly habit that is the biggest preventable cause of cancer. Putting tobacco products out of sight will stop children being tempted to buy cigarettes and help to protect future generations from a lethal addiction.”
I am a casual collector of vintage paper goods and assorted ephemera. My stash includes vintage dictionaries and encyclopedias, postcards, baby scrapbooks, and handwritten recipe files. Recently, at a Saturday morning yard sale, I scored a different type of collectible—a Wills’s Cigarette Picture Card Album filled with 50 “Household Hints” trading cards.
I was curious about my $2 find and thus launched a Google rampage. I learned that “cartophily” is the hobby of collecting cigarette cards, and so that makes me a very part-time cartophilist. Cards, originally used to simply fortify packages of cigarettes, later became vehicles for advertising and artful trading cards. W.D. & H.O Wills, a division of Imperial Tobacco, was the first tobacco company to issue sets of cards. In 1895 “Ships & Sailors” inaugurated the card craze which lasted until the early 1940s.
These miniature cards measure 2 5/8 by 1 3/8”. They are numbered and each card features a colorful printed letterpress image on the front and a directive or explanation on the reverse. The first series appealed to men who were the majority smokers, and sporting themes like cricket and baseball were very popular. Soon enough, sets featuring garden flowers, movie stars, birds, and British butterflies would appeal to either gender. According to Colin Fawcett, Membership Secretary for The Cartophilic Society of Great Britain, a group of nearly 1,000 members devoted to propagating, enhancing, and preserving the hobby of cigarette card and trade card collecting, “Household Hints” was first issued in 1927 and there were several other incarnations up until 1936.
The rarest cards, if in very good condition, can fetch a handsome price. A top-rated eBay seller known as Cigarette Cards is presently selling a 1901 set of 50 locomotive cards for $571 and a set of 32 Drum Horses from 1901 for $233. Household Hints, which Colin informed me was quite common, has a starting bid of just one cent. Alas, I will not make a mint from reselling it!
I am perfectly happy with my purchase nonetheless. I love the quaint illustrations, the 115-word DIY tips, and the diligence of the smoke.
While the Punjab Government has banned smoking at public places, it continues to provide round-the-clock supply of beedis and cigarettes at all central and district jails in the state. The exercise generates handsome revenue, which, in turn, is spent on the welfare of inmates. The state has seven central and six districts jails that house 18,000 inmates. On the one hand these jails have been under the scanner for drug abuse, on the other hand the state government itself is promoting similar habits among jail inmates.
Beedis and cigarettes are freely available in jail canteens that function under the supervision of jail welfare officers.
The sale of beedis/cigarettes has been going on in nine jails in the state. From January 1, 2005, to July 2011, beedis/cigarettes worth Rs 1 crore have been sold in these jails. This means jail inmates in the state consume beedis/cigarettes worth Rs 4,200 daily.
As per information provided by the Jail Department under the Right to Information Act, the Hoshiarpur jail tops the list in selling beedis/cigarettes in the state. Tobacco items worth Rs 17.79 lakh were sold in this jail over the past around six years. This generated a profit of around Rs 1.77 lakh.
During the same period, the Kapurthala jail registered a sale of beedis/cigarettes worth Rs 15.37 lakh, generating a profit of around Rs 1.53 lakh.
The figures were Rs 9.04 lakh in case of the Ferozepur central jail and Rs 6.75 lakh in case of the Sangrur jail. The Sangrur jail earned Rs 69,023 from such sales.
A green cigarette? New magazine ads touting cigarettes with “additive-free” organic tobacco use the term “eco-friendly,” prompting anti-smoking activists to fume. The ads for Natural American Spirit cigarettes make the claim next to a list of environmental efforts by the manufacturer, Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Co. They began appearing in March in magazines such as Esquire, Field & Stream, Wired,Mother Jones,Elle and Marie Claire.
“It’s an egregious ad. It’s trying to greenwash a deadly and addictive product,” says Vince Willmore of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, adding research shows cigarettes also are the No. 1 source of litter. “When you hear a product is eco-friendly, you think it’s better for you.”
The tobacco company, owned by Reynolds American Inc., says it’s not saying its cigarettes are safer but that its manufacturing is greener. It says its facilities are wind-powered, its farmers use fewer chemicals and 70% of its sales staff drive hybrid vehicles.
“We try to be good stewards of the environment,” says spokesman Seth Moskowitz. Noting concern about littering of cigarette butts, he says a sister company helps fund Keep America Beautiful.
The magazine ads reflect the surging popularity of green marketing as more than 100 eco-related product labels are now used in the USA.
“This is a perfect example of why green marketing is broken,” says Joel Makower, executive editor of GreenBiz.com, which covers business environmental efforts. He says marketers latch on to anything that can be considered green so the term becomes meaningless.
Makower says the company may be accurate in describing its greening initiatives, which he welcomes, but adds, “Products that harm people should not be marketed as green,”
The tobacco company has faced similar complaints before. In 2000, after advertising its cigarettes as free of additives, the Federal Trade Commission negotiated a settlement that required it to include this statement: “No additives in our tobacco does NOT mean a safer cigarette.” In 2010, after marketing its “organic” tobacco, 33 state attorneys general demanded the company include a statement saying the cigarette was not safer as a result.
The new ads include such disclaimers, but Willmore’s group is again appealing to the attorneys general to take action.
“It is misleading to talk about being eco-friendly in a cigarette ad,” given the problems of littering and secondhand smoke, says Jeanne Finberg, a deputy attorney general in California who focuses on tobacco litigation.
Says Makower: “The average person is going to look at that ad and ask, ‘What are they smoking?’”
NASCAR and tobacco used to go hand and hand, as NASCAR grew-up in the Carolinas where every-year thousands of tobacco plants grow from the semi-tropical soil that is needed for its growth. For decades NASCAR was thrust into the main stream public with the help of two things, Bill France Jr. and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. Although NASCAR Hall-of-Famer France Jr. helped bring NASCAR to audiences nationwide through the use of Television and the media, R.J. Reynolds Company helped sponsor what is now the Sprint Cup Series for 33 years. Without the sponsorship from Winston many of the now famous races may have never have happened.
The NASCAR Winston Cup era lasted from 1970 to 2003 and gave rise to some of the biggest names in NASCAR.
In 2003, there were several stories about the future of NASCAR after losing such a long sponsor, but NASCAR survived.
Also surviving the sponsorship were a few tobacco sponsored cars although even before the news was announced that R.J. Reynolds was leaving NASCAR the number of tobacco sponsored cars were dwindling, a few still survived.
That was until the FDA passed a law that forbids cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products from advertising in sports.
As of the last races there were only two remaining tobacco sponsored cars, rather make that one car and one truck.
Greg Biffle drove the No. 27 Red Man sponsored Baker-Curb Ford in the NASCAR Nationwide Series. Ron Hornaday drove the No. 33 Longhorn sponsored Kevin Harvick Inc. Chevrolet in the Camping World Truck Series.
Both companies will have to find new sponsorship for the remaining races, in a tough economy to find sponsors.
While tobacco may no-longer be allowed on the track, it will be hard for NASCAR fans to forget the history that tobacco brought to the track from 1970-2003.
The majority of the world’s 1.3 billion tobacco users are men, but female use is increasing (1,2). To examine differences in tobacco use and awareness of tobacco marketing by sex, CDC and health officials in Bangladesh, Thailand, and Uruguay (among the first countries to report results) analyzed 2009 data from a newly instituted survey, the Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS). This report summarizes the results of that analysis, which indicated wide variation among the three countries in tobacco use, product types used, and marketing awareness among males and females.
In Bangladesh and Thailand, use of smoked tobacco products was far greater among males (44.7% and 45.6%, respectively) than females (1.5% and 3.1%, respectively).
In Uruguay, the difference was smaller (30.7% versus 19.8%). Use of smokeless tobacco products in Bangladesh was approximately the same among males (26.4%) and females (27.9%), but females were significantly more likely to use smokeless tobacco in Thailand (6.3% versus 1.3%), and use in Uruguay by either sex was nearly nonexistent. Males in Bangladesh were twice as likely as females to notice cigarette advertising (68.0% versus 29.3%), but the difference between males and females was smaller in Thailand (17.4% versus 14.5%) and Uruguay (49.0% versus 40.0%). In all three countries, awareness of tobacco marketing was more prevalent among females aged 15–24 years than older women. Comprehensive bans on advertising, sponsorship, and promotion of tobacco products, recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), can reduce per capita cigarette consumption if enforced.
GATS is a new nationally representative household survey of persons aged 15 years, initially conducted during 2008–2009 in 14 countries: Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Mexico, Philippines, Poland, Russian Federation, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, Uruguay and Vietnam. Bangladesh, Thailand, and Uruguay were among the first countries to report results. The GATS core questionnaire includes detailed questions regarding the demographic characteristics of respondents, their tobacco use, and a wide range of tobacco-related topics (e.g., cessation, secondhand smoke, economics, media, and knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions).
In each country, a multistage cluster sample design is used, with the number of households selected proportionate to population size. Households are chosen randomly within a primary sampling unit or secondary sampling unit, and one respondent is selected at random from each selected household to participate in the survey. Interviewers administer the survey in the country’s local language, using handheld electronic data collection devices. Interviews are conducted privately and same-sex interviewers are used in countries where culturally appropriate (e.g., Bangladesh). Response rates and number of participants for the three countries in 2009 were as follows: Bangladesh, 93.6% and 9,629; Thailand, 94.2% and 20,566; and Uruguay, 95.6% and 5,581.
To examine differences in tobacco use by sex, estimates of current tobacco use in the three countries were analyzed for both smoked tobacco products and smokeless tobacco products. To examine differences in tobacco marketing awareness by sex, “yes” responses were analyzed to questions regarding whether participants had noticed advertising, promotion, or sponsorship of cigarettes in the preceding 30 days. Estimates were reported for noticing any cigarette marketing, noticing marketing in stores where cigarettes are sold, and noticing marketing other than in stores where cigarettes are sold.
In Bangladesh, similar questions regarding bidi and smokeless cigarettes marketing were included in the survey. All estimates were weighted to reflect the noninstitutionalized population aged 15 years in each country, accounting for clustered sampling in the variance estimation. Statistical significance of differences in values was determined using a chi-square test.
In all three countries, current tobacco use of Marlboro, Red & White … was higher among males than females, but use of tobacco varied substantially by sex. In Bangladesh, overall smoking prevalence among females (1.5%) was far lower than males (44.7%) (Table 1). However, the prevalence of smokeless tobacco use among females (27.9%) and males (26.4%) was approximately the same. In Thailand, smoking prevalence was much lower among females, compared with males (3.1% versus 45.6%), but smokeless tobacco use was higher among females than males (6.3% versus 1.3%, respectively). In Uruguay, 19.8% of females were current smokers, compared with 30.7% of males, but only one of the 5,581 participants reported using smokeless tobacco.
Regardless of age group or region type (urban or rural), males were more likely to smoke than females in all three countries. Among both males and females, smoking prevalence varied by age group but did not vary greatly by region type. In Bangladesh and Thailand, smokeless tobacco use among both males and females increased with age group, and smokeless tobacco use was higher in rural than urban areas. In each of these countries, the greatest prevalence of smokeless tobacco use was among women aged 65 years: 64.1% in Bangladesh and 32.9% in Thailand.
The percentage of females who noticed any cigarette advertising, sponsorship, or promotion in the preceding 30 days was 29.3% in Bangladesh, 14.5% in Thailand, and 40.0% in Uruguay. Among males, the prevalence was 68.0% in Bangladesh, 17.4% in Thailand, and 49.0% in Uruguay. Among females, awareness of cigarette marketing in stores where cigarettes are sold was 22.0% in Bangladesh, 7.6% in Thailand, and 24.0% in Uruguay. In Thailand and Uruguay, little or no difference in awareness of in-store cigarette marketing was observed between males and females; however, in Bangladesh, the prevalence among males (54.8%) was more than double the prevalence among females. Similar patterns by sex were observed for awareness of cigarette marketing other than in stores where cigarettes are sold. The percentage of females who noticed tobacco advertising, sponsorship, or promotion other than in stores where cigarettes are sold was 16.5% in Bangladesh, 8.3% in Thailand, and 31.6% in Uruguay.
In all three countries, awareness of cigarette advertising was greater among females aged 15–24 years than women aged 25 years. Similar age differences were observed among males in all three countries. In Bangladesh, awareness of bidi (80.1%) and smokeless tobacco (69.9%) marketing was widespread among females and did not vary by age. In Thailand, for both males and females, those who lived in urban areas were more likely to report exposure to cigarette marketing than those in rural areas. This relationship also was observed among males in Uruguay. In contrast, awareness of both bidi and smokeless tobacco marketing in Bangladesh was more common among males in rural areas than in urban areas
