By 1 July 2011 all cigarette packs in Norway shall carry a pictorial health warning.
-Research shows that pictorial warnings are far more efficient than textual warnings. Pictorial warnings are easier to remember, communicate health risks more clearly and increase the motivation to quit smoking, says State Secretary Ellen Birgitte Pedersen at the Ministry of Health and Care Services.

A public consultation was carried out earlier this year, and the proposed pictorial health warnings were supported by nearly all stakeholders.

The new regulations will come into force 1 January 2010. Cigarettes must carry pictorial health warnings by 1 July 2011 at the latest, while other tobacco products must carry such warnings by 1 January 2012.

Pictorial health warnings will reduce the advertising effect of brands and logos on tobacco products. Even though the Norwegian Parliament (Stortinget) has banned the visible display of tobacco products at points of sale from 1 January 2010, the tobacco product health warnings will still be visible after purchase.

The EU has developed a library of pictorial health warnings, and the selection of pictorial warnings to be used in Norway has been based upon submissions to the public hearing and recommendations from the Directorate for Health.

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ANAND: Three partners of a tobacco trading firm from Umreth town of the district has been accused of Rs 85 lakh graft. As per a complaint at
Umreth police station on Sunday, the traders, all of one family, have left the country after the fraud.

Police said, that partners of Ashabhai Gopalbhai and Sons, a tobacco trading firm in Umreth, had taken a loan of Rs 85 lakh from Central Bank of India branch of the town against an equally valued stock of tobacco on March 23, 2006.

However, after paying a few instalments, the firm stopped making repayments. Partners Dinesh Amba Patel, Kashi Patel and Sunil Patel allegedly sold off the stock without telling the bank and fled to a foreign country.

As notices sent by the bank went unanswered for a long time, present manager Kalpana Vaidya registered a case of cheating against all three partners at Umreth police station.

source: sandesh

America’s biggest tobacco companies voluntarily stopped advertising cigarettes in magazines, because they care about you, the tobacco consumer. But hey, have you tried this new “Snus?” Try it, in your mouth! Check out the magazine ad for it!

They’re advertising this “Snus” all over magazines, the NYT reports, because, hey: it’s not a cigarette, it’s a pouch filled with nasty tobacco that you put in your gums and you don’t even have to spit, like a redneck! Does Big Tobacco have any more flavorful additions to our national tobacco consumption repertoire in the pipeline? They’re happy you asked!

R. J. Reynolds is also now test-marketing “dissolvables,” which include Camel Orbs, finely ground tobacco in the form of small mint pellets like Tic Tacs, and Camel Strips, which resemble Listerine breath-freshening strips and melt on the tongue.

Nasty tobacco mouth pouches and tobacco-flavored breath strips: taste the flavor. Of tobacco.


© Gawker

The Liberal Democrats are trying to reintroduce an improvement to the health bill, calling for the government to cutting cigarette pack designs.

For example in Australia, the government’s Preventative Health Task Force has counseled it to remove advancements of tobacco products through design of packaging as part of a complete strategy to reduce tobacco deaths.

Meantime, a recent research from the University of Nottingham showed the tobacco branding and packaging deceptive signals to young people and adult smokers.

Participants in the Nottingham study were shown pairs of cigarette packs and asked to compare them on five measures: taste, tar delivery, health risk, attractiveness, and either relief of quitting or which they would choose if trying smoking.

At the end of the investigation was found that adults and children were significantly more likely to regards packs with the terms ‘light’, ‘smooth’, ‘silver’ and ‘gold’ as lower tar, lower health risk and either easier to quit or their choice of pack if trying smoking.

But more than half of adults and youth reported that brands labeled as ‘smooth’ were less harmful than the ‘regular’ variety. The color of packs was also associated with perceptions of risk and brand appeal.

The research discovered that those smoking products which bear the word ‘smooth’ or have a light colored branding can trick people into thinking that the products are less injurious to their health.

Deborah Arnott, chief executive of Ash, an anti-smoking group, said: “This research shows that the only sure way of putting an end to this misleading marketing is to require all tobacco products to be sold in plain packaging.”

Researchers think that the change of cigarette packaging design would remove false beliefs about different brands and announce the message that all cigarettes are dangerous.

“This matter has been discussed by parliament and there is now a perfect chance to involve a requirement for plain packaging of tobacco products to be included in the health bill,” added Ms. Arnott.

According to previous studies, since 2002 it has been illegal for manufacturers to use trademarks, text or any sign to suggest that one tobacco product is less harmful than another. But investigators said that Tobacco Companies have now protected to using color and affable words to accomplish the same goal.

A principal characteristic of tobacco trade strategy has been to promote the sensation that some cigarettes are less hazardous than others, so that smokers worried about their health are supported to switch brands rather than quit, reported investigators.

As it is known these tactics are giving consumers a false sensation of reinsurance that simply does not exist.

Overall drug use among Indiana’s schoolchildren has declined, but marijuana use is up slightly.
A survey to be released today finds that the biggest bump was in marijuana use among 10th-graders.

In 2008, 13.5 percent of sophomores interviewed reported they had smoked marijuana in the previous month. This year: 14.6 percent said they had.

Marijuana use can affect the ability to learn and remember information. “The more a student uses marijuana, the more likely it can affect school performance,” said Ruth Gassman, director of Indiana University’s Indiana Prevention Resource Center.

Gassman said the rise in marijuana use is “something we need to pay attention to,” but “a one-year hike does not mean a trend for increasing usage.”

The interviews were conducted in the spring by the Indiana Prevention Resource Center. The research was funded by the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration.

The increases ranged from 0.5 percent to 1.2 percent, but marijuana usage remains below its levels of a decade ago.

In the peak year of 1996, the IPRC study found that 25 percent of high school seniors reported using marijuana, compared with 17 percent this year.

Jamie Guilfoy, a narcotics detective with the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, says the uptick in marijuana use among youths reflects the pattern of the greater population of drug users.

“Marijuana is being used a little more” among all populations, Guilfoy said.

He said the drug’s potency varies but is no different from that of recent years.

The study found that the use of psychedelic drugs, cocaine, crack, inhalants and amphetamines decreased. Alcohol and methamphetamine use held steady or declined.

Survey respondents included 182,000 students in 556 public and private schools.

Call Star reporter Will Higgins at (317) 444-6043.
September 9, 2009

Pubs have started stocking simulation cigarettes to beat the smoking ban.
Licensed premises in Brighton and Hove have begun selling electronic cigarettes as an alternative to punters looking for a nicotine kick.

The battery-powered substitutes, dubbed “e-cigs”, contain liquid nicotine capsules and produce steam when exhaled.

The controversial product, which has been banned in Australia, is being stocked by the Prince of Wales and the Regency Tavern in the city.

Aron Barnes, the landlord of the Regency Tavern in Russell Square, Brighton, said: “It looks, feels and tastes like an ordinary cigarette.

“Because we don’t have an outside smoking area it’s something which we can offer to smokers as an alternative.

“It’s only the same as a nicotine patch except you can actually control how much goes into your system.

“The more we explain, the more and more people are trying them.”

E-cigs, which can be charged either through a socket or USB port, are on sale for about £5.

They can be used inside public areas because no flame or smoke is produced.

But critics claim the product presents a danger, particularly to young people.

Brighton and Hove city councillor Geoffrey Theobald has spoken out on the subject.

As chairman of the Local Authorities Coordinators of Regulatory Services, which oversees trading standards in councils across the country, he said: “It is disturbing that these products are on sale in Britain without a warning to people about the high nicotine content and the danger they present to children.

“The Government needs to introduce new laws to force manufacturers to restrict sales to people over 18.

“Councils are testing as many of these e-cigarettes as possible and protecting people by dealing with the issues relating to incorrect packaging and labelling.”

E-cigarettes have also appeared in other businesses in the city.

Stuart Morris, the manager of Marketplace Brighton in Meeting House Lane, said: “We’ve only just started stocking it so it’s too early to tell if its a popular alternative.

“But it ticks all the boxes from a variety of tests and checks. We’ll just have wait for feedback from our customers.”

Theargus

In late June, President Barack Obama signed The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act into law. The law will allow the federal government broad authority over tobacco products and will also allow regulators to control cigarette packaging and marketing as well as how much nicotine—the addictive component in cigarettes—is added in tobacco products, explained the Washington Post previously.

Now, some tobacco companies—R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company and Lorillard Inc.—are included in a group that just filed a federal lawsuit to block some of the provisions of the law, claiming it violates their rights to free speech under the U.S. constitution, reported Reuters. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco is an arm or Reynolds American Inc., the maker of Camel cigarettes and Winston brand cigarettes; Lorillard sells Newport cigarettes, said Reuters. Marlboro cigarettes are manufactured by the largest American tobacco company, Altria Group Inc., which is not involved in the lawsuit and supports the law, reported Reuters.

With the law in place, flavored cigarettes will be banned by this fall and shortly after—by January—tobacco manufacturers and importers will be required to provide the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) with the ingredients used in their products, said USA Today previously. By April 2010, those makers will no longer be permitted to place their logos on “sporting, athletic or entertainment events, or on clothing and other promotional items,” said USA Today, adding that by July 2010, verbiage including the words “light,” “low,” or “mild” will be banned from tobacco product marketing. Finally, by 2011, all tobacco products must “carry larger and stronger warning labels,” reported USA Today.

The lawsuit alleges that the law places too many limits on the firms’ commercial rights to free speech given bans in place on television and radio ads said Reuters, which noted that the group is not arguing the agency’s right to regulate tobacco products. “Even prior to the act, plaintiffs had few avenues of communication for speaking to their adult consumers,” the companies said in the lawsuit filed in a federal court in Kentucky. “The act imposes sweeping and unprecedented restrictions that effectively foreclose those avenues of communication that remain,” Reuters quoted.

The companies are seeking an overturn of warning label bans, the ban on color and graphics in label and cigarette ads, and some of the bans on ads and sponsorship of sporting and other venues, said Reuters.

Some argue that 1st amendment issues were not appropriately addressed; however, proponents of the law cite the hundreds of thousands of deaths and billions of dollars in health care linked to cigarette smoking annually. At the bill signing ceremony, President Obama said he is hoping to cut down the numbers of teens each day—estimated at about 1,000—who take up smoking. “I was one of these teenagers. And so I know how difficult it can be to break this habit when it’s been with you for a long time,” said Obama, quoted USA Today.

President Obama noted that the law’s focus is on ending kid-geared marketing, said USA Today. “The kids today don’t just start smoking for no reason. They’re aggressively targeted as customers by the tobacco industry. They’re exposed to a constant and insidious barrage of advertising where they live, where they learn, and where they play. Most insidiously, they are offered products with flavorings that mask the taste of tobacco and make it even more tempting,” President Obama said, quoted USA Today previously.

ASH recently put out a press release stating that they had warned PayPal that they could be held criminally liable for processing payments for E Cigarette retailers in an attempt to shut down online retailers from selling their goods online, but the public reaction may not be what ASH expected and may have just solidified the resolve of e cigarette supporters to keep them on the market.

Due to the pressure by these special interest groups, PayPal has now not only frozen the money in the accounts of these retailers, but made sure no other transactions can be completed by the retailers that use PayPal as their merchant system, putting many online retailers in a financial crunch.

The backlash has begun as message boards, and forums have lit up with angry members and postings concerning the act’s of ASH and PayPals decision to cave to pressures from the special interest groups. On several online forums, dozens of users have stated that they are canceling their PayPal accounts and vow to never use them again as a payment processor online.

There has also been speculation that PayPal has only targeted online retailers that sell e liquid while turning a blind eye to the actual e cigarettes, but the reports of retailers is growing by the day that are on the PayPal banned list, and some do not sell e liquid.

There have also been several discussions online and in comments of other news releases of the e cigarette users filing suit against Ash and Paypal for the actions and possibly forcing once tobacco free users back to tobacco products.

It seems that the general population is not buying the political tactics of the FDA, ASH and PayPal, but they are buying and supporting e cigarettes, the users and suppliers like e cigarettes national that was not a PayPal user.

© Officialwire