We’re all aware of the risks associated with cigarette smoking. Tobacco intake has been linked to cancer, lung disease, stroke, heart disease, premature wrinkling of the skin, decreased circulation and immune system deficiencies. Cigarette smoke smells bad — it saturates your furniture, hair, car and clothing with a distinct musty smell — which is a major turn off. Tobacco stains everything from teeth to bathroom walls.

Each time you take a drag, the chemicals found in tobacco — tar, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, ammonia and cyanide — seep into your body. According to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), tobacco use is the leading cause of premature and preventable death in the United States and claims almost half a million lives each year.
Smoking is a personal choice. If the possibility of acquiring cancer isn’t enough of a deterrent to keep people from smoking, what will be effective in persuading them not to?
In 2010, the FDA proposed a campaign that would introduce new warning labels on cigarette packages. Exerting new power to regulate tobacco products under The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, the FDA proposed that requiring larger, more prominent warnings on cigarette packaging would encourage tobacco users to quit and empower youth to say “no” to tobacco.

The set of cigarette warnings contain nine different text warnings accompanied by graphic labels. The labels, which would be larger and more visible to the consumer, would be required to appear on the upper portion of the front and rear panels of the cigarette pack, taking up at least the top half of box panels.
The colorful, yet controversial, labels include: A man blowing cigarette smoke through a tracheotomy hole; a baby being held by its mother enveloped by a cloud of cigarette smoke; a set of healthy lungs juxtaposed next to a set of diseased lungs; a man breathing into an oxygen mask; a cadaver on a table with post-autopsy chest staples; a premature baby in an incubator; a diseased mouth distressed with cancerous lesions and missing, yellowing teeth; a woman weeping; and a man wearing a T-shirt labeled “I Quit.”

The FDA is taking this too far. On Monday, Nov. 5, 2011, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon blocked the federal requirement, which was to go into effect in October 2011. He claimed it’s likely tobacco companies will succeed in winning a lawsuit to stop the labels from being circulated. He found the labels go beyond simply warning against the health risks of smoking.
Tobacco is legal to anyone 18 and older. Sure, smokers know the dangers of smoking, but they have the right to smoke if they choose to. Reinforcing the idea that bad health comes with prolonged smoking isn’t breaking news. Adding graphic pictures to the packs is only going to anger those exposed to them. If increased cigarette prices haven’t discouraged people from smoking, how are grotesquely displayed images going to persuade society?

If the FDA wants to warn the public of major health risks linked to commonly used items, why not add a picture of a diseased liver or a graphic image of someone lying in a casket at the hands of a drunk driver to a 12-pack of beer? Affixing an image of a paraplegic to a football helmet, indicating possible injuries linked to playing the sport, would certainly restrain people from joining the team, right? Wrong. People are going to do what they want to do when they want to do it, and this is certainly an individual right granted to society through the ability to express ourselves freely.
What about non-smoking consumers and store clerks who are forced to look at the graphic images? Exposing people to the graphic images is pandering. The FDA is commercially exploiting cigarette packaging. If the regulation were to take effect, tobacco companies would be forced to meet the demands of the FDA even though they’re not reasonable. Cigarette packs would be distributed in a manner that’s invasive and offensive.

With a wall full of cigarettes in every convenience store, it’s nearly impossible for unwilling people not to be exposed to the graphic images. Certainly smokers would be disturbed by the images as well. People shouldn’t be pressured to view the images for choosing to pursue smoking, regardless of the health effects.
Our generation is far more conscious of the dangers of smoking than past age groups. Propagating graphic images isn’t going to cause a cessation of the habit, it’s only going to rile the public. Let people make decisions for themselves. If they don’t want to live healthy lives, they have the right to choose.

If we put things into perspective, enacting Brockport’s smoke-free campus initiative didn’t force people to quit smoking simply because there are now designated spots to smoke. Students have merely relocated, and some don’t even abide by the rules. The policy did create a more pleasant and healthier campus atmosphere for those who choose not to smoke.
The best way to deter people from smoking is to offer them solutions to quitting. Providing a quit line number on the proposed packages is a helpful and a less encroaching method to assist those who want a healthier lifestyle. Investigating other avenues such as counseling, nicotine patches and e-cigarettes would grant the FDA a free pass out of lawsuits. These options are much more effective and encouraging than slapping a smoker’s cadaver on a cigarette box.

Late Monday afternoon, Orlando city leaders unanimously passed a resolution to limit smoking in more public places. But the new measure would not ban smoking outright. The resolution would only allow the city to encourage people to not light up. That’s because the city of Orlando doesn’t have the authority to stop anyone from opening up a pack of cigarettes and lighting up in a park like Lake Eola. Part of the city council’s resolution Monday urges the state to give cities that power.

The resolution asks Orlando residents to consider the public health hazards and not smoke where children commonly play. But that may be just the first step.
“What we’re trying to do is get the Florida Legislature to give us home rule to legislate no smoking in public parks in the city of Orlando,” Commissioner Sam Ings said.
Language urging residents not to smoke in plazas, squares and sidewalks was stricken shortly before the council vote.
“We want to target parks where children play,” Mayor Buddy Dyer said.
But Jeff Borysiewicz, owner of the Corona Cigar Bar, isn’t convinced city leaders plan to stop there.
He pointed to some pretty dramatic public service announcements. They’re being paid for by the Orange County Health Department with part of a $6.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human services. They’re considered federal stimulus dollars.
Borysiewicz said it would be ironic if they put him out of business.
“When you walk outside and smoke around the city, you shouldn’t be treated like a criminal because you smoke a cigar,” he said.
The city estimated that 27 Orlando residents die as a result of second-hand smoke each year.
Borysiewicz said he hopes that as city leaders seek more power to regulate smoking in public places, they also consider the health of local businesses.
The City of Orlando said today it hopes other cities follow suit and pass their own resolutions on second-hand smoke in public places.

The Greens will stop distributing an election flyer that incorrectly stated the ALP accepts political donations from tobacco companies, after the minor party admitted the claim was wrong. The concession came after Labor wrote to the Victorian Electoral Commission demanding an investigation into the flyer for Brian Walters, the Greens candidate for the marginal seat of Melbourne.

The Greens authorised flyer stated that Labor and the Liberals hold the same views on issues such as climate change, public transport, same-sex marriage and “accepts donations from developers, alcohol gambling and tobacco.”

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“This claim is factually incorrect and is designed to mislead voters in the electorate of Melbourne,” Labor’s campaign director Nick Reece stated in his letter to the VEC.

Labor stopped accepting donations from tobacco companies in 2004.

The flyer also included an endorsement of Mr Walters from federal Greens leader Bob Brown.

Last night, Mr Walters said a volunteer researcher had made the error.

“We are wrong about that,” he said.

But Mr Walters said it was ironic that Labor had complained about the flyer as it has dishonestly smeared him as part of their campaign.

Jamie Jacobsen, who has been a health and wellness advocate in other capacities, is taking on a new challenge as the regional tobacco prevention coordinator at the Mid-Ohio Valley Health Department. Jacobsen, of Vienna, worked at the health department for three years as coordinator for the Biggest Loser, a weight loss/nutrition program sponsored by the health department. She also served as coordinator for an anti-tobacco program at West Virginia University at Parkersburg.

“From the first time I met Jamie when I worked with her at WVU-P I could see the passion for tobacco prevention, and when the opportunity came and this position became available to have her work as the tobacco prevention coordinator, I knew it was the only answer. She’s doing a fantastic job,” said Carrie Brainard, health and wellness director for the MOVHD.

Brainard previously served as tobacco prevention coordinator at the department before taking her current post.

“After Biggest Loser, I became the volunteer coordinator for the health department, but ever since I started here at the health department, this is is the job I’ve been aiming for,” Jacobsen said. “Since I started, I’ve been getting to know everyone in the six counties, meeting with all the coalitions.”

As for goals in her new post, Jacobsen said they include “working on establishing tobacco-free zones in parks and recreation areas, promoting smoke-free housing in apartment buildings, and continuing to educate people about second-hand smoke and its effects,” she said.

The parks are not currently covered under the department’s Clean Indoor Air regulation.

A Center for Disease Control and Prevention report concluded nearly nine out of 10 non-smoking Americans are exposed to second-hand smoke. The National Institute of Health estimates 3,000 non-smokers die from lung cancer caused by second-hand smoke annually while another 35,000 deaths from heart disease have been linked to exposure to second-hand smoke.

The MOVHD is also trying to have additional free smoking cessation classes. Jacobsen said the biggest problem is getting the word out. For information or to sign up for the cessation classes, call her at 304-485-7374, extension 152.

“We offer a two-hour prepare to quit class and an eight-week freedom from smoking class. I can go to a business and conduct the class, we can have it at the health department, we try to accommodate schedules as much as possible. People decide to finally quit smoking for a variety of reasons,” Jacobsen noted, adding cost can be one deciding factor, especially in these economic times.

Shortly after sunrise, James Roach walks through a warehouse door in Wentworth, N.C., with an armload of vegetables. He lays bags of freshly picked produce — from staples like spinach to the more exotic like purple peppers — on a table inside and begins affixing bar code stickers as other farmers arrive. Most tote boxes and bags of fresh vegetables. Others bring goat cheese, or beef and pork raised on homemade feed.

Before the sun sets on this Thursday in October, the products from farms in a half-dozen or so counties will be in the kitchens of restaurants and homes in the Piedmont Triad area. Buyers actually put in their orders on a website where approximately 40 growers had posted their latest offerings.

The idea: to connect the small farmer with the buyer who wants locally grown food through an online farmers’ market. The result: Piedmont Local Food, which launched in April.

The venture — which an organizer said “took off like gangbusters” — launched with help from tobacco settlement money. It is one of a myriad of endeavors taking root in the Piedmont of both North Carolina and Virginia as the region seeks its financial footing in a post-tobacco economy.

Roach used to raise tobacco himself. “I saw the tobacco industry going down and figured it might be a good thing to get out of,” he says.

Now, after a stint as a sheet metal machine operator, he grows vegetables instead on his farm in Caswell County, N.C. “I’ve done better than I thought I would,” he said.

Just across the state line, the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research stands on a hill in Danville. It was started with tobacco settlement money and designed to be a catalyst for economic and high-tech activity in the post-tobacco Piedmont, centered in the city that once functioned as the nucleus of the area’s tobacco industry. Buyers and sellers poured in from farms far and wide for auctions in the city’s tobacco warehouses.

The auction system is long-gone, a relic of the tobacco industry that once provided ample fuel for the Piedmont region’s economic engine in both North Carolina and Virginia. The area’s economy has faltered, in no small measure due to the tobacco industry’s decline, which dovetailed with downturns in textile and furniture manufacturing.

The one-two-three punch left Piedmont workers, many of whom had little or no post-secondary education, without jobs in an economy that has become increasingly knowledge-driven.

Rockingham County had an unemployment rate of 11.4 percent in August. Six months earlier, the rate hit 15.1 percent, according to the state’s Employment Security Commission.

Unemployment in Danville stood at 12.4 percent in August, down slightly from 12.9 percent in February, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The future of once tobacco-dependent and now economically challenged places like southern Campbell County, Danville and Rockingham County might lie in a petri dish. There are thousands of petri dishes and other pieces of research equipment inside the IALR’s gleaming structure of brick, glass and steel.

Researchers at the six-year-old institute explore four areas: polymers, mechanical engineering and robotic systems, high-value horticulture and forestry, and motorsports engineering.

Its sustainable and renewable resources arm targets plant biology in order to create new plants, crops and bio-based products to give a new economic reason for being to an area that once depended heavily on tobacco.

If discoveries have commercial applications, the institute will work to make them available to the market. Its creators hope the work will attract companies seeking access to its expertise. IALR also is planning to create a spinoff of its own, a tissue-propagation company in Danville.

The institute’s stated goal is to become “a catalyst for economic and community transformation.” Other transformative agents are advanced learning programs, advanced networking and technology, and community outreach.

IALR partnered with three founding educational institutions: Virginia Tech, Averett University and Danville Community College.

Next-door to the institute, a building is going up to house SEnTeC, the research and development center for sustainable energy and technology in Southern Virginia. Among other things, it will continue IALR’s work on biomass crops, as well as determining the feasibility of building bio-refineries in the area. SEnTeC, too, started with tobacco settlement funds.

The settlement money

That money is the result of relief sought in court during the 1990s by states reeling from public health costs associated with treating sick smokers.

“Big tobacco” made two settlements. The first was with the four states that initially sought relief, while the second, the Master Settlement Agreement, was with the remaining 46 states, including Virginia and North Carolina.

In that agreement, four of the nation’s largest cigarette makers committed to pay approximately $206 billion to the 46 states over the first 25 years. Of that, North Carolina’s share came to about $4.6 billion and Virginia’s to an estimated $4.1 billion, both over 25 years.

The settlement agreements number among major recent developments in the story of tobacco, which played a significant role in shaping the economy and culture of Piedmont North Carolina and Virginia.

Dixie Watts Dalton, an agricultural economist who taught at Virginia Tech for 17 years, has studied the economic impact of tobacco on Southside Virginia for years. She currently is developing an agribusiness program at Southside Virginia Community College.

Dalton knew tobacco in a personal way. Her father raised it until he took the buyout offered in 2004 to end the quota system. She grew tobacco herself to pay her way through college at Virginia Tech, then graduate school.

Today, she said, health concerns that led to decreased demand for tobacco, coupled with the removal of the quota system and related changes, have had a domino effect well beyond the tobacco fields. An economy had grown up around tobacco — with any number of local businesses, such as auction warehouses and banks, dependant on tobacco, too.

“This is one of the most far-reaching policy changes we’ve seen since the Depression,” she said.

Time for adjustment

The agricultural economy that relied on tobacco has entered an adjustment period as it seeks a new equilibrium between supply and demand, Dalton said.

Piedmont-area leaders and residents are adjusting, too, looking for new economic endeavors and funding to support them.

Piedmont Local Food, for example, received $44,500 from the North Carolina Tobacco Trust Fund, and another $30,000 from tobacco settlement money earmarked for cost-share grants to farmers and collaborative projects through an organization called RAFI-USA.

Piedmont Local Food received tobacco settlement money because one major goal for use of the funds is to spur economic activity and development in areas that for generations had depended heavily on tobacco. The funds are also meant to be used to promote better health.

Funding went to the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service, which helped create the online farmers’ market with help from the Rockingham County local food coalition and the Rockingham County Business and Technology Center. The group, led by Rockingham Cooperative Extension Services Director Brenda Sutton, used a program in Rutherford County outside of Charlotte as its template.

Education opportunities

Tobacco settlement funds have also helped provide retraining for people who live in tobacco-dependent areas. One such program is at Rockingham County (N.C.) Community College.

The community college received a grant to buy 15 programmable logic controllers. The computers now run nearly every piece of machinery in nearly every plant across the country.

“Programmable logic controllers are essentially the brains of an industrial process,” says Keith Elliott, the lead instructor.

The funds helped fill a specific need for people trained to run the brains at MillerCoors has one of its breweries in nearby Eden, where it employs 600 people.

“This is not just Miller,” says Elliott. “It’s every company out there.”

The community college also received funds to buy special welding equipment on which students can learn advanced skills needed to work on stainless steel.

The ability to weld stainless steel is needed in a number of industries, especially food, says David White, the lead instructor.

It’s not intro welding. The level of expertise students can now develop is “about as advanced as you can go,” White says.

Students have been pushing to get into both classes, and others.

“Every program out here has had to turn people away this semester, which is sad,” Elliott says.

Rockingham Community College President Robert Keys says he’s grateful for the roughly $150,000 RCC received for the programmable logic controllers from tobacco settlement funding, along with other funding.

But given Rockingham County’s relatively high unemployment rate and need for retraining, the county needs more and deserves its fair share, he says.

City council members backed away from a policy that would require all employees to eventually be tobacco free.How strict the policy might extend, however, remains to be seen.

During a public meeting today, Brooksville council members voiced their opposition to various parts of a proposed tobacco policy, citing concerns of how far it went into restricting employees’ habits while outside of work.

While Vice Mayor Richard Lewis and councilman Joe Bernardini both opposed restricting tobacco use in employees’ personal vehicles, councilmen Frankie Burnett and Joe Johnston III went further in opposing the policy — stating it went too far when addressing employees’ tobacco use when off duty.

Under the proposed policy, current employees would have one year to quit using tobacco while new employees would have to sign an agreement that they don’t use tobacco products and won’t start after the start of their employment. Currently new hires in the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office have to sign similar agreements.

Burnett, who admits he smokes, said it’s not the place of government to dictate what an employee does once he or she is off the clock and leaves city property.

“If we do do it, it should be about having a tobacco-free workplace,” Burnett said. “But what an employee does in their own home or cars? No, I don’t agree with that.”

All four councilmen however did support other aspects of the policy, such as making city properties and vehicles tobacco free.

Mayor Lara Bradburn, who is a staunch supporter of creating a tobacco-free policy, said the purpose of the policy isn’t to allow government to dictate what employees can do in their personal lives. Instead, she said the purpose is to promote healthy living, lessen healthcare costs for taxpayers and establish a provision that’s been in effect in the private sector for many years.

“Decreasing healthcare costs for taxpayers is a plus, but the better, overall health of our employees is the biggest gain,” Bradburn said. “I’ll tell you, I don’t like smoking and I don’t like to be around smoking. I watched my mother whither away — and I can tell you she’d be upset with a policy like this.”

However, City Planner Steven Gouldman, who smokes, criticized the proposed policy and said the process to survey employees about the policy was misleading and the data isn’t accurate.

He said most of the data presented was to create a tobacco free workplace. However, hidden in the data he said it creates provisions that affect employees’ personal lives. “The only way most people would even know about this is because it was in the newspaper,” Gouldman said. “I oppose this policy, not just because I’m a smoker.”

He added that a survey of employees is misleading, both the questions to employees and how staff used the results to verify their findings and questioned what other recommendations have been made based off of poor information put before council.

Bradburn agreed and said more data would be collected before council reexamines the issue.

“I think we can agree that there are elements of this data that could be a bit better,” Bradburn said. “I think our folks definitely have some things to work on.”

By JEFF SCHMUCKER, Tbo

WASHINGTON — Public-health groups are renewing a push for the Senate to ratify a treaty aimed at reducing global tobacco use that has languished for nearly six years.

The treaty, which requires a host of anti-smoking measures and seeks to attack global issues such as cross-border advertising and tobacco smuggling, was signed by U.S. representatives in May 2004.

But President George W. Bush left office without submitting it to the Senate for approval, the final step in the process, and the Obama administration so far has taken no action.

Frustrated public-health groups are now urging President Barack Obama to move the process along so the United States can join the rest of the world’s largest nations in combating tobacco use.

“Our absence is notable,” said Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, which recently issued a statement urging action on the treaty.

The State Department did not respond to a request for comment on the status of the treaty, which was the first negotiated under the World Health Organization.
Democratic support

Key Democratic leaders in the Senate, including Majority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois, have expressed support for the treaty. But opponents say they don’t see the need for U.S. participation in international anti-tobacco efforts.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he sees no need for international regulation of tobacco.

He said last year that “the decision to regulate tobacco has been made by elected members of Congress and the president,” and that remains his position today, spokesman Robert Steurer said.

Ratification in the 100-member Senate will require 67 votes. Legislation giving the federal Food and Drug Administration regulatory authority over tobacco passed the Senate last year with 77 votes.

Roger Quarles, president of the Burley Tobacco Growers Cooperative Association, based in Lexington, said in an e-mail that his group would oppose Senate approval of the tobacco treaty.

“Our biggest concern is the requirement that governments have to agree to take steps to reduce tobacco growing as well as compensate growers,” Quarles said by e-mail. That has not happened yet in other countries, he said.
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The treaty also wants tobacco growers to shift to alternative crops, “but none have been identified,” Quarles said.

The objective

The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, as the treaty is known, states that its objective “is to protect present and future generations from the devastating health, social, environmental and economic consequences of tobacco consumption and exposure to tobacco smoke.”

So far, 168 nations have signed the pact; the U.S. did so on May 10, 2004.

But the U.S. is among 15 nations — including Argentina, Cuba, the Czech Republic, Morocco and Switzerland — that have not ratified the treaty.

For the ratifying countries, the treaty took effect in February 2005; ratification allows the signatories to participate in discussions and negotiations over implementing the treaty.

Myers said that the signatories “are making vital decisions that relate to illicit trade (in cigarettes) … and other issues that will directly impact the United States.”

But because the U.S. hasn’t ratified the treaty, “we don’t have a voice or a seat at the table,” he said.

The World Health Organization estimates that 5 million people around die every year of tobacco-related disease, including about 400,000 in the United States.

Myers said the United States also is among the top five nations in tobacco production, consumption and advertising — a fact well-known in the international community.

“There is strong resentment about us not having ratified,” he said.

By James R. Carroll, Courier-journal

Tobacco producers’ don’t forget the Barren County Tobacco Production Meeting is scheduled for Feb. 16 beginning at 7 p.m.
The meeting will be at the Barren County Extension Office auditorium. Dr. Bob Pearce, UK Extension Tobacco Specialist and Dr. John Wilhoit, UK Ag Engineering Specialist will be our guests.

Managing tobacco transplant diseases

The float-bed system is a convenient and efficient way to produce tobacco transplants. One drawback to this method is the potential for significant disease development. Large numbers of plants packed into a small, water-filled area create conditions in which many diseases thrive.

Once established, problems in float-bed systems can be difficult to eradicate or bring under control. So, it is best to keep them from gaining a foothold in your transplant bed. Prevention is the best solution for keeping float-bed diseases in check. Here are some tips to help you stay ahead of tobacco-transplant diseases:

1. Produce your own plants or buy from a Kentucky source if possible. Growers who use the plug-and-transfer system should consider buying plugs grown in or north of Kentucky to avoid infections of blue mold, which is more prevalent in the South.

2. Take care not to introduce pathogens into the float system. Keep out field soil, which can harbor pathogens that cause root and stem rots. For the same reason, you shouldn’t use water from ponds or creeks to fill float beds. Always use city or well water.

3. Use clean, sanitized trays for seed. Reused trays pose a risk of contamination. Dip or spray them with a solution of one part bleach to 9 parts water. Cover and allow them to stand overnight. Follow up with a good rinse to remove the bleach residue. You should replace or heat treat with steam trays older than three or four years.

4. Once your plants are up and growing, keep them as stress-free as possible. Avoid temperature extremes and keep fertilizer levels within recommended ranges. Too much fertilizer is equally as harmful as too little and can increase susceptibility to diseases in general.

5. Use side vents and fans to maintain good air movement and keep the area surrounding the float bed weed-free. Good air flow promotes rapid drying of foliage which helps to eliminate favorable conditions for disease.

6. Consider a regular fungicide program to control root and leaf diseases. Fungicides are inexpensive insurance considering the value of your transplants.

Disease free transplants pay dividends down the road because they are vigorous and less prone to attack by pathogens in the field. Proper management of diseases in the float system insures that your tobacco crop gets off to a good start.

Winter Coveralls Dairy Meeting Feb. 19

The Kentucky Dairy Development Council, Alltech, and the UK Cooperative Extension Service are cooperating with a series of meetings for dairy producers throughout Kentucky. We are hosting one of those sessions this Friday, Feb. 19 beginning at 10 a.m. with registration and winding down at 1:30 p.m.

The Barren County session will be held at the Barren County Extension Office auditorium. All dairy farmers are encouraged to attend.

Three topics of discussion will be offered. They include: Milk Quality and Mastitis Economics, Making Silage Sense, and Hoof Health, What is Really Going on Down There.

Several key speakers will make these presentations and should really add to a dairy farmer’s arsenal for information to improve in these three areas of management.

A complimentary lunch will be provided for those in attendance and registered for meeting when presentations begin at 10:30 a.m., so don’t be late.

By GARY TILGHMAN, Glasgowdailytimes

Seeks appeal; Feds called a ‘senior partner’ in tobacco industry
The federal government – which helped tobacco companies develop low-tar cigarettes in the late 1960s – has asked the Supreme Court of Canada to weigh in on a multibillion-dollar lawsuit against the tobacco industry to recoup health costs related to smoking.

The Justice Department is seeking leave to appeal a December court ruling in the British Columbia Court of Appeal, which exposed the federal government to potential liability by concluding it should be a third-party defendant in the suit, launched by the B.C. government.

The trial, expected to begin next year, is the first of several legal challenges nationwide in which provinces are seeking to recover health costs.

Tobacco manufacturers maintain the government should share responsibility for health costs because Agriculture Canada conducted its own research while regulating the industry, knew of international studies linking smoking and lung cancer, and nonetheless encouraged and aided the industry in developing light and mild brands.

“The fact of the matter is that the federal government is a senior partner in the tobacco industry,” said Eric Gagnon, a spokesman for Imperial Tobacco, one of the manufacturers named in the suit. “We believe it is important for the government to answer, as the tobacco industry will, on its involvement in the development of the industry in Canada.”

The B.C. decision could open up the government to responsibility in other suits against the tobacco industry filed in Ontario and New Brunswick, and pending actions in Quebec and Manitoba.

“The decision would substantially expand the sphere of duties owed by government in its response to public-health risks posed by a commercially supplied product,” the federal government said in its Supreme Court application.

The Canadian Cancer Society said tobacco makers should shoulder the entire blame because companies intentionally suppressed the health hazards of light and mild brands of cigarettes, hiding the information from consumers and the government.

“The tobacco industry’s historic strategy has been to try to blame someone else,” said Rob Cunningham, a cancer society senior policy analyst.

If the Supreme Court takes on the appeal, it will be its second foray into the long-standing legal battle. The court ruled in 2005 that B.C. had the legal right to sue tobacco companies.

The Canadian lawsuits were inspired by American litigation during the 1990s that ended in mass multimillion-dollar settlements.

Montrealgazette