As states make it tougher to light up in public, tobacco manufacturers are rolling out new smokeless tobacco lines — some flavored, some spitless, prompting worries from public health officials about potentially unknown risks of these new products and their appeal to underage users. Among the new offerings in Michigan is Snus — tiny tea-bag-like pouches of tobacco that don’t require spitting.

Other products, such as tablets that look like small breath mints or dissolvable strips and sticks made of finely milled tobacco, are being test-marketed elsewhere, and, if profitable, also could arrive in Michigan.
The Michigan Department of Community Health has asked tobacco advocates to begin collecting information on who is selling the items.
“The more you can make a drug easier and cheaper to get, the more kids will use it,” said Jeanne Knopf DeRoche, whose Plymouth-based company receives state funding to do prevention campaigns and help monitor retail outlets in much of Wayne and Monroe counties.
“It’s not just about cigarettes,” said David Howard, spokesman for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. “It’s about offering adult tobacco consumers options.”
Where There’s No Smokes, There Could Be New Danger
Nahla Khobeir stands in front of rows of new smokeless tobacco products — and smack dab in the middle of another public health debate.
An old lollipop container holds hundreds of coupons that customers have brought to her for their free packets of Snus, small tea-bag-like packets of spitless tobacco that come in flavors like spearmint and peppermint.
“Honest to God, when you open these” — Khobeir, a nonsmoker, said as she peeled back the packaging of some loose tobacco and took a deep whiff — “you want to eat it.”
That’s just one of the reasons public health officials worry youths would be intrigued by the new products. Others worry that a battered economy has made it even tougher to keep the products away from underage consumers.
On The Lookout
Even with new federal laws on how products can be labeled and displayed, retailers may be more willing to take risks in order to make a sale, and police departments have a tougher time finding the manpower to enforce the law, said Knopf, whose Plymouth-based company receives state funding for prevention campaigns and monitoring retail outlets in Wayne and Monroe counties.

Material by: freep.com

U.S. health officials say they are concerned about candy-like smokeless tobacco products that are brightly packaged and flavored and, they fear, enticing to youngsters.

The tablets, strips and sticks are flavored like coffee or mint. The companies that make the products say they are marketed to adults who smoke but may be trying to quit or are looking for a nicotine fix while they are at a place that does not allow them to smoke.

The companies also point out that it’s illegal for anyone under 18 to purchase tobacco products, but the FDA is still concerned and has asked the makers of these products for information about their research and marketing for these items.

We share that concern. Cigarettes and smokeless tobacco have always been illegal to sell to people under the age of 18, yet studies have shown most people addicted to cigarettes and tobacco started using when they were teens, many under the age of 18.

We’re concerned young people who might be turned off to actually smoking may see these candy-like products as more acceptable, cool or trendy. The packaging is appealing and small, so they can easily be concealed. We’re also concerned that if so many people have been able to get cigarettes under the age of 18 it’s likely these products will be as easy to get as well.

We support the efforts of the FDA to get more information and we urge parents and others to educate youngsters about these products and their addictive nature.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Customers may already have noticed the change—although it has been subtle thus far. But they will starting March 1. That’s the official launch date of the latest line extension from R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.’s Camel brand: menthol cigarettes containing a menthol burst capsule that enhances menthol flavor when squeezed.

The new cigarette supplanted Camel Menthol cigarettes in August 2009 and evolved from the “wonderful success” of Camel Crush (launched September 2008), according to Brian Stebbins, senior marketing director for Camel cigarettes. Crush also contains the menthol capsule, but squeezing it turns that cigarette from nonmenthol to menthol. “Whenever we launch something new, we try to find out who’s interacting with it, who likes it, who doesn’t like it and who has an idea of how to make it even better,” Stebbins told CSP Daily News.

“We identified that there’s a pretty large group of adult menthol smokers who are interested in the capsule technology, but they want to see us use it differently,” Stebbins said, adding that they want to use it to use it to make menthol cigarettes “even fresher and even cooler at the moment of their choosing, or on demand.”

The soft launch in August included “very minimal communication on packs and on the website for those who were interested.” Stebbins added, “And the idea there was to let those smokers who already choose Camel Menthol have an opportunity to experience the innovation first, let them experience the product first, let them let us know what they think and the response has been very positive.”

As for March 1, Stebbins said, “That is where we actually go out and try and tell the story to a broader audience about the innovation on Camel menthol.” The launch will mean a new look for the packaging, retail communications, retail merchandising and a “very solid” launch promotion program—including direct mail, emails and person-to-person engagements in bars, nightclubs and festivals.

Stebbins described the new packaging as having “a fresher, cooler color pallet that menthol smokers respond very nicely to” and said it will also “tell the story of the product within,” using the Camel mascot. Stebbins also said the name of Camel Menthol Lights will change to Camel Menthol Silver; Camel Menthol will keep the same name. He added, “We will still have a couple of menthol products that are in the market that will not have capsules in them, but they are not a primary marketing emphasis…. That really just kind of depends upon the business opportunity in those markets and retailer choice about what they carry.”

He said the product’s demographics are wide ranging. “Our testing indicates that the adult smokers who are interested span different age groups, they span different brands that they buy from today and it’s male/female. It’s a very broad opportunity, and I think that’s mostly because it’s a provocative innovation. We’re talking about a category, menthol cigarettes, where there’s a lot of sameness, and Camel cigarettes is the exact opposite of that.”

According to a Jan. 17, 1997 New York Times article, Reynolds briefly tested a menthol version of Camel in 1966, but never sold it nationally. Camel Menthols were nationally launched in 1997.

“I think the ‘new news’ here is menthol is growing considerably in the category, and to be frank, until we had introduced Camel Crush, Camel wasn’t getting its fair share of that growth,” Stebbins said.

Although menthol is “expressly permitted” under the recent flavored cigarette ban, there has been concern in the industry. David Howard, an R.J. Reynolds spokesperson, told CSP Daily News, “Obviously, as [U.S. Food & Drug Administration] regulations take effect, one of the things is that there will be a committee looking into menthol…. And certainly, whatever information is needed from us, we’re going to cooperate for any information that they need or assistance that we can provide in that study. But at this time, menthol is specifically not part of the flavored bans and permitted by FDA regulations…. And certainly, we believe it’s a viable product category, obviously; it’s a very large and growing category with adult smokers.”

According to the National Survey on Drug Use & Health Report, published by the Office of Applied Studies, Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration, on Nov. 19, 2009, among past-month smokers, the rate of smoking menthol cigarettes increased from 31% in 2004 to 33.9% in 2008. Past-month smoking of menthol cigarettes was more likely among those who were recent smoking initiates (i.e., began smoking in the past year) than among those who were longer-term smokers (i.e., initiated use more than a year ago) (44.6% vs. 31.8% respectively).

By Linda Abu-Shalback Zid, Cspnet.com
February 5, 2010

The Missouri Division of Alcohol and Tobacco Control announces free training opportunities for managers and retail clerks who sell cigarettes and tobacco products to the public in retail stores, according to a news release.

The training will cover a wide range of topics, including: a detailed explanation of Missouri laws regarding youth access to tobacco, tips to help prevent selling to minors and techniques for spotting fraudulent IDs.

The free training is designed to assist owners, managers and front-line staff with proper service techniques and takes about 90 minutes. Three sessions will be offered to accommodate as many people as possible.

The 90-minute training sessions will begin at 9 a.m., noon and 2:30 p.m. Feb. 17 at the Cowan Civic Center in Lebanon. Space is limited, and registration is required.

For more details, contact Vanessa Mure at 573-751-5448 or vanessa.mure@dps.mo.gov.

In a recent study, scientists from UC Berkeley led by Matt Francis have demonstrated how to program tobacco plants to take advantage of the efficient way that they collect sunlight. Rather than attempt to reprogram all the cells of a mature tobacco plant, the scientists genetically engineered a virus called the tobacco mosaic virus to do the job for them.

The researchers sprayed the modified virus on a crop of tobacco plants, and the virus caused the plant cells to produce lots of artificial chromophores, which turn photons from sunlight into electrons.

In order for the chromophores to work, however, they must be spaced at a precise distance from one another – about two or three nanometers. A little closer or further apart, and the electric current will either be halted or the electrons will be very difficult to harvest.

Thankfully, tobacco plant cells have evolved to space chromophores at this exact distance, lining them up in a long spiral hundreds of nanometers long. By exploiting this structure, the researchers could take advantage of billions of years of evolution to grow perfectly spaced strands of chromophores.

“Over billions of years, evolution has established exactly the right distances between chromophores to allow them to collect and use light from the sun with unparalleled efficiency,” said Francis.

Since the modified tobacco plants themselves don’t generate electricity, the researchers must harvest the plants and extract the chromophore structures. Then, the scientists can dissolve the structures in a liquid solution, and then spray the solution on a glass or plastic substrate to create a solar cell. So far, the scientists have not yet demonstrated that the resulting solar cells can turn light into electrical energy.

Compared with traditional solar cells, those made from plants could have several potential advantages. For instance, they don’t require the use of toxic chemicals, they’re biodegradable, and they’re inexpensive to produce. On the other hand, bio-based solar cells would likely have a shorter lifetime than silicon solar cells.

In addition to using tobacco, the researchers also demonstrated how to manipulate E. coli bacteria to produce chromophore structures. In this case, the researchers didn’t use a virus, but modified the bacteria directly.

More information: Michel T. Dedeo, Karl E. Duderstadt, James M. Berger and Matthew B. Francis. “Nanoscale Protein Assemblies from a Circular Permutant of the Tobacco Mosaic Virus.” Nano Lett., 2010, 10 (1), pp 181-186. doi:10.1021/nl9032395
Via: Discovery News
© 2010 PhysOrg.com

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which regulates products that account for 25 cents of every dollar spent by consumers, is always embroiled in controversy.

Some say it approves new drugs too quickly, while others say its delays cost lives. Some say our food supply is relatively safe, while others point to unsafe foods that have entered the market. Some say the FDA should take more aggressive enforcement actions, while others say it should rely on voluntary compliance.

But there’s one thing that virtually everyone agrees on: The FDA needs more money to do its job properly. This consensus includes patient organizations, consumer and research groups, the professional community, and all the industries the agency regulates.

Consider this anecdote from a report presented to the FDA by its own science committee: The agency had to bring in retired computer experts to repair its servers, because the equipment was so out of date that younger repairmen did not know how to fix it.

Or consider that the FDA inspects less than 1 percent of the food imported into the country each year, and it sometimes goes years without inspecting facilities where prescription drugs and medical devices are made.

The agency has the same number of employees it had in 2004, though Congress has given it much more responsibility since then.

Added duties
Consider these points:

The FDA has been given new responsibility to establish more modern systems to gather and evaluate adverse drug reactions, but there is no added money to do so.

Congress assigned the FDA to regulate tobacco products, and it can charge the tobacco companies fees. But the fees cannot cover the time needed to oversee the new regulatory activities at the most senior levels of the agency.

If a health-care reform bill does pass, the FDA is likely to have still more responsibility, without more funding.

Budget experts estimate that the FDA needs an increase of $120 million next year just to maintain its present staffing and activities. Undoing the consequences of years of budgetary neglect will require several hundred million dollars more the following year. And the significant new authority that Congress is in the process of giving the FDA will require $400 million or more in new funding over the next three to four years.

No relief in sight
Every year at this time, the president sends a budget to Capitol Hill. All indications are that the one being prepared will provide no increases for the FDA.

There may be debate about what role the federal government should play in education, transportation, or health care. But there is little debate over whether the federal government must play a role in assuring that our food is safe, and that our drugs and medical devices are safe and effective. This assurance comes from the activities of the FDA, which sets and enforces standards for food and drug quality, and which approves new drugs and medical devices before they can be marketed.

Imagine if we as consumers had to fend for ourselves in the supermarkets or restaurants, or if we did not know that the prescription drugs we get at the pharmacy or hospital had been tested thoroughly.

National resources are scarce, and priorities are hard to set. Our leaders face delicate balances. But let’s hope that the essential services the FDA provides get the attention they deserve. We cannot afford to take the risk of continuing to deny the agency the money it needs to protect us.

Islamabad – The secrecy maintained by the Ministry of Health as it silently submitted to the tobacco industry’s demand for relaxation of deadline for printing of picture-based health warnings on cigarette packs has given out a clear message: ‘While the tobacco industry is honest to its cause, the Ministry of Health is not.’

The industry is vigorously and successfully pursuing its initial demand for grant of a ‘lead time’ of at least three years for printing of graphic health warnings on cigarette packs and outers, and the government is readily and obediently extending one deadline after the other to appease the mighty industry.

After the latest relaxation allowed to the tobacco industry, picture-based warnings will now appear with effect from May 31, 2010, rather than the earlier February 1, 2010 deadline notified through a Statutory Regulatory Order (SRO), and the January 2010 deadline announced on the occasion of World No Tobacco Day on May 31, 2009. As such, the industry has already gained a whole year. If the Ministry’s current trend of empathizing with the industry persists, there is all likelihood of the decision not being implemented at all.

For the third time in less than a year, the tobacco industry has succeeded in buying time from the Ministry of Health on the pretext of their inability to import the machinery and wherewithal required for high-resolution printing of picture-based warnings.

The Ministry of Health grabbed global attention in 2009 when it announced several landmark decisions for tobacco control. The decision to make it mandatory for the tobacco industry to print graphic health warnings on cigarette packs and outers was just one of the measures announced on the occasion of a World No Tobacco Day seminar held on May 31, 2009. At that time, Mir Aijaz Hussain Jakhrani, the then minister for health, had announced January 1, 2010, as the deadline for implementation.

The intervening period was marked by hectic lobbying by the tobacco industry, which barely left any stone unturned to maneuver a delay in implementation of the decision. The deadline was first extended by a month, and now with barely 15 days left for the industry to show compliance with the government’s directive, it has transpired that the deadline has been extended once again — this time, by another five months. The revised SRO has been approved and is currently in the printing pipeline, it is learnt.

This correspondent made numerous attempts to get the comments of Secretary Health Khushnood Lashari, who is familiar with all ongoing developments like the back of his hand, but since he was on an official trip to Punjab with the president, he remained inaccessible. His absence was duly compensated by Director General Health Dr. Rashid Jooma who frankly admitted how “truly disappointing” it is for the Ministry of Health to have allowed a delay of half a year to implementation of pictorial warnings.

Dr. Jooma attributed the delay to legal procedures such as finalisation of the SRO and an analysis of how the new law would impact other existing pieces of legislation. “However, we anticipate that starting from February 2010, you will start seeing pictorial health warnings on some cigarette packs. Tobacco companies using a simple white packing without glossy backgrounds will have these warnings printed by February, while others will follow. I assure you that by May 31, all cigarette packs and outers available in Pakistani markets will have pictorial warnings printed on them,” he stated.

The DG Health further assured that technical oversight will be maintained over the entire process in the days to come. “Once that is done, we will keep a closer eye on all developments,” he said.

Newly-appointed Director General of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) Yusuf Khan said: “The industry had requested for more time to import and install the machinery and infrastructure for printing of pictorial health warnings. We had to give them that time.” It is pertinent to mention that the decision for postponement of the deadline was taken in mid-December when the Ministry of Health was headed by Jakhrani and the Tobacco Control Cell by Shaheen Masud.

When ‘The News’ contacted Shaheen Masud, who is now working in the education sector, she said: “When I left charge of the Tobacco Control Cell, the SRO had already been issued and notified. This is very disturbing news for me too. How they could have done this, is beyond my comprehension.”

Speaking on behalf of the civil society, Khurram Hashmi, national coordinator of the Coalition for Tobacco Control (CTC-Pakistan), expressed shock over the development. “The civil society is shocked to learn that the Ministry of Health and the tobacco industry have secretly managed to push back the efforts made during the last one and a half years for introduction of pictorial health warning on cigarette packs. The Ministry even issued an SRO for introducing the warnings; the same is still present on its website and in the gazette.”

Khurram said, “We were on board when all the technical details were drafted for implementation of these warnings. And now, they have not only backed out of their international commitment, but have ironically done so in a secretive manner. This means that implementation will be postponed time and again, and for an unlimited period of time. The step has betrayed the pro-tobacco industry behaviour of the Ministry of Health.”

All eyes are now fixed on the newly-installed Minister for Health Makhdoom Shahabuddin. One can only hope that he will order an end to all clandestine moves being engineered to appease the tobacco industry at the cost of public health. The Ministry of Health’s failure to withstand and frustrate the designs of the tobacco industry is surely not a befitting start to 2010.

Tobacco, a crop under siege as the number of smoking bans in the United States continues to increase, may be turning a new leaf as a possible source of home insulation and biofuel.

At Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, researchers at its Biotechnology Foundation Laboratories have figured out how to tweak the genes in tobacco plants to increase their oil production, which could help spur their use as biofuel.

“Tobacco is very attractive as a biofuel because the idea is to use plants that aren’t used in food production,” said study co-author Vyacheslav Andrianov, assistant professor of cancer biology at Jefferson Medical College. He added:

We have found ways to genetically engineer the plants so that their leaves express more oil. In some instances, the modified plants produced 20-fold more oil in the leaves…

Based on these data, tobacco represents an attractive and promising ‘energy plant’ platform, and could also serve as a model for the utilization of other high-biomass plants for biofuel production.

The preliminary research has been published online in Plant Biotechnology Journal.

A giant cigarette butt in London’s Trafalgar Square in April 2008 is meant to highlight the scale of England’s largest litter problem and to launch a campaign to stop smokers from dropping their used cigarettes on the streets.

Tobacco, in the form of cigarette butts, is also being studied as a way to better insulate homes.

The London Evening Standard recently reported that the London borough of Harrow is studying innovative technology to recycle the butts into rolls of home insulation. Currently, the butts, about 4,000 of which are dropped in the town center every day, end up in landfills.

Harrow plans to collect them, sterilize them and break them down into insulation “pillows.” It got the idea from recycling company Igloo Environmental, set up by environmental researcher Shaun Grimes, who said he was inspired by seeing birds line nests with cigarette butts.

“When the cigarette ban came in suddenly we were knee deep in the things,” Grimes told the paper. “Our ultimate task is to rid our streets of ugly, toxic cigarette butts and recycle them into useful loft insulation after the removal of all the toxins.”

Reynolds American Inc. said today that it plans to buy Niconovum AB — a company that specializes in products that help people quit smoking — for $44 million.

Reynolds is purchasing all outstanding shares of Niconovum, the companies said. They expect the deal to be completed by year’s end.

Reynolds’ interest in the Swedish company surfaced Nov. 9 from comments made by David Sweanor, a law professor at the University of Ottawa and a tobacco analyst. Sweanor’s estimate of the deal price was just $500,000 off.

Susan Ivey, the chairwoman, president and chief executive of Reynolds, said that Niconovum would operate as a separate company.

Analysts have said they were curious about how Reynolds would potentially use and market cigarette-replacement products in gum, pouch and spray form made by Niconovum.

“Niconovum’s products have great potential in meeting consumer demand and public health objectives,” Ivey said. “This acquisition extends the harm-reduction strategies Reynolds American and its operating companies have been developing over the past several years.”

Ivey said that by adding Niconovum, it would enable Reynolds to “provide adult tobacco consumers with innovative cessation products that have the potential to reduce the risks of diseases and death caused by tobacco use.”

Ivey said that Reynolds intends to provide Niconovum “with the investment capital it needs to focus on product development and the testing required to enter additional markets.”

Niconovum was formed in 2000 by Karl Olov Fagerstrom, who is considered a leading expert on smoking cessation and nicotine dependence. It is managed by many of the individuals who were pivotal in the development of Nicorette, a nicotine-replacement gum.

Reynolds said it plans to retain Niconovum’s management team and keep its headquarters in Helsingborg.

“We believe the technology used in our Zonnic products better meets consumer preferences than other nicotine replacement therapies currently on the market,” said Nils Siegbahn, the president and chief executive of Niconovum.

“With today’s announcement, Niconovum will have access to the capital it needs to expand distribution of Zonnic to additional markets, and accelerate product refinements and new product development.”

Stephen Pope, the chief global-market strategist with Cantor Fitzgerald Europe, said when talk of a deal first surfaced that it made sense as part of tobacco manufacturers’ increased reliance on smokeless products as cigarette demand declines.

Government figures show that fewer than 44 million Americans smoke, down from a peak of 53.5 million in 1983.

Ivey wants to make Reynolds into what she calls “a total tobacco company.” The biggest step that Reynolds has taken in that direction was buying Conwood, a smokeless-tobacco company, for $3.5 billion in April 2006.

Reynolds also has gone national with Camel Snus, a spitless tobacco product, and it has introduced orbs, sticks and filmlike strips for the tongue in test markets.

By Richard Craver
December 2, 2009

RONAN – Rick and Vicki Wheeler recently got their first letter from the Lake County Health Department saying someone had complained that people were still lighting up in their Ronan bar, The Club, despite a statewide smoking ban that took effect on Oct. 1.

Rick Wheeler says they demanded to know who had turned them in – the law entitles them to that, he said.

Then he lit a cigarette while tending bar.

Here on the Flathead Indian Reservation, the Montana Clean Indoor Air Act has run into some hazy skies.

Tribally owned bars and casinos are exempt from the state’s smoking ban. That means the Grey Wolf Peak Casino north of Evaro and the Kwa Taq Nuk Resort in Polson, owned by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, still offer both smoking and nonsmoking casino areas.

But here on the Flathead Reservation, some enrolled tribal members who own liquor licenses also allow smoking in their bars.

“The way I understand it, the state and health department won’t pursue it if we allow it, because they have nowhere to take it,” says Lori Peterson, an enrolled member of the tribes and owner of the Pheasant Lounge in Ronan.

Rick Wheeler’s bar sits a block away, on the other side of Ronan’s Main Street.

“Ninety percent of my customers smoke,” says Wheeler, who is not a tribal member. If he enforces the smoking ban, Wheeler says, virtually all of them will simply cross the street to a bar where they can light up inside, and the business he’s owned for 20 years will go belly-up.

“That’s not right,” he says. “This bar is my retirement – do they want to take that away from me, too? It’s racial discrimination.”

The majority of bars on the Flathead Reservation had either already gone smoke-free or did so on Oct. 1 when the ban on smoking in enclosed public places was extended to those that serve liquor.

Even Peterson pressed a “smoke-free establishment” sign on the window of her door and put away the ashtrays for a week, before learning it was up to her whether she would enforce it.

“We did lose customers” when the Pheasant initially went nonsmoking, Peterson says. “I have nowhere for smokers to go, except into the street or the alley. Most of the other bars have a deck or a beer garden where they can smoke outside.”

Her business hasn’t gone up from pre-Oct. 1 levels since the ashtrays returned to the bar and tables, but it did allow her to recoup the business she had lost.

“It just lets us keep our own customers,” Peterson says. “It’s not like Missoula, where if there was just one bar where you could smoke, it’s where all the smokers would be.”

That’s because Peterson isn’t the only tribal member on the reservation who owns a bar and allows smoking.

Neither is Wheeler the only nontribal member who owns a bar on the reservation but is not enforcing the smoking ban.

He’s just not afraid to admit it.

“The next thing they’ll go after is the obese thing,” Wheeler says. “If you’re 10 pounds overweight they won’t be allowed to serve you anything but water and vegetables in a restaurant. They’ll get it to where they won’t let you eat what you want. This country is turning into a dictatorship.”

Wheeler, 65, says he’s smoked since he was 15 years old. His wife smokes, two of his three bartenders smoke, and the third chews smokeless tobacco – also banned under the Clean Indoor Air Act.

Like Peterson, Wheeler says business isn’t up because he still allows smoking – it just hasn’t gone down. Of the 10 percent of his regulars Wheeler says don’t smoke, only one has quit coming into The Club.

Likewise, Peterson says her nonsmoking patrons have remained loyal since she removed the “smoke-free establishment” sign and replaced it with one that says “smoking allowed.”

“If people want to smoke, they should have that right,” Wheeler says. “It’s their choice. We have rights, too. There are plenty of places for nonsmokers to go.”

One of them is the Second Chance Saloon, which sits next door to the Pheasant Lounge and doesn’t allow smoking. The Second Chance has a deck and fire pit out back where customers who smoke can go outside and stay relatively warm in the winter months.

Owner Rod Smart, who has had the Second Chance for nearly 30 years, says the recession has hurt local bars more than the smoking ban. His friend and next-door competitor, Peterson, agrees.

“It isn’t gaming, it isn’t smoking, it’s the recession,” she says. “We lost Plum Creek, which was a big employer here. People don’t have the money for groceries, gas, lights and heat.”

Still, both Peterson and Wheeler say they know bar owners on the reservation who enforce the smoking ban, and who say their businesses are off as much as $1,000 since their smoking patrons were directed outside every time they want to light up.

“It never should have been passed,” Peterson says of the smoking ban in bars. “The state’s not paying our bills, what gives them the right to step in and tell people how to run their businesses? I think if people aren’t allowed to smoke, the state shouldn’t be allowed to sell cigarettes.”

Wheeler says he invested in high-dollar exhaust systems at The Club.

“You can have it full of smokers, and not see much smoke,” he says. “I do what I can to keep secondhand smoke out of here.”

That, Wheeler says, includes the use of high-efficiency particulate air, or HEPA, filters, and he changes the filters each week.

Diana Schwab of the Lake County Tobacco Prevention Program was out of town attending meetings Tuesday and Wednesday and could not be reached for comment. The director of the Lake County Health Department, Emily Colomeda, did not return a phone message Wednesday.

Likewise, Linda Lee, a supervisor with the Montana Tobacco Use Prevention Program, did not return messages left on her phone Tuesday and Wednesday.

But last week, in a Billings Gazette story about smoking being allowed in the Little Bighorn Casino on the Crow Indian Reservation, Lee told reporter Diane Cochran, “Reservations are sovereign governments. Unless they pass their own similar smoke-free laws, native-owned casinos on reservations have the choice whether to be smoke-free.”

Wheeler maintains he should have the same choice.

“Let them fine me, I’m not going to pay it,” he says. “They can appoint me an attorney and I’ll take them to court. Are they going to come in and fine my customers? Maybe they can fill the jail in Hardin up with smokers.

“This is a smoking establishment,” he continues. “Are they going to push me out of business because of that? I don’t know. Is that what they want? How many more taxpayers do they want to put on the street?”

Reporter Vince Devlin can be reached at (406) 319-2117 or at vdevlin@missoulian.com.
October 29, 2009

THE National Assembly adopted the Tobacco Products Control Bill with one amendment on Thursday, the last sitting day of the year.

The Bill will now go to the National Council, the House of Review. In a moment of rare agreement between the opposition and the benches of the ruling Swapo Party, Members agreed to a small, but important change of words in Clause 3, which originally stipulated that a member of the umbrella labour movement NUNW, should sit on one of the supervisory boards to be created once the bill is promulgated.

Tsudao Gurirab of the official opposition party CoD proposed that the words should be changed to “a member of organised labour” and thus would avoid the name of a specific labour union.

“For the first the Member talks sense and I agree,” said Deputy Health Minister Petrina Haingura. The House then adopted the amendment and the Tobacco Products Control Bill was passed.

Parliament went into recess about five weeks earlier than planned because MPs wanted to go and campaign for the upcoming elections.

The National Assembly will again convene on February 9 next year, which is also the Day of the Constitution in Namibia. It will then be 20 years since the Constituent Assembly had adopted the final draft of the country’s Constitution in 1990.

By Brigitte Weidlich, 12 October 2009, Allafrica

Ontario and Quebec — Canada’s two largest provinces — have announced that they are suing tobacco companies for a total of $80 billion.

The lawsuits are the latest in an effort by the Canadian government to reduce smoking and recover some of the health care costs associated with smoking.

Hide-And-Seek Cigarettes

Customers can buy cigarettes at Wally’s Smoke Shop in Toronto’s West End, but you wouldn’t know it when you walk through the door, because the cigarettes are behind the counter. A law passed last spring means store manager Susan Pak has to keep them hidden behind a bank of white metal doors.

“We don’t have to show the customer,” Pak says. “See, we’re hiding. Over here.”

The government’s idea is that if people don’t see cigarettes, they won’t be tempted to buy them. According to Pak, that policy has helped her sales drop by as much as 10 percent.

The out-of-sight, out-of-mind policy is just one of the things that make Ontario a tough place to buy and sell cigarettes. Over the past few years, the province has put strict limits on advertising, legislated graphic warning labels on cigarette packages and outlawed smoking everywhere except on the street or at home.

Last week, Ontario Attorney General Chris Bentley announced that the government is suing tobacco makers for $50 billion. He pointed to several issues that are in question, including, “What did the tobacco companies know? When did they know it? And what did they tell the people of Ontario about the addictiveness and related effects of tobacco use?”

The Ontario lawsuit draws heavily on secret tobacco company documents released in 1998, when the U.S. government won a $200 billion settlement to recover health care costs. Ontario officials claim that tobacco companies have known since at least 1950 that smoking is addictive and causes disease, and that those facts were deliberately kept secret.

Hypocritical?

Bentley says the province needs the money to pay for smoking-related health costs, which he estimates at $1.6 billion a year. Anti-tobacco campaigners hope the lawsuit will yield even bigger results.

“It will show the industry not to be in the bounds of normal business behavior,” says Michael Perley, director of the Ontario Campaign for Action on Tobacco. “There’s no other industry that produces products that have no safe level of use at all, that kill half their long-term users, all with the manufacturer’s full knowledge. So the revelation of that information then creates a huge climate for further regulation of the industry.”

Canadian tobacco manufacturers have not answered the allegations in the lawsuit, but say the government is being hypocritical. Eric Gagnon, a spokesperson for Imperial Tobacco, said Ontario already collects around a billion dollars every year by taxing cigarettes.

“This is sheer hypocrisy by the government,” Gagnon says. “They’re the ones who are licensing the industry, legislating the industry and collecting billions of dollars of taxes. So for them to turn around and with one hand legislate the industry and collect all the taxes, and on the other hand just to turn around and sue the industry is sheer hypocrisy.”

Some smokers say they think Gagnon has a point.

Carol Bragagnolo huddles in the rain outside her office in downtown Toronto, taking a furtive mid-day smoke break.

“I just ran the treadmill this morning,” she says. “If my trainer knew I was doing this.”

Bragagnolo says she started smoking at 19 and doesn’t think the tobacco companies are to blame.

“I think that smoking starts with the individual,” she explains. “My father smoked inside the house, and so I’ve been growing up with secondhand smoke every day of my life, and I know I’m doing it to myself.”

British Columbia and New Brunswick are also planning to sue, and all but one of Canada’s 10 provinces has passed legislation that would allow them to join in the lawsuit. With the tobacco companies gearing up to fight, it will likely be years before the cases are resolved.

© by Anita Elash Npr