WOOD DALE, Ill.—Scores of tobacco retailers in the U.S. are taking advantage of a federal tax loophole to offer deep discounts on roll-your-own cigarettes. But the practice is attracting scrutiny from regulators and cigarette manufacturers. At Smoke Zone, a store in this Chicago suburb, customers one recent afternoon flocked to two high-speed rolling machines that produce a carton of cigarettes in eight minutes. The price: $21—less than half the cost of a carton of Marlboro cigarettes.

“People have waited an hour for these some days,” said Taren DeNicolo, the store’s manager.

About 150 tobacco outlets in some 20 states are deploying the novel roll-your-own machines to tempt recession-weary smokers, according to an estimate by one maker of the devices. But some regulators say the stores may be violating U.S. and state laws that govern cigarette manufacturing.

“These machines raise a number of questions,” said David Rienzo, an assistant attorney general in New Hampshire, which has sued several retailers alleging they are acting as cigarette manufacturers and should pay applicable fees.

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David Kesmodel/The Wall Street Journal
Zone in Wood Dale, Ill. The machine produces a carton in about eight minutes priced at less than half that of some commercial brands.

Here’s where the tax loophole comes into play: At Smoke Zone and other retailers, The Wall Street Journal found, store employees or customers insert into the machines tobacco labeled “pipe tobacco.” This substantially reduces the stores’ and smokers’ costs because the federal excise tax on pipe tobacco is $2.83 a pound—compared with $24.78 a pound for the rolling tobacco traditionally used to make hand-rolled cigarettes.

Congress in 2009 sharply raised the federal excise tax on rolling tobacco to help finance the expansion of a children’s health-insurance program backed by President Barack Obama.

New Hampshire’s Mr. Rienzo said that after the tax increase took effect, “numerous manufacturers that sold roll-your-own [tobacco] said, ‘Why not just put a pipe-tobacco label on it, and you won’t have to pay the increased federal excise tax?’”

Other companies created new brands they call pipe tobacco but essentially contain the same tobacco as in their roll-your-own products, said Kevin Altman, an independent tobacco-industry consultant in Richmond, Va.

Shargio Patel, president of Inter-Continental Trading USA Inc. in Mount Prospect, Ill., confirmed his company began offering pipe tobacco under its OHM brand that is similar to its rolling tobacco due to the tax increase. “We’re just following what other companies are doing,” he said.

Some cigarette makers decry the loophole that has created new low-priced competition. “We are complying with the law, but some companies are not doing so in order to gain an unfair advantage,” said Ron Bernstein, chief executive of Liggett Vector Brands Inc., a unit of Vector Group Ltd. that is the fifth-largest U.S. cigarette maker by sales.

In the 14 months since the tax increase, the volume of pipe tobacco sold in the U.S. more than tripled to about 21 million pounds, according to data from the U.S. Treasury’s Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau. Rolling-tobacco sales volumes, in contrast, fell about 60%.

The tax loophole cost the U.S. government more than $345 million in the first 15 months since the tax increase, estimated Daniel Morris, who tracks tobacco production data for the Oregon Public Health Division.

Under U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulations, cigarette makers must place health-warning labels on packaging and can’t use terms such as “light” in describing cigarettes—a term being used by some retailers selling the roll-your-own cartons, the Journal found. The FDA “is gathering more information about practices related to these machines to determine the appropriate regulatory response,” an agency spokeswoman said.

Meanwhile, the Treasury’s tobacco-tax bureau is soliciting industry input to help write new rules to clearly differentiate pipe tobacco from rolling tobacco. The process could take months, said an agency spokesman.

Some loose-tobacco makers and retailers say they are doing nothing wrong and that Congress created the problem by raising the excise tax on rolling tobacco—typically used by smokers with lower incomes—by more than 2,000%. “I don’t think the founding fathers of this country meant for taxes that could put companies out of business,” said Jeff Martin, general manager of Rouseco Inc., a pipe and rolling tobacco maker in Kinston, N.C.

Phil Accordino, co-owner of RYO Machine Rental LLC of Girard, Ohio, says his company has sold or leased about 200 of the rolling machines. He said his company, which is about two years old, simply has improved on gadgets some consumers use to roll their own cigarettes.

Jerry Kunz, 39 years old, left a store in Addison, Ill., recently with five cartons of cigarettes made by the machines. “They’re not as good as Marlboro,” he said, but “it’s saving you money.”

This phrase from the popular Phil Harris song back in the 50’s and 60’s lamented cigarettes and the health problem they caused. The second line to that song is “Puff, puff, puff and if you puff yourself to death, tell St. Peter at the Golden Gate that you just hated to make him wait!”

Smoking continues to be a health threat today and also translates into a significant litter and environmental problem for not only Iowa, but the nation.

Iowans have a strong sense of pride in their State. They get highly irritated when they pull up behind a vehicle and see the driver or a passenger throw a cigarette butt out the window. The same is true when running the gauntlet of smokers outside a business building and having to look at the hundreds of cigarette butts on the ground (even with smoking receptacles nearby).

There are an estimated 400,000 smokers in Iowa, according to the Iowa Department of Public Health. Assuming an average of one pack smoked a day, smokers produce an estimated:

*7,300 cigarette butts per year per smoker.

*31,390,000 butts (the majority of those are with a filter) per year, with each weighing 0.10 of an ounce or 2.0 ounces per pack.

*2,341,750 pounds (approximately 142 tons) of cigarette butts per year.

*That represents 7,847,500 or 35.5 tons of cigarette butts that end up on our landscape (assuming a figure of 25% of the cigarette butts), negatively impacting our natural and cultural environment each year. Remember that a filter can last from three to seven years so the cumulative effect can be even more significant.

Impacts on society are equally important and include:

*An unsightly cultural blemish on the landscape.

*Debris and chemical pollution in our State’s waters.

*Fires resulting from those thrown cigarette butts that cause thousands of dollars of expense.

*A habit that encourages forms of civil disobedience such as littering.

For those of you who are still smoking, please be considerate of others and our environment – smoke in designated places and dispose of your cigarette and tobacco litter properly.

Let’s keep Iowa “Clean, Green and Tobacco Free,” as well as beautiful.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a government agency, has listed cigarettes in movies as a key factor in teen smoking. The Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences has said that studies show a clear link showing that kids who watch movies with smoking are more likely to smoke.

So, it is a small step forward that the CDCP announced last Thursday that scenes of smoking in high-grossing films fell to 1,935 incidents last year, down 49% from the recent peak of 3,967 in 2005.
This may in part be the result of a change in 2007 that includes smoking incidence in MPAA ratings, following four years of requests from state attorneys general and other groups. The MPAA has refused, however, to make smoking an automatic R-rating, even with an exclusion for historical accuracy in films like “Good Night and Good Luck.” “On April 22, 2009, the MPAA interrupted North Carolina Senate debate on landmark smokefree workplace legislation to demand a loophole for smoking in film productions. ‘The motion picture industry worries the bill would prevent actors from smoking on screen,’ reported the Associated Press,” according to Smoke Free Movies. They were successful in getting an exemption written into the law.
A significant factor in reduced smoking onscreen may also be pressure from websites that specifically review smoking in movies. Smoke Free Movies, a project of Stanton A. Glantz, PhD, professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, has a directory of actors with more than three smoking roles. Scene Smoking from Breathe California of Sacramento-Emigrant Trails, shows how smoking is shown in films, classifying it by whether it is the lead actor, a credited non-star, or an extra, whether the brand is shown, and whether the smoker is a good guy or a bad guy.

From blog.beliefnet.com, August 23, 2010

Bono has admitted that while out of action thanks to a bad back, he turned to an old friend for comfort – the cigarette. The U2 frontman, who has smoked on and off over the years, underwent emergency surgery for a back injury in May, and was forced to put his feet up for two months.

The band had to cancel US gigs and an appearance at Glastonbury because of his injury and Bono – real name Paul Hewson – whiled the hours away with a spot of songwriting and smoking.
“One of the things you can do when you’re lying down like that is to write, so I wrote,” the 50-year-old told the News of the World.
“Lying motionless I also had time to think about the future, because I never think about the past.
‘The other thing I did was to eat ice cream and I also started smoking again.’

Several important changes took place in late June that impact the way tobacco is sold and marketed, thanks to the Tobacco Control Act, which granted the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate tobacco to protect public health and reduce its use by youths. This was followed by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that tobacco companies conspired to deceive the public and addict children, and by enactment last week of the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act, which places strict requirements on Internet and mail-order cigarette sellers.
These developments will help prevent youths from starting a deadly habit and ease tobacco’s toll on human lives and health care costs. But the fight is far from over. It’s imperative that we keep tobacco prevention at the forefront in Oregon.

First, let’s look at the good news. The Tobacco Control Act gives young people increased protection from deceptive tobacco advertising. This is particularly important now: Despite declines in youth tobacco use, an estimated 39,000 Oregonian youths smoke, and 20 kids start every day. According to the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, at this rate 74,000 of Oregon’s kids will one day die prematurely from smoking.

The act is to be phased in over an extended period, with several key provisions recently taking effect.

For example, smokeless tobacco ads and products will carry stronger warning labels. This is particularly meaningful for Oregonians, who have been subjected to a barrage of ads for smokeless products that have been test-marketed here over the past few years, including dissolvable tobacco candy.

Thanks to this federal law and recent actions of the Oregon Legislature, many practices that hook new smokers now are prohibited, including labeling tobacco products “light,” “low” or “mild”; sale of tobacco through vending machines accessible by youths; sale of packs of fewer than 20 cigarettes; keeping tobacco products anywhere but behind retail counters or in locked cases; free samples; free products such as T-shirts; and sponsorships of athletic or cultural events.

In Oregon, most smokers start before age 18; almost no one starts after age 21. The tobacco industry has hooked young smokers for years by adding sweet flavors and the word “mild,” by selling single (more affordable) cigarettes, and by using advertising that implies that everyone smokes. The FDA Act creates a significant barrier to these deceptive practices.

Now for the fight ahead. Seventeen percent of Oregonians smoke. Four out of five smokers want to quit but struggle to break the addiction. Tobacco accounts for 22 percent of all Oregon deaths and costs our state more than $2.2 billion every year.

It is imperative that we continue to fund tobacco prevention programs that help smokers quit, prevent young people from starting, and protect us all from secondhand smoke.

Oregon’s tobacco prevention budget is just $7.1 million this year. This pales in comparison to the tobacco industry’s $137 million annual marketing budget in Oregon. For every $1 we can spend to protect Oregonians from tobacco, the tobacco industry spends $20 to get our residents hooked.

Raising the price of tobacco is a key motivator to help people quit and prevent young people from starting. For every 10 percent rise in the price of cigarettes, youth cigarette use drops by 6 percent. It’s time for Oregon to reconsider raising taxes on tobacco products.

I applaud and support the work of Oregon’s congressional delegation and that of our state Legislature, which has passed important policies like our Smokefree Workplace Law, and I encourage all Oregonians to do the same. Together, we can create a smoke-free culture in Oregon and look toward the day when tobacco no longer claims Oregonians’ lives and pocketbooks.

From oregonlive.com, By Mel Kohn

News that the United States has failed to achieve its goal of reducing high school smoking surprises me as there was such confidence a few years ago that we could convince kids of the dangers of tobacco through education efforts.It’s serious business as a third of smokers who begin in high school will die of a tobacco-related causes. I am dismayed to see teenage girls turn to smoking for weight control.

“People are getting the image that it’s cool to use nicotine as a drug,” Terry F. Pechacek of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in an interview. “We need to bring back our voice, our anti-smoking mass media campaign.”

The popularity of hookah bars and smokeless nicotine products, Mr. Pechacek said, are the modern equivalent of the banned Joe Camel cartoon in their appeal to youths. And some experts worry that the new health campaign against obesity — spearheaded by Michelle Obama from the White House — may be hampering donations to antitobacco campaigns as public health issues shift in emphasis and compete for funds.

Over all, the antismoking countermessage has been lost,” Mr. Pechacek said as the C.D.C. released its biannual survey of more than 10,000 high school students, showing 19.5 percent of them are smokers.

High school smoking rates dipped significantly to 21.9 percent in 2003, from 34.8 percent in 1995, then progress stalled, he said.

One-third of high school smokers are expected to die prematurely of tobacco-related disease, said Mr. Pechacek, the associate director for science in the agency’s Office on Smoking and Health. With about four million students graduating from high school each year, the difference between the current rate and the “Healthy People 2010” goal set by the government 10 years ago amounts to an additional 140,000 student smokers and 46,000 premature deaths for each high school class nationally.

For those of you who work with teens or whose own teens smoke, any ideas on how to combat this? I always think it is sad to visit high schools and see groups of teens huddled after school a block or two from the school lighting up, as if they were waiting all day for that puff.

From blogs.ajc.com, by Maureen Downey.

In the most bizarre celebrity news story we’ve heard in months, former Party of Five star Jeremy London was kidnapped and held hostage for five hours last Thursday, reports Radar Online. On June 10, the 37-year-old actor was changing a flat tire on his car in Palm Springs when two men stopped, ostensibly to help him. But once the task was finished, the two men forced London back into his car and drove him around for several hours, holding him at gunpoint.

“He told officers that he was forced to smoke dope (i.e. crack cocaine or amphetamines) and then purchase booze and hand it out in a gang area of Palm Springs,” said Sgt. Douglas of the Palm Springs Police Department.

(Does Palm Springs have a “gang area?” We thought it was all old people and spa resorts.)

Luckily for London, he managed to escape his captors around 3 a.m. the following morning.

“Jeremy said it was a terrorizing experience,” a source close to London said. “He spent hours thinking he was going to die and he did what he had to do not to end up shot or dead.”

The worst part of this? A police officer actually witnessed the two men with London while he was changing his tire and he didn’t realize anything bad was going down.

“By chance, an officer saw the man and two subjects and thought, ‘That’s nice of them, to stop and help someone change their tire,’” said Sgt. Douglas. “That helped one of our officers to be able to identify the suspects later on.”

We think London might have appreciated it more if the police officer had, you know, detected the crime to begin with, but maybe that’s just us.

Even without this kidnapping incident, poor London has been going through a bit of a rough patch. In September 2009, the 7th Heaven star went to rehab to battle an addiction to prescription pills (which makes his forced drug intake during the kidnapping all the more disturbing), and he’s currently going through a divorce from actress Melissa Cunningham, whom he married in 2006.

On the bright side, two men have already been charged after London’s car was found outside the home of one of the alleged kidnappers.

The nation has failed to reach its 2010 health goal of reducing high school smoking to 16 percent, federal officials said Thursday in a report calling for a resurgence of antismoking advertising to counter the tobacco industry’s $12 billion marketing campaign. “People are getting the image that it’s cool to use nicotine as a drug,” Terry F. Pechacek of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in an interview. “We need to bring back our voice, our antismoking mass media campaign.”

The popularity of hookah bars and smokeless nicotine products, Mr. Pechacek said, are the modern equivalent of the banned Joe Camel cartoon in their appeal to youths. And some experts worry that the new health campaign against obesity — spearheaded by Michelle Obama from the White House — may be hampering donations to antitobacco campaigns as public health issues shift in emphasis and compete for funds.

“Over all, the antismoking countermessage has been lost,” Mr. Pechacek said as the C.D.C. released its biannual survey of more than 10,000 high school students, showing 19.5 percent of them are smokers.

High school smoking rates dipped significantly to 21.9 percent in 2003, from 34.8 percent in 1995, then progress stalled, he said.

One-third of high school smokers are expected to die prematurely of tobacco-related disease, said Mr. Pechacek, the associate director for science in the agency’s Office on Smoking and Health. With about four million students graduating from high school each year, the difference between the current rate and the “Healthy People 2010” goal set by the government 10 years ago amounts to an additional 140,000 student smokers and 46,000 premature deaths for each high school class nationally.

Separately, a New England Journal of Medicine commentary on Wednesday was titled “Don’t Forget Tobacco.”

“By assuming that the tobacco war has been won, we risk consigning millions of Americans to premature death,” Dr. Steven A. Schroeder, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and Kenneth E. Warner, dean of the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan, wrote in the article.

“At a time when all eyes are focused on health care reform, escalating medical costs and childhood obesity, cigarette smoking remains by far the most common cause of preventable death and disability in the United States,” they added. “The prevalence of smoking in the United States hovers at 20 percent, more than eight million people are sick or disabled as a result of tobacco use, and smoking kills 450,000 Americans annually.”

Because of a lagging antismoking campaign, they said the total smoking rate in the nation was expected to decline only to 16 percent by 2020, and to stabilize at 13.5 percent after midcentury unless more was done to stop it.

Mr. Warner said financing for antismoking promotions had been lost from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which has turned more toward childhood obesity, and the American Legacy Foundation, an antitobacco group created in the 1998 master settlement agreement between states and the tobacco industry.

Some public health experts say they are concerned that obesity campaigns have attracted more money and attention recently than programs against tobacco. And Mrs. Obama’s national campaign against childhood obesity is occurring at a time when President Obama has said he has found it difficult to quit smoking.

“I find it ironic, but I think it also points out the challenge, the addiction that smokers are faced with,” Mr. Warner said. “Those are the two pre-eminent public health issues of the day. What I regret is when we start posing obesity versus tobacco, rather than saying those issues are so important to public health, both of them, that they need to be elevated above the fray.”

Best help is definitely the health aspect. We wished we could actually easy to quit smoking from the minute every one of us smokers realized that we were addicted to cigarettes. But the uncomplicated reality is that we LOVE to smoke. Except for the truth that it is slowly killing us, it is a set part in our daily routine and we are comfortable with it,

By smoking cigarette, we can get our normal nicotine intake, in the same way we are exhausted to! But, we can now smoke and not feel guilty about damaging our respiration and putting ourselves and our loved ones at possibility of lung cancer. The Electronic Cigarette is free of tar and all of the disastrous chemicals and carcinogens in expected tobacco cigarettes. It is a fully healthy way to get your nicotine intake. We also no longer have to worry about staining our teeth or smelling want an ashtray or staining our clothes or cigarette burns in furniture or clothes or car or smoking in bed and burning the residence down, with the electronic cigarette ! It is amazing all of the benefits of the new smokeless cigarette. By having an easy stop smoking real cigarettes, you could feel in the end of the day you had not harmed any of your friends or relatives.

So here is the new smokeless Easy 1,2,3 which is that is an alternative product without quitting smoking but actually it easily stops you smoking of damaging your health. New Easy 1,2,3 are the best product to be introduced to smokers as of rolling your own tobacco! I am incredibly delighted to say to all smokers of this impressive new product. If you are attempting to easy stop smoking, quit smoking or are having a hard time affording them or just feel want you can’t go anywhere to smoke these days.

Studies pointed out that the users were “highly motivated and passionate e-cigarette users who may have different experiences than average e-cigarette users or smokers.”

However, it also suggested that “very few e-cigarette users are not using them to replace cigarettes and there are many switchers and current who could have the reported experience.”

New study suggests both that electronic cigarettes can both help smokers replace cigarettes, and improve health in the short term as easy as to stop smoking.

Although the FDA is really trying to crack down on the distribution of these items, a recent study conducted by them concluded that there were only a few trace elements of carcinogens in a few brands. Compare that to the hundreds of larger amounts of deadly chemicals found in every single major brand of tobacco cigarettes. The FDA isn’t concluding that they are a safer alternative to traditional tobacco cigarettes, but leaving that up to the consumer.

Aside from the possible health benefits, electronic cigarettes can also save users hundreds of dollars per year. E-cigarettes cost about 75 percent less to operate because the equivalent amount of puffs from a regular cigarette would cost a lot more. There are many other reasons why smokeless cigarettes are catching on in the smoking community too. Consumers are able to get their nicotine fix in places where tobacco cigarettes are prohibited. People have been routinely using these smokeless cigarettes in places like bars, nightclubs, and even airplanes.

Electronic cigarettes are available all over the place these days. Malls, gas stations, and most commonly the internet are the most common places to find them. Some companies are even giving away free trial offers of their products. If you have never heard of an electronic cigarette than in the near future, they are likely to be everywhere you look.

Easy as quitting smoking with Easy 1,2,3. Try it now since it is not too late! Grab your phone now and dial 1-877-288-4847 to place the order. Great deals coming your way! You can use this voucher code OW10 for your 10% discount and let me remind you that FREE SHIPPING is also available. And one thing more on top of this you will get this amazing EBOOKS and AUDIOS absolutely free for all orders.

From officialwire.com, July 7, 2010

Smoke ‘em if you’ve got ‘em Gators, because in a couple of days, tobacco on campus will be a thing of the past. Starting Thursday, UF will enforce a new smoke-free campus policy, designed to encourage healthy lifestyle choices among students, staff and visitors. UF is the first public university in the state to adopt such a policy, although there are at least 394 campuses nationwide that adhere to such strict standards, according to the American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation. The policy prohibits the use of any tobacco products, even smokeless products like snuff or electronic cigarettes.

The ban applies to all UF-owned facilities, including those outside of Alachua County. Tobacco users will also be prohibited from using products in their cars on any campus parking lot or road. It also applies to university-recognized locations on the UF campus, such as fraternity and sorority houses.
The policy is part of the Healthy Gators 2010 Initiative, which is dedicated to promoting a healthy campus environment, according to UF spokesman Steve Orlando.
If caught using tobacco, violators will be reminded of the policy and asked to comply. Students who refuse will be dealt with by the Dean of Students Office, while staff members will answer to their immediate supervisors.
Repeat violators will face harsher consequences, although Orlando said punishment isn’t the emphasis.
“There won’t be a direct penalty for violating,” he said, “but again, the goal is not to create a situation where we’re going to penalize people . . . but to encourage people to be healthier.”
Tobacco users may find the policy too strict, but it’s like older policies that prohibit people from smoking indoors, Orlando said.
“It’s going to be a cultural change over time,” he said. “It seems strange and outrageous to some people right now, but in a few years it will seem strange to have ever smoked on campus at all.”
D.J. Halford, 22, is an employee of Shands at UF and has been smoking cigarettes for years. He said changing his habits at work will be difficult and kind of annoying, but he accepts the university’s oversight.
“It’s like a restaurant,” he said. “I think they’re allowed to say what can and can’t be done on their property. It’ll definitely help me cut back, although I haven’t quit yet and I don’t really want to.”
The first phase of UF’s tobacco ban began Nov. 1 at UF’s Health Science Center and all Shands at UF facilities. Ben Hill Griffin Stadium went smoke-free Sept. 5 by eliminating its smoking areas.

From alligator.org, By KATHERINE BEIN, June 29, 2010

June 22 marks the first time in American history that terms like light, ultra-light, low, mild and medium can no longer legally be used in the marketing and sale of cigarettes. The United States will be the 71st country (we’re behind, of course) to outlaw the labeling of cigarettes as “light” — an underhanded ploy promoting the idea that certain cigarettes have lower tar and nicotine content than others. Given that “light” smokes account for about half the cigarette market, the antismoking legislation, passed last year, stands to throw a wrench in tobacco companies’ deceptive marketing practices. But the tobacco industry is revving up to try to deceive smokers and potential smokers in different ways that may circumvent the new law.

Already major light brands are being repackaged with colors associated with, well, lightness. Camel Lights will be Camel Blues. Marlboro Lights and Ultra-Lights will, respectively, be Marlboro Gold and Silver. Pall Malls previously trumpeted as filtered, lights and lights menthol will now come in a rainbow of colors intended to convey tobacco “intensity” — red, blue and orange.

The brains behind the $13-billion-a-year cigarette marketing industry know that colors and packaging make a difference. Research has shown that 79 percent of people think that cigarettes packaged in a light blue box contain less tar and are safer than those in a darker hued package. And certain colors — like blue — are perceived to be less strong than, say, red.

In other countries where the practice of labeling cigarettes “lights” has been banned for a while, marketers have turned to using letters and numbers that similarly skew consumers’ perception of the health drawbacks to smoking cigarettes, and ultimately deliver the “same messaging as light or low,” says Gregg Haifley of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network.

Big Tobacco goes to all this trouble, of course, because it pays off. The whole concept of light cigarettes was born of the Surgeon General’s 1964 report that directly linked cigarettes and smoking to cancer and other diseases. Fearing a drop-off in smokers, the industry spun the story that you should pick light or mild cigarettes as an alternative to quitting. (Around that time, a cigarette brand called True featured a female tennis player saying: “Considering all I’d heard, I decided to either quit or smoke True.” The athlete, naturally, picked True.)

Although contemporary cigarette companies officially claim only that “light really refers to flavor,” they’ve been more than happy to let consumers reach their own conclusions.

From alternet.org, June 22, 2010

New regulations giving the Food and Drug Administration more control over the tobacco industry go into effect today. Cigarette makers are no longer allowed to use terms like “light,” “low” or “mild” when advertising cigarettes and smokeless products. Proponents of the law say labels such as “low-tar” give the false impression that some cigarettes are less harmful than others. Illinois U.S. Senator Dick Durbin says the law will save lives and protect kids.

DURBIN: The tobacco companies — still very profitable, with billions of dollars to spend — are setting out to find a new class of customers, a new class of addicts. And they’re going after our kids.

Sales of cigarettes to minors under 18 are now a federal violation. Tobacco companies won’t be allowed to sponsor athletic or cultural events. And they can no longer offer free samples or sell cigarettes in packages of less than 20.

From wbez.org, by Travis Truitt, June 22, 2010