Ruyan Group Holdings Ltd, the inventor of electronic cigarettes, hailed a US regulatory agency’s warning against other brands of e-cigarettes as good news in its fight against copycats.

Scott Fraser, vice president of Ruyan Group, said the announcement by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will help Ruyan protect its intellectual property rights to its e-cigarette brand.

The FDA on July 22 reported that a laboratory test of e-cigarette samples of other brands found that they contained carcinogens and toxic chemicals such as diethylene glycol, an ingredient used in antifreeze.

The two American brands tested by FDA are Njoy and Smoking Everywhere. The former has been named in an IPR lawsuit initiated by Ruyn Group.

Invented in 2003 by Hon Lik, Ruyan’s chief engineer, e-cigarettes are battery-operated devices that generally contain cartridges filled with nicotine, flavorings and other chemicals.

The electronic cigarette turns nicotine, which is highly addictive, and other chemicals into a vapor that is inhaled by the user.

Fraser said he was not surprised at the FDA’s findings, and that he encouraged the FDA to test his company’s e-cigarettes.

Praise for FDA

“The FDA is doing its job. They are concerned about consumer safety, and we support that,” Fraser said.

“As the inventor, we also consider the safety of customers the top issue, and we are always testing our product,” he said. “We understand the test results (of the other brands). The two copycats infringed on intellectual property. It is not surprising.”

Ruyan considers its progress in North America a major achievement in 2008.

After months of intensive efforts by Ruyan America Inc, its US-based agent and distributor, the company established marketing and distribution channels to facilitate the North American launch of its product this year.

As the only legal company producing e-cigarettes in China, Ruyan has been fighting copycats since 2003.

Ruyan Group Executive Director Miu Nam said safety concerns are directly linked to copycats.

“The copycats pay less attention to the health of people and seldom conduct effective tests. Therefore, the quality of their products cannot be guaranteed,” Miu said.

The company has filed eight lawsuits against copycat factories operating mostly in Zhejiang and Guangdong provinces. Many of the companies also sell counterfeit MP3s and cell phones, Ruyan has alleged.

© Chinadaily

Giant kilns once used to dry out tobacco leaves are the new winemaking tools of choice at a Niagara-on-the-Lake winery.

In an upcoming research experiment, Reif Estate Winery will try using these two humidity and temperature-controlled sheds to make unique wines and expand their product lineup.

Winery officials plan to take these used tools from the dying tobacco industry in Essex County and give it them new life in Niagara’s wine business.

“The idea was let’s try and see if we can get some of these kilns and transfer that technology and all that research that they did to see if we can convert it to grapes,” Reif winemaker Roberto DiDomenico said.

On Tuesday, the Niagara Parkway winery’s research projects got a boost when it received $196,000 from the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program.

The money will be used to help support staffing and consulting costs needed to complete three Reif projects:

* The first kiln will be used to dry out grapes to produce a style of richer wine with more sugar concentration, called passito or Amarone-style wine.

Other producers in Niagara are already successfully making wines of this style — to positive reviews — by naturally drying out grapes in racks, which can take up to six weeks.

Reif hopes to reduce the drying time to two weeks, allowing the winery to produce three batches of passito each vintage.

* The second kiln will blast humidity to taint grapes on purpose with a fungus called botrytis cinera, which in the right conditions can produce beautifully sweet wine.

Most botrytis-affected wines on the market are accidents of nature, not intentionally produced.

* In another project, the winery plans to use a new cross-flow filtration system to improve the quality and speed of its icewine production.

Klaus Reif, the winery’s president and chief executive officer, said the winery could not afford to do the research without the help of the federal government-run research council.

Reif has spent more than $108,000 to buy equipment, including the filtration system and two 12-metre by three-metre kilns.

The projects are a necessary part of the evolution of the Ontario wine industry and the results can be shared with other wineries, Reif said.

“Here in Ontario, we can’t mass produce wines,” Reif said.

“People can buy cheaper wines from anywhere in the world. What we have to do here in Ontario is to be very specialized and to produce wines that are unique and appeal to a niche market.”

To his knowledge, no other winery is using old tobacco kilns in winemaking.

Winery staff will spend time experimenting with the kilns this fall to try to find the best way of drying out grapes and creating the desirable fungus.

Wines made with the new techniques will likely not be available to consumers until 2011.

Niagara Falls MP Rob Nicholson said the grape and wine industry is important to the region and needs to be supported through research dollars.

“We know we can’t stand still,” said Nicholson, minister of justice and the attorney general, who made the funding announcement Tuesday at the winery.

“We have to continue to develop this industry and innovate, and this is a part of that process.”

The National Research Council of Canada Research Assistance Program provides technical and business advice services to small-and medium-sized businesses.

Since 1989, Reif and the research council have collaborated on 14 projects.

It is the summer of our discontent. Two separate announcements – a left hook followed by a right uppercut – have walloped Tampa’s once vaunted cigar industry.

Congress has imposed steep sin taxes on tobacco products, and in June, Hav-A-Tampa announced it was shutting down its last factory. Only the J.C. Newman Cigar Co. remains in what was once the cigar-making capital of America.

“The cigar industry is to this city what the iron industry is to Pittsburgh,” boasted the Tampa Morning Tribune in 1897. Tampa’s prosperity rested upon “the smokeless city of smokes,” as highly skilled artisans rolled millions of cigars each year. In street corner shops across urban America, boxes of Tampa Beauties, Tampa Times and Tampa Nuggets became a fixture.

Man versus the machine

The demand for premium Tampa cigars seemed inexhaustible between the 1880s and late 1920s. America’s middle classes expanded exponentially during this era, and a middle-class banker or lawyer signified his status with a Tampa-made cigar. In 1909, the Tampa Tribune sneered that not even a new federal tax on cigars could slow down the demand for panatelas and coronas.

“What this country needs is a really good five-cent cigar!” Woodrow Wilson’s forgettable vice president, Thomas R. Marshall, proclaimed. The Indiana politician was complaining that tabaqueros in Tampa were producing more expensive and more popular hand-rolled cigars than machine-made cigars in Philadelphia or Fort Wayne.

Politicians, physicians and rivals all took aim at Tampa cigars. During World War I, a “smokes for soldiers” campaign sent Bull Durhams to doughboys, resulting in dramatic gains for American cigarette companies. At the same time, newspapers began to report that Cuban immigrants used spit to seal the tips of cigars.

After the war, the Great Depression devastated Tampa’s cigar industry. Many cash-strapped consumers surrendered their beloved cigars for cheaper – and more addictive – cigarettes. The industry never recovered.

In 1931, local manufacturers blamed their economic woes on the exalted lectores, men who read popular novels to crowds of workers. A bitter strike ensued, resulting in the removal of the beloved readers. Lectores may have been lightning rods, but their absence failed to restore sales. Poetically, the radio began replacing the reader precisely at the time that machines began to replace the skilled cigar roller.

The cigar industry received a temporary boost during World War II, but the federal and state governments imposed taxes to raise money.

International intrigue

Peace and prosperity did not restore Tampa’s reputation. Ybor City, home to increasing numbers of elderly and unskilled workers, went into a period of steep decline. A 1947 Tribune headline, “3000 Jobless Cigar Workers,” typified the era.

Between the late 1940s and 1960s, when the U.S. surgeon general linked smoking to cancer, scores of Tampa cigar factories shut down or moved to Pennsylvania. What politics and consumption failed to dislodge, interstate highways and urban renewal completed, destroying scores of historic brick and wooden factories.

The cedar cigar box with its “Made in Tampa” products was becoming as obsolete as a cigar store Indian.

One story perfectly encapsulates the plight of the local cigar manufacturer. In 1962, President John F. Kennedy summoned his press secretary, Pierre Salinger.

“Pierre, I need some help. I need a lot of cigars,” the president said.

“How many, Mr. President?” Salinger asked.

“About a thousand Petit Upmanns.” And he needed them by the next morning.

The next day, an exhausted Salinger presented the beaming president with boxes of the prized Cuban-made cigars. Promptly, the president reached into his desk and signed the Cuban Embargo, making it illegal to purchase such cigars.

Even worse, the embargo cut off the supply of Cuban tobacco essential for Tampa’s cigar industry. Salinger later said, “We tried to exempt cigars, but the cigar manufacturers in Tampa objected.”

Tampa’s cigar industry still employed 6,000 people as late as 1962. Old Tampa cigar families such as the Fuentes scrambled to find a suitable substitute for Cuban tobacco, smuggling Cuban tobacco seeds into the Dominican Republic or Honduras.

When this author interviewed an elderly woman leaving the soon-to-be closed Perfect-Garcia factory in 1982, she remarked, “We’re the last of the Mohicans!”


© Tbo

Tobacco smoking is the operation where tobacco is burned and the vapors either tasted or inhaled. The practice began as early as 5000–3000 BC. Many civilizations burnt incense during religious rituals, which was later adopted for pleasure or as a social tool.

However smoking is the most common method of consuming tobacco, and tobacco is the most common substance smoked. Tobacco is considered to be an old fashioned or obsolete substance. But today is not generally fashionable to smoke.

The significance of smoking was known for decades, in health destruction, but with recent events, the federal government has given strong support to the belief of the damaging consequences through legislation.

But few years ago such a law was impossible, primarily due to the influence of the lobbying influence of the tobacco industry.

Decades ago smoking was not only fashionable, but it often was considered a right of movement. For example in the past it was considered helpful in weight control or in opening up the airways. Long since however time has proven it’s absolutely harmful properties. In the meanwhile many adult smokers are fraud with a habit difficult to break.

Some of smokers feel it an addiction nearly impossible to control. With resolution and the benefit of help, quitting can occur.

Of course the battles for clean air in public facilities are not over. Occasional challenges of abuse still occur.

Even law makers in recent years have taken a some what timid approach in discouraging tobacco use by merely gradually increasing taxation. It is alarming that nationally, youth still begin smoking at the rate of a thousand per day.

A bold prediction is that with time the habit of puffing the smoke from burning tobacco will continue to decrease to the point that it will be pleasant only to a small segment of society.

The antismoking campaign is a major public health success with few parallels in the history of public health. It is being accomplished despite the addictive nature of tobacco and the powerful economic forces promoting its use.
However, more than 45 million American adults still smoke, more than 8 million are living with a serious illness caused by smoking, and about 438,000 Americans die prematurely each year as a result of tobacco use.

Iowa’s anti-tobacco efforts have ushered in a major cultural change that has reduced the number of adult smokers and made workplaces healthier places, backers of Iowa’s indoor smoking ban said Wednesday.

“This is probably one of the biggest cultural shifts in a short amount of time that our state will ever see,” said Rep. Janet Petersen, D-Des Moines, who helped enact the smokefree air act which took effect  July 1, 2008.

Advocates said the restriction covering virtually all public places — except casino gambling areas, the Iowa State Fairgrounds and the Iowa Veterans Home in Marshalltown — and state and federal cigarette tax increases have helped reduce smoking among Iowa adults to 14 percent compared to 19 percent two years earlier.

State Attorney General Tom Miller said Iowa has jumped into the top five states nationally in terms of smoking compliance. He noted that in the 1960s about four out of every 10 Iowa adults smoked tobacco products.

“We’ve really turned a corner,” he told a Statehouse news conference.

Jeff Bruning, who owns several bar/restaurants in the Des Moines area, conceded some businesses in smaller towns or economically depressed parts of Iowa have been adversely affected by the law change for a time. But he said “I believe the state is better off,” and the new law has helped expand clientele to families and the 86 percent of Iowans who are nonsmokers.

Petersen said there remains interest in removing the exemptions to the smokefree workplace law but she believed it would be 2011 before any legislative push was made to allow for an adequate transition period. She did not think the Legislature would revisit other issues, such as allowing smoking in outdoor patios at certain establishments currently covered by the ban.

Miller said Iowans increasingly realize that tobacco “is a very dangerous product” but he doubted there would be a concerted effort to ban tobacco entirely.

“We tried prohibition in the ’20s and found out it didn’t work,” he said. “It’s not possible to do it.”

© Globegazette

Kevin Leonard has dealt with a heap of problems in the 40-plus years he’s been growing burley tobacco on his Rich Valley Road farm just outside the city limits.

First, there’s the weather: In recent years Leonard’s farm has been bone dry due to an ongoing drought; but this spring there was so much rain his latest crop was flooded within weeks of being planted.

Then there’s the escalating price of fuel and fertilizer, which he said comes a time when the U.S. demand for cigarettes is dropping.

He’s also got the government to deal with: While nobody really knows the hoops the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will require tobacco farmers and cigarette manufacturers to jump through, Leonard said he’s certain it will bring more taxes and tighter controls on cigarettes. The federal agency gained regulatory authority over the industry in a law signed Monday by President Barack Obama.

The latest blow comes from the north, as burley tobacco farmers growing crops on this side of the Appalachian Mountains add a bill in the Canadian Parliament to the long list of obstacles complicating their lives.

“Everything we’ve got going on now just seems to be picking on tobacco farmers,” Leonard said. “We’re just trying to make a living here. Tobacco has paid for a lot of things, put a lot of kids through college and now everyone’s cutting into it.”

Last week, the Canadian House of Commons unanimously passed a bill that tobacco advocates in three states claim would single-handedly wipe out that country’s market for burley tobacco, a variety commonly blended with other types of tobacco and laced with flavors to smooth its harsh taste.

Known as C-32, the Canadian “Cracking Down on Tobacco Marketing Aimed at Youth Act” seeks to ban the sale and production of flavored cigarettes and cigars.

The Canadian bill’s supporters claim C-32 would prevent the production of candy- or fruit-flavored mini-cigars or cigarillos that are targeted at children. During 2007, about 25 percent of that country’s 15- to 17-year-olds smoked one of these mini-cigars, said Colin Carrie, parliamentary secretary for Canada’s minister of health.

“By amending the Tobacco Act [with C-32] we can help prevent more young people from experimenting with an addictive substance,” Carrie said as he talked about the bill before it passed in the House of Commons on June 17.

But the legislation now making its way through the Canadian Senate is kicking up a flurry of protests from tobacco advocates who claim it would wipe out the Canadian market for burley. And that could be disastrous for Appalachian tobacco farmers, said Tony Banks, assistant director of the Virginia Farm Bureau’s commodity marketing department.

“This is one more market that could be closed and tobacco farmers can’t afford to lose one more market,” Banks said Monday. His agency is one of many farm groups in Virginia and Tennessee leading the fight to prevent C-32 from becoming law.

Burley tobacco is typically hung in a barn or air-cured for two to three months before the crop is taken to market and used in cigarettes and pipe blends. Because the variety has almost no natural sugars, it produces a very dry, harsher aroma when it burns.

While most of the burley tobacco grown in the U.S. comes from Central Kentucky, the plant also can be found on farms in East Tennessee, Southwest Virginia and Western North Carolina. Last year, those regions produced 10.6 million pounds of burley tobacco or about 5.3 percent of the total U.S. crop, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Combined, farmers in Virginia’s Lee, Scott and Washington counties produced 1.9 million pounds of the crop last year. Greene County, Tenn., farmers grew another 1.2 million pounds, according to the USDA.

Banks said burley tobacco is often mixed with smoother Turkish and flue-cured tobacco varieties to make what Canadians call “American-blend” cigarettes. Additionally, to lessen burley’s harsh taste, chemical flavorings are added to those cigarettes. That’s why farm advocates are worried about C-32’s ban.

“The bottom line is the legislation has been written too broadly and is threatening to impose far reaching, negative implications on burley growers,” said George Marks, president of the Burley Stabilization Corp. in Knoxville, Tenn.

Marks listed a few of those consequences in a news statement his agency released June 10. The legislation would force Canadian tobacco manufacturers to make only cigarettes that did not use flavorings, so it would wipe out that country’s market for burley tobacco. It also would prevent American tobacco companies from using burley tobacco in any cigarette brands they wanted to sell on the Canadian market.

But what Marks fears most is the possibility that C-32 might inspire other countries to draft similar flavoring bans. Marks said this could be disastrous given that the U.S. exports 70 percent to 80 percent of its burley crop each year.

“No less than the future of the burley tobacco growing industry is at stake,” Marks said. “If other countries follow Canada’s lead, the only market for American-style tobacco products will be nonexistent outside the U.S.”

© Tricities

The theatre-only estimate of adolescent exposure to smoking imagery in movies in the United States is lower than population estimates of exposure derived from studies of nationally representative adolescents, including exposures in theatres, video, television programming or Internet sources. In general, these methods reflect market reach analyses to assess the success of marketing campaigns.

According to the method reported by Sargent et al in the United States, movie viewership among a randomly selected representative sample of adolescents (aged 10–14 years in 2002) recruited by telephone was assessed through a standardized survey. Other researchers have used Internet-based panel samples for survey research. In these studies, the proportion viewing a particular movie (selected from a list of top-grossing movies seen by the selected respondent sample) was then multiplied by the total number of US adolescents aged 10–14 years (20.88 million) to obtain an estimate of the total number of US adolescents who had seen the movie.

This is then a measure of “reach” for exposure to the selected movies. Next, gross smoking impressions were determined by multiplying the estimate of the number of US adolescents who had seen the movie by the number of smoking occurrences in the movie, enumerated and assessed as positive or negative through direct observation by trained viewers. Per capita gross impressions of movie smoking were then obtained by dividing the total number of gross smoking impressions across all of the movies in the sample by the total US population of adolescents aged 10–14 years. This measure is similar to that used to determine the success of marketing campaigns and is similar to the “gross rating point” for those campaigns. Through these methods it was estimated that a total of 13.9 billion tobacco impressions were received by this 10–14 year-old age group from any media platform, an average of 665 tobacco impressions per capita. However, 27 ANNEXES References:

1. US Census Bureau. Statistical abstract of the United States: 2007. Table 1110: Media usage and consumer spending: 1999 to 2009. (Based on Veronis Suhler Stevenson. Communications industry forecast & report, annual. New York.) Adults 18+ surveyed. (http://www.census.gov/prod/2006pubs/07statab/infocomm.pdf, accessed 30 June 2007).

2. Digital Entertainment Group. DEG year-end 2006 home entertainment sales update. Press release, 8 January 2007. (http://www.dvdinformation.com/News/press/CES010807.htm, accessed 29 June 2007).

3. Motion Picture Association. MPA 2007 international theatrical snapshot: box office gross. (http://www.mpaa.org/International%20Theatrical%20Snapshot.pdf, accessed 11 May 2009).

4. European Audiovisual Observatory. European cinema bounces back in 2006. Press release, 10 May 2007. (http://www.obs.coe.int/about/oea/pr/mif2007.html, accessed 4 July 2007).

5. International Video Federation. European video: the industry overview. In: European video yearbook 2006. (http://www.ivf-video.org/site/share/dlm/Files/European_Overview_06.pdf, accessed 30 June 2007).

6. Motion Picture Association and L.E.K. The cost of movie piracy: an analysis prepared by LEK for the motion picture industry, 2005. (http://www.mpaa.org/leksummaryMPA%20revised.pdf, accessed 29 June 2007).

7. In-Stat. Cable modem service, digital cable TV critical to cable industry growth. Press release, 2 November 2005. (http://www.in-stat.com/press.asp?ID=1489&sku=IN0502141MB, accessed 1 July 2007).

8. In-Stat. (a) Worldwide digital satellite pay-TV market. The broadband boom continues: worldwide subscribers pass 200 million.

Even this type of estimate does not capture the full intensity of adolescents’ exposure to smoking in movies because the survey did not capture repeated exposures to the same film, whether in theatres or on video. Media habits, and thus the mix of sources for onscreen exposure to tobacco imagery, vary from nation to nation. Media usage also differs within societies by age, gender and socioeconomic status. Shaped by family and cultural settings, it also shifts over time as new media options emerge and spread. For example, of 30 countries surveyed in 2004–5, Thailand (a middle-income country at US$ 8470 per capita in 2005) reported watching twice as much television per week, at 22.4 hours, as Mexico (US$ 10 560 per capita income) at 11.6 hours. Viewing videos and DVDs in informal household or admission-paid settings is probably the most frequent modality used by adolescents. However, data on the age of DVD viewers and on how often DVDs are watched (along with cable and satellite viewings) are not currently available. The video industry’s own market research appears to focus only on retail sales.

At memorial services, people sometimes offer up items which the deceased liked, or wanted to have, during their life. In the late former President Roh Moo-hyun’s case, it was a cigarette.

Some mourners gingerly lit up a cigarette and offered it to the late President at memorial altars in his hometown in southeastern Bongha Village and other locations across the nation.

Their offerings of lit cigarettes instead of laying flowers or burning incense were prompted by the news that Roh asked for a smoke from a security guard before killing himself.

At the top of a cliff in a mountain behind his home, Roh asked the guard if he had a cigarette. The guard said no and asked if he wanted him to get one.

The former President said he didn’t have to. Mourners are apparently feeling sorry for him because he couldn’t smoke at the last moment of his life.

Roh used to be a heavy smoker, going through more than two packs of cigarettes a day. He quit smoking in October 2001, but about a year later, began to smoke again as his approval rate for the presidential candidacy was only around 10 percent.

After taking office, he sometimes asked presidential staff for cigarettes when having troubles in political and government affairs. He promised to quit smoking several times following his wife’s reproach, but could not quit completely.

Early morning on April 30 before heading to Seoul to be questioned over his bribery allegation, Roh smoked two cigarettes. Just before being questioned at the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office, he had another cigarette, his aides said.

“He liked `This’ cigarettes, a relatively cheap brand. He used to smoke them to the end, almost to the filter, saying stopping in the middle was wasteful,” an aide said.

Copyright © 2009 Koreatimes

Smokefree Innotec, Inc. In close cooperation with its German management consultants, SFI is starting up collaboration with one of the world’s leading essence manufacturers for exclusive mass production of ‘Cigarette Boxes’ with an aromatic “Microfilm.” SFI smokers will already enjoy opening the packaging of the highly praised designed boxes with Mild, Medium, Strong and Menthol taste.

A geographical advantage of the collaboration with aroma producer Bell Flavors & Fragrances, experienced since their start-up in 1829 as Schimmel & Co., is that their labs are almost neighboring SFI’s filter providers AHN Biotechnology. Professor Dr. Otto Wallach of Bell Flavors/Schimmel & Co. was the 1910 winner of the Nobel prize for Chemistry. The company has a century of experience in developing flavors for the tobacco industry.

The newly developed aromatic “Microfilm” will be implemented for the first time in the manufacturing process of SFI for the launch of the world’s first totally smokefree cigarette; in the success of which the management of Bell Flavors & Fragrances strongly believes.

The Owner and President of Bell, Raymond Heinz, and his son Michael have announced further brainstorming with Smokefree Innotec’s CEO in order to develop further new ideas.

About Smokefree Innotec, Inc.

Smokefree Innotec, Inc. is in the business of designing, developing, manufacturing and marketing a hi-tech, smokeless tobacco innovation. Our Patent Pending, odorless cigarette-style electronic device utilizes a liquefied, vaporizable depot of a raw, unmanipulated extract of tobacco. Smokefree Innotec’s products are designed to protect the non-smoker from second hand smoke and all its effects while providing the smoker a way to enjoy a smoke-free cigarette anywhere, including places where smoking is prohibited. Further, our products will allow the smoker to enjoy smoking while not having to worry about the dangers and ill effects of regular cigarette smoking.

A number of statements referenced in this Press Release are forward-looking statements, which are made pursuant to the Safe Harbor Provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21B of the Exchange Act of 1934. Any statements that express or involve discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, and goals, assumption of future events or performance are not statements of historical fact and may be “forward-looking statements.” Forward looking statements are based on expectations, estimates and projections at the time the statements are made that involve a number of risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those presently anticipated. Forward-looking statements in this Release may be identified through the use of words such as “expects,” “will,” “anticipates,” “estimates,” “believes,” or statements indicating certain actions “may,” “could,” or “might” occur. Such statements reflect the current views of Smokefree Innotec, Inc. with respect to future events and are subject to certain assumptions, including those described in this release. These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties, including the timely development and market acceptance of products, services, and technologies, competitive market conditions, successful integration of acquisitions, the ability to secure additional sources of financing, the ability to reduce operating expenses, and other factors. The actual results that the Company achieves may differ materially from any forward-looking statements due to such risks and uncertainties. Smokefree Innotec, Inc. does not undertake any responsibility to update the “forward-looking” statements contained in this news release.

Source: Businesswire