The Roanoke City Council will consider a no smoking, dipping or chewing ordinance on all city owned property at the Feb. 8 council meeting.

Mayor Mike Fisher said he had received a letter from the State Department of Public Health applauding the city for steps it had taken and mentioned some cities are making everything 100 percent tobacco free.

The mayor said he called people around town asking their thoughts about this. He said he would like to make all city property smoke free without smoking designated areas.

There had been an incident or two at high school games where there was smoking but the State Board of Education prohibits smoking where any students are, he said.

Councilman Mack Arthur Bell said his understanding is that second-hand smoke is about as dangerous as the person smoking. He added to each his own but said a ban would solve that problem.

Councilwoman Tammi T. Holley asked if smokeless tobacco would be included in any ban–that she had seen people spitting in bottles. Fisher said one can’t be banned without doing the other.

Councilman Russ Cummings said he did understand the health hazards and has been approached recently about making restaurants smoke free. This is a polarizing issue, he said, and he is with Councilman Joseph Roberson on thinking about this before acting.

Bell said that, regarding restaurants, it should be up to them.

Fisher said he would have city attorney Clay Tinney draw up an ordinance. Holley said to also include the other forms of tobacco.

Fisher also asked them to consider prohibiting texting while driving. Chief Adam Melton said nothing in Alabama prohibits it right now. Roberson said messaging on military bases is prohibited–phones have to be hands free.

Melton said under current Alabama traffic accident reports it just says “driver not in control”–not if he was texting, so it is difficult to determine how many accidents result from texting. The mayor said he would bring this up in a couple of weeks. Melton said a recent study it was stated texting caused more traffic accidents than driving under the influence.

Harlin honored

The mayor recognized Randolph Medical Center administrator Tim Harlin for all he has meant to the hospital during his time here. Harlin will be leaving in March for a new position in Minnesota.

The document states that on behalf of the city council and the citizens of Roanoke “I would like to extend my deepest appreciation for your service rendered at Randolph Medical Center. Randolph Medical Center has been faced with many challenges during your administration and those challenges were always met with dedication and determination.

“You strived to improve patient care, offer new services, implement new technology, and worked diligently to restore the reputation of quality care that this community had always depended on. Without your leadership and dedicated management team, these accomplishments would not have been possible.”

Harlin thanked them for the resolution and said it had been his privilege to serve as administrator.

He said everything is going smoothly and new physicians have been hired in the psychiatric area. He is spending a lot of time working on recruiting physicians and believes he has snagged an opthamologist and is talking to primary care physicians.

In other business the council passed ordinance #954 authorizing the mayor to apply for a $2,500 grant for electronic equipment in police cars. No match is required. The grant would take care of all the police cars. The resolution will be provided to the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs through which the money will be funneled.

Bell said he would like all bids related to the city to come directly to the city clerk’s office for all departments and opened in the council meeting. When asked, he said he was not referring to any particular situation.

Holley said the recent striping in her district makes a world of difference for drivers. The mayor said he had also received comments about it.

Streets Department Supervisor Donnie Cash said Emergency Management director Donnie Knight called and said the state was trying to gather information about damage resulting from the winter freeze.

“We got it up, along with the utilities department, in hope of getting some money out of it. Streets were damaged by the freeze and we hope to get some money from that,” Cash said.

He told the council he appreciated them allowing him to replace a Bush Hog for $10,862 he had budgeted. He asked for the old one to be declared surplus property so it can be sold, which the council did.

Cash said they are running out of room at the landfill for C&D; pulpwood is up in value and he asked if the land can be clear cut so the new cells can go there. He told the council as long as it is authorized by the council and bids taken it is legal. To Holley’s question about potential erosion he said that is something to look at. Bell said he would have to get with the Alabama Department of Environmental Management to make sure that doesn’t happen. The council approved Cash’s request.

Wendell Williams has asked the city to sell dirt from where the city digs dirt. The city sold dirt to the county health department during construction there for 50 cents per cubic yard. Since it is not prime dirt Williams asked it be sold for less and he would pick it up with his own equipment. Cash is checking with the Alabama League of Municipalities to make sure they can sell it to a private individual and he will bring it back to the council.

Keith Richardson, who oversees vehicle maintenance, made a proposal to cut maintenance costs by buying filters, fluids etc. in bulk. He estimated a cost savings of almost half on items such as $1,600 on filters and $1,358 on fluids. Some machines still under warranty require a certain brand or the warranty is null and void, he said.

If the city buys the items now they will save over the year. The council was concerned about the items being under lock and key and he said due to not having enough storage some would have to be placed under lock and key in Purchasing Agent Tim Jacob’s office.

Melton said only Richardson performs maintenance on his cars.

The council voted to buy the materials in bulk at an amount of $8,264 for all vehicles down to lawn mowers and motor graders at an annual savings of almost $3,000. The money will come from the general fund account and be purchased locally at the best price. Then, Revenue Officer Pat Truitt will take the purchases from the various department’s budgets.

by Penny L. Pool, Therandolphleader

CITY HALL — Two tobacco companies are suing the city over a law banning retailers from selling candy-flavored tobacco products, Council Speaker Christine Quinn said Tuesday.

But the city is determined to snuff out such products across all five boroughs, the speaker said.

“It is clearly another example of the unfettering greed of the tobacco industry,” Quinn said at a press conference Tuesday afternoon.

“But it is not something we are afraid of. This is a solid law. This is a smart law. So go ahead big tobacco, you can bring it on.”

The ban goes into effect on Feb. 25 and prohibits the sale of various products, including flavored cigars and cigarillos (short, narrow cigars that are wrapped with whole-leaf tobacco). The products come in an assortment of flavors ranging from apple martini to chocolate chip cookie dough.
Quinn and advocates from health and clean air groups charge that the products, which have three to six times the tobacco found in regular cigarettes, are deliberately disguised by multi-colored wrapping and sweet flavors to lure young people into buying tobacco products and eventually becoming life-long nicotine addicts.

“I looked at the pack here and I thought, ‘Gummy bears,’” said Joanne Koldare, director of the NYC Coalition For a Smoke Free City. “They have created what appears to be, for children, a smooth seamless transition from candy to tobacco products. But we’re onto them.”

According to the city’s Department of Health, the number of youths who smoke cigars and cigarello have almost tripled since 2001, from five to 14 percent, Quinn said.

The city’s law comes on the heels of a federal law, enacted this summer, that bans the sale of flavored cigarettes (except for menthol) across the United States.

But tobacco companies argue that the city doesn’t have the legal right to enact such a law.

“Localities should allow the FDA to consider issues like this one in a regulatory process that allows for public comment,” said Bill Phelps, a spokesman for Altria, the parent company for the two companies filing the lawsuit.

“We believe that the ban is bad policy because it unfairly denies adults who use tobacco products access to the products they prefer,” Phelps told DNAinfo, adding that the ban would have a negative impact on the local New York City economy.

“At a time when the economy is suffering, it’s putting additional pressure on businesses,” he said. “We don’t think it makes a lot of sense.”

Pablo Hussein, who works in a Delancey Street bodega on the Lower East Side, said the store would lose “a couple hundred dollars” of sales when the ban goes into the effect — a small sum compared to what Altria may lose.

“We can sell other things,” said Hussein, pointing at the magazines, lotto tickets, snacks and cigarettes, lining the store’s shelves. “We are the little store in between. It is the big companies that have a problem.”

By Suzanne Ma, Dnainfo.com

KUALA LUMPUR: Contraband cigarettes have become a major problem in Malaysia because of high cigarette prices, low penalties and lax enforcement. The Government is losing approximately RM1.5bil in revenue annually, disclosed industry players.

Furthermore, the illegal market has spawned a major industry which gives syndicates operating smuggling networks up to RM1bil in profits yearly. It also defeats the Government’s move to raise prices to discourage smoking among the young.

A Star Probe shows that illegal cigarettes are quite easily obtained at outlets in Malaysia. Most of those who smoke them appear to come from the lower income bracket as these cigarettes are available for as low as RM2.50 for a pack of 20. Legitimate cigarettes retail for between RM6.40 and RM9.30 for a pack of 20.

The illicit market now accounts for more than one out of three cigarettes sold. Some 38.7% of the industry by volume is now illicit, up from 27.5% in 2008, according to The Illicit Cigarette Study conducted by Taylor Nelson Soffres commissioned by a major cigarette manufacturer.

This means that out of the 23.3 billion cigarettes consumed in 2009, approximately nine billion sticks were illicit. The legal market has also shrunk by 10% compared with 2008 to an estimated 13.8 billion.

In the region, Malaysia is one of the countries with the highest taxes for cigarettes after Singapore. Illicit syndicates are taking advantage of this and making a cool RM1bil a year from the Government’s stance to stamp out smoking.

Industry observers said the huge demand for exceptionally low-priced cigarettes was largely due to high taxes imposed by the Government over the last few years, as well as the minimal punishment for offenders and easy accessibility of illicit cigarettes.

“Excessively high taxation is a major contributor to the rise in the trade of illicit cigarettes in Malaysia,” said JT International Bhd director of corporate affairs and communications Shareen Rahmat.

She added that this was compounded by insufficient deterrence – penalties meted out for the sale and consumption of illicit cigarettes were very minimal in Malaysia.

“As this trade is so profitable, smugglers are willing to risk being caught just to get a share of the pie.

“Present enforcement is just not strict enough to deter the smugglers,” said British American Tobacco Malaysia Bhd (BAT) finance director Steve Rush.

BAT head of business development Azlan Ibrahim added that most of the smuggling was from neighbouring countries such as Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia and China.

The sophisticated network of the syndicates makes it very easy for smuggling to take place.

“Right now, these illicits enter Malaysia through overland routes via Thailand and Singapore, sea routes from Indonesia, and smuggling through ports,” said Azlan.

Royal Malaysian Customs Department deputy director-general (compliance and enforcement) Datuk Mohamed Khalid Yusuf said that Customs was doing its best to stop the sale of illicit cigarettes.

“We know who they are and where the hotspots are. Apart from having our own intelligence, we also have a network of informers whom we pay for undercover intelligence purposes,” he said.

While Customs continues to raid retailers, the focus is mainly on the ports and coastlines, which are the points of entry for the illicits.

“Nowadays it is more of fraud (disguising cigarettes as other merchandise) than direct smuggling of illicits.

“We have invested in high-tech tools and X-ray equipment to detect the illicits when they come in. Our officers too need more capacity building to match these sophisticated smugglers,” Khalid said, adding that there was no one best strategy that fitted all.

“Yes, I believe more can be done. We have to pool all our resources and be situational and versatile to outsmart the smugglers,” he added.

As of Dec 31, the Customs seized 490 million illegal cigarette sticks valued at RM64.55mil, a decrease compared with 2008 when 495 million sticks worth RM58.2mil were confiscated.

Unpaid duties amounted to RM233.29mil, almost the same as 2008’s RM233.7mil.

Worldwide, illegal cigarettes make up some 5.5% or 303 billion sticks of global consumption.

The illicit cigarettes in Malaysia comprise kretek and white cigarettes.

The three biggest manufacturers in Malaysia are BAT, Japan Tobacco International (JTI) and Philip Morris International (PMI), which together control over 90% of the legal market share.
By TEE LIN SAY and EUGENE MAHALINGAM

Flavored cigarettes are now illegal and those of us working to snuff out oral cancer in America are thrilled. But the news gets even better – the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act has given the U.S. Food and Drug Administration the power to regulate how tobacco companies manufacture, market and sell tobacco products.

This is a great win in the battle against tobacco-related diseases, especially for our youth. Flavored cigarettes entice children and teens to become smokers, and the tobacco industry has exploited this through youth-oriented marketing. According to the FDA, teens are three times more likely to use flavored cigarettes than are smokers over the age of 25.

Nicotine, a main ingredient in cigarettes, is one the world’s most addictive drugs. According to the American Heart Association, nicotine has historically been one of the hardest substance addictions to break. Every day 3,600 children and teens start smoking cigarettes and 1,100 will become daily users.

I applaud the FDA’s efforts to reduce the appeal cigarettes have on children and teens. The American Cancer Society says almost 90 percent of adult smokers tried their first cigarette at or before the age of 19. A 2007 study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control found that half of high school students have tried cigarette smoking at some point. The ban on flavored cigarettes will help limit the risk for tobacco-related diseases like oral cancer, which causes 8,000 deaths a year.

To further reduce death and disease caused by tobacco products, the FDA should examine what options it has under the new law for regulating menthol cigarettes and other tobacco products, including smokeless tobacco such as chewing or dipping tobacco, dissolvable tobacco tablets and snuff.

Tragically, smokeless tobacco products are incorrectly perceived as safe alternatives to cigarettes. They are not; their use can be deadly. In the U.S., 13.4 percent of high school boys and 2.3 percent of high school girls use smokeless tobacco products, according to the CDC.

Tobacco is dangerous in all forms. Smokeless tobacco products contain 28 toxic and cancer-causing agents, including formaldehyde, cyanide, butanol, arsenic, polonium-210 and uranium-235. These ingredients also are found in rat poison, radioactive nuclear waste, industrial solvents and embalming fluid.

Every year, an estimated 34,000 Americans are diagnosed with oral cancer. Thanks to the FDA’s new powers, that number may begin to decline.

There is a feeling of decadence that comes from smoking a good cigar that is unmatched by almost any other leisure activity.

Perhaps it is the unfashionable machismo, or the mischief of enjoying something that is so bad for you. Or perhaps it is simply the perverse satisfaction that comes from burning an expensive object for pleasure. And, at the top end of the vintage cigar market, things can get expensive indeed.

“A box of 50 Chateau d’Yquem can fetch £10,000 or more at auction,” said Mitchell Orchant, managing director of the London cigar merchant C.Gars Ltd. That is nearly $17,000. “The Anniversario, can sell for £400 a cigar and its value just seems to keep on going up.” Both cigars were made by Davidoff, the famous Geneva tobacco house.

As the price tags suggest, these are not just any old stogies. Examples of a prestigious elite of vintage Cuban cigars, they date from the early 1960s to the mid-1980s, a golden age when a mixture of local Cuban artisanal skill, tobacco quality and the demands of a handful of European exporters combined to create some of the finest cigars ever made.

The intervening years have only served to improve them further, according to the experts.

“The cigars are like a good Bordeaux,” said Mr. Orchant. “In the right conditions they can keep for almost ever, and year after year, like good wine, they get better.”

Not all cigars age well. There is little point in buying a two-dollar panatela – a long, slender cigar – and sticking it in a cupboard for twenty years. Top vintage cigars tend to be the larger, plumper types, such as coronas or Churchills, always handmade and rolled from the best leaves of the tobacco crop. Cigars made from a full, strong tobacco blend tend to age best.

Stored correctly in a humidor the best cigars, or sticks as experts call them, can mature for about 30 years, during which time they become mellower even as the flavors become more distinct. They can hold on to that quality for a further 30 years or more before the flavor of the tobacco starts to deteriorate.

Within the rarefied world of vintage Cuban cigars, two brands, Dunhill and Davidoff, stand out above the rest. That is in part because of their undoubted quality. It also helps that they were made in large volumes and are consequently still readily available to buy at auction or from specialist merchants.

Vintage examples of other famous Havana brands such as Romeo y Julieta, Cohiba and Montecristo are also much prized. A box of 49 Montecristos, dating from the 1950s, before the U.S. economic embargo on Cuba, will go under the hammer in December at a C.Gars Ltd auction in London and is expected to fetch as much as £6,000.

“The price of other Cuban brands is rising as they age but they are less expensive because they were never discontinued like the ultra-collectible Dunhill and Davidoffs,” said Mr. Orchant.

The Dunhill and Davidoff cigars were the offspring of an unlikely marriage between two of Europe’s most exclusive luxury tobacco brands and Cubatabaco, the Cuban state tobacco monopoly.

Cubatabaco made cigars under license for the London-based tobacco company Dunhill from 1984 until 1991. Dunhill-branded Cuban cigars were made prior to the Cuban revolution too, but few have survived.

Of the post-revolution Dunhill Cubans, the ones to look out for, say aficionados, are the mid-1980s Don Cándido and Don Alfredo: the latter, named after the company’s founder Alfred Dunhill, sell for $350 to $500 a cigar.

Davidoff’s Cuban output dates over a slightly longer period, from 1967 to 1991. Perhaps because of that extended run, which means that there are more available, or perhaps because they were distributed more widely across Europe, it is the Davidoffs that have emerged in recent years as the darlings of many vintage-cigar collectors and smokers.

Made under the guidance of Zino Davidoff, the patriarch of the company that bears his name, the cigars were named after some of the finest wines of France: Dom Perignon, for the iconic champagne, seven inches, or 17.8 centimeters long; Château Mouton Rothschild; Château Lafite; Château Latour; Château Margaux and Château d’Yquem.

None of the names were ever officially licensed with the châteaux. Yet the French wine makers mostly tolerated the breach of their trademark, perhaps helped by Mr. Davidoff’s habit of sending them gift boxes of his cigars.

The one exception was Château d’Yquem. The maker of France’s most lauded Sauternes dessert white wine warned Davidoff off using its name in the early 1980s, and the cigars bearing its name were discontinued in 1982. Already considered one of the best of the Château series, the intervention of the vineyard served to make them the rarest and thus the most expensive of the range.

The unlikely coupling of the European luxury brands and Cuba did not last. By the late 1980s Cubatabaco’s efforts to increase the volume of its output led to a decline in quality. Davidoff in particular took the decline in standards badly.

Zino Davidoff went on French television in 1987 to harangue his Cuban business partners and backed up his talk by burning 130,000 cigars, declaring them unsmokable.

The relationship between Cubatabaco and Davidoff and Dunhill ended in 1991 when both the European houses shifted their production to rival tobacco-producing countries.

Some cigar aficionados mourn the end of those relationships as the end of the golden age of cigar making. Others are less nostalgic.

“The Cuban cigars were always a little inconsistent and still are,” said Dorothée Spriet-Weisz, manager of A la Civette, an almost 300-year old Paris cigar shop, on the rue Saint Honoré, that lists Casanova, Voltaire and Winston Churchill as past customers. “I like the Dominican Davidoff cigars, but it is a question of personal taste and it is true that 65 percent of the cigars we sell are Cuban.”

By PAUL WHITFIELD
November 23, 2009 Nytimes

The faint scent of cherry, vanilla or chocolate can no longer be detected in the cigarette smoke that lingers over the small patch of asphalt leading past Rand Hall or the walkway adjoining Uris and Olin Libraries. The smoke of regular, straight tobacco prevails these days as a direct result of a recent federal ban on cigarettes enhanced with fragrances.

The ban, which took effect Sept. 22, applies to the manufacture, shipment or sale of cigarettes flavored to taste like cloves, candy or fruit. As part of a national effort by the Food and Drug Administration to reduce smoking in the United States, this provision belongs to the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which President Barack Obama signed into law on June 22.

Under this legislation, the FDA has the authority to regulate the marketing and manufacture of tobacco products, though it cannot ban regular cigarettes, cigars or smokeless tobacco.

“… A cigarette or any of its component parts (including the tobacco, filter, or paper) shall not contain, as a constituent…or additive, an artificial flavor or natural flavor (other than tobacco or menthol) or an herb or spice, including strawberry, grape, orange, clove, cinnamon, pineapple, vanilla, coconut, licorice, cocoa, chocolate, cherry or coffee, that is a characterizing flavor of the tobacco product or tobacco smoke,” according to the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act.

The FDA maintains that cigarettes flavored to taste like cloves, candy or fruit lure children into smoking. FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, M.D. stated that approximately 90 percent of adult smokers start smoking as teenagers in a news release last month. These flavored cigarettes act as a gateway for many children and young adults to become regular smokers, according to Hamburg.

While the ban also applies to flavored loose tobacco, which smokers can use to roll their own cigarettes, it does not extend its reach to pipe tobacco — such as the tobacco used in hookahs — chewing tobacco or cigars.

One notable exemption is menthol-flavored cigarettes, which remain legal in the wake of the month-old ban. Congress explicitly declined to prohibit mentholated cigarettes, which are statistically the most popular type of flavored cigarettes and a significant source of revenue to tobacco companies. A federal menthol ban could potentially spark an enormous bootlegging crisis, according to congressional aides and tobacco activists, the Wall Street Journal recently reported.

The legislation outlining the ban, however, fails to clearly define what constitutes a cigarette. The primary distinction between cigarettes and cigars is the wrapping: while cigarettes feature tobacco wrapped with paper, cigars feature tobacco wrapped in tobacco or paper derived from tobacco. Another tobacco product, the cigarillo, is smaller than a typical cigar but larger than a small cigar.

Confusion remains over whether cigarillos like Black & Mild — which manufactures cigarillos with flavors such as apple, cherry, and vanilla — fall under the scope of the ban. Clove cigars are also stirring controversy. According to Prof. Richard Klein, Romance Studies, “clove cigarette manufacturers, [primarily] based in Indonesia, have already found ways to circumvent the law by manufacturing little clove ‘cigars’ which do not fall into its purview.”

Kretek International, Inc., the top national distributor of clove cigarettes, has recently filed a lawsuit against the FDA for “deliberately obfuscating” the “definition of a cigarette.” The distributor’s new line of Djarum clove cigars have come under investigation by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

In the local Cornell and Ithaca communities, smokers and non-smokers alike question the effectiveness of the ban and its objective of deterring youth from smoking.

Mary Godec ’11 lauded the notion of trying to reduce smoking among youth, but doubted the impact the ban will continue to have. “The FDA ban is a step in the right direction, as far as preventing younger people from starting a bad habit is concerned, but it won’t be a particularly effective step,” she said. “New smokers will likely turn to menthol cigarettes, the only flavored cigarette left in the market.”

Godec also disagreed with the authority granted to the FDA to regulate tobacco products. “The ban hasn’t affected me directly, but it has made an impact in the sense that it’s yet another infringement on my freedom to smoke,” she said.

Admitting that the ban on flavored cigarettes could potentially deter a subset of the youth from smoking, Shachia Kyaagba ’11 still harbored some skepticism. “I believe the ban will reduce the number of children who start to smoke, but not by a significant quantity,” he said. “Peer pressure is still there, so kids will still start to smoke regardless of the flavor of the tobacco.”

Drawing from his personal experiences, Jin-Sung Kim ’11 noted that he has never observed somebody start to smoke with flavored cigarettes. “The effectiveness of such a ban seems tenuous at best. Most smokers [that I know] have experimented with flavored cigarettes only after smoking for a while,” he said. “It seems like this ban might be hurting clove cigarette aficionados more than it is helping keep the youth smoke-free.”

Local Ithaca smoke shops have felt the subtle effects of the ban, as consumers look for close substitutes to flavored cigarettes. According to Brian Watson, a sales employee at Mayers’ Smokeshop and Newsstand, “[the ban] has made a small dent [in sales], but the ban seems to be more punitive than anything to be concerned about.”

Eric Thorsen, a sales employee at Mayers’ Smokeshop and Newsstand, called the ban “silly” as well. “I think just as many kids are attracted to menthols as they are cloves,” he said. “I don’t think [the ban] will have much of an effect in terms of reducing the number of children who start to smoke.”

Patty McNally, store manager of Mayer’s Smokesshop and Newsstand, has observed changes in the buying habits of customers who prefer flavored cigarettes.

“Maybe 5 percent of my customers smoke clove cigarettes,” she said. “Those smokers have turned to other tobacco products, such as flavored cigars, now that they can no longer get ahold of what they want.”

“It’s a sort of substitution effect going on with this ban. Consumers will just buy other flavored tobacco products. Kids who want to smoke will still smoke,” Thorsen said.

October 28, 2009
By Lawrence Lan, Cornellsun

NEW YORK — The City Council voted overwhelmingly today to ban sales of all flavored tobacco products.
The bill bars the sale of products such as strawberry- and blueberry-flavored cigars and chewing tobacco, which health experts say are a blatant attempt to hook young people on a dangerous product.

Staten Island councilmen James Oddo (R-Mid-Island/Brooklyn), Vincent Ignizio (R-South Shore) and Ken Mitchell (D-North Shore) voted in favor of the bill.

In a law enacted this June, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned manufacturing, importing, marketing and distribution of cigarettes made to taste like candy, fruit and cloves. But since the legal definition of a cigarette is vague, manufacturers have found a way to circumvent the ban with products every bit as attractive to kids, like smaller “cigarillos” and SNUS, pouches of flavored tobacco used like snuff.

Mayor Bloomberg is expected to sign the bill into law.

By Staten Island Advance
October 14, 2009,

Candy- and fruit-flavored cigarettes are now illegal, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said this week. The ban is the first move by the FDA to enact the anti-tobacco initiatives outlined by the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, signed by President Obama in June.

“Big Tobacco for years has used candy- and fruit-flavorings in their cigarettes to attract and addict young smokers,” said John R. Seffrin, PhD, CEO of the American Cancer Society and the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN). “The ban on cigarette flavors that are blatantly intended to hook children is a critical first step toward reversing that trend.”

Research shows that the younger you start smoking, the more likely you are to smoke as an adult. Almost 90% of adult smokers started at or before the age 19. And people who start smoking at younger ages are more likely to develop long-term nicotine addiction than people who start later in life.

Flavored cigarettes are especially popular among kids and teens, in part because they are sold in enticing flavors such as chocolate, cherry, strawberry, and orange. Because of the flavorings, teens and kids often think these products are safer than regular cigarettes.

“Flavored cigarettes attract and allure kids into lifetime addiction,” said U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Health Howard K. Koh, MD, MPH. “FDA’s ban on these cigarettes will break that cycle for the more than 3,600 young people who start smoking daily.”

The bill requires tobacco companies to stop making, shipping, and selling flavored cigarettes and requires vendors to pull the products off their shelves.

The ban does not apply to menthol cigarettes or other flavored tobacco products like cigars at this time, but the FDA may rule on these areas in the future.

“The tobacco industry has spent the last 50 years misleading smokers about the dangers of tobacco use and marketing to youth,” said Daniel E. Smith, president of ACS CAN. “The ban on candy- and fruit-flavorings in cigarettes is only one aspect of this lifesaving new law that has the potential to break the deadly cycle of addiction and put an end to Big Tobacco’s targeting of our nation’s children.”

The bill will also eventually require cigarette makers to disclose product ingredients to the FDA and prohibit them from using misleading labels such as “low tar” or “light” on cigarette packages. And it will hold tobacco companies to marketing restrictions – for example, they will no longer be allowed to advertise near schools or sponsor entertainment and sporting events.

For more information about the legislation, see our story, “Tobacco Regulation Bill Becomes Law.” To learn more about tobacco use among children and teens, see this document. To find out what your lawmakers are doing to lessen the impact of tobacco in your community, visit the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN).


Reviewed by: Members of the ACS Medical Content Staff

Effective today, smoke shops in Florida and the rest of the nation are banned from selling clove and other flavored cigarettes under rules giving the Food and Drug Administration greater regulatory authority over tobacco products.

The ban targets flavored cigarettes that critics say are designed, in part, to entice young people to pick up the habit.

Clove cigarettes, which have been around for more than 100 years, are estimated to be a $140 million business in the U.S. The vast majority are manufactured in Indonesia.

Central Florida cigar and cigarette shops are bracing for a dip in business, but no one’s sure how big that’ll be.

In part, that’s because cigarette manufacturers think they’ve found a way to skirt the rules. They’re producing flavored cigars similar in size to the banned cigarettes, but wrapped in tobacco not paper. Local merchants are waiting to see if customers are willing to make the switch.

“Depending on their popularity, we may look into carrying them,” said Michael McDowell of Nora’s Lake Ivanhoe Wine & Cigar.

McDowell’s shop stopped ordering the banned cigarettes some time ago. They were a relatively small part of its total business, bought mostly by club goers between the ages of 18 and 30. Monday, the store still had a few packs for sale, but they were destined for the Dumpster.

That didn’t sit well with Jeff Borysiewicz, owner of three Corona Cigar Co. stores in Orlando. Borysiewicz estimates he’ll lose between $100,000 and $150,000 in sales annually due to the ban.

He sees the new regulations as unnecessary government intrusion and argues the FDA could just as easily target other products.

“They say the different flavors appeal to children,” Borysiewicz said. “Applying that logic you might as well ban piña coladas and strawberry daiquiris.”

The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids estimates that 14.5 percent of high-school students in Florida smoke. It says the tobacco industry spends about $881 million annually marketing in the state.

The organization strongly supports the ban on flavored cigarettes, saying they were “obviously targeted at children.” It has criticized manufacturers’ attempts to circumvent the new regulations and urged the FDA to look closely at the new, flavored cigars.

“They’re definitely just a way to get around the rules,” said Danny McGoldrick, the group’s vice president for research. “It’s the kind of shenanigans that take place when you try to regulate any of this.”

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report. Jim Stratton can be reached at jstratton@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5379.


Copyright © September 22, 2009, Orlando Sentinel

The Federal Drug Administration has banned sales of flavored tobacco products, with the exception of menthol, as of Sept. 22. Beginning July 1 of this year, a copolymer is being added to cigarettes sold in Kansas to produce what is known as a “Fire Safe Cigarette,” or FSC. It is intended to extinguish itself if the cigarette has not been used for 30 to 35 seconds, thus reducing the number of fires started by unattended cigarettes.

The banning of flavored cigarettes is intended to discourage youngsters from starting to smoke. The cigarettes, which come in an assortment of flavors, are considered a gateway for moving on to smoking regular tobacco cigarettes.

Section 907 of the law, which describes tobacco product standards, states: “Beginning three months after enactment of the legislation (September 22, 2009), a cigarette or any of its component parts (including the tobacco, filter or paper) are forbidden from having as a constituent (including a smoke constituent) or additive, an artificial or natural flavor (other than tobacco or menthol) or an herb or spice, including strawberry, grape, orange, clove, cinnamon, pineapple, vanilla, coconut, licorice, cocoa, chocolate, cherry, or coffee, that is a characterizing flavor of the product or its smoke.

“The FDA is not limited in its authority to take action applicable to menthol or any artificial or natural flavor, herb, or spice not specified above.”

“They’re already a thing of the past,” said Melissa Mercer, manager of Cigarette Outlet. “We’re no longer able to get them. Our distributor’s already quit” filling orders for flavored cigarettes.

“We knew it was coming,” Mercer said of the rules change. “We just didn’t know when or how harsh it was going to be.”

Mercer said that customers from 18 to 80 were fond of flavored cigarettes. One woman already has purchased Cigarette Outlet’s entire supply of Vanilla Sweet Dreams in anticipation of the ban.

“There’s a lot of people buy a pack of those once every several months, just because it’s something different,” Mercer said.

Flavored cigarettes also were popular with college students. Some customers purchased them to smoke while they were out socializing at bars and private parties.

It wasn’t just the college students and older teenagers who enjoyed a flavored cigarette while they were socializing.

Elaina Cahoj, a clerk at Graves Drugs who had been “very much against smoking,” learned that her college-student daughter had smoked flavored cigarettes. Cahoj decided to try one, to see what her daughter found enjoyable.

The taste didn’t appeal to Cahoj then.

Later, though, socializing at a karaoke night about 12 years ago, someone handed her a clove-flavored cigarette. Cloves and karaoke seemed to go hand-in-hand.

“One night, none of us had any, and I smoked a regular cigarette,” Cahoj said.

The regular cigarettes quickly became a habit; it’s one that she continues today.

“The friend who started me on the clove cigarettes, he always felt so bad,” Cahoj said. “I was definitely old enough to know better.”

And she still prefers the taste of the clove cigarettes to the regular variety, though beginning next month, she will not be able to purchase them.

Glen Hadaway, owner of Graves Drugs, another popular tobacco outlet, said that his company had not been notified of the change in the law and, instead, heard about it through an announcement from a tobacco supplier.

“We didn’t get official notice, no,” said Hadaway, who read about the change this month in a memo from the supplier.

Hadaway said that Graves had a limited number of customers for the clove and other flavors of cigarettes.

“We just carried it because people requested we do it,” he said.

Hadaway intends to continuing stocking and selling tobacco products as long as they are legal, although he would much prefer that authorities make up their minds whether to make tobacco illegal rather than taking inch-by-inch measures to reduce the numbers of people who smoke.

“They need to do it or not do it,” Hadaway said. “I don’t care, they need to go one way or the other. They’ve made it so expensive for legitimate retailers to carry tobacco products. … It’s a real hassle.”

“Sting” operations by tobacco enforcement agencies seem to happen constantly, he said. And, like other stores that sell tobacco, the employees are well-trained to verify ages before selling tobacco products.

He does not expect the disappearance of flavored cigarettes to have measureable impact on his company.

“It’s such a small part of our business, it’s totally manageable,” he said, adding that more than anything else, “it’s annoying.”

Mercer wonders why flavored tobacco is being banned as a gateway-type drug, but flavored alcohol is not.

She also wonders whether the government has polluted cigarettes with health hazards that were not there before.

Some of her customers believe they are being sickened by the additive — often ethylene vinyl acetate — required in Kansas and other states to make “Fire Safe Cigarettes,” which are identified with the initials “FSC” on cigarette packages.

EVA is a copolymer of ethylene and vinyl acetate, 10 to 40 percent being vinyl acetate and the remainder being ethylene.

EVA is added in rings to the cigarette paper; if the smoker is not inhaling when the lit part of the cigarette reaches the chemical ring, the cigarette will self-extinguish, making it less likely to start a fire.

“I had the state in in July, making sure my cigarettes were fire-safe,” Mercer said.

Kansas, Texas and Oklahoma already require FSCs, she said; Missouri does not.

Mercer said that each day, some customers complain that they have become sick because of the fire-retarding additives in the cigarettes.

“Today we probably had five people in here saying they’ve been sick over them,” Mercer said Tuesday afternoon.

Among them, she said, were a law enforcement officer and a waitress.

“The doctor tells her it’s not pneumonia,” Mercer said. “It’s these cigarettes. I think FDA’s doing more damage than they are helping anybody. … They were hoping it would make people quit. It’s making people sick.”

They’ve been a long time coming, but harsh new clampdowns on smoking have been signed into law by President Jacob Zuma, who is among the 78 percent of South African adults who don’t smoke.

Owners of pubs, restaurants and workplaces who allow people to smoke in non-smoking areas may have sniffed at the paltry R200 fine they faced up to now, but may think twice of flouting the anti-puffing law now that the fine is R50 000.

Partially enclosed patios, balconies and walkways no longer qualify as open spaces, so smoking is out in those spots, too.

Parents can no longer subject their children to smoke-infested areas of restaurants, and adults may not smoke in a car if any of the passengers are under 12.

It’s now also illegal for the cigarette companies to stage “by invitation only” parties or use “viral” marketing to target young people – tactics the industry has resorted to since 2000 when advertising was banned.

If the following post on a local blog is anything to go by, it’s a strategy that’s worked for them. In answer to the question “which brand do you smoke?” someone shared this: “I used to smoke Stuyvesant red. Then one day at RAU these super hot chickies were doing promos for Rothmans so I signed up!

“Ever since then they’ve been sending me two packs a month and free lighters, free stuff and party invites! Been smoking Rothmans ever since!”

More big changes are expected in the coming months – according to the National Council Against Smoking (NCAS).

The health ministry is “still finalising regulations”.

These include forcing the manufacturers to include dire photos of diseased lungs and the like on cigarette boxes; restricting smoking in outdoor areas such as stadiums and bus stops; stopping people from smoking at entrances to shops and offices and banning the terms low-tar, light, and mild.

“Such labels suggest that ‘light’ cigarettes are less harmful than regular cigarettes, when they are not,” the NCAS said this week.

“Smokers who switch from ‘regular’ to ‘light’ cigarettes do not reduce their intake of tar or nicotine, or the risk of disease.”

To me this is one of the tobacco industry’s biggest frauds.

It emerged in a major court case in the US in 2006 that the tobacco industry had known since the late 1960s that because most smokers are hooked on nicotine and crave a certain daily dose, when they switch to lower-nicotine cigarettes, they “compensate” by taking more puffs, inhaling more deeply, covering the ventilation holes or smoking more cigarettes in order to get the same fix.

In an editorial in 2006, the New York Times stated: “Smokers of light or low-tar cigarettes need to realise that the industry is not so much concerned about their health as it is worried, in the words of an internal document, that their penchant to quit smoking entirely could pose ‘a special problem for the cigarette industry’.”

Try explaining the compensation thing to committed “mild” cigarette smokers, and chances are they won’t buy it – believing the industry’s light lies is easier than kicking the habit.

Interestingly, two weeks after being ordered by US federal court judge Gladys Kessler to publicise the dangers of smoking and to stop marketing so-called “light” and “mild” cigarettes as healthier than others, the tobacco companies returned to court to effectively ask the judge if they could carry on deceiving their overseas markets about “light” and “low-tar” cigarettes.

In that court case, it emerged that the tobacco industry had for decades, as the New York Times put it “obfuscated the health consequences of smoking, duped people into thinking that low-tar and low-nicotine cigarettes might be less harmful, manipulated cigarette design to ensure an addictive dose of nicotine, downplayed the adverse effects of second-hand smoke and seduced young people into taking up smoking while denying that it was doing any such thing.

“To hide its tracks, the industry, abetted by its lawyers, suppressed research and destroyed documents.”

Kessler was appalled by what emerged in the courtroom, stating that the companies had marketed and sold their products “with zeal, with deception, with a single-minded focus on their financial success and without regard for the human tragedy or social costs that success exacted”.

That an industry can knowingly, legally sell a product that’s both highly addictive and deadly while parading its “social responsibility” as a badge of honour, is sickening.

That people continue to buy and use their products, despite what we know about the industry’s despicable lack of ethics – on top of the associated health risks – says volumes about the stranglehold of nicotine addition. Smoking prevalence in SA has fallen by a third in the past decade – from 32 percent of adults in 1995 to 22 percent in 2006 and the new laws are expected to accelerate the trend.

# Contravention of the Tobacco Products Control Act can be reported to the police or one’s local health department.

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LAKELAND – Fruit flavored tobacco? Lemonade spiked with alcohol? It might not sound appealing to you, but it just might to someone else. Anti-drug groups say those kind of products are attractive to kids, and that’s just what the companies that produce them want.

Angie Ellision, Executive Director of InnerAct Alliance, a drug resource and prevention center in Lakeland, says many tobacco and alcohol companies are hoping to attract new customers by developing products that are attractive to kids.

“Anyone who is a regular alcohol drinker doesn’t choose fruit flavors. They aren’t looking
for something that tastes like bubblegum. As a matter of fact, that’s probably something they would purposely avoid,” she said.

This summer, groups around the state, including Ellison’s, sent out teams of teens. They went store to store looking for information about how funky flavored tobacco and alcoholic beverages are being marketed. They wanted to see if the manufacturers used stars or sports heros to promote items. They also wanted to check out product placement. In one store, they found the candy flavored tobacco products right next to regular candy.

“it just feels wrong,” said Jared White, a member of Polk County’s teen team, which is called “Heatforce.”


17 Aug 2009 © Myfoxtampabay