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

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

Material by: freep.com

Marlboro, Camel, Parliament, American Spirit. All these recognizable cigarette brands can currently be purchased from the Hawk Shop in the Kansas Union. Today, the Board of Regents will consider banning the sale of tobacco products on university campuses.

Although all students have the right to choose whether to smoke, the University should not be profiting from a product that is damaging to the students it is here to serve. The Regents should vote in favor of banning tobacco sales from university campuses.

Removing cigarettes from campus will not take away the right to choose whether to smoke. It will simply show that the University does not profit from a choice that is a health risk to students.

The money from the Hawk Shop goes directly back into the Union, which is an affiliate of the University. Although it is separate, some of the Union’s profits are used for student activities and go back to the University for programs such as new student orientation.

In a Kansan editorial from February 2009, David Mucci, director of KU Memorial Unions, said the profits from tobacco sales did not represent a substantial sum.

“We’re not afraid to lose the money,” said Mucci.

Losing this small amount would not hurt the University financially which lends even greater support for the ban.

In an obvious paradox, not only can students buy cigarettes on campus, they can also receive assistance to quit smoking through a Student Health Services’ program called Kan-U-Quit at Watkins Health Center. The University has recognized the problem but is still selling the product causing it.

As a leader in education and progress, the University should not benefit from or support a product that is ultimately a heath risk for students. Having tobacco products behind the counter is condoning and enabling the habit. Though the choice to smoke remains in the hands of the student, the Regents will be making the right decision in removing Kansas universities from association with tobacco sales.

Mayor Gavin Newsom has been known to use his cell phone a lot. He used to tweet the birth of his child but now Newsom says he wants cell phones to carry a warning label.

The former governor hopeful says he is endorsing a proposal to make San Francisco the first city in the country to require radiation labels for cell phones.

If passed, stores would have to post radiation levels next to each phone in a font at least as large as the price and they would have to inform customers about what the levels actually mean, which could prove to be a tricky requirement depending on who you believe.

A study released last week by the Danish Cancer Society found that over 30 years there is no “clear change in the long term trends in incidence of brain tumors.”

Still there are some scientists (and many of them are very active in San Francisco) who say that cell phones are slow killers.

Studies to find out just how much radiation your cell phone gives out are readily available on the web, just in case you’re curious.

LONDON – Auction houses are banking on a recovery at next week’s series of big Russian art sales in London, at which they expect to show that the market dominated by new money is through the worst of the recession.

With most at stake are Sotheby’s and Russian specialist MacDougall’s, who together offer works worth between 27 and 39 million pounds ($45-64 million). Christie’s the world’s largest auction house, has pre-sale estimates of 6.5-9.3 million pounds.

The figures are sharply down on a year ago, reflecting how financial turmoil and falling stock and property values have hit super-wealthy collectors from Russia and elsewhere in the former Soviet Union and deterred owners from selling their best pieces.

Sotheby’s, for example, expected its 2008 winter sales to fetch between 29 and 41 million pounds. The actual result was 25 million, marking a significant drop in values which had soared during the previous five years or so.

This year Sotheby’s estimates have halved to 15-21 million pounds, reflecting a more selective pool of buyers and limited supply, as sellers hold out for a return to the heady days of 2007 and early 2008.

“There are less lots on offer,” Jo Vickery, Sotheby’s senior director, told Reuters. “We’ve been much more selective in the current economic climate, looking particularly for works with a very good provenance.

“There is considerable demand out there but at the moment, supply is less.”

William MacDougall, director of MacDougall Arts Ltd., said he expected prices to continue to recover from recent falls.

“The general theme since April last year is that sellers are reluctant to sell at these levels, unlike, say, holders of equities who have been forced into doing so.

“But the results in October in New York were very good and so we’re expecting a continued healthy market next week.”

TOP LOT SEREBRIAKOVA’S “NUDE”

He said over 90 percent of buyers were born in the former Soviet Union, and, although London has become the global capital for Russian art, the majority of them were based elsewhere.

His company is selling art valued at 12.4-17.6 million pounds. MacDougall’s also boasts the most valuable single lot of “Russian Week” in London, with an oil painting of a nude female by Russian artist Zinaida Serebriakova expected to fetch 1.0-1.5 million pounds.

Close behind is Sotheby’s and another work by a leading 20th century female artist, Alexandra Exter, whose brightly-colored “Venice” is estimated at 0.9-1.2 million pounds.

The auction house is also offering a large collection of Faberge cigarette cases and cufflinks that had been hidden in a pair of pillowcases in a Swedish foreign office safe for over 90 years until their recent discovery.

The objects belonged to Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna and her husband Grand Duke Vladimir, brother of Czar Alexander III.

The sale is expected to raise around one million pounds, and a handful of the bejeweled cigarette cases still contain matches and period cigarettes. Estimates range from 80 pounds to up to 90,000 pounds.

The week of Russian sales kicks off with Sotheby’s and Bonhams holding their main auctions on Monday and wind up at MacDougall’s on Thursday.

As it is known cigarettes smoking were banned in public places but hookahs were not affected by this new legislation. Andy Brunette, the Dreas Hookah Lounge manager explained that a hookah is a tobacco-smoking machine with a glass base filled with water or juice, with an attached metal stem, a hose and a ceramic bowl.

A burning charcoal rests on foil covering the bowl, which is filled with strip-leaf tobacco combined with molasses. This acts as a heating element to vaporize, not burn, the tobacco known as shisha, remitting the natural nicotine and the sugar from molasses.
Brunette added that it isn’t the same tobacco found in cigarettes or cigars. The tobacco used for hookahs has a lower nicotine concentration, and contains no chemical additives and usually comes in fruit flavors such as strawberry or papaya.
Even the vapor emitted by hookahs is first filtered through the base’s water before going through an inhaling hose. Thanks to water filtration the hookahs smoke become very smooth.
However it still has health risks, because it is a tobacco product also which can harm the people’s health. According to a lot of studies, hookahs could lead to increased risks of gum disease and other health problems.
In general, the use of hookahs dates to the 16th century for the first time in India. It has then gained fame in the Middle East and is gaining admirers in North America.
The Hookah label tends to relate to Middle Eastern culture. For example, the hookah itself should not be higher than eye level.
Another rule is to only use the right hand to hold the hose because the left hand is considered unclean, Mr. Brunette explained. Another rule of smoking hookahs is the following: when finished with one’s turn, it is recommended to set the hose down on the table and allow the next smoker to pick it up rather than directly passing it off.
Smokers won’t have to worry about loading the hookah either, a somewhat complicated process for a beginner.
Brunette confessed that he first tried hookah years ago at a friend’s lounge in Sheboygan, Wis. “I just fell in love with it basically. It was a very sweet taste,” he said.
In this way he has became an expert of sorts, smoking a hookah one or two times each day. But the decision to open his lounge has been a two-year process.

NEW YORK -R.J. Reynolds is raising prices on Camel, Kool and other cigarette brands, joining competitor Philip Morris USA in continuing to boost prices to offset volume declines.

R.J. Reynolds is a unit of Reynolds American (RAI). The company is raising wholesale prices on brands such as Camel, Kool, Winston, Salem, Pall Mall and Doral by six cents a pack. Prices on some other brands such as Capri and Lucky Strike will go up by eight cents a pack.

Earlier this week, Altria Group Inc.’s (MO) Philip Morris USA unit announced price hikes on Marlboro and other cigarettes. For years, cigarette makers in the U.S. have faced falling volumes, hurt by smoking bans and higher taxes. They have sought to shore up profits by steadily hiking prices.

-By Anjali Cordeiro, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2200; anjali.cordeiro@dowjones.com

PHOENIX – The Food & Drug Administration overstepped its authority to regulate flavored cigarettes by banning the flavored rolling papers that are sold separately, a tobacco retailer claims in a federal lawsuit.

BBK Tobacco & Foods, a distributor and seller of flavored papers, says the FDA is trying to “expand its authority to regulate cigarettes containing ‘characterizing flavors’ under the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act.”
The Act, signed on June 22, provides that “a cigarette or any of its component parts … shall not contain, as a constituent or additive, an artificial or natural flavor,” but allegedly made no mention of flavored papers that are sold separately.
According to BBK Tobacco, the Act’s definition of cigarette includes products that contain tobacco. Flavored paper sold separately does not include tobacco, BBK Tobacco argues, and therefore should not be included in the Act.
The company says its sales of flavored papers comprise a “significant portion” of annual profits, and the Act has had a “devastating impact” on its business.
It seeks an order declaring that U.S. agencies “have no authority to regulate flavored papers sold separately under the Act,” plus an injunction blocking the government from banning the papers.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, FDA Commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg and DHHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius are also named as defendants.
BBK Tobacco is represented by Joel Sannes of Lake & Cobb in Tempe, Ariz.

By JAMIE ROSS

Just in case anyone wants to get sue-happy, let me preface this installment by saying that I am not a doctor, nor do I even play one on TV, but one of the biggest trends in gadgets is the electronic cigarette. We reported on these once before, but early estimates show that these will be one of the big must-have gadgets for Christmas 2009.

The electronic cigarette, just for reminders’ sake, offers a new way to get access to nicotine by, instead of setting fire to nicotine-containing goods and inhaling the smoke, by putting nicotine directly into the electronic cigarette, vaporizing it, and allowing it to deliver nicotine in slow bursts throughout the day.

Whether or not these things might help you quit smoking is undetermined, but it sure does look like to the layman that even if they didn’t help, there’d still be every reason to believe that these might be more healthy. And in smoking, every little edge helps.

The Liberal Democrats are trying to reintroduce an improvement to the health bill, calling for the government to cutting cigarette pack designs.

For example in Australia, the government’s Preventative Health Task Force has counseled it to remove advancements of tobacco products through design of packaging as part of a complete strategy to reduce tobacco deaths.

Meantime, a recent research from the University of Nottingham showed the tobacco branding and packaging deceptive signals to young people and adult smokers.

Participants in the Nottingham study were shown pairs of cigarette packs and asked to compare them on five measures: taste, tar delivery, health risk, attractiveness, and either relief of quitting or which they would choose if trying smoking.

At the end of the investigation was found that adults and children were significantly more likely to regards packs with the terms ‘light’, ‘smooth’, ‘silver’ and ‘gold’ as lower tar, lower health risk and either easier to quit or their choice of pack if trying smoking.

But more than half of adults and youth reported that brands labeled as ‘smooth’ were less harmful than the ‘regular’ variety. The color of packs was also associated with perceptions of risk and brand appeal.

The research discovered that those smoking products which bear the word ‘smooth’ or have a light colored branding can trick people into thinking that the products are less injurious to their health.

Deborah Arnott, chief executive of Ash, an anti-smoking group, said: “This research shows that the only sure way of putting an end to this misleading marketing is to require all tobacco products to be sold in plain packaging.”

Researchers think that the change of cigarette packaging design would remove false beliefs about different brands and announce the message that all cigarettes are dangerous.

“This matter has been discussed by parliament and there is now a perfect chance to involve a requirement for plain packaging of tobacco products to be included in the health bill,” added Ms. Arnott.

According to previous studies, since 2002 it has been illegal for manufacturers to use trademarks, text or any sign to suggest that one tobacco product is less harmful than another. But investigators said that Tobacco Companies have now protected to using color and affable words to accomplish the same goal.

A principal characteristic of tobacco trade strategy has been to promote the sensation that some cigarettes are less hazardous than others, so that smokers worried about their health are supported to switch brands rather than quit, reported investigators.

As it is known these tactics are giving consumers a false sensation of reinsurance that simply does not exist.