Fewer Americans smoke today, which is a really good thing for our collective health and finances as a nation. It’s not so good for farmers in the areas of Virginia and the Carolinas that once were tobacco country. However, it just so happens that there’s a new addiction sweeping the nation that those farmers can profit from. Americans just can’t stop gobbling hummus. [More]
Former Tobacco Fields Now Grow Chickpeas To Serve America’s Growing Hummus Addiction
By May 2, 2013
Supreme Court Agrees: Cigarette Warning Labels Don’t Violate Big Tobacco’s Free Speech
By April 22, 2013
For the last several years, the tobacco industry has been fighting a federal law that requires, among other restrictions, cigarette manufacturers to place graphic warning labels on packaging. Big Tobacco may need to finally get with the program, now that the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected the companies’ challenge to the law on the grounds that it violates their First Amendment rights. [More]
Would $81 For A Pack Of Cigarettes Put An End To Smoking?
By April 24, 2012
While lawmakers here in the U.S. have developed a habit in recent years of raising taxes on cigarettes as a way to curb smoking while increasing tax revenue from those who continue to inhale, officials in New Zealand are giving some thought to what they would need to charge in order to make people quit smoking once and for all. [More]
Higher Cigarette Taxes Drove Smokers To Pipe Tobacco & Cigars
By April 18, 2012
Among the intended goals of higher taxes on cigarettes is that some smokers will quit rather than deal with the increased cost. While this may happen, newly released numbers show that taxing cigarettes also drove up the sales of forms of tobacco that are taxed at lower rates. [More]
Tobacco Companies Required To Report Levels Of Dozens Of Chemicals
By March 30, 2012
The Food & Drug Administration says there are more than 7,000 chemicals in tobacco and tobacco smoke. And now the FDA says consumers have a right to know about the levels of 93 harmful or potentially harmful chemicals that are in the products they smoke and/or chew. [More]
Appeals Court Rules Graphic Cigarette Labels Don't Violate Free Speech
By March 20, 2012
The latest battle over those graphic anti-smoking labels on cigarette packaging has been won by the FDA, after a federal appeals court ruled yesterday that requiring the warnings does not violate tobacco companies’ First Amendment right to free speech. [More]
Judge: Graphic Cigarette Warning Labels Violate Right To Free Speech
By February 29, 2012
Remember those graphic, sometimes gory, cigarette warning labels the FDA came up with? Well, a U.S. District Judge has sided with the tobacco companies and ruled that the warnings violate cigarette-makers’ right to free speech. [More]
Should Smokers Have To Pay The Full Tax If They Roll Their Own Cigarettes?
By January 3, 2012
Since state and local governments began slapping heavy taxes on cigarettes, a number of smokers have managed to pay less by buying loose tobacco and rolling their own. But as a growing number of stores have begun offering free-to-use roll-your-own machines that take the loose material and spit out a pile of smokes that look like they came straight out of the carton, some lawmakers are crying foul. [More]
Tobacco Companies Sue FDA Over New Warning Labels
By August 17, 2011
In an effort to get the Food and Drug Administration to shut down its plans to slap graphic new warning labels on tobacco products, four large tobacco firms have sued the government. Big tobacco contends the labels will cost too much to print and will infringe on their rights to free speech. [More]
FDA Unveils New Tobacco Warning Labels For Teens To Laugh At While They Smoke
By June 21, 2011
Last fall, the Food & Drug Administration announced they would be requiring tobacco packaging to carry larger and more graphic warning labels. And because our governmental agencies move like quicksilver, it only took about seven months for the FDA to finalize the nine images that will soon decorate your pack of Kools. [More]
This Cigarette Ice Cream Truck Is Doing It Wrong
By April 4, 2011
Pro tip: when you buy an old ice cream truck and turn it into a mobile cigarette dispensary, you should probably cover up all the old ads for Bombpops and Choco Tacos. Reader discounteggroll’s co-worker snapped this picture at a gas station on the NY-CT border in Greenwich, CT. (Perhaps the truck is parked on the CT side of the parking lot, to take advantage of CT’s lower cigarette tax?) If it doesn’t violate any regulations, like the Tobacco Control Act of 2009 which prohibits the sale, distribution, marketing and promotion of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco to children under the age of 18, it’s in poor taste, even with the sign asking for ID. “One Big Vanilla ice cream sandwich, please.” “Sorry kid, we got Pall Malls.” [More]
FDA Panel Recommends Ban On Menthol Cigarettes
By March 18, 2011
If you like your cigarettes minty fresh, you might want to start stocking up now. Earlier today an FDA panel announced that a ban on menthol smokes would be a good thing for the public health. [More]
Brooklyn Smoker Grows Own Tobacco To Avoid Cigarette Taxes
By February 25, 2011
Frustrated by the tax-fueled rising costs of cigarettes, a Brooklyn woman has developed a private tobacco garden to feed her addiction frugally. She buys her seeds for $2 online and plants her tobacco along with roses and geraniums in her back yard. She expects to yield a total of 45 cartons of cigarettes from crops planted in 2009 and last year, saving her $5,000 from what she’d pay at retail. [More]
NYC Bans Smoking At Parks, Beaches
By February 3, 2011
The smokers of New York City will soon have even fewer places to light up this summer after the Big Apple’s city council voted to expand the existing ban on smoking in restaurants and bars to include, beaches, parks, boardwalks and other public spaces. [More]
FDA Proposes More Graphic Warning Labels For Cigarettes
By November 10, 2010
In an effort to convince cigarette smokers to quit — and to stop potential smokers from picking up a pack — the FDA’s Dept. of Health and Human Services has proposed a series of larger, more graphic warnings for cigarette packs and advertising. [More]
Smoke Pink Cigarettes, Fight Breast Cancer
By November 1, 2010
For every pack of pink cigarettes you smoke, RJ Morris will donate half a cent to breast cancer research. [More]
FDA Fuming Over E-Cigarettes
By September 10, 2010
It’s been a busy week of letter-writing for the FDA. First, they sent out miffed missives to Canada Dry and Lipton over their questionable claims about their green tea drinks. Now the regulators are going after five manufacturers of electronic cigarettes for what the FDA alleges are illegal marketing tactics. [More]
Which States Have The Worst Smoker's Breath?
By September 8, 2010
In spite of all the ads with coroners squeezing fat out of a smoker’s diseased heart and all the taxes levied on tobacco products, the percentage of adults who smoke on a regular basis has held steady at just over 20% for the last five years, says a new report from the Centers for Disease Control. But that percentage can vary wildly depending on location, education, race and gender. [More]
