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]
tobacco
FDA Proposes More Graphic Warning Labels For Cigarettes
By 11.10.10
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 11.1.10
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 9.10.10
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 9.8.10
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]
NY State Approves $4.35/Pack Tax On Cigarettes
By 6.22.10
As we reported over the weekend, the NY State Legislature was considering a proposal to increase the state’s already high $2.75/pack tax on cigarettes by $1.60. And last night, the ayes had it over the coughing and hacking nos, making New York the most expensive place to smoke in the U.S. [More]
New York Proposes Nation's Highest Cigarette Taxes
By 6.19.10
Cigarettes may cost more than $10 per pack in New York under the state’s latest plan to close a $9 billion budget gap. In New York City, the tax alone on a pack of cigarettes would rise to $5.85. And cigarettes aren’t the only carcinogens set for a tax bump under the proposal. [More]
American Cigarettes Packed With Extra Cancer Chemicals
By 6.2.10
The Centers for Disease Control have announced the results of a study that shows that people who smoke certain U.S. cigarette brands have higher levels of “cancer-causing tobacco-specific nitrosamines (TSNAs),” (which are apparently the major carcinogens and cancer-causing agents in tobacco products) than people who smoke some foreign cigarette brands. [More]
Tic Tacs Or Tobacco? Study Says Camel Orbs Look Too Sweet
By 4.19.10
When is a tiny, mint-flavored tablet that dissolves in the mouth not a breath mint? When it’s a Camel Orb “dissolvable tobacco” pellet, that’s when. And that has health advocates — who worry that children may mistake the nicotine pills for candy — smoking mad. [More]
New FDA Rules Take The Fun Out Of Cigarette Advertising
By 3.19.10
It’s been fifteen years and three presidents since it was first proposed, but the FDA has now signed off on a new set of rules for tobacco companies that seek to limit the marketing of cigarettes and chewing tobacco to teens and children. These new rules cover both advertising and distribution and will essentially put an end to tobacco-branded clothing, tobacco-sponsored sporting and music events, and the use of music in tobacco ads on the radio. [More]
FDA Wants Tobacco Companies To Submit Ingredients List By June
By 1.18.10
“Tobacco products today are really the only human-consumed product that we don’t know what’s in them,” the director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products said to the Associated Press. To address that, the agency has told tobacco companies to provide a list of the ingredients in their cigarette brands by June 2010. The FDA says it won’t publicize a lot of the data in order to protect trade secrets, but that by June 2011 it will publish a list of “harmful and potentially harmful” ingredients, at which point tobacco companies will have to start listing the amounts of each one on their products. [More]
Study: Cigarette Packages Can Help Kill Smokers
By 8.4.09
A new study published in the Journal of Public Health has found that people rate cigarettes in attractive packages as less deadly than others. Or, to put it another way, the study found that people who are asked to compare cigarettes based on their packages are inclined to prefer the smartly packaged ones:
By 6.11.09
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The Senate has approved FDA regulation of tobacco. No more “low tar” labels or flavored tobacco, and the FDA will now need to know and approve all ingredients in tobacco products. It is likely to pass the House, and President Obama plans to sign the bill. [MSNBC] (Thanks, Greg!)
If Legislation Passes, The FDA May Soon Regulate Cigarettes
By 6.8.09
The New York Times is reporting that Richard M. Burr, the “tobacco-state senator who tried a filibuster this week against a bill that would allow the Food and Drug Administration to regulate the cigarette industry” has apparently given up, clearing the way for the bill to pass the Senate. A similar bill has already passed the House and Obama says he will sign the legislation.
Health Insurers Own Tobacco Stocks Worth Nearly $4.5 Billion
By 6.6.09
Major health insurance companies own nearly $4.5 billion worth of stock in tobacco companies, according to a Harvard University study. It kinda makes sense: health insurers know tobacco sickens people, and so as long as people are smoking, why not profit from the killer? It’s what David Himmelstein, a co-author of the study, calls “the combined taxidermist and veterinarian approach: either way you get your dog back.”
Old Cigarette Ads: Doctors, Nurses, And Rock Hudson Say It's Good For You
By 10.10.08
Man, cigarettes were awesome in the past, if these old ads collected by Stanford University are to be believed. They calmed your nerves so you’d stop humming nervously! They soothed your throat! They made you a movie star and helped you capture animals on your big game hunt! We don’t know what tobacco was made of before the mid-80s, but no wonder everyone smoked.
Liggett Cigarette Company Paid For 2006 Lung Cancer Study
By 3.27.08
CT scanning, a promising approach to detecting lung cancer at early, treatable stages, has been dealt a setback with the revelation that the most prominent study so far in support of it was funded almost entirely by a cigarette company—with the funds funneled through a foundation set up by the study’s author, Dr. Claudia Henschke, reports the New York Times. Although the funding revelation doesn’t negate the results of the study, it raises huge conflict of interest flags and reveals how a tobacco company secretly influenced professional opinion by funneling $3.6 million into the foundation over a three year period.
China Puts Skulls on Cigarette Packs, Bypasses Toys For Now
By 9.12.07
China’s had such a bad safety record lately that it’s a little surprising to find out their latest plans for health warnings on packs of cigarettes: skulls, blackened teeth, and diseased lungs, covering at least 30% of the pack’s surface area. The move is an attempt to curb the growing market of smokers in the country, where the average age of people who start smoking is as low as 10 in some areas.
