Free Republic

Nearly four years after it began regulating cigarettes, the Food and Drug Administration is poised to extend its reach to a broader range of tobacco products. At the top of that list: cigars, which have experienced a boom in recent years even as cigarette sales have declined, in part because of growing popularity among young people. Anti-tobacco advocates and industry representatives widely expect the agency to require changes in the marketing and manufacturing of cigars. But the central question remains: What kind of cigars will the FDA target, and how? On one end of the spectrum are the hand-rolled Cohibas...

A new proposal would require New York City retailers to keep tobacco products out of sight under a first-in-the-nation proposal aimed at reducing the youth smoking rate, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday. The legislation would require stores to keep tobacco products in cabinets, drawers, under the counter, behind a curtain or in other concealed spots. They could only be visible when an adult is making a purchase or during restocking. "Such displays suggest that smoking is a normal activity," Bloomberg said. "And they invite young people to experiment with tobacco."

(CNSNews.com) – The municipal government of Washington, D.C. received a $1.8 million federal Community Transformation Grant in 2012 to promote healthy lifestyles in the city.Among the things the city would do with the money, as listed on its application, was increasing the "availability of fruit and vegetables to employees in their workplaces."Administered through the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the grant was awarded in September 2011, which is the beginning of fiscal year 2012.According to the CDC, the grant is intended to target “approximately 445,000 residents living in the District of Columbia, focusing on racial/ethnic minority, low-income, medically underserved, and...

ATLANTA -- Stimulus. The mere mention opens up a debate about whether federal funds were necessary to ensure our nation's economic recovery. But are these funds having a direct effect on retailers' tobacco business on a local level? Perhaps. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 allotted $650 million to carry out clinical and community-based prevention and wellness strategies. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services enlisted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to allocate these funds through an initiative known as the Communities Putting Prevention to Work (CPPW). "Communities Putting Prevention to Work was a...

Millions of Californians would not be able to smoke tobacco inside their own homes under new legislation that would raise the bar nationwide for fighting secondhand smoke. No state ever has ventured into personal bedrooms and living rooms with its smoking restrictions, but California is going even further than that by targeting owner-occupied residences as well as rental units. Specifically, the measure would prohibit lighting up a cigarette, cigar or pipe in condominiums, duplexes and apartment units. The push would extend a lengthy list of places where smoking already is barred, including restaurants, workplaces, playgrounds, public buildings and cars containing...

Oregon gun owners cheered by the demise of Sen. Ginny Burdick's proposals to ban large magazines and scary-looking semiautomatic weapons should leave the Champagne in the fridge for the time being. The Legislature's gun-control advocates are still hard at work, and the direction in which they're heading would create problems for law-abiding citizens over the long term and, perhaps, do nothing to enhance public safety. We're leery of slippery-slope arguments, but two concepts supported by Burdick and Sen. Floyd Prozanski, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, could grease the transformation of concealed-handgun policy into something resembling smoking policies around the...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Faced with the high cost of caring for smokers and overeaters, experts say society must grapple with a blunt question: Instead of trying to penalize them and change their ways, why not just let these health sinners die?

Millions of smokers could be priced out of health insurance because of tobacco penalties in President Barack Obama's health care law, according to experts who are just now teasing out the potential impact of a little-noted provision in the massive legislation. The Affordable Care Act — "Obamacare" to its detractors — allows health insurers to charge smokers buying individual policies up to 50 percent higher premiums starting next Jan. 1. For a 55-year-old smoker, the penalty could reach nearly $4,250 a year. A 60-year-old could wind up paying nearly $5,100 on top of premiums. Younger smokers could be charged lower...

New York has the highest cigarette tax rate of any state, and nearly two-thirds of the state's cigarette market is illegal, announced the think tank Tax Foundation on Thursday. The Tax Foundation said that 60.9% of cigarettes sold in New York State are smuggled in from other states. This makes New York the biggest importer of black market cigarettes, along with the state's highest tax rate of $4.35 per pack. That's compared to Missouri, the state with the lowest rate, of 17 cents per pack. In New York City the tax rate is even higher, adding another $1.50 per pack...

I've long been a decorative smoker. One daily roll-up hasn't imperilled my health much, and it's rescued me from the ranks of the self-righteous. I've relished the dash of badness, but my indulgence has come at a price: complicity. My more heavily addicted husband has smoked from the age of 19. So long as I join him in the odd postprandial drag, I'm a bad influence. Last month I switched to an e-cig. I'm a convert. Sleek, black, and easily confused with a fine-point felt-tip, this newfangled "nicotine delivery system" is dead cool. The gently warm vapour ingeniously replicates the...

The World Health Organization (WHO) is facing criticism for its cigarette and tobacco control proposals at an upcoming November conference. WHO is considering an excise tax of up to 70 percent on cigarettes as well as new restrictions on electronic cigarettes that do not contain tobacco. As previously reported by the Free Beacon, the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control indicated it might put a cigarette tax on the table at its November 12-17 conference in Seoul, Korea.WHO says the taxes could raise more than $5 billion in funds for world health efforts. However, critics of the tax increases say...

(CNN) -- Would you be more likely to take the stairs if the elevator doors were slower to close? Would you be more likely to eat healthy foods if the unhealthy selections were harder to reach? You might -- and you might not even be aware of it. Humans, as well as other animals, are motivated to conserve energy and have a built-in preference for the shortest or easiest way of doing something over a longer or more difficult way. Our behavior is guided by two systems: a reflective system, in which we act in a conscious way, working toward...

Missouri voters to decide on tobacco tax increase in November The tax on a pack of cigarettes in Missouri is the lowest in the nation, but that may change if a ballot initiative is approved by voters in November. The initiative, titled Proposition B, seeks to raise the tax on cigarettes sold in Missouri from its current level of 17 cents per pack to 90 cents. It also seeks a new tax for roll-your-own tobacco to be set at 25 percent of the manufacturer's invoice price and a rate of 15 percent for cigars and other tobacco products. Supporters of...

The Omaha City Council is currently pushing for the passage of a new ordinance that would add an occupation tax of 35 cents per pack of cigarettes purchased within the city of Omaha, Nebraska: this increase will be in addition to the 64 cents in state taxes. The annual revenue generated from this proposed ordinance is estimated at $35 million over ten years, and will go towards funding the construction of the University of Nebraska Medical Center and Nebraska Medical Center campus. The total cost of the project is estimated at $370 million. The state of Nebraska has already agreed...

FRIDAY, Sept. 14 (HealthDay News) — Regular exposure to secondhand smoke has a negative effect on brain function, according to a new British study that found people who live with or spend a significant amount of time with a smoker are damaging their memories. “According to recent reports by the World Health Organization, exposure to secondhand smoke can have serious consequences on the health of people who have never smoked themselves, but who are exposed to other people’s tobacco smoke,” Dr. Tom Heffernan, a researcher at the Collaboration for Drug and Alcohol Research Group at Northumbria University, said in a...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Patient after patient asked: Is eating organic food, which costs more, really better for me? Unsure, Stanford University doctors dug through reams of research to find out -- and concluded there's little evidence that going organic is much healthier, citing only a few differences involving pesticides and antibiotics. Eating organic fruits and vegetables can lower exposure to pesticides, including for children -- but the amount measured from conventionally grown produce was within safety limits, the researchers reported Monday. Nor did the organic foods prove more nutritious...

Peer pressure continues to prompt high school students to light up, new research suggests, because popular teens tend to smoke and they induce others to take up the habit in an effort to fit in and be liked. “Popularity is a strong predictor of smoking,” said study author Thomas Valente, a professor of preventive medicine at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine. “We haven’t done enough to make it cool not to smoke.” The finding, published online Sept. 6 in the Journal of Adolescent Health, confirms trends Valente found in previous research studying smoking in students in...

Nicotine is bad for you and apparently it has the same poisonous effect on pests, getting scientists' attention for a potential alternative to traditional commercial pesticides. Tobacco and nicotine make one of the-hardest-to-get-rid-of vices of modern society – smoking, which can lead to lung cancer and early death. For hundreds of years now, tobacco leaves have been used on a small scale, as a natural organic pesticide, and as the growing concerns about health risk related to tobacco sales are harming tobacco farmers in some parts of the world, scientists looked for a new way of using this plant. Dr...

A doctor in a white lab coat stands at the pearly gates. The voice of God booms, “And your good deeds?” The man responds, “Well, as a dermatologist, I’ve been warning people that sunlight will kill them and that it is as deadly as smoking.” His smug smile fades as God snaps, “You’re saying that sunlight, which I created to keep you alive, give you vitamin D and make you feel good, is deadly? And the millions of dollars you received from chemical sunscreen companies had nothing do with your blasphemy?” A bottle of SPF 1000 sunscreen materializes in the...

PRINCETON, N.J. — The number of Americans who smoke has fallen to 20 percent, tying the all-time low first recorded in 2009, according to a new poll by Gallup. The decline is sharpest among young adults, a signal the overall rate may continue to fall after years of plateauing. "This is all very good news," said Randall Burt, professor of medicine at the University of Utah and senior director of prevention and outreach and clinical services at the Huntsman Cancer Institute. "Ultimately, less smoking will result in fewer cancer deaths, as well as a lower risk of cardiovascular disease and...