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Eight current and former NYPD officers have been arrested "on federal charges including gun trafficking and conspiracy to smuggle cigarettes" as reported by William K. Rashbaum for The New York Times: "the charges allege that the officers — five are still on the force and three are retired — were involved in smuggling more than a dozen illegal handguns as well as M-16 rifles and shotguns, the people briefed on the case said." It's been a rough month for the NYPD. Earlier this month a former detective testified at the corruption trial of a fellow officer that "it was common...

“(It) doesn't matter how big the warnings are. You could have cigarettes that were called the warnings. You could have cigarettes that come in a black pack with a skull and a cross bone on the front, called ‘Tumors’ and smokers would be lined up around the block going, "I can't wait to get my hands on these fucking things!” – Denis Leary ‘No Cure for Cancer’ There are certain areas of government hypocrisy that we as a society have come to accept as normal. These subjects are always met with a shake of the head and shrugged shoulders when...

PLEASANT HILL -- To get a good deal, Paul Brodman used to buy cigarettes online. Little did he know, those smokes weren't the bargain they appeared to be. There's no getting out of paying state taxes simply by buying cigarettes online. Earlier this month, Brodman received a bill for $1,398 from the State Board of Equalization for back taxes and penalties he owes for 100 cartons of cigarettes he bought online from an out-of-state retailer in 2007 and 2008. Initially, Brodman thought it was a mistake. "We smoked them; we didn't resell them," he said. "I wasn't selling them on...

FRANKFORT — Revenue from Kentucky's cigarette tax is in free-fall, but more Kentuckians kicking the unhealthy habit isn't the only reason for the decline. State officials say more and more people are turning to cheaper alternatives — little cigars and roll-your-own cigarettes — that aren't covered by the state's 60-cent-a-pack tax. The little cigars look much like cigarettes but are wrapped in brown paper. They cost about $1.25 a pack, compared to about $3.25 for the cheapest pack of cigarettes. The move to small cigars and roll-your-own cigarettes is a national trend. The U.S. Department of Justice estimates that states...

TORONTO . Aline Ajami's nightmare began when a stranger appeared at the Toronto apartment where she lived with her parents. He said his name was Kamal Ghandour and that he was connected to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. There was a problem, he said. Ms. Ajami's uncle owed him money. As a result, the uncle was being held hostage by Mr. Ghandour's associates in south Lebanon. He would be killed, Mr. Ghandour warned, unless Ms. Ajami did exactly what she was told. That encounter in February 2008 was the start of what an Ontario judge, in language more reminiscent of...

Hundreds of bars, restaurants and stores across Minnesota are running out of beer and alcohol and others may soon run out of cigarettes -- a subtle and largely unforeseen consequence of a state government shutdown. In the days leading up to the shutdown, thousands of outlets scrambled to renew their state-issued liquor purchasing cards. Many of them did not make it. Now, with no end in sight to the shutdown, they face a summer of fast-dwindling alcohol supplies and a bottom line that looks increasingly bleak. The Ugly Mug doesn't have enough beer to get through the baseball season. "Our...

Given that the FDA now would demand graphically unpleasant images be plastered all over cigarette packages perhaps a useful trend could emerge. For example, why not superimpose photos of auto accident victims, the more severe the injury the better, on cell phone telephone bills? Condoms passed out to children at their schools could be adorned with close ups of the various and more nasty symptoms of STDs. Abortion clinics could have wall murals of the dismembered fetus. Homosexual marriage licences could be decorated with various photos of AIDS "victims" in the last sickly throes of life. All journalism texts might...

On six packs of beer they will put pictures of gosh-awful ugly women who you will be tempted to sleep with if you drink the contents. Ice cream containers and packages of steaks will have photographs of cottage-cheese thighs and clogged arteries. Table saws will have pictures of severed fingers and New Year's champaigne will have images of crippled livers. The possibilities are endless. The government has decided that it has the power to put images on the packaging of consumer products in order to protect the public health and the public good. So, it seems natural to speculate a...

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Rotting teeth and gums. Diseased lungs. A sewn-up corpse of a smoker. Cigarette smoke coming out of the tracheotomy hole in a man's neck. Cigarette packs in the U.S. will have to carry these macabre images in nine new warning labels that are part of a campaign by the Food and Drug Administration to use fear and disgust to discourage Americans from lighting up.

Dozens of new designs were made, but a winner has been chosen! All kidding aside, I mentioned last November that large labels like the one above are coming... Beginning September 2012, FDA will require larger, more prominent cigarette health warnings on all cigarette packaging and advertisements in the United States. These warnings mark the first change in cigarette warnings in more than 25 years and are a significant advancement in communicating the dangers of smoking. From the FDA "These warnings mark the first change in cigarette warnings in more than 25 years." It would be frightening if boredom with the...

Dead bodies, diseased lungs and a man on a ventilator were among the graphic images for revamped tobacco labels unveiled on Tuesday by U.S. health officials. Proposed in November under a law that put the multibillion-dollar tobacco industry under the control of the Food and Drug Administration, the new labels must be on cigarette packages and in advertisements starting in October 2012. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg were to announce the nine new warnings at the White House, but the labels were released early Tuesday at http://www.fda.gov/TobaccoProducts/Labeling/CigaretteWarningLabels/default.htm. They show images that may disturb...

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - Coming to a store near you: nine more reasons not to smoke. The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday is set to release nine new graphic health warning labels for U.S. cigarette packs, representing the most significant change to cigarette packs in more than 25 years. The new labels will take up half of a pack of cigarettes and also will appear on advertisements. Cigarette makers have until the fall of 2012 to comply. Mandates for new warning labels were part of a 2009 law giving the FDA authority to regulate tobacco. The announcement follows reviews...

City Hall for the first time is directly blaming Big Tobacco for the burgeoning black market of bootleg cigarettes on city streets. Newport maker Lorillard, the country's No. 3 tobacco company, consciously oversupplies the Poospatuck Indian reservation on Long Island -- knowing full well bootleggers buy in bulk and then flood city neighborhoods with unstamped, cheap smokes, a city official told The Post. "If Afghanistan is the seed of the heroin trade, then Lorillard is like that with cigarettes," said Eric Proshansky, a deputy chief in the city Law Department. "Lorillard knows its cigarettes are being bootlegged into the city,...

NOTE The following snippet is a quote: losangeles.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel11/la050911.htm Southern California Man Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison for Convictions in Smuggling Schemes, Including Plot to Bring Surface-to-Air Missiles Into United States LOS ANGELES—A Southern California man was sentenced this morning to 25 years in federal prison after being convicted on a series of federal charges related to schemes to smuggle many items into the United States, including surface-to-air missiles designed to shoot down aircraft. Yi Qing Chen, 49, of Rosemead, California, received the 300-month sentence from United States District Judge Dale S. Fischer. Last October, following a two-week trial, a...

SPOKANE, Wash. | As quests for freedom go, it’s not exactly the fight against apartheid in South Africa. But cigar smokers around the country are fed up with smoking bans that prevent them from enjoying stogies in cigar bars with friends. A rising number of states have moved to exempt cigars from indoor smoking bans, often by establishing cigar bars or smoking lounges inside cigar stores. Pro-cigar groups have sprung up nationally and in most states, spreading a message that their product is fundamentally different from cigarettes. Cigar smokers are not interested in exposing the general public to their pungent...

As a critical thinker, I never bought the media’s sales pitch that Obama was the messiah we were all waiting for. [...] As for the media’s anti-Republican hysteria? Granted, not all journalists referred to Bush as the devil, but many portrayed him as one. In Decision Points, though, we meet a greyer, funnier, and humbler man, who lost a sister to leukemia but also treasured simpler times. On quitting cigarettes (page 1): I have a habitual personality. I smoked cigarettes for about nine years, starting in college. I quit smoking by dipping snuff. I quit that by chewing long-leaf tobacco....

A 34-year-old Bowie man acknowledged in federal court Friday that he participated in a ring that distributed more than 17 million black-market cigarettes, a scheme that prosecutors said cost the government more than $2.6 million in taxes. Chun Chen, who goes by Eddy and owned a carryout restaurant in Maryland, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit extortion in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt... The far-reaching probe became public last fall, when then-Prince George’s County Executive Jack B. Johnson (D) and his wife, Leslie, now a council member, were arrested. Jack Johnson was indicted in February on bribery charges. Leslie Johnson...

WOO! HOO! Let's all celebrate! WILLIAM RIVERS PITT has gone 100 days without smoking. I just knew you had the fortitude to pull it off, Will! Oops! Has anyone noticed that with all the early hoopla by Pitt about quitting cigarettes that there hasn't been a self-promoting post by him on this topic since his Day 50 THREAD, "Fifty days. No smokes." So what does that tell us? It tells us that Pitt is back to sucking down the cancerous fumes again. Let us do some math to prove my point. Pitt's "Fifty Days, No Smokes" thread was posted...

Republican legislators think they have a way to keep Minnesotans on welfare from spending their benefits on booze, smokes and lottery tickets: They'd keep them from taking more than $20 in benefits in cash. Right now, welfare recipients can use their electronic benefits cards to withdraw much of their monthly allotment in cash. The proposed legislation would require more people on welfare to get a second card to use for cash withdrawal, and would limit that to no more than $20 a month.

It seems like we've seen a new tobacco tax increase pop up every day at the state level over the past few years. Though a dubious revenue raiser and all-around ill-advised policy change, tobacco tax hikes are politically palatable ways for politicians to "balance" their budgets on the backs of an unpopular minority without making difficult decisions about how to shrink the size of government. Most recently, Illinois (surprise!) is looking at a 102 percent cigarette tax increase to help fund a massive ongoing spending project. Nevermind the fact that roughly 80 percent of such tax hikes at the state...