Free Republic

While more Americans than ever before are quitting their cigarette habit, a growing number are also turning to large cigars and pipes, suggesting that gains in curbing tobacco consumption may be more elusive than previously thought. The findings were outlined in a report released on Thursday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Overall consumption of smoked tobacco products declined 27.5 percent between 2000 and 2011, but use of noncigarette smoked tobacco products increased by a whopping 123 percent in that same time. One major culprit for the trend is likely price, particularly in the latter part of...

It’s bad news for smokers and tobacco shops alike. Long regarded as a cheaper option for nicotine lovers, roll-your-own cigarettes are set to be a thing of the past as a new law is introduced by President Barack Obama. In coming days he will sign a federal highway bill with a section defining any business with roll-your-own cigarette machines as a tobacco manufacturer and upping taxes on the its products, the Chicago Sun Times reported. The move will come as a blow to smokers without brand loyalty who for years have been able to feed their habits at a fraction...

For smokers who bargained on roll-your-own cigarette stores for cheap smokes, it looks like those days are numbered. On Friday, President Barack Obama is expected to sign into law a federal highway bill with a section that redefines tobacco manufacturers to include any business with a roll-your-own cigarette machine and taxes those products at the same rate as packaged smokes. The move comes a month after Illinois increased taxes on such roll-your-own machine-made cigarettes. Marcia Smith, 47, of Lake County, decided after the state tax increase that she should move her Smokes & Such tobacco shops in Skokie and Gurnee...

PETERBOROUGH — Jackie R. Whiton of Antrim had been a six-year employee at the Big Apple convenience store in Peterborough until a single transaction sent her job up in smoke. The store clerk was fired after she refused to take a customer's Electronic Balance Transfer card to pay for cigarettes. Whiton said a young man came in to the store to buy two packs or cigarettes on May 29. When she asked him for his ID, he handed her his EBT card. EBT cards are used for both food and cash assistance programs. There are two types of cards: one...

The demand for cheap cigarettes in Europe is fueling the manufacture and consumption of illicit tobacco at unprecedented levels. A report, released on Wednesday (20 June) by Philip Morris International (PMI), says Europeans smoked more than 65 billion illicit cigarettes in 2011. Of those, more than 12 billion were consumed in Spain, Italy, Greece, Portugal, Cyprus and Malta. Western and central EU countries consumed a combined total of 36.5 billion. But in Spain alone, cigarette contraband jumped by 300 percent in 2011 compared to 2010. In Greece, illicit consumption increased five-fold compared to 2008. “Despite efforts by law enforcement authorities...

We were saddened last night as deadline approached and it seemed as if Proposition 29 was going to pass, adding yet another tax on Californians, even if it would fall directly only on those people who have yet to kick their cigarette habits. But as dutiful journalists on deadline, we were obliged to report the situation as it stood as we sent the paper to the presses. So, the newspaper you received on your porch included our editorial saying that to our dismay, Prop. 29 appeared to be passing. But . . .

It killed 695,000 people in the EU last year. But despite restaurant bans and gruesome health labels, the number of smokers is hardly going down. A European Commission survey published for the UN's international anti-smoking day on Thursday (31 May) shows that 28 percent of the EU population smokes today compared to 29 percent in 2009. The number is still going up in the Czech Republic, Finland and Slovenia. Another 21 percent used to smoke but say they have given up. The typical smoker's profile is unflattering: it is the most prevalent among young men aged 15 to 54 who...

In the hunt for Saddam Hussein's billions, investigators have identified five networks of more than 100 companies used to launder money skimmed from Iraqi oil sales. Saddam's gangster regime set up shell companies in Switzerland, Jordan, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg and Panama, according to investigators. Those company networks and their banking affiliations were used to enrich the former Iraqi strongman, his sons Uday and Qusay, and other family members. "Ultimately, the money was stolen from the Iraqi people," said Taylor Griffin, spokesman for the Treasury Department, which is heading the government's laundering probe along with U.S. Customs, the Secret Service and various...

While the US has been trying to disgust smokers into giving up tobacco, New Zealand has been considering a more direct idea: raising the price of cigarettes to $100 a pack. The Ministry of Health wants a smoke-free NZ by 2025, and the $100 price tag—which would be implemented by 2020—is one of the ideas being discussed … although officials admit it is "probably unrealistic." The plan seen as the most likely would make a pack of cigarettes a still-sizable $60 by 2025, Sky News reports. But, 3 News adds, Prime Minister John Key is concerned that higher prices may...

In the 1970s it seemed like we had problems we could never fix — and I'm not talking about white polyester disco suits and the band Air Supply. To punctuate the dismal vibe, everybody smoked, or so it seemed if you were sitting on an airplane at the edge of the DMZ between the smoking and nonsmoking sections. But then something funny happened. We tackled those problems. A move toward more fuel-efficient vehicles, plus Alaskan oil and geopolitical changes, gave us a breather from the tyranny of oil. How'd we do it? The answer is worth considering as we struggle...

ONEIDA, N.Y. — The trucks lumber past cornfields and dilapidated farm houses, pull up to a onetime bingo hall and unload their cargo: boxes of tobacco imported from the Carolinas. Inside, employees of the Oneida Indian Nation dump the shredded tobacco leaves into rolling machines and fashion them into cigarettes to be sold at a dozen tribal convenience stores midway between Syracuse and Utica. The cigarettes, branded with names like Niagara’s and Bishop, sell for as little as $39.95 for a 10-pack carton — much cheaper than those at non-Indian retailers — and bring in millions of dollars a year...

>I can't think of a stock that's more hated. I've written about this company several times before. I've personally owned it for years. But just about every time I mention it, I end up receiving nasty emails admonishing the fact that I would cover... let alone recommend... investors own shares of this company.In fact, it happens so often that I instruct our staff to put in a mention that this investment isn't for everyone whenever they cover it. If you don't want to invest in this stock, I can certainly understand. But if you have an open mind toward this...

ANNAPOLIS — Maryland health advocates are lauding Gov. Martin O'Malley’s proposal to increase the state’s cigar tax, but critics say such an increase would create another financial burden for consumers and business owners. Mr. O'Malley, a Democrat, proposed a state budget Wednesday that would raise the 15-percent excise tax on cigars, smokeless tobacco and other noncigarette tobacco items — a group collectively known as other tobacco products (OTP) — to 70 percent. The OTP tax has gone unchanged since 1999 while the cigarette tax has gone from 36 cents to $2 a pack during that period. Health advocates argue raising...

A new Institute of Medicine report unintentionally highlights the fatal folly of censoring truthful information about cigarette alternatives until their manufacturers can generate the sort of costly, time-consuming studies that federal regulators demand before approving new drugs. Under the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, a "modified risk tobacco product," which is any tobacco product identified as safer than cigarettes, can be legally sold only after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) certifies that it will "benefit the health of the population as a whole, taking into account both users of tobacco products and persons who do not currently...

A couple of months ago I posted a thread that I was trying to quit smoking and asked for advice. I tried going cold turkey, but only managed a few days. I finally went to the doctor and got a prescription for Chantix. I'm right at three weeks smoke-free now. I quit taking the Chantix about a week and a half ago (horrible nightmares and seriously screwed up sleep) and I'm past the 'cravings' stage. I really only think about smoking a couple of times a day, but I'm not fighting the urge to smoke any more. This is the...

Reason’s Jacob Sullum discovers another example of nannies amok: "Yesterday the Boston Public Health Commission voted to ban the use of electronic cigarettes in workplaces, including outdoor areas such as restaurant patios. It says it is simply “clos[ing] a loophole” by “treat[ing] e-cigarettes like tobacco products.” But since e-cigarettes do not contain any tobacco and do not generate smoke (merely a propylene glycol vapor containing nicotine), that is a puzzling way to characterize the decision. The official justification for banning smoking in workplaces is protecting employees and other bystanders from the toxins and carcinogens generated when tobacco is burned. Let’s...

Barack Obama, a former smoker, urged Americans to stub out their cigarettes on the "Great American Smokeout Day," adding he knows just how hard it is to quit. ... Obama, a longtime smoker, quit in early 2010 a year after entering the White House, his former spokesman Robert Gibbs and First Lady Michelle Obama have said.

A U.S. judge sided with tobacco companies on Monday, granting a temporary injunction blocking rules requiring new warning labels that use graphic images like a man exhaling cigarette smoke through a hole in his throat.