Free Republic

--SNIP-- "It's really bad right now. We're in real bad shape," he said, adding that the decrease in cigarette sales has had a ripple effect on the rest of his business. He has let go of four employees in the past month. "Now it's just me, my wife and my sister." Martinez isn't alone. Other store owners and distributors in the city said they have seen a dramatic drop in revenue since the tax was added, causing them to wonder what the collateral damage will be on their livelihoods. "It's detrimental all over the city. There are probably over 2,000...

The Central Massachusetts town of Westminster would become the first community in the state, and perhaps the nation, to ban all tobacco sales under a proposal made public Monday that regulators say is designed to improve health, especially among the young. Draft regulations posted on the town’s website would prohibit sales of products containing tobacco or nicotine, including cigarettes, chewing tobacco, and even electronic cigarettes, which use batteries to heat nicotine-laced liquid, producing a vapor that is inhaled. The plan has infuriated local store owners, who are circulating petitions to block the action, saying it would drive them out of...

---SNIP--- What’s the draw at this Bensalem store? Cigarettes, some priced at under $6 a pack. No more than a mile away in Philadelphia, the same cigarettes cost more than $8. “We used to get between 300 and 400 cartons of cigarettes every other night. Now, we’re getting about 1,500 cartons. I would say sales have gone up from about 2,000 packs a day to between 4,000 and 4,500 packs daily,” inventory manager Jim Watson said. That adds up at least $24,000 a day in sales, an increase of $12,000-plus since nearby Philadelphia increased its tax on a pack of...

In a Trans-Atlantic debate over cigarette packaging, North Carolina’s governor poses a rhetorical question to the Irish and French governments: Would Guinness be recognizable labeled simply as “beer?” Or would champagne sell as well in a bottle lacking its distinctive curves? Gov. Pat McCrory has written letters to French and Irish officials decrying plans in those countries to force manufacturers to package their cigarettes in plain containers. McCrory argues farmers and manufacturers in the top U.S. tobacco-producing state would be hurt by the proposals to remove brand logos and colors from cigarette boxes. “Plain packaging laws are a direct assault...

California Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter is fighting a potential ban on tobacco sales on military bases and ships. The idea of a ban is currently under a department review, thanks to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. But Hunter, a Marine reservist who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, is already fighting the idea. “It’s not curbed for anybody else. Why pick out the folks who choose of their own accord to fight for their country and serve their country, and punish them?”

Nicotiana benthamiana, already used to produce West Nile virus antibodies, offers similar protection against the devastating Ebola virus The already wide horticultural field has expanded yet more to the new science of pharming. This involves the production of pharmaceuticals through the use of genetic engineering to insert genes that code for desired and otherwise expensive and complicated to produce pharmaceuticals into plants. Today, thanks to the herbaceous plant and close relative of tobacco, Nicotiana benthamiana, already used to produce West Nile virus antibodies, offers similar protection against the devastating Ebola virus. Found amongst rocks on hills and cliffs throughout the...

What are the odds? In 2009, Congress passed landmark legislation directing the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco products, aiming to cut the toll from the leading preventable cause of disease and death. Three times since, however, cigarette and e-cigarette companies have filed successful legal challenges to thwart rules intended to make their products less appealing to consumers–and less accessible to kids. The three cases, which, among other things, have blocked graphic cigarette warning labels and delayed regulation of e-cigarettes for at least a few years, were decided in favor of industry plaintiffs by the same federal judge, Richard...

Pot may be legal in Colorado, but you can still be fired for using it. Brandon Coats, a quadriplegic medical marijuana patient who was fired by the Dish Network after failing a drug test more than four years ago, says he still can't find steady work because employers are wary of his off-duty smoking. In a case being closely watched around the country, Colorado's Supreme Court on Tuesday will hear arguments in Coats' case, which could have big implications for pot smokers in the first state to legalize recreational sales of the drug. The case highlights the clash between state...

The unelected and unaccountable sages at the World Health Organization (WHO) can’t seem to help themselves or resist the temptation to try to regulate the behavior of everyone on the planet. This is a shame, really, because a group like that could actually do some good if they stuck to trying to get basic supplies and medical care to people in remote, poverty stricken countries. But rather than devoting themselves to such laudable goals, they’re once again pushing to get every government on the planet to jack up sin taxes on tobacco.(This is something they’ve tried before, as I wrote...

CVS Caremark has followed through with its long-promised cigarette ban, as the tobacco-free pharmacy chain officially changed its name to CVS Health. "The sale of cigarettes and tobacco at CVS pharmacy stores ends today," said Larry Merlo, president and CEO of CVS, in a video statement on the company web site. "By eliminating the sale of cigarettes and tobacco products in our stores, we can make a difference in the health of all Americans." CVS (CVS) stopped selling cigarettes nearly a month earlier than expected, since the chain had previously announced the ban would go into effect by Oct. 1.

As CVS sharpens its focus on customer health, the nation's second-largest drugstore chain will tweak its corporate name and stop the sale of tobacco nearly a month sooner than planned. CVS Caremark will now be known as CVS Health. The signs on its roughly 7,700 drugstores won't change, so the tweak may not register with shoppers.

The American Heart Association says e-cigarettes are dangerous gateway products that cause nicotine addiction and should be subject to strict federal controls for minor-aged use. The group published its statement into the journal Circulation. Among its views: Ban e-cigarettes for minors, tightly regulate the product’s marketing and ban vapors that have flavors because they entice youngsters to try the product, Medical News Today reported.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is trying to ban smoking… Everywhere. Well, at least everywhere someone might be working, so I guess that’s not as many places as you might think. (Hat tip to Obamanomics.) The CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has suggested banning all tobacco consumption at every work place in the nation… Because, ya know, the nanny-state can never be too big, right?The ban would apply to not only office buildings, restaurants, and retail stores, but it would also apply to any outdoor location (such as construction sites, landscaping work, and...

New York - It's an eye-catching angle in the story of an experimental treatment for Ebola: The drug comes from tobacco plants that were turned into living pharmaceutical factories. Using plants this way, sometimes called "pharming" can produce complex and valuable proteins for medicines. That approach, studied for about 20 years, hasn't caught on widely in the pharmaceutical industry. But some companies and academic labs are pursuing it to create medicines and vaccines against such targets as HIV, cancer, the deadly Marburg virus and norovirus, known for causing outbreaks of stomach bug on cruise ships, as well as Ebola. While...

In the last couple of weeks my cigar company has had a hell of a time trying to find a credit card processing company that’ll do recurring revenue charges for my customers who’d like to get an automated, monthly dose of one of the finest cigars on this planet, our Safari Cigar. As my team and I were going back and forth trying to find a company to handle our transactions, I started redlining, getting a wee bit pissed, about how ridiculous it has become to do trade. My business boys tried to calm me down by telling me it...

In November 1998, attorneys general from across the country sealed a historic deal with the tobacco industry to pay for the health care costs of smoking. Going forward, nearly every cigarette sold would provide money to the states, territories and other governments involved 2014 more than $200 billion in just the first 25 years of a legal settlement that required payments to be made in perpetuity. Then, Wall Street came knocking with an offer many state and local politicians found irresistible: Cash upfront for those governments willing to trade investors the right to some or all of their tobacco payments....

When American Ebola patient Dr. Kent Brantly arrived in Atlanta, Georgia, Aug. 2, he had reportedly already had one course of treatment with an experimental drug called ZMAPP made with genetically engineered tobacco. Although it has only been tested previously in animals, the FDA is rumored to have authorized emergency approval for the drug for Brantly and another American who contracted the virus doing medical aid work in Liberia during the ongoing West African Ebola outbreak. MAPP is produced by a small San Diego-based biotech company. The scientists use a common tobacco bacteria, genetically engineered with different components of the...

RUSH: Okay, wait for it, wait for it. You're gonna love this. Folks, you're absolutely going to love this. Well, wait. Maybe some of you won't love this. Let me speak for myself. I love this. You know that magical serum that was given to two white Americans suffering from Ebola? You know what the magic ingredient is? Nicotine. Tobacco is the magical ingredient in the serum. It's a Kentucky tobacco plant from which they derive the magical serum that has caused massive reversals of the symptoms of Ebola in the two white Americans. BREAK TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Okay. So yesterday...

Any beachgoers that enjoy puffing away on a cigarette while they sit on the sand or frolic in the surf may have to get their nicotine fix elsewhere, as Oregon has proposed a ban on smoking that would include all 362 miles of beaches on its coastline. The Oregon Parks and Recreation Department has followed up an earlier ban on smoking at most state park properties with this proposal, partly because the agency is worried that all those smokers pushed out of parks will come to the beach, reports the Associated Press. The move would also serve to cut down...

*The largest ever study of the effects of the main psychoactive component of cannabis suggests that it can cause paranoia in vulnerable individuals* To discover whether cannabis really does cause paranoia in vulnerable individuals, we carried out the largest ever study of the effects of THC (∆9-tetrahydrocannabinol, the drug’s principal psychoactive ingredient). We recruited 121 volunteers, all of whom had taken cannabis at least once before, and all of whom reported having experienced paranoid thoughts in the previous month (which is typical of half the population). None had been diagnosed with a mental illness. The volunteers were randomly chosen to...