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Meet the strange bedfellows against vaping: drug and tobacco companies, health advocates and Democratic lawmakers. A convergence of interests among these four lies behind the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) announcement on May 5 that e-cigarettes will be regulated as rigorously as tobacco beginning in August. Vaping advocates say the cost of FDA approvals will bankrupt an industry that might vastly improve public health. This spring, a major study from the Royal College of Physicians, the British equivalent of the Office of the Surgeon General, found e-cigarettes to be 95 percent less harmful than cigarettes.

SAN DIEGO — Tony Gwynn's widow and two children filed a lawsuit Monday seeking to hold the tobacco industry accountable for the Hall of Famer's death. The suit was filed in San Diego Superior Court by Alicia Gwynn and her children, Tony Jr. and Anisha Gwynn-Jones. The suit says Gwynn started dipping as a 17-year-old freshman ballplayer at San Diego State. He died of cancer of the right parotid salivary gland on June 16, 2014, at 54.

Okay, your HIGH is really screwin’ up my LAWN!!! People are IDIOTS and will ingest ANYTHING to catch a BUZZ — the latest — FLOWER SEEDS?! That’s right, people are CHEWING the seeds of: Hawaiian Baby Woodrose Sleepy Grass Blue Morning Glory Because they’re LEGAL, and apparently, mimic the high of LSD.

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The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has launched a smoking prevention campaign aimed at young adult lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered (LGBT) persons who are occasional users of tobacco. Young adult LGBT persons are nearly twice as likely to use tobacco as other young adults, said Mitch Zeller, JD, director, Center for Tobacco Products (CTP), FDA, during a press briefing to announce the campaign, called This Free Life. Of the more than 2 million LGBT persons aged 18 to 24 years in the United States, more than 800,000 are occasional or so-called social smokers, according to Dr Zeller. "Unfortunately,...

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today announced the launch of a historic public education campaign aimed at preventing and reducing tobacco use among lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) young adults ages 18-24.

The Pentagon is looking to raise the price of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco sold on U.S. military installations worldwide, in an attempt to ween U.S. service members from tobacco use. Defense Secretary Ash Carter codified the policy in an April 8th department-wide memorandum, which also expanded smoke-free areas on American military bases, according to Reuters. The new tobacco policy would increase prices on cigarettes and smokeless tobacco sold at U.S. military commissaries and post exchanges to match the price of tobacco products sold off base, which are subject to state and local taxes. Currently, tobacco products sold on U.S. bases

Fans do not attend Major League Baseball games to enhance their physical health. Among their customary activities are eating hot dogs, drinking beer or sugary soda, sitting idly for hours on end and stressing terribly about inconsequential events on the field of play. But this season, those at Wrigley Field and U.S. Cellular Field will have to forgo one vice. Chicago recently became the fourth city to outlaw smokeless tobacco in sports stadiums (followed shortly by New York). The law owes much to the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, whose president, Matthew Myers, says, "Our national pastime should be about promoting...

There was a time that chewing tobacco was as much a part of baseball as Louisville Slugger, Rawlings and Gatorade. Not anymore. This summer, Chicago will become the fourth American city to ban smokeless chewing tobacco at sports venues -- including Major League Baseball ballparks Wrigley Field and U.S. Cellular Field. That means not only can't fans use the substance, but players and managers can't, either. And it's a law that has some members of the Chicago Cubs less than thrilled. <> Chicago follows Los Angeles, San Francisco and Boston in implementing the ban at sporting venues. The entire state...

Researchers today announced in the journal Nature Plants the discovery of the first-ever fossil specimens of an "asterid" - a family of flowering plants that gave us everything from the potato to tomatoes, tobacco, petunias and our morning cup of coffee. But these two 20-30 million-year-old fossil flowers, found perfectly preserved in a piece of amber, came from the dark side of the asterid family - they belong to the genus Strychnos, which ultimately gave rise to some of the world's most famous poisons, including strychnine and curare. Poisons that would later find their way into blow-gun weapons, rat control,...

U.S. tobacco giant Altria Group Inc. MO, +2.48% on Thursday said it would cut roughly 5% of its workforce in an effort to reduce costs by $300 million annually as industry volumes decline. The Marlboro maker announced the layoffs on the same day it reported profit and revenue for the fourth quarter that missed Wall Street expectations as cigarette shipments slipped and earnings declined from its stake in SABMiller PLC's beer business. Altria's earnings rose slightly to $1.25 billion, or 64 cents a share, from $1.24 billion, or 63 cents a share, a year earlier. The results foreshadowed some of...

New York is reaping the whirlwind of sky-high cigarette taxes with a wave of smuggling decimating the state’s revenue. New York raised taxes on cigarettes to $4.35 in 2010 from $2.75. In total, cigarette taxes have increased by 190 percent since 2006. The sharp rise has resulted in a raft of unintended consequences which are dealing a significant blow to the state’s finances. New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli reports New York’s revenue from cigarette taxes has plunged by $400 million over the past five years.

SYRACUSE, N.Y. – The number of state-taxed cigarette packs sold in New York has plummeted by 54 percent in the past decade. That's far outpacing the 19 percent decline in New Yorkers who have quit smoking over the same time. Instead, more smokers are buying cigarettes in ways that avoid New York's $4.35 per pack tax, the highest in the nation. They cross state lines, shop from black market vendors and travel to Native American outlets to save $6 per pack or more, experts say. New York is losing big. In the past five years, the state's cigarette tax collections...

Archaeologists at Historic Jamestown have discovered the tenth Virginia-made pipe with a name inscribed on the stem. It’s the first new named pipe found at the site since 2009, and in contrast to most of the earlier discoveries, the name is complete: William Faldo. The stockholders of the Virginia Company were expecting to make a quick profit from their investment in the Jamestown settlement, but the struggling colonists could barely keep themselves alive, never mind send back the riches in minerals and trade goods the company had envisioned. They weren’t even self-sufficient, having clashed with the Powhatan tribes weeks after...

The World Health Organisation (WHO) will publish a report on Monday on the dangers of eating processed meats. It is expected to list processed meat as a cancer-causing substance, while fresh red meat is also expected to be regarded as bad for health, the Daily Mail said. The classifications, by the WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer, are believed to regard processed meat as "carcinogenic to humans", the highest of five possible rankings, shared with alcohol, asbestos, arsenic and cigarettes.

Labour’s vegan farming spokesman believes meat should be treated like tobacco with a public health campaign to stop it being eaten. Kerry McCarthy MP was recently named the Labour Party’s Shadow Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Jeremy Corbyn’s appointment of a vegan farming spokesman was always going to be controversial. Not only is McCarthy’s 20 year-long vegan lifestyle choice in potential conflict with a large section of Britain’s agricultural economy, she is a Vice President of the League Against Cruel Sports which seeks to ban countryside pursuits favoured by many farming communities.

Despite evidence that electronic cigarettes are both safer for users than tobacco and also help smokers kick the habit, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has launched a campaign against them. According to FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Ostroff, the FDA is looking to enact a “deeming rule” that would expand the agency’s regulation of tobacco to include e-cigarettes, which do not use tobacco. Critics contend that such an illogical decision underscores that the FDA is at the behest of lobbyists that benefit financially from tobacco and nicotine addiction.The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued its proposal earlier this year for...

Electronic cigarettes are around 95 percent less harmful than tobacco and should be promoted as a tool to help smokers quit, a study by an agency of Britain's Department of Health said on Wednesday. E-cigarettes, tobacco-free devices people use to inhale nicotine-laced vapor, have surged in popularity on both sides of the Atlantic but health organizations have so far been wary of advocating them as a safer alternative to tobacco and governments from California to India have tried to introduce bills to regulate their use more strictly. "E-cigarettes are not completely risk free but when compared to smoking, evidence shows...

Fenway Park is steeped in tradition, but one controversial piece may soon be history — the wads of smokeless tobacco stuffed into players’ bulging cheeks or tucked under their lips. Mayor Martin J. Walsh on Wednesday is expected to announce plans to prohibit use of the smokeless products at the city’s baseball parks and other professional and amateur sports venues.

For 15 years after Zimbabwe's agriculture sector collapsed in the face of President Robert Mugabe's seizure of white-owned farms to resettle landless blacks, the tobacco industry has been booming, with farmers funded by private firms to grow tobacco. But this switch, coupled with the worst regional drought in nearly a decade, has left Zimbabwe in a precarious food situation. Many farmers have complained of low prices as the season ends while buyers argue the quality of the crop was poor. "A number of farmers are crying foul over unsatisfactory (tobacco) prices," said Trevor Saruwaka, member of parliament for Mutasa Central...