E-cigarette sparks attention as FDA crackdown looms

Jump to full article: San Jose (CA) Mercury-News, 2009-03-10
Author: Ken McLaughlin Mercury News
Posted By: Cigs By Mail .com – The Discount Cigarette Store

Intro:

What Kruberg saw was a kiosk salesman puffing away on an electronic cigarette, a new product that Jose Canseco, the steroid-tainted baseball slugger turned e-cigarette pitchman, predicts will “revolutionize the industry of smoking.”

Health officials worldwide, however, are casting a wary eye.

Last summer a Florida company began aggressively marketing e-cigarettes — which emit a nicotine vapor with the help of a computer chip — but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration now seems poised to pull e-cigs from the market because the agency considers them “new drugs.” That means they need approval from the FDA, which requires companies to back up their claims with scientific data.

“It is illegal to sell or market them, and the FDA is looking into this,” said Rita Chappelle, an agency spokeswoman.

Asked whether that meant the FDA would crack down on the dozens of mall kiosks nationwide where the product is being sold like perfume and cell phone covers, Chappelle said: “This is an open case.

Jump to full article »

EDITORIAL: From the Daily: Burning smokers

Jump to full article: Michigan Daily [U. of Michigan], 2009-03-09
Author: The Michigan Daily
Posted By: Cigs By Mail .com – The Discount Cigarette Store

Intro:

Since the federal tax increase on tobacco was already approved, the federal government should now concentrate on providing better assistance to low-income smokers whose options for quitting are few. At the state level, Michigan legislators should consider alternate methods of funding S-CHIP that distribute the financial responsibility more equitably.

Funding S-CHIP to ensure the health of underprivileged children is a good use of resources, but sticking smokers with the bill isn’t the best method of paying for it. Low-income smokers need to be provided with better access to treatments that can help them quit smoking before their addiction can be taxed so heavily.

Jump to full article

Smoking Ban Violators Will Face $25 Fine

 Jump to full article: KELOLAND TV (Sioux Falls, SD), 2009-03-09
Posted By: Cigs By Mail .com – The Discount Cigarette Store

Intro:

It’s now up to Governor Mike Rounds to decide whether South Dakota bars and restaurants will be smoke free. Monday, the House of Representatives signed off on the amendment Senators made last week.

The version of the smoking ban headed to the Governor’s desk makes it a petty offense to smoke in bars and restaurants in the South Dakota. That only carries a $25 fine, but supporters say it’s stiff enough to snuff out smoking.

“I think the vast majority of South Dakotans are law-abiding citizens, that includes business owners, restaurant owners, bar owners, I don’t anticipate any problems,” Darrin Smith of the American Heart Association said.

Jump to full article

Gov. Kaine signs smoking ban bill…

Jump to full article: Norfolk (VA) Virginian-Pilot, 2009-03-10
Author: Lon Wagner The Virginian-Pilot
Posted By: Cigs By Mail .com – The Discount Cigarette Store

Intro:

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine signed legislation this afternoon that bans smoking in most bars and restaurants. Kaine signed the law at Croc’s 19th Street Bistro, whose owner made the restaurant smoke-free two years ago.

“We’re not here by accident,” Kaine told scores of supporters who filled the restaurant. “We’re signing this bill here at Croc’s because of the Virginia Beach restaurants’ leadership in this effort.”

Restaurants, which in Virginia means any place that serves food, must be smoke-free by Dec. 1, according to the bill. The only exceptions are private clubs and restaurants that have a walled-off smoking area that ventilates to the outside.

Jump to full article »

Senators pull cigarette tax off table

Jump to full article: Deseret News, 2009-02-28
Author: Lisa Riley Roche Deseret News
Posted By: Cigs By Mail .com – The Discount cigarette store offering Free Shipping…

Intro:

Senate Republicans have rejected an increase in the cigarette tax sought by Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. to help close the state’s massive budget shortfall, Senate Majority Leader Sheldon Killpack said Friday.

“We’re saying no to the governor on that,” Killpack, R-Syracuse, said. “There’s not interest in that.” Without the support of the majority caucus, there’s little chance the $1.50-a-pack increase could pass.

Nor will much else. “You have to have some desire to find another tax increase,” Killpack said. “I don’t know that there’s a tremendous desire to raise another tax at this point.”

Jump to full article

House Bill Expected on F.D.A. Control of Tobacco

Jump to full article: New York Times, 2009-02-28
Author: DUFF WILSON
Posted By: Cigs By Mail .com – The Discount cigarette store offering Free Shipping…

Intro:

Landmark legislation to put tobacco under control of the Food and Drug Administration will surface in Congress next Wednesday and may be passed along to the president early this year.

The House Committee on Energy and Commerce is expected to vote on the legislation on Wednesday, a spokeswoman, Karen Lightfoot, said Friday.

A majority in both the House and Senate co-sponsored a virtually identical bill last year, led by Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, chairman of the House committee, and Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts. President Obama supports the legislation, while George W. Bush opposed it.

“It’s good news — it’s great,” Matthew L. Myers . . .

The legislation would set up a new office in the F.D.A., financed by industry fees, to focus on tobacco. It would allow further restraints on sales and marketing to young people, including stronger warning labels with graphic depictions of smoking-related illnesses.

But the legislation does not ban cigarettes or menthol, an additive thought to make smoking more attractive to some people. A carefully crafted compromise reached last year would leave it up to the F.D.A. to decide whether menthol should be restricted.

Both pro- and anti-tobacco forces have been waiting months to learn when the new Democratic Congress would bring up the F.D.A. legislation. . . .

David M. Sylvia, spokesman for Altria, the parent company of Philip Morris, said Friday that the company supports “tough but reasonable federal regulation of tobacco products.”

But Dr. Joel L. Nitzkin, chairman of the tobacco control task force of the American Association of Public Health Physicians, criticized the compromise. “This bill will be worse than no bill at all,” he said in a phone interview.

Jump to full article

Beebe signs tobacco tax hike…

Jump to full article: Arkansas News Bureau, 2009-02-17
Author: John Lyon Arkansas News Bureau

Posted By: Cigs By Mail.com – The Discount Cigarette Store offering free shipping.

Intro:

In a packed conference room Tuesday, Gov. Mike Beebe signed into law a nearly $86 million increase in the state’s tobacco tax to fund a state trauma system and other health programs.

Act 180 of 2009, formerly House Bill 1204, will raise the tax on a pack of cigarettes by 56 cents and increase the tax on smokeless tobacco products starting March 1.

The measure directs revenue from the tax increase to the General Revenue Fund. Sponsors say the money will fund a statewide trauma system, community health centers, in-home care for the elderly, expansion of the ARKids First children’s health insurance program and operating costs for a Fayetteville campus of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, among other programs.

Jump to full article »

WV debates cigarette tax…

WV debates cigarette tax increase 

Jump to full article: West Virginia Public Broadcasting WVPB, 2009-02-18
Author: Clark Davis
Posted By: Cigs By Mail.com – The Discount Cigarette Store offering free shipping.

Intro:

Gov. Manchin has proposed raising tobacco taxes in the future to extend health insurance to low-income working adults. Health advocates and tobacco retailers disagree about whether this is a good thing.

They agree on one thing however: raising tobacco taxes would lead to fewer sales in West Virginia.

West Virginia was recently cited for having the second-highest number of smoking-related deaths in the nation, says Dr. Harry Tweel, director of the Cabell-Huntington Health Department.

Jump to full article

Check Out Line: Taxes up, cigarette shipments down

Posted By: Cigs By Mail.com – The discount Cigarette Store
Check Out Line: Taxes up, cigarette shipments down

Posted by: Nicole Maestri

Tags: Shop Talk, cigarette, dean foods, Jones Apparel, nike, recession, Reynolds

Check out the falling shipments of cigarettes with expectations of further declines in 2009.

Reynolds American posted a higher-than-expected quarterly profit as its Camel and Pall Mall cigarettes increased market share. But the company said it shipped 21.6 billion cigarettes in the fourth quarter — down 6.3 percent from a year earlier.

Reynolds, like other cigarette manufacturers, could face a difficult 2009. Not only has the recession crimped consumers’ ability to spend, but smokers will feel even more price pressure now that a 61-cent increase in the federal tax on a pack of cigarettes has been passed.

Reynolds CEO Susan Ivey told analysts that the increase in the federal tax will hurt industry volume and she also said some state tax increases will likely be passed, even though Reynolds will fight them.

Cigs By Mail .com The Online Discount Cigarette Store offering Free Shipping on Premium, Generic and Value Brand Cigarettes.

Smokers may quit for pets’ health

Jump to full article: Reuters, 2009-02-09
Posted By: Cigs By Mail.com – The discount Cigarette Store

Smokers may quit for pets’ health  

Intro:

People unwilling to quit smoking to improve their own health may consider giving up cigarettes to spare their pets the harmful effects of secondhand smoke, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

Twenty-eight percent of pet owners who smoke said in a survey they would try to quit based on knowledge that secondhand smoke could harm their dogs, cats and other pets, the researchers wrote in the journal Tobacco Control.

Another 11 percent said they would think about quitting.

“It’s not necessarily that people love their pets more than they love themselves or their children, it’s just another motivational factor for people to consider quitting smoking,” Sharon Milberger of the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, who led the research, said in a telephone interview.

Milberger said asking smokers to quit for the sake of their pets may be an appealing new way to get them to throw away their cigarettes. Of the 71 million pet owners in the United States, about a fifth are smokers, Milberger estimated.

Jump to full article

Cigs By Mail The Online Discount Cigarette Store offering Free Shipping on Premium, Generic and Value Brand Cigarettes