Tobacco.org

Ashby is preparing to join other nearby communities in approving regulations to prevent young people from buying tobacco products. The town Board of Health has proposed rules to prohibit cigarette vending machines in all public areas except those open to adults only, and to eliminate all self-service displays of tobacco products. The regulations also would prohibit the sale of individual cigarettes and the distribution of free samples of tobacco products.

The state's new anti-smoking law, prompted by Gov. Lawton Chiles, says no one under 18 may possess cigarettes or any other tobacco product -- much less smoke them. Punishments include community service, fines and suspension of driving rights. Those cited must appear in court and attend an anti-tobacco program. The government is doing what some parents have not been able, or didn't want, to do.

Pleasant Plains, Ill., is part of a growing movement, from California to Florida, to reduce underage tobacco use by trying something new--punishing the kids.

Wisconsin's cigarette tax is going up 15 cents to 59 cents per pack. "That is not enough," says Dr. John Mielke, an Appleton cadiac surgeon. "They used it for general revenues. They missed the point entirely. It does nothing to slow down teen-age smoking." "Teen-age smoking (in Wisconsin) is steadily going up. It's above the national average," contined Mielke, who served on a Legislative Council committee studying teenage smoking.

Members of a state tobacco control panel yesterday blasted the Wilson administration for delaying televised ads designed to win public support of a forthcoming ban on smoking in bars. Panel members had requested in June that the state start the media campaign in August, and they were stunned to learn yesterday at a meeting in Berkeley that the Department of Health Services did not expect any ads would be approved to run until December.

Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins, shooting "Meet Joe Black" in Rhode Island, are smoking up a storm, reports the New York Daily News. Pitt's standing order is four cartons of cigarettes a week; Hopkins has ordered a $3,000 humidor that Universal Pictures is required to stock with Davidoff cigars.

CANCER has increased by nearly 20 per cent among women and 10 per cent among men over a 12-year period, it was revealed yesterday. Dr Kenneth Calman, chief medical officer, said in his annual report on the state of the nation that lung cancer had overtaken breast cancer as the main cause of cancer deaths among women in many parts of the country. This was a result of an increase in the number of women smokers. . . Parents who smoke in the same room as their children are endangering their health and guilty of child abuse, according to Prof James Garbarino, director of the Family Life Development Centre in Cornell University, New York state. He called for smoking to be banned in the presence of children.

Still unreleased data for 1996 will show that life expectancy for men grew by two years, to 60, and that women gained one year, bringing their average life span to 73, he said. He added that the trend appears to be continuing in 1997. The reasons for the upturn remain uncertain, he said, but one theory offers an appropriately grim coda to the crisis: It is possible, Zakharov said, that Russians are living longer because the heaviest drinkers and smokers have already killed themselves, leaving behind those who are more moderate.

The House is protesting a Senate measure pushed by Jesse Helms on grounds it would prevent 3,000 Gulf War veterans from collecting any money from $1.3 billion worth of confiscated Iraqi assets. . . Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, charged that Helms, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was looking out for tobacco interests, which are among the companies with pending claims for unpaid Iraqi bills. "We want to give veterans first preference or at least treat them equally with the tobacco companies," Doggett said. "Now, we are assuring veterans never recover one penny of Saddam Hussein's assets." But Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., defended the provision.

Some 400 companies and 828 individuals with a total of $5 billion in pending claims against Iraq would get priority over any claims by veterans under a provision a foreign aid authorization bill written by Sen. Jesse Helms. As a Senate-House conference committee continued work on the bill Tuesday, Helms, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, defended the measure against critics who complained tobacco companies are among the firms with claims against Iraq. "This legislation seeks to ensure that U.S. government does not cut in line and take the first cut at the money, leaving nothing behind for American citizens who collectively lost billions of dollars," Helms' spokesman, Marc Thiessen, said.

Two new studies of adolescent girls have found that 1 in 4 has been sexually or physically abused or forced by a date to have sex against her will. In addition, those who have had such experiences are far more likely to show signs of depression and to engage in risky health behaviors, including smoking, drinking and using drugs, eating disorders, failing to use contraception and becoming pregnant.

"This serves as a wake-up call to all of us," said Karen Davis, president of the Commonwealth Fund, which released the national survey. . .The Commonwealth survey, conducted nationwide, also looked at physical abuse and found 21 percent of high school girls saying they had been physically or sexually abused. These girls were more than twice as likely to be depressed and have low self-confidence. Twenty-six percent smoked vs. 10 percent of girls who had not been abused.

Trent Lott, as expected, has come up with a perverse stratagem to kill campaign finance reform this year. The Senate majority leader would add a provision to the McCain-Feingold bill requiring unions to get approval from workers before using their dues or fees for political purposes. The idea might deserve consideration another day, but Mr. Lott's purpose today is to scuttle the bill by making it unacceptable to Democrats. After months of disclosures about excesses in both parties, all 45 Senate Democrats have joined 4 Republicans to support the McCain-Feingold legislation, which would prohibit unlimited donations to the parties by wealthy individuals, labor unions and corporations. These contributions were at the heart of the access-buying scandals of the Clinton campaign, and they figure in the influence of money from tobacco and other industries on Capitol Hill. Mr. Lott knows there are nearly enough senators to approve the bill, so he wants a poison pill to repel Democrats and shatter its bipartisan support. Only one additional Republican would be needed to join other Republican backers of reform to block Mr. Lott's plan.

Standard Commercial Corporation (NYSE:STW) and Mr Chebrolu Narendranath today announced the finalization of an agreement between Standard Commercial Tobacco Company (UK) Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Standard, and Mr Narendranath for the construction of a modern leaf tobacco processing factory in Guntur, India. The agreement is subject to Indian government approvals.

Smoking is bad for your hips, increasing the risk of fractures, particularly in older women, researchers said on Friday. In a report in the British Medical Journal, they showed that the effect of smoking on bone mineral density increases with age, and one in eight fractures is attributable to smoking. "Smoking is a major cause of hip fracture," said Malcolm Law, of St Bartholomew's and the Royal London School of Medicine. "It increases the lifetime risk by about half from an estimated 12 percent to 19 percent in women up to the age of 85, and from 22 percent to 37 percent to the age of 90."

The National Committee on Quality Assurance's Quality Compass shows a wide disparity among health maintenance organizations and other managed care plans on a variety of quality measures. The data refer to averages -- not individual HMO -- along with the top and bottom performers. Highlights include: --Advising smokers to quit. National average: Doctors in HMOs advised 61 percent of smokers to quit. Top plan: Advised 85 percent of smokers to quit. Bottom plan: Advised 30 percent to quit. If all plans were top performers: Nearly 26,000 people would quit smoking each year.

GIRLS are more likely to smoke than boys, but the number of children of both sexes who do so has increased steadily since records began in 1982. During the 1990s girls have become more likely to start the habit, with 15 per cent of them smoking, compared with 11 per cent of boys. . . In a separate survey for the Office of National Statistics, seven out of ten smokers said they would like to give up. Half had made a serious attempt to give up in the past five years and failed.

South Korea said Thursday it will not buckle under American pressure to pry open its market to more foreign cars, accusing the United States of bullying a smaller country to protect U.S. automakers' profits. Meanwhile, a civic group held an anti-American demonstration on a busy downtown street and said it will campaign for a nationwide boycott on cars, beef, cigarettes and other U.S.-produced consumer goods to protest the threat of economic sanctions by the United States.

Delaware Gov Thomas Carper, with the support of other state officials, on Thursday proposed a package of legislation to increase taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products. The proposed legislation would increase the excise tax on cigarettes by 25 cents, moving it to 49 cents, and double the excise tax on smokeless tobacco and cigars from 15 percent to 30 percent of the wholesale price. In addition, it would eliminate the exemption of state excise taxes on tobacco products sold at VA hospitals and veterans' organizations.

"It's like jaywalking. To enforce it, they'd have to wait outside of school to write tickets," said David Wong, 18, a nonsmoker. Privately, some South Florida police departments have the same fear. "We're not going to be busting every kid we see with a pack of cigarettes rolled up in their sleeve," a Hollywood police official said. A Pembroke Pines official laughed: "I can tell you we're not going out there today and start arresting kids."

"I don't have it on me," said 15-year-old Scott Nelson. "Then I can't sell," Evans said, and with those words passed the test of the Mounds View Police and the North Suburban Tobacco Compliance Project. Though Mounds View has just joined, the project has been up and running for four years. It's a program that trains and sends undercover teens to tobacco sellers to test their compliance with laws forbidding tobacco sales to minors.

When smoking is outlawed in bars this January, public ads explaining why may never hit the airwaves. Non-smoking advocates say the state Department of Health Services is dragging its feet in approving an ad campaign that will give the public facts about the law that guarantees employees a smoke-free work environment. It will be extended to bars and clubs on the first of the year.

Reiner, who has been politically active in recent years on issues involving early child development, has put up $50,000 toward qualifying the measure for the November 1998 ballot. To qualify for the state ballot, supporters of the proposed initiative must obtain 693,230 valid signatures of registered voters by next summer.

Rob Reiner, co-founder of Castle Rock Entertainment, kicked off the "California Children and Families First Act of 1998" today at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles. . . "New research in brain development clearly shows that the emotional, physical, and intellectual environment a child is exposed to in the first three years has a profound impact on how that child will perform in school and function in later life."

One of Princess Diana's last gifts to boyfriend Dodi Al Fayed was a gold cigar clipper with a gold tag inscribed "With Love from Diana." "Cigars have recaptured their traditional image as a symbol of success, celebration and achievement," said Norman Sharp, president of the Cigar Association of America. . . But cigars' popularity has a dark side. Though generally considered less of a health threat than cigarettes, cigars bring risks of their own. They have been tied to cancers of the mouth, nose, larynx and esophagus, and increased rates of lung cancer and coronary artery problems. "Some of these larger cigars contain about as much tobacco as a pack of cigarettes," said Dr. Michael Cummings, senior research scientist at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, N.Y. "On average, when you actually look at weight of tobacco it basically works out to five cigarettes, according to the average cigar that's being sold or smoked." . . Ulysses S. Grant was a cigar smoker. He died of mouth cancer," Cummings said. "Sigmund Freud died of mouth cancer caused by cigars."

President Clinton's debate with the tobacco industry about how to limit smoking won't diminish R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.'s presence on the Winston Cup circuit in 1998. Reynolds announced Wednesday that the Ford Tauruses driven on the circuit by Jimmy Spencer will be sponsored by Winston cigarettes, complete with a red and white paint scheme and the brand's "No Bull" promotional logo. . . "It's the same thing whether it's Camel on the side or Winston on the side," said T. Wayne Robertson, president of Reynolds' Sports Marketing Enterprises. "The idea is to promote a legal product, and we're going to do that."

The world's shortest man, who lived a pauper's life despite his fame, has died at age 40, his doctor said today. Gul Mohammed was hospitalized five months ago with breathing problems worsened by heavy smoking. He died Wednesday following a heart attack, said Dr. H.S. Heera, who treated him for 12 years. Mohammed entered the Guinness Book of Records in 1992 as the shortest man in the world. He was 22 inches tall. Heera said Mohammed suffered from chronic obstructive airway disease. He had been hospitalized several times before.

Examining data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's 1995 Youth Risk Behavior Survey of 11,000 ninth- through 12th-graders, CASA isolated teen use of these gateway drugs from other problem behaviors, such as fighting, drunk driving, truancy, promiscuous sexual activity, carrying a weapon and attempting suicide. The correlations are compelling: Among teens who report no other problem behaviors, those who drank and smoked cigarettes at least once in the past month are 30 times likelier to smoke marijuana than those who didn't. Among teens with no other problem behaviors, those who used cigarettes, alcohol and marijuana at least once in the past month are almost 17 times likelier to use another drug like cocaine, heroin or acid. Though only statistical, those relationships are powerful.

DARE does not provide a lifetime inoculation from drug use; it does provide an important foundation on which to build and reinforce drug prevention efforts. Effective drug prevention requires a comprehensive national effort that includes reinforced drug education, community involvement, clear and consistent messages from our elected leaders, positive anti-drug messages from the media, and most important, strong support and drug education in the home from parents..

A tobacco trial covering all sick Florida smokers was set Wednesday for Feb. 9, raising questions about whether it will be affected by a proposed $368 billion national settlement of tobacco litigation. Susan Rosenblatt, attorney for the smokers, is uncertain if the lawsuit will be exempt from a settlement if the trial begins before Congress acts. Circuit Judge Alan Postman must wait for a landmark secondhand-smoke trial being handled by the smokers' attorneys to finish in the same courthouse before starting the smoking case.

The extent to which an asthmatic child is exposed to passive smoke depends mainly on the child's proximity to a parent or other adult who smokes, UK researchers report in the September issue of Thorax. Dr. Linda Irvine of Ninewells Hospital in Dundee and colleagues studied baseline passive smoke exposure, as measured by salivary cotinine levels, and factors influencing such exposure in asthmatic children from 492 families in Scotland. . . Dr. Irvine's group concludes that "...it is proximity to smoking adults which determines passive exposure of the children...[W]hat is impressive is the strength and consistency of the effect." Thus, parents who modify their smoking habits in the home have a "...unique opportunity to benefit their child's health." Thorax 1997;52:766-769.

Raymark's lawsuit highlights a growing problem for the tobacco industry: suits brought by third parties such as insurers, health-care providers and union benefits plans to recover outlays linked to smoking. The claims are modeled on suits brought by the attorneys general of 39 states and Puerto Rico seeking reimbursement for state Medicaid outlays linked to smoking.

The way Johnson & Johnson is giving away its Nicotrol nicotine patches, it might look as if the stop-smoking business is about to trigger its own demise. Starting Wednesday the company is offering a $150 packet of patches plus a self-help kit to each of 15,000 smokers, free of charge. "On your mark, get set ... Quit!" urge the ads and promotional material from local American Lung Association offices, which will distribute the six-week supplies of patches in their areas under a partnership with J&J.

The increasing popularity of smoking-cessation aids like nicotine gum and skin patches portends intense competition between drug makers and tobacco companies to deliver smoke-free nicotine to millions of Americans who now smoke, tobacco researchers and market analysts say.

Writing in Wednesday's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, they urged the government to let pharmaceutical companies introduce more appealing versions of nicotine gum, patches, nasal spray and inhalers. "A manufacturer who wishes to introduce a new cherry-flavored smokeless tobacco product does so with no regulatory obstacles," the scientists wrote. "If a pharmaceutical company wants to add mint flavoring to nicotine gum to make it more palatable as a nicotine replacement product, the company must endure years of expensive regulatory hurdles." Kenneth Warner, a professor at University of Michigan's department of health management and policy, wrote the commentary with Dr. John Slade from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and David Sweanor of the Non-Smokers' Rights Association.

On behalf of Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, state Health Secretary Daniel F. Hoffmann today announced that Pennsylvania and nine other states have contracted with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to enforce FDA's new regulation prohibiting retailers from selling cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products to children under 18. "Under this contract, the Health Department will work with local Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) police officers to conduct approximately 330 unannounced retail compliance checks each month over the next eight months," Hoffmann said.

Bismarck - A hearing is today on a suit filed by several inmates that challenges the smoking ban in the state prison system. Cigarettes, smokeless tobacco and even nicotine patches are off limits. An estimated half of the state's 780 inmates use tobacco, officials said.

QUESTION - I've committed myself to giving up cigarettes, but I am afraid of gaining weight in the process. Do you have any suggestions to help me avoid doing so?

"That is why until I draw my last breath, I will pour my heart and soul into the cause of protecting our children from the dangers of smoking," Gore told his Chicago audience. His words that time did carry a political calculation since the Clinton-Gore ticket was at war with Big Tobacco. But it was tough talk from a man who had long championed his own tobacco roots, even after his sister's death. His allies defend both convention speeches as glimpses into the soul of the man. Said Squier, "Both of those decisions were very, very difficult decisions, and I think they were done because he felt that in some way it would help other people who were going through crisis in their life if he shared that crisis in his life." It was painful, perhaps, for someone with a reputation for being careful, even wooden, all seemingly part of his exquisite control and discipline.

"I was asked to sell cigarettes back in the '60s. And I was a user, too." But, "I certainly wasn't a pusher. I said no, even though it was the largest amount (of money) I had ever been offered."

Marvin Rothenberg, 79, who gave television audiences dancing cigarettes and Madge the manicurist. . . Among Rothenberg's hits were the Lucky Strike dancing cigarettes . . .

Tobacco companies have agreed to stop placing ads on television, radio, movies and the Internet in Japan next year in an effort reduce the number of youngsters who smoke. When the decision goes into effect April 1, the companies also will stop distributing sample cigarettes on the streets to introduce new brands, the Tobacco Institute of Japan said Tuesday.

The letters Hatch released today answer questions raised by Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., during hearings on the proposed settlement. RJR Nabisco executives backed the warnings, admitting, "use of tobacco products carries with it serious health risks." Philip Morris said, "There is a substantial body of evidence which supports the judgment that cigarette smoking plays a causal role in the development of lung cancer and other diseases in smokers." Brown & Williamson agreed there appears to be a link but said, "There remain significant information gaps" about the relationship between smoking and disease. Philip Morris quibbled with the conclusion that nicotine is addictive, contending it has "mild pharmacological effects" that meet some definition of addictive.

A House-Senate Conference Committee soon will decide the fate of an appropriations amendment that prohibits the use of taxpayer funds to promote tobacco products overseas . . . Health groups are alarmed by the potential for tobacco industry interference in the negotiations over the appropriations amendment. Their concern is heightened by data showing that eight of the 11 likely Senate conferees and six of the nine likely House conferees accepted tobacco PAC contributions in their most recent election. Further, from 1987 to 1996, both House and Senate likely conferees accepted more tobacco money, on average, than their respective full chambers, with House conferees accepting, on average, 72 percent more than the full House.

The state comptroller has raised doubts about a total of $100 million in revenues in the $2 billion budget proposed by Nassau County Executive Thomas Gulotta, including $16 million from a nationwide tobacco -litigation settlement that has yet to be approved. The revenue projections have enabled Gulotta, a Republican campaigning for re-election this year, to promise a modest cut in the county property tax for 1998. But state Comptroller H. Carl McCall, a Democrat, described Gulotta's reliance on the tobacco settlement money as speculative and raised questions about the accuracy and prudence of other estimates contained in the budget.

"I think it is terrible," said Richard Bostic, a smoker who grows tobacco in Lexington. "We have one of the biggest tobacco states in the nation, and I can't smoke in here." Outside in a roped off area on the Patterson Street ramp, ash trays lined the wall, and smokers congregated to light up. "It makes you feel like you've got something terrible that other people don't want to catch," said Melissa Hardin of Lawrenceburg.

Peer pressure, advertising and a cool image entice young people to light up, schoolchildren told Vice President Al Gore in Florida on Friday. Gore -- along with Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala -- launched a national teen anti-smoking campaign in Florida, which recently won a groundbreaking $11 billion settlement with the tobacco industry. And he found an eager, screeching crowd in sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders at Roland Park Middle School for the first in a series of forums.

Wilson said legislation he signed earlier this week stripping tobacco companies of their immunity from liability lawsuits made the secondhand smoke bill unnecessary. . . The earlier bill, by Senator Quentin Kopp, I-San Francisco, declares that there is no legal barrier to lawsuits filed by California smokers "or others," Wilson noted. The secondhand smoke bill, by Senator Byron Sher, D-Stanford, would also have allowed persons who were victims of fraud or misrepresentation by tobacco companies over the past 10 years to sue. "I'm flabbergasted the governor would not worry about the California citizens who have been the victims of tobacco products and who might be able to participate in these global settlements that are being discussed at the national level," Sher said in an interview. . . Sher's bill was supported by a large number of health organizations, and opposed by the California Chamber of Commerce.

The Louisville law firm of Mobley, Johnson and Ervin sued Wigand and the Shea & Gardner law firm last month, claiming each owes $21,341.39. Shea & Gardner, of Washington, D.C., also represented the former tobacco executive. Joe Mobley and his firm earlier sued Pascagoula, Miss., attorney Richard Scruggs and his firm for $28,000 in the Wigand defense. They won a judgment for the full amount in Jefferson Circuit Court.

He reserved most of his choler for the events that led to a two-week suspension in April and his resignation in May: ESPN's insistence that he violated company rules by writing for a baseball weekly, promoting his book, "The Big Show," on Comedy Central and narrating public service advertisements on the dangers of chewing tobacco. He did them all anyway, insisting he was allowed to. Olbermann said that when he was confronted on the anti-tobacco spots, he told John Walsh, the executive editor of ESPN, "If you're going to tell me I can't do charity, I'm going to tell you to go to hell."

Dan Schlichtmann, the high-rolling lawyer-hero of Jonathan Harr's best-selling book "A Civil Action," is a magazine model. Well, for one ad, at least. Schlichtmann's is the first high-profile local face Alfred Dunhill plans to use in a series of ads designed to try to lure customers to buy suits, smoking accessories, and other guy stuff at its Newbury Street store. The ad is scheduled to appear in Boston in November, at just about the time the movie "A Civil Action," in which John Travolta plays Schlichtmann, starts shooting here.

And it would be comical to count the number of scenes that begin with a character lighting a cigarette. In movies like this, smoking is beginning to replace acting. Where once a telling look or offhand glance might have conveyed thought and emotion, now it's just one big, cinematographically elegant drag.

"More young children are killed by parental smoking than by all unintentional injuries combined," the researchers said in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. In addition, some 5.4 million other youngsters each year survive ailments such as ear infections and asthma that are triggered by their parents' smoking, and these problems cost $4.6 billion annually to treat, the researchers from the University of Wisconsin Medical School in Madison estimated. The study looked at reports from 1980 to 1996 involving children up to 18, existing research about the risks associated with parental smoking and the costs of treating smoking-related illnesses.

Alarming results of a sting targeting illegal tobacco sales in Stark County has convinced officials they need to do another sting, this time involving police. The results of the sting were not surprising to Becky Schwitzgable, director of prevention and early detection for the American Cancer Society in Stark County. "But they are disappointing." "I do a lot of tobacco education in the schools and from what I hear, it's easy to buy cigarettes. It didn't surprise me, but this is bad," she said. . . Of the 63 establishments visited, 51 percent sold to underage smokers, results of the sting show.

Canada's largest tobacco manufacturer is test-marketing a line of "natural-blend" cigarettes in Portland. Imperial Tobacco Inc., headquartered in Montreal, launched its test-marketing efforts here Sept. 15, distributing its new line of Mercer cigarettes at various metro-area venues. Test-marketing is expected to last 12 to 18 months

Shares in UK financial services and tobacco group B.A.T Industries Plc firmed on Monday after the Financial Times reported that the UK Government plans to scrap Advance Corporation Tax (ACT) might trigger a demerger, analysts said. B.A.T firmed 3.5p to 564p by 0734 GMT against a falling FTSE 100 index. The Financial Times' influential Lex column said after ACT's demise, a demerger could unlock substantial value as B.A.T trades on a large discount to the sum of its parts.

The island is determined to capture the booming worldwide cigar business and says production has reached 75 million units, three-quarters of this year's goal. But the biggest market of all remains closed because of a 37-year-old U.S. embargo. President Fidel Castro has announced that Cuba will be able to export 200 million cigars by the year 2000, just as campaigns against smoking in many countries have, somehow, skipped the cigar.

Latin American Casinos Inc plans to enter the growing cigar business with the hopes of generating up to $1 million in additional revenues a year. The company said in a statement it had created a subsidiary called World's Best Rated Cigar Co, which will sell cigars from Central America and the Caribbean to U.S. smokers. "The company will concentrate on purchasing overruns of first quality rated cigars at huge discounts and will sell them directly to the consumer at up to 60 percent less than retail prices," it said.

Call him one of this city's dead-celebrity cops. As the owner of a Beverly Hills-based celebrity licensing agency, Richman polices trademark infringements for the heirs and beneficiaries of 45 deceased figures, from Einstein and Sigmund Freud to W.C. Fields, Rod Serling, Louis Armstrong, Jimmy Durante, Mae West, even the Wright brothers. Want to sell polyester suits using gumshoe Jack Webb as your model? Go see Richman first. Want to use Groucho Marx to sell cigars? Or Basil Rathbone to hawk magnifying glasses? You got it: Talk to Richman. Show him your idea. Don't insult his delicate sensibilities. Agree to pay him a licensing fee (he gets 35%). And maybe, just maybe, you can do business. . . In a time when celebrity images are beamed worldwide by CNN and satellite television, Richman plans to press his battle around the globe--where John Wayne has been used to sell cigarettes in Spain and where Einstein pitches insurance in South Africa. . . Einstein's estate is run by Hebrew University in Jerusalem. "They're choosy," he said. "No alcohol. No cigarettes. No women's hygiene products."

A Port Washington man was arrested by Nassau police after allegedly attempting to put a lit cigarette in a 17-year-old girl's eye.

While searching for some tobacco-related news one day, I ran across a cryptic link in an anti-tobacco web page that said "The Infamous Sylvester Stallone letter". My eyes popped wide open with surprise and I raised an eyebrow. Here was a big star of many movies. A hero to many young kids! What letter was he suddenly infamous about?

This time around, lawmakers must be certain that the programs promised in the tobacco settlement are delivered before they start spending that new money on the state's existing bills. They must show up at the special legislative session in November with concrete, reliable suggestions of where money can be found to help solve school crowding -- not money taken from other programs promised to taxpayers.

The Harvard Report on Cancer Prevention has been a mouthpiece for this shift. It claims that "nearly two-thirds of cancer mortality in the United States can be linked to tobacco use, poor diet and lack of exercise." The hope for reducing cancer mortality "can be realized only if the public is adequately informed about what measures they can take as individuals (italics mine) . . . Through lifestyle modification, we can decrease cancer mortality by 50 percent." In other words, a diagnosis of cancer no longer signifies our collective social failure to prevent or cure the disease but a failure of individuals to take the right precautions to avoid it. Individuals are, after all, much softer targets than corporations. It's much easier and cheaper to blame people who smoke or use handguns irresponsibly or "choose" to work with toxic materials than to regulate or close down the manufacture, advertising and sale of cigarettes or guns or cleaning solvents.

if the 32,046 nurses are representative of the U.S. population, 32 million people would experience approximately 152,000 heart attacks with approximately 25,000 fatalities, of which 6,000 to 8,000 would be attributable to side-stream smoke. And, since the U.S. population is about eight times 32 million, he is talking about more than 1 million heart attacks and 200,000 fatalities, with 70,000 of these deaths caused by passive smoking. I hope Mr. Samuelson does not really think 70,000 deaths are insignificant.

The man promising to literally talk campaign finance reform to death set a new record for raising "soft money" for the GOP Senate campaign arm. As chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) helped raise $2.1 million in "soft money" during the first six months of this year, according to a report by Common Cause. . . "Senator McConnell's record-breaking soft money fund-raising makes clear his opposition to campaign finance reform is not simply an innocent defense of the First Amendment," said Common Cause President Ann McBride. Among the top "soft money" donors to the GOP: Freddie Mac, American Financial Group and three large tobacco firms.

Some years ago, to my distress, one of my sons began to smoke. "Can you believe it?" I hyperventilated to a friend. "I tell you, I could kill him." "You won't have to," was her dry reply. I don't know what could have stopped him from addicting himself. Maybe nothing. But study after study has shown that the single most powerful deterrent to smoking is raising the price of a pack of cigarettes, says Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. This is especially true among the young (my son started at 15), and that's who tobacco is most likely to catch. Ninety percent of today's adult smokers were hooked before they reached 18. . . . Wouldn't you rather keep more kids alive? If raising the tax on cigarettes by $1.50 would help, I'm all for it. As for my son, now 35, he's trying to quit (again). I'm waiting for news, with my fingers crossed.

As for smoking, a large Danish study found a 60 percent increase in the risk of breast cancer among women who had smoked cigarettes for more than 30 years. Smokers also tended to develop cancer at younger ages than nonsmokers. The Harvard researchers noted that among women who smoked more than 25 cigarettes a day, those who had started to smoke before they were 16 faced an 80 percent increase in breast cancer risk.

The bulk of research suggests that cigarette smoke inhibits the activity of monoamine oxidase B (MAOB). Researchers show, in the October issue of Nature Genetics, that this inhibition may lead to a rise in cerebral levels of phenylethylamine (PEA), a neuroactive compound linked to schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders. Dr. Jean C. Shih of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and a multicenter team knocked out the gene for MAOB in a group of mice. . . Moreover, "Because MAOB may promote the aging process in the brain...MAOB-deficient mice may be useful in studying mechanisms of neuroprotection and aging."

Smoking increases the risk of hip fracture in postmenopausal women by about 50%, according to a report this week in the British Medical Journal. "Smoking is a major cause of hip fracture," write researchers from St. Bartholomew's and The Royal London School of Medicine in London, England. "...Of all hip fractures, one in eight is attributable to smoking."

Three New York law firms selected to argue the state's case in multibillion-dollar claims against tobacco companies gave at least $250,000 to state Republicans, a newspaper reports.

Three state law firms, chosen to represent the state's multibillion-dollar claims against the tobacco industry, contributed at least $250,000 to the campaigns of Gov. Pataki, Attorney General Dennis C. Vacco and other top Republican causes before their selection. The three firms, -- Sullivan & Liapakis, plus Schneider, Kleinick, Weitz, Damashek and Shoot, both of Manhattan, and Thuillez, Ford, Gold & Conolly of Albany -- are part of a six-firm consortium awarded the outside-counsel contract approved Thursday by state Comptroller H. Carl McCall.

Two warehouses - one in a Minneapolis strip mall and the other in London - are stuffed with 33 million pages of tobacco industry documents that may be the crown jewels in the wars between smoking foes and cigarette makers. Minnesota Attorney General Hubert Humphrey III plans to use the documents - some of which he calls "smoking howitzers" - when his state's case against the tobacco companies goes to trial Jan. 19. . . Many of the warehoused documents - protected by burglar alarms and motion detectors - will be kept secret until they are introduced into evidence at the trial. When they are unveiled, "I think the public will be appalled to see the breadth of this deception and fraud," said Humphrey

Managers of the Piper Jaffray Plaza banned smoking in the building in May, but one tenant has refused to comply: the Tobacco Institute. Employees and guests of Big Tobacco's lobbying arm still smoke inside the institute's seventh-floor office, claiming they have a right, ironically, under the Minnesota Clean Indoor Air Act. That's the 1975 law, long opposed by the tobacco lobby, regulating smoking in workplaces and public buildings. . . "The secondhand smoke quite literally permeates the whole floor," said Ray Anderson, a computer consultant who works on the same floor. "It is basically like having a smoker in the cubicle next to you."

Minnesota is the healthiest state in the nation for the fifth time in eight years, according to the annual ReliaStar rankings. The rankings compare states on a range of lifestyle criteria as well as health care access, occupational safety, disease and mortality. The state was tops in high school graduation, third-lowest in premature deaths and lack of access to primary care, and ranked among the 10 lowest in smoking rates, motor vehicle deaths, unemployment, infectious disease and total mortality. . . North Dakota is one of only two states (along with Louisiana) to decline in the rankings since 1990. The slide is primarily due to an increase in smoking and infant mortality rates.

At its weekly meeting yesterday, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors: Approved: --A resolution opposing the proposed settlement with tobacco companies now being considered by President Clinton and Congress. Passed unanimously. --The acceptance of $10 million in a settlement from a suit in which the city and others sued R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. The city's share will be $1.5 million for anti- tobacco education, enforcement and ad campaigns. The city also will share in $1 million to reimburse it for legal expenses. Unanimous.

An airport concessionaire wants to install a lounge on busy Concourse A that would serve up food, beverages and ashtrays. It says it's losing business because smokers are flocking to designated smoking areas rather than being puff-free patrons. Airport officials seem to like the idea, because it would help solve an overcrowding problem in the two designated smoking areas on A.

Rosa Jimenez is more than eager to open R.J. Cigars Inc. to the public. . . But since last December, Rosa Jimenez's cash register has been as empty as the humidors. Her inventory -- 20,000 tightly wrapped sticks of puffing pleasure -- is locked up in a U.S. Customs Service vault at Miami International Airport. The cigars were seized in December when they arrived from Honduras. The cigars, the feds contend, are actually Cuban Cohibas, barred from import into the United States under the Trading with the Enemy Act.

A former French journalist and television producer who caused a disturbance on a trans-Atlantic flight when he was asked to stop smoking was fined $3,000, ordered to pay $2,900 in restitution, and placed on probation for a year. The sentence was imposed yesterday on Lionel Rotcajg, 48, by US District Judge George A. O'Toole Jr. in Boston. . . Under a plea bargain, Rotcajg pleaded guilty to interfering with a flight crew.

Q: Major league umpires are threatening to enforce their own code of conduct during postseason play. What are their main complaints? A: Spitting seems to be the big problem. Managers chew tobacco and seeds and various foreign objects. When they run onto the field to protest a call, managers tend to spit, spray, slobber and spritz tobacco juice over a large radius, not unlike a faulty Rainbird pumping toxic waste. The solution is simple. Equip the bill of each manager¹s cap with a flip-down plastic shield, like a welders hat, or like the sneeze-guards you see protecting salad bars.

As a longtime admirer of Robert J. Samuelson's erudition and mastery of facts, I was shocked by his op-ed column of Sept. 24 ["Do Smokers Have Rights?"]. He is dead wrong on the issue of smoking. Rather than characterizing the current tobacco policy efforts as a media feeding frenzy or a paean to political correctness, we here in the United States have the opportunity to address by far the most significant health problem of the second half of the 20th century. The real human tragedy is that all tobacco-related illness is preventable. There are no easy solutions, but diversion through obloquy neither encourages smokers who are trying to quit nor moves public health policy forward to solve this problem.

A lawsuit settlement with the major tobacco companies is likely to eliminate cigarette billboards in Mississippi within four months, state Attorney General Mike Moore said. The tobacco companies also have agreed to provide Mississippi with $60 million to create anti-smoking programs, including public service announcements, counseling in schools and enforcement efforts, Moore said Tuesday. He said this program could result in about 120 anti-smoking billboards. The agreement will eliminate other forms of outdoor advertising, such as signs on shopping cart stands, as well as billboards.

Cigarette smoking in Wisconsin has increased since an insurance company used statistics to rank the state the nation's fifth healthiest, new figures indicate. Wisconsin was rated 13th in 1994, sixth in 1996 and fifth this year by ReliaStar Financial Corp. of Minneapolis, formerly Northwestern National Life Insurance.

A bill that would make Massachusetts the first state in the nation to legally require its pension fund to be purged of tobacco stocks received final legislative approval yesterday. Acting Governor Paul Cellucci is expected to sign it.

Heart disease, which is often spurred by smoking, is the No. 1 killer of women in Kentucky, said a report released yesterday by the Kentucky Commission on Women The report, designed to help form a women's health agenda in the 1998 General Assembly, is the first dealing exclusively with the health status of Kentucky women, said Virginia Woodward, the commission's executive director. . . . Woodford blamed smoking as the primary cause of the high mortality rate among women with heart disease, and she noted that 26.9 percent of the women in Kentucky smoke. She said about 28.8 percent of the state's entire population smokes.

During a random compliance check conducted January 1 to June 30, only 5.5 percent of retailers sold tobacco products to minors. When statewide compliance checks began in 1994, some communities reported sales rates as high as 70 percent.

Swedish tobacco company Swedish Match said Wednesday it has signed a joint venture agreement with Turkish match maker Kav Orman San. A.S. to develop the production of matches, lighters and tobacco in Turkey, Azerbejdzjan, Kirgisistan, and Turkmenistan. A new joint company will be set up in Turkey in which Swedish Match will have a 60% stake and Kav a 40% stake.

Hundreds of thousands of counterfeit premium cigars are flooding the U.S. market, a Dominican company reported Tuesday, in what may be the first fakes of a legally available cigar. Fuente Cigar Ltd. offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of counterfeiters of their highly sought-after OpusX cigars.

A Caribbean cigar maker offered $50,000 on Tuesday for clues to the identity of counterfeiters producing fake versions of its cigars and charging more than originals because of a craze for them in the United States. Fuente Cigar Ltd of Santiago, Dominican Republic, said the U.S. market was flooded with counterfeits of its Fuente Fuente OpusX cigar, which has a suggested retail price of $7.50 to $14.50.

A new invention combines two of the trendiest pastimes, golfing and cigar smoking. The Puffer, by Sabol Sports LLC, is a golf putter that has a humidor built into the shaft. The humidor can hold up to four 6 1/2 inch cigars "without affecting the players' feel on the green," the company said.

Rob Reiner's passion now is helping children get off to a good start. The star of the 1970s series "All in the Family" told the National Governors Association conference on childhood development that health care, nutrition, nurturing and parental involvement are crucial in a child's first few years. "My job is to keep this on the front burner as a national issue," Reiner said Tuesday. "I'm going to keep the drumbeat going. I promise you." Reiner is a leading proponent of putting a tobacco tax on the California ballot next year to raise $900 million annually for programs for children.

Is there any doubt that advertisers mumble and sometimes roar about reporting that can hurt them? That the auto giants don't like pieces that, say, point to auto safety problems? Or that Big Tobacco hates to see its glamorous, cheerful ads juxtaposed with articles mentioning their best customers' grim way of death? . . The real danger here is not censorship by advertisers. It is self-censorship by editors. On one level, self-censorship results in omissions, small and large, that delight big advertisers. Cigarettes are a clear and familiar example. . .

o what do the new women's magazines tell us about the New Woman? Three new publications have appeared more or less simultaneously - Jane, Sports Illustrated Women/Sport, and Conde Nast Sports for Women - vying for distaff mind share and the almighty Clairol advertising dollar. . . . Jane advertisers you won't find in the women's sports mags: Virgina Slims, Misty Light Slims, Parliament Lights, Kamel Cigarettes, Skyy Vodka.

In addition to being a founding trustee of the Foundation, Mrs. Miller has served as the Foundation's secretary since 1992. The daughter of Lillian Disney and the late Walt Disney, Mrs. Miller lost her father and brother-in-law to lung cancer and her sister to breast cancer. In 1993, she made a $500,000 commitment to the American Cancer Society's crusade against tobacco and continues to lead the efforts in stampeding the influence of tobacco, especially as it relates to children. She became involved with the recently established National Center for Tobacco-Free Kids, which focuses on tobacco control public policy as well as expanding youth support initiatives.

Would health costs go down if everyone stopped smoking? Does cracking down on underage cigarette sales make teenagers smoke less? If you think the answer to both questions is "yes," think again. Two new studies support the contrary view. One looked at the economic impact if every smoker went cold turkey tomorrow. The conclusion: Health care costs would drop for a while but would then inexorably rise for the simple reason that nonsmokers live longer. The other study found that even with strict‹and seemingly effective‹enforcement of laws against selling cigarettes to anyone under 18, teenagers can still get them easily, and they smoke just as much, if not more. Both works . . were published in Thursday's issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.

The researchers analyzed the health care costs from smoking-related diseases and for the treatment of nonsmoking diseases of old age in the Netherlands. They concluded that overall costs would drop in the short run if smokers quit because smokers' health care costs some 40 percent more than that of nonsmokers. But after 15 years, as the healthier population moved into nursing homes and into the relatively expensive diseases of older age, health care costs would increase by 7 percent for men and 4 percent for women, the researchers conclude. That conclusion also contradicts the central premise of the 41 state lawsuits against the tobacco industry, which are seeking reimbursement from the tobacco industry for smoking-related health care costs.

A nation of non-smokers might end up spending more, not less, on health care, experts contend. "A nonsmoking population would have higher health care costs than the current mixed population of smokers and nonsmokers," conclude Dutch researchers at the Erasmus University Department of Public Health in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

Government laws prohibiting the sale of tobacco to minors may have no effect on teen smoking, researchers conclude. Enforcement of tobacco-sales laws "may not decrease young people's access to or use of tobacco," according to a study from the Tobacco Research and Treatment Center at Harvard Medical School, Boston.

The tobacco-control efforts were thwarted in part by retailers who used various ploys to continue to sell to youths under 18, said the researchers, adding that some retailers also pulled political strings to avoid punishment. . . The study suggests that the 80 percent compliance standard is too low to block youths' access to cigarettes, because the 20 percent of merchants who didn't comply were able to meet all the demand for illicit tobacco. The researchers also found that it wasn't hard for vendors to avoid being caught. "Many merchants had learned to `game' the system' by selling cigarettes only to teenagers they knew and avoiding sales to young undercover compliance checkers sent into stores by health authorities," said Rigotti.

Testifying at his Senate confirmation hearing, Dr. David Satcher pledged to use his position as the nation's chief public health advocate to emphasize personal responsibility for improving health. "We have talked about tobacco and what we need to do there," he said. "We've talked about our health care system. We need to talk more about what Americans can do for themselves."

5) Medical Centers should develop a mechanism to limit acute care patients, who wish to smoke, to designated smoking areas outside the building. (Managerial response: Orientation for patients pertaining to the Medical Center Smoking Policy, location of patient smoking shelters and uses of sign-out sheets was implemented as a result of the Medical Center Administrative Investigation. Appropriate nursing staff received education and training for this orientation.)

The proposal is scheduled for the first of two public hearings next Wednesday. "There's a hidden cost to this that I don't think people have thought about," Lucerto said recently in his small store. "Cigarettes are 10 to 15 percent of my business, but if people have to leave town to buy them, they'll buy their beer, wine, and lottery tickets there, too."

An attorney for several tobacco companies argued that the state attorney general should not have hired the firm of Baltimore Orioles majority owner Peter Angelos without getting the Maryland General Assembly to approve the contingency fee agreement. . . "Is it appropriate for the state to hire a bounty hunter and give him a stake in the outcome?" tobacco attorney John Henry Lewin Jr. asked the seven judges of the Maryland Court of Appeals.

GERMANTOWN --A tobacco grower collapsed and died of a heart attack as he watched his crop and barn destroyed by fire. Glynn William "Billy" Dwyer II, 51, was pronounced dead at Columbia Hospital Maysville after suffering a heart attack at the scene of the fire on Ky. 10, Germantown Fire Chief Tim Fegan said. . . The cause of the fire had not been determined.

Just saying "no" is not enough, so state school officials want to give teen-agers "Just the Facts" on alcohol, tobacco and drugs, including the deadly practice of sniffing toxic substances. The new anti-smoking and substance abuse program is one of two health-related school initiatives promoted on Wednesday as ways to spend money from the state's $11.3 billion settlement with the tobacco industry.

Inmates and guards inside North Dakota's two state prisons are a bit fidgety, but so far they're managing to survive without cigarettes and snuff. State Department of Corrections Director Elaine Little acknowledges some nicotine users are "disgruntled" that all tobacco forms were banned Oct. 1 as a health and safety measure. But Little tells UPI today most inmates "are happy they're finally doing it" because "this is something they always wanted to do."

ompton has taken a step toward becoming the first city in the state to ban alcohol and tobacco billboard ads. "Our children are inundated with provocative images that suggest that alcohol and tobacco consumption leads to happiness," Mayor Omar Bradley said. . . . The City Council voted 3-0, with two members not voting, to support the proposed ordinance, but it cannot become law unless it is adopted at a second vote next week.

Turkey's state tobacco and spirits monopoly Tekel has accumulated 330 trillion lira worth of tax debts, the Anatolia news agency reported Wednesday. The outstanding debts are causing much concern at the finance ministry, the agency quoted unnamed ministry sources as saying.

When a new magazine arrived out of nowhere this spring--seemingly full grown, with the size and heft of a heavyweight glossy--the dance music community was abuzz, almost aghast. Publications like this don't come cheap and often have some corporate big daddy to call on for cash. . . Indeed, Sweater is the brainchild of KBA Marketing of Chicago, which in the last few years has pioneered Camel cigarettes' entree into the youthful counterculture that surrounds nightclubbing. And while other, more underground dance music magazines don't accept tobacco advertising, Sweater's anchor advertiser is Camel cigarettes.

[Leonard] Bernstein would sign autographs as he drank whisky from a silver beaker which is also going under the hammer with an elaborate electronic cigarette lighter. The lighter, which helped to fuel Bernstein's heavy smoking habit, will be sold together with a piece of Chinese calligraphy commissioned by his mother, which reads: "Listen to your mother; you must give up smoking".

The system corrupts Republicans and Democrats alike. The fact that Haley Barbour is the subject of a grand jury inquiry, however, is his own making. . . This drives some Republicans crazy. Maybe it's because Mr. Barbour--who helped engineer the surreptitious $50 billion tax break for the tobacco companies last summer--is a charter player in the money and influence-peddling game to which these incumbents are so addicted. For all the achievements of this committee, Sen. Thompson has faced severe limitations, including an inability to even get into congressional fund-raising abuses. That's why the Senate ought to vote on the sensible suggestion of Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D., Conn.) to extend the committee's Dec. 31 deadline. A roll call vote on that would be revealing.

If Hollywood really wants to help out, neither the heroes nor the villains should be allowed to light up--only the nerdy characters. In a world where only accountants, insurance salesmen and guidance counselors smoked, what teen would want to? . . . As for Joe Camel, why not give him his own show on children's television, where he could hug everybody and sing an annoyingly repetitive, saccharine song? His ability to convince teenagers that smoking was cool would immediately go up in smoke.

Guests at a $5,000-per-person fund-raiser for Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle were personally escorted by a national park superintendent to the top of George Washington's head at Mount Rushmore last month, The Washington Post reported in its Friday editions. . . Among those at Daschle's fund-raiser were lobbyists for Bell Atlantic Corp., smokeless tobacco maker UST . . .

Massachusetts acting Gov. Paul Cellucci will make a high-profile ceremony out of the signing of a historic bill requiring the state's pension system to sell about $200 million in tobacco investments. The tobacco divestiture bill will become law 30 days after the signing, scheduled for 3:30 p.m. Oct. 15 at the State House.

L.F. Payne Jr., who represented the tobacco farmers of the 5th District in Congress for eight years, called on a senator from a tobacco state to raise money on his behalf from tobacco industry lobbyists. Some people even smoked. Payne is the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor. Sen. Wendell H. Ford of Kentucky didn't disappoint. He extolled the golden leaf and its historical significance to Virginia and to the other 12 Colonies. "I've been smoking since I was 15 years old," the 73-year-old Democrat said. "When I die, they'll say I smoked. I enjoy it." . . The guest list included representatives of Brown and Williamson Tobacco, Golden Leaf Farms, Philip Morris, Pinkerton Tobacco, the Tobacco Institute, Universal Leaf Tobacco and U.S. Tobacco. Also attending were representatives of Mays & Valentine; McGuire, Woods, Battle & Boothe; Browning Ferris Industries; Reynolds Metals and CSX Corp.

On tobacco, the men differed over whether the state should help wean farmers and workers from the crop. Gilmore said he would work to expand the whole state's economy but added that "you can't really replace tobacco with another product and maintain the standard of living of those families who are on the farm." Beyer said he supports using proceeds from a national tobacco settlement or using federal crop subsidies to help families make the transition from tobacco to other crops.

That may sound like a lot for legal fees, but Florida should honor the contract. After all, the lawsuit put pressure on the tobacco companies to settle the case.

The City's pension system owns $22.7 million worth of tobacco company stock more than a year after the Board of Supervisors urged fund managers to sell it. But Clare Murphy, the Retirement System Board general manager, defended the investment of more than half a million shares of tobacco stock as a minuscule portion of the pension fund's $9 billion portfolio. Murphy said fund directors have a duty to maximize the retirement income of city employees. Mayor Brown, often criticized for accepting campaign contributions from tobacco companies, called the pension fund's practice "totally" hypocritical. "There's no question. . . . It's a very bad idea and whoever is doing that ought to stop it," the mayor said.

San Francisco took a big step yesterday toward enacting the country's most sweeping ban on outdoor tobacco advertising. A Board of Supervisors committee, concerned about cutting illegal tobacco sales to minors, ordered the city attorney to draft legislation that would outlaw tobacco ads on billboards, kiosks and in the windows of businesses visible from streets.

Hot topics currently consuming Renne's hours include complex dealings with the tobacco industry, in which she is allied with some governmental entities and vying with others to protect constituents' rights to damages for the devastating health effects of smoking. San Francisco was the first municipality to sue the tobacco companies for medical costs, and won a $10 million settlement from R.J. Reynolds ending the Joe Camel advertising campaign in California. Renne is battling the threat that a proposed $368.5 billion national settlement would pre-empt future municipal claims.

"The cabinet has approved a bill removing the monopolies on manufacturing, importing and wholesale distribution that the public company Tabacalera had up to now," Rodriguez told a press conference. Rodriguez said this was a measure to reorganise the tobacco market, adding, "there are no reasons to maintain the monopoly."

The depreciation of the crown will bite into the bottom line of Philip Morris Inc Cos (MO) Czech unit Tabak a.s. (TABK.PR), but the company still expects to have a strong year, Tabak Managing Director Ian Ferguson said on Friday.

Danish wholesale group East Asiatic Co Ltd (EAC) said on Friday that it planned to restructure its 30-year-old cooperation with U.S. cigarette group Philip Morris (MO) in Singapre,effective January 1, 1998. It said the restructuring meant that EAC would provide logistics assistance, including rented office space, to Morris and that Morris would take over all the sales of its cigarette products in Singapore.

Armed police backed by helicopters patrolled white-owned farms Thursday after striking farm workers trashed cars and trucks, tore up crops and destroyed produce. . . Farm workers are among the lowest paid employees in Zimbabwe. The strikers are demanding increases of about 135 percent, up from $31 a month to $75. Farmers have offered raises of about 20 percent. CFU president Nick Swanepoel said his organization sought government-sponsored arbitration between farmers and the union.

Allow me to introduce the Scott Burns Slow Million Plan. It's a sure path to a million-dollar nest egg, no ifs, ands or butts. Particularly butts. Who is eligible for this plan? Every young American who smokes, particularly teenagers. For teenagers, the payoff is stunning. If you are 18, smoke a pack a day, can swear off cigarettes for about 13 years and can save and invest the expense, you will have about $35,000 by the time you are 31. If you then stop saving and just let this little nest egg grow, it will become more than $1 million by the time you are in your mid-60s.

"Victory is mine! Victory is mine!" Thomas said Thursday after dropping the lawsuit. "Her hair smells sweeter, her kisses are sweeter and, most important of all, she has stopped the constant coughing at night, which terrified me," he said. "Besides that, she's stopped snoring. So -- nothing but benefits. "And it means she'll probably be around a little bit longer to take care of this old man," Thomas, 69, added.

THE TWO BUCKS YOU FORK over for a pack of cigarettes is nothing compared with the cost of smoking it, says a forthcoming study by professors Jon Hanson of Harvard law school and Kyle Logue of the University of Michigan law school. Smoking's cost to society and to smokers themselves comes to at least $7 a pack, once you include illness, premature death, lost workdays, and so on, says the draft study, which is scheduled for publication in Yale Law Journal next March. Hanson's and Logue's effort differs from other studies that count premature death from smoking as a net benefit to society on the theory that people who die young use up fewer Social Security and pension benefits, among other things.

"Coaches Corner Smoking," a consumer education initiative launched on Tuesday in New York, emphasizes a coordinated "team" approach to kicking the habit. The program is jointly sponsored by the pharmaceutical firm Glaxo Wellcome Inc., The V Foundation, and the Bonnie Blair Charitable Fund. Two-time NCAA champion basketball coach of the Duke University Blue Devils, Mike Krzyzewski ("Coach K"), and Bonnie Blair, Olympic gold medalist and speed-skating world record holder, offer their winning motivational strategies to smokers as part of the program.

"I think if you were going to try to think of something that was more political an issue than environmental tobacco smoke, it'd be tough," Roger Jenkins, an analytical chemist, said during a recent lecture at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

This year, though, that image of a formidable and unyielding industry has been shaken up by a series of dramatic legal challenges - with more on the way - and by stunning multimillion- and multibillion-dollar settlements. Analysts say the shake-up reflects how fiercely the industry hungers for protection from class-action lawsuits and from punitive-damage awards, and for stability that would impress Wall Street.

Gov. Lawton Chiles will be calling on a uniquely qualified cast of experts in his design of a $200 million, two-year campaign to curb smoking among young people: children. The governor will be asking schoolchildren around the state to critique which messages work -- and which don't -- for commercials, billboards and other public relations tools the state will start launching next year. The money for this massive campaign will come from an $11.3 billion, 25-year settlement Florida won in a lawsuit against cigarette makers.

They called it the "butt line." The words still hold burning memories for Dennis Richardson of St. Paul. The memories go back to 1956, the year his troubles with the law landed him in a juvenile corrections center at Red Wing, Minn., at age 14. Behind the institution's brick walls, officials ordered boys to line up -- in a butt line -- four to six times each day. Boys waited anxiously for an official handout. The handout was a cigarette. . . Now, some of them are suffering the health consequences of smoking. . . State government memos from the 1960s show that supplying cigarettes to delinquent 15- to 17-year-old boys was an officially sanctioned means to control their behavior. If boys were good, they received extra cigarettes from officials. If a boy misbehaved, he could lose his privilege to smoke. "We were addicted," said Richardson, who added that he has tried to quit repeatedly. "They started us smoking for control."

The budget will raise Wisconsin's 44-cent-per-pack cigarette tax 15 cents Nov. 1.

The American cigarette business, under fire from courtroom to Congress, may be slowing down. But you wouldn't know it by looking at the white "rods" shooting off the line inside the sprawling Manufacturing Center off Interstate 95 at the Bells Road interchange. Each new German-made machine makes 14,000 cigarettes per minute, or enough to fill 42,000 packs per hour. That's nearly double the production rate of current equipment.

The Briar Brotherhood, formed almost a year ago, is a club dedicated to the joy of pipe smoking. It would seem a thin strand to hang a social club on -- how much is there to say about a piece of tree root with a hole in it, after all? -- but the men churning out great blue clouds on this night don't seem to think so. Sitting around a table above Turtle Run Liquors in Coral Springs, they show off their pipes, tap their pipes, clean their pipes, compare pipes. And, of course, puff, puff, puff. Guys wouldn't be guys without playthings, and the pipe appears to be the perfect toy, providing hours of puttering potential.

Cigarette smoking appears to be an important factor in the development of periodontitis, a gum disease that can lead to the loss of teeth, according to a study reported at the annual meeting of the International Association for Dental Research held in Orlando, Fla. Dental researchers at the University of Buffalo followed 181 men and 230 women for from two years to five years. . . . About 9 percent developed gum disease during the study; of these, 80 percent were smokers of 10 cigarettes a day or more, said Sara Grossi, who directed the study.

The lawsuit, filed by Tony Badillo and eight other dealers in U.S. District Court in Reno, alleges the tobacco companies lied about the addictive nature of nicotine and the ill health effects of breathing secondhand cigarette smoke.

For the time being, Louisvillearea smokers can still walk into most grocery and convenience stores, peruse the cigarette display and hand-pick their own brands. That's because most area retailers are still displaying cigarettes within reach of consumers. How long that will last is anyone's guess.

Nashville is renowned as a home of health care, but it also has the less-healthy distinction of outstripping the nation in the percentage of people who smoke. That's a drag for the Partners for a Healthy Nashville. The newly launched organization is targeting tobacco use, along with four other areas, in its campaign to improve health awareness and wellness by the year 2000. The group's Tobacco Team met for the first time Thursday at the Metro Health Department to develop a preliminary action plan for tackling the problem.

A panel of the National Advertising Review Board recommended that SmithKline Beecham PLC (SBH) modify a visual "step" depiction in television advertising that compares its NicoDerm CQ smoking cessation aid to a competitive product, Nicotrol.

Inflation at the wholesale level rose a larger-than-expected 0.5 percent in September. Higher prices for gasoline, tobacco and automobiles paced the largest increase in the producer price index (PPI) since a 0.6 percent rise in December 1995, Labor Department figures show. The PPI, which measures cost pressures before they reach the consumer, rose 0.3 percent in August - the first increase of the year - after a post-World War II record of seven consecutive monthly declines.

George West, a cigarette smoker for 57 years who went public last summer with his story of addiction, emphysema and lung cancer, died Thursday at the Veterans Affairs hospital at Fort Snelling. He was 69 and had lived in St. Paul. West spent the last three weeks in the hospital suffering from the terminal stage of lung cancer.

Cigarettes will kill you, but you can't binge smoke yourself to death. Too much alcohol in a short time can have immediate and really awful consequences. Unfortunately, many people don't seem to realize this. Why should Massachusetts Institute of Technology students be any different? After all, proper alcohol use is not a topic on the SAT.

Nationwide, 83 percent of the clubs with whom we partner admit only those above the age of 21. At the remaining 17 percent, smokers have to show a photo I.D. proving that they are over 21 before they can receive a pack of Camels in place of their usual brand (local ordinances permitting). These are existing adult smokers of competitors' brands -- the exact audience the thinking world recognizes that cigarette companies hav

"Coaches Corner Smoking," a consumer education initiative launched on Tuesday in New York, emphasizes a coordinated "team" approach to kicking the habit. The program is jointly sponsored by the pharmaceutical firm Glaxo Wellcome Inc., The V Foundation, and the Bonnie Blair Charitable Fund. Two-time NCAA champion basketball coach of the Duke University Blue Devils, Mike Krzyzewski ("Coach K"), and Bonnie Blair, Olympic gold medalist and speed-skating world record holder, offer their winning motivational strategies to smokers as part of the program.

A deal with Zurich also allows for a sensible valuation of the tobacco business once the industry-wide settlement, currently with President Clinton, is agreed. There is more wrangling to come but the fact is BAT still owns a business that should be capable of £500m profit a year, even after paying its annual settlement sums. BAT's shares added 58 to 609p yesterday. Broker Merrill Lynch has pencilled in pre-tax profits of £2.6 billion for the year, which puts the shares on just 13-times expected earnings, still a huge discount to the market. It suggests a sensible outcome to the tobacco talks in America could still produce another sharp rise. With a yield of 4.5pc, there is some protection for investors. Buy.

Yet tobacco experts don't see other cigarette makers following suit with actual spinoffs until significant liabilities are eliminated. To do that may take either Congress signing off on the $368.5 billion national settlement between the companies and state and public health officials, or the tobacco industry winning a series of the 40-plus state Medicaid cases it faces.

The real value of B.A.T Industries Plc's (BATS.L) tobacco business will become clear if a merger of its insurance activities with Zurich Group (ZURZN.S) goes ahead, analysts said on Monday. Some believe that once the smoke has cleared, it will be obvious that the rump tobacco branch of B.A.T has been undervalued compared with the other tobacco giants. "This makes the tobacco side look very cheap," an analyst at one European investment bank told Reuters.

At the moment, B.A.T's tobacco operations contribute about 60 percent of the company's operating profits, according to company officials. . . As a result of having already "ring fenced" the insurance companies, B.A.T executives said, the merger would not help the company move assets out of the range of tobacco plaintiffs in the United States. But the merger would let B.A.T shareholders benefit from a stock market valuation that is not clouded by smokeBut several analysts said the merger could easily run into legal opposition from some of the tobacco plaintiffs suing the industry. They said anti-tobacco lawyers might accuse B.A.T of engaging in "fraudulent conveyance" -- selling off assets in order to put them out of the reach of plaintiffs in tobacco cases.

B.A.T Industries PLC, the tobacco and financial-service giant, and Zurich Insurance Co. of Switzerland said they are at an "advanced stage" of merger talks that could create one of the world's largest insurance groups. A joint statement by B.A.T, based in London, and Zurich, Switzerland's largest insurance company, said the contemplated deal would include the simultaneous spinoff of B.A.T's tobacco operations to B.A.T holders. . . Analysts say B.A.T's financial-services operations, which account for 40% of B.A.T's total earnings, have languished because of management preoccupation with tobacco-liability cases pending in the U.S. Separating the financial-services side of the company would unlock additional potential for the tobacco unit, which is the world's second-largest cigarette maker and remains highly profitable, they say.

ZURICH Group, Switzerland's largest insurance company, is in advanced negotiations to take over Eagle Star, Allied Dunbar and the other financial services companies owned by BAT Industries. The BAT companies would be merged with Zurich's insurance and fund management operations, with BAT investors owning a 45pc stake while the Swiss shareholders own 55pc. The merged company's headquarters would be in Zurich.

BAT INDUSTRIES, the tobacco and financial-services company, is in talks over a £22 billion merger with Zurich Insurance, the Swiss financial group. Discussions with Zurich are believed to be at an advanced stage. A decision is expected within the next month and could come as early as next week. Goldman Sachs, the American investment bank, has been advising on the deal.

British financial services and tobacco group B.A.T Industries Plc (BATS.L) on Sunday declined to comment on newspaper reports that it is in advanced talks with Swiss Zurich Insurance Co (ZURZN.S) about a 22-24 billion pound ($39 billion) merger. . . But the Sunday Times and Sunday Telegraph newspapers reported that a joint statement by B.A.T and Zurich, announcing talks about merging their financial services divisions, could be published as early as Monday.

Massachusetts Acting Gov. Paul Cellucci is expected to sign a bill later this week ordering the state's $21 billion pension system to sell about $200 million of worth of tobacco stocks, a spokesman said.

Maryland's suit against cigarette makers doesn't come to trial until 1999, but lawyers are plowing through thousands of documents in preparation. Lawyers, paralegals and copy clerks are scouring documents on everything from tobacco farming, alcohol and drugs to the lottery and its alleged addictive nature. In the State Records Management Center in Jessup, 20,000 boxes of documents have been preserved beyond their scheduled disposal date.

Well, it depends on your tolerance for risk and how long you're willing to stick with your investment. That's the general assessment of industry analysts we've heard recently in Richmond and Washington.

House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) thinks the Democrats are missing the point. When it comes to children, he says, drugs are the real problem in America today, not tobacco. So Gingrich and two of his deputies fired off a letter to Gore last week suggesting that the vice president's regional forums on tobacco use be expanded to cover substance abuse too. . . Republicans gleefully whisper they'd love to find a way to resurrect that topic, especially if it deflects attention from the astronomical donations the GOP has received from the tobacco industry in the last few years. . . "In August of 1996, when the president and vice president announced their FDA regulations to protect kids from tobacco, [national drug control policy director] General [Barry R.] McCaffrey was on stage and addressed the obvious link between tobacco and drug use," said Gore spokeswoman Ginny Terzano. "Unfortunately, Speaker Gingrich and House Republicans oppose this measure. This is a year late and a dollar short."

So Sirianni, a retired state lawmaker decided to do something about it. In the last two weeks he has turned this town of 18,000 people into a new front in the tobacco wars with a proposal that both the American Cancer Society and Tobacco Institute officials said they believed had never been made before. Just as many American towns and counties have voted to become "dry," banning the sale of all alcohol within their borders, Sirianni argued, Winthrop should become tobacco-free, forbidding the sale of all tobacco products.

It seems to me that if the state wanted more money from them, all they had to do was vote a hike in the cigarette tax. . . So why didn't state lawmakers take the simple solution? Could it have had anything to do with campaign contributions from tobacco-related interests? The official story is that raising cigarette taxes would not produce a stable flow of tax money. Why? Because people unable to afford the higher prices would quit smoking, or at least cut down on the number of cigarettes smoked -- and this healthy choice, now being publicly sought by Gov. Chiles and dozens of other state officials, would wound the state tax collections. In other words, the good thing would be a bad thing. You think maybe Alice and the Mad Hatter could explain this to us?

There was one thing, Thomas conceded, that he had not shared with the judge. "I didn't mention her kisses were sweeter," he said.

Thomas, 69, an ex-smoker, went to U.S. District Court in August, claiming that cigarette smoke from his 65-year-old wife, Sally, violated the Clean Air Act. In requesting an injunction to make her stop smoking, Thomas, a retired Army colonel, said he wanted the government "to protect me against having to grow old alone, to protect me against the loss of the love and support and companionship of the woman I love."

He also tried Old Gold cigarettes, which went by the motto, "Not a cough in the carload." "It hurt my throat," he said. "I was looking for a cigarette I could smoke and not hurt my throat, but I never found one."

Coca-Cola Co Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Robert Goizueta has been hospitalized and is in critical condition, the company said on Monday. Goizueta was in intensive care at Emory University Hospital, the company said in a news release. Goizueta, who was diagnosed with lung cancer last month, was admitted to the hospital because of a throat infection that led to a fever. His condition "significantly worsened," due in part to complications from radiation and chemotherapy treatments he has been receiving, the company said.

Attorney General William Sorrell reversed himself and recommended that a new statewide ban on cigarette vending machines be enforced. The vending machine industry will consider a lawsuit to overturn the ban.

Tobacco companies warned last night that universities could lose several million pounds in research funding, following the publication of a government-supported code of conduct designed to end the industry's sponsorship of scientific research. The Cancer Research Campaign's draft code of practice - "to ensure that future scientific grants are not tainted with tobacco money" - recommends that other grant-giving bodies follow its lead in refusing to support any university faculty that receives tobacco industry funding. Tessa Jowell, the minister for public health, offered her unqualified support for the move, saying: "This initiative is consistent with the government's commitment to ban tobacco advertising and to develop a tobacco control strategy."

This year, no Senate seats are up for election Nov. 4 and the GOP could take control if political newcomer John Hager defeats former U.S. Rep. L.F. Payne, a conservative Democrat who occasionally voted with Republicans, especially on matters involving tobacco. Payne, in the House from 1988 until he quit to run for lieutenant governor, and Hager, a former American Tobacco Co. executive who uses a wheelchair because of polio, haven't talked much about power politics.

Lyons raises tobacco on his 80-acre farm on Sharp Road in Stamping Ground. As he stripped the leaves from the stalk, Javier Hernandez and other workers stuffed the burley into a baling machine. The workers were stripping burley into two grades.

Then there's a flat difference of opinion on the politics of tobacco -bashing. Branstad figures it's pretty smart politics. GOP senators say they better "dance with the one that brung `em" and side with business.

A smoke-free society is coming in the 21st century, and tobacco use will go the way of buggy whips, R.J. Reynolds' grandson predicted Tuesday. Patrick Reynolds, 48, whose grandfather founded the R.J. Reynolds tobacco company, spoke to about 30 people Tuesday on "Tobacco Wars: The Battle for a Smoke-Free America" at Washburn University's Bradbury Thompson Center.

A proposed ordinance that would have cracked down on sales of tobacco to minors - particularly from vending machines - will be revised, apparently because it's too tough. . . The Marana Town Council last week referred the ordinance to a committee for further study after tobacco retailers and their representatives opposed the measure, which most said is unnecessary because tobacco sales already are regulated by state law.

Want to lower your electrical costs? Stop smoking. Want to serve the Lord while you pay your bill? Your electrical company will match contributions you make toward missionary work. Those are just some of the sales pitches Californians will hear with the approach of the Jan. 1 deadline for deregulation of the electrical industry in this state.

Newhart Middle School has received a $75,000 grant for a new anti-tobacco program, Project Bash Ash.

For years, executives of B.A.T Industries PLC tried to appease nervous investors about mounting cigarette litigation in the U.S. Look at our far larger presence, they said, outside the States. Our London home, they added, will help insulate us from American litigants. . . If it succeeds, B.A.T will become the second conglomerate to recently jettison a profitable cigarette operation par tly because investors refuse to view the enormous cash-generating tobacco business as more an asset than a liability.

The Austrian state-owned Industrial Holding Company (OIAG) said Wednesday it will sell 9.68 million shares in the state tobacco monopoly Austria Tabak at its initial public offering in early November. It added that it has the option to sell a further 1.452 million shares via a greenshoe in the event of heavy over subscription. If the greenshoe option is exercised OIAG will effectively reduce its stake in Austria Tabak to 49.4%.

Sharon Stone was pretty snippy at her New York hairdresser's the other day. When an assistant to celebrity hair-color specialist Louis Licari came near, said the New York Post, she snapped, "Get away from me. You've been smoking cigarettes. I can smell them on you. I can't stand smokers. Get away from me." The Post said the incident "could have something to do with tensions" in the actress' much-publicized latest romance

The 60-second advertisements are running this week in Colorado, Indiana, Nebraska and Kansas. . . "Do you know what soft money is?" the radio advertisements ask. "Soft money is the big money politicians raise from special interests... tobacco companies, drug companies, big unions. Soft money buys access. Soft money corrupts. And unless you act now, soft money is taking your government away from you," the spots continue. "Your phone call can make a difference," the ad states. "Tell them (their senators) to support McCain-Feingold.

The increased cigarette tax, and the prevention and education program, represent a good first step of progress. However, we can do more. We must continue to engage our governor, our legislators, our friends and our neighbors to help our most precious resource -- our children. We can't afford to not raise taxes higher, put more resources into education and prevention programs and do all in our power to stemthe tide of this epidemic.

But Lugar is right to try to dismantle a program that has always stood out as a particularly indefensible part of the federal government's misguided intervention in agriculture. Even Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell, who represents tobacco-rich Kentucky, has himself wondered if the program may have reached the end of the line. Tobacco farmers would be wise to recognize that prospect and accept the generous deal that Lugar has offered.

Some of Britain's leading fashion designers are banding together this week to condemn "heroin chic" and the glamorisation of the use of addictive substances in the couture industry. Thirteen designers, including John Galliano, Stella McCartney, John Rocha, Reynold Pearce and Andrew Fionda, have signed a statement expressing their concern at "the waste of human potential caused by substance addiction" and objecting to the industry's use of the strung-out "heroin look" to promote fashion. "We also disapprove of the fashion industry glamorising the use of addictive substances," the statement said, "as this could have a detrimental effect on the lives of young people, many of whom are greatly influenced by the appearance and actions of members of our industry." The release of the statement marks the formation of Designers Against Addiction, and is the beginning of a campaign organised by a charity, Action on Addiction, which raises funds for research into addiction. Jon Moore of Hardy Amies, who signed the statement, applauded the move on behalf of the industry and believes it is time for the industry to act more responsibly. He said: "Whether it's drugs, drink or tobacco, everyone is affected by addiction and many people have come to accept it as an unpleasant fact of life. The fashion industry is so influential on young people that if we can pull together to behave responsibly then only good can come of it."

"This is how the Cubans do it," says Cruz, a cigar maker for 20 years. "We no longer fold the leaves, which is how we did it before." Cruz says the method, believed to keep the tobacco more moist, is one of several prized techniques that his company, La Flor de la Isabela, has learned from the Cuban cigar master who developed that country's famed Cohiba cigar. La Flor, the biggest of the Philippines' five cigar companies, hired cigar master Aflredo Salinas to train its 352 cigar rollers to capture the elusive quality of world-famous Havana cigars.

As a representative of the global hospitality industry for this region, I would like to say that bans do not work and are not the way forward. Your correspondent who enjoyed his stay in New York ("Follow New York's example", South China Morning Post, October 2) may be interested to know that much revenue has been lost - and many people have lost their jobs as well - due to the smoking ban in New York restaurants. . . The Courtesy of Choice is a programme developed by our association to help the hospitality industry assist both smokers and non-smokers.

Uncertainty hangs over the tobacco barns in the Connecticut River Valley this fall like the curling autumn mist. For the first time in 20 years, one of the world's richest cigar tobacco growing regions was touched by a fast-moving fungus called blue mold this summer. How much damage the fungus may have done to what was expected to be a $100 million crop will emerge over the next few weeks as the delicate wrapper leaves, now drying to a glove-soft brown, begin coming out of the barns.

The campaign, to begin appearing in November issues of magazines, carries the theme "B Kool," which appears in the corner of the print ads in a rough-edged rectangle like a brand or stamp. The ads show attractive women perching on a motorcycle or vamping in a pool hall. They are gazing at men who are not visible but for their hands carrying boxes of Kools and lit cigarettes. The campaign is created by Grey Advertising in New York, the Kool agency since 1994.

For additional conference and registration information, please contact the ASAM Meetings Department at 301-656-3920 (phone), 301-656-3815 (fax). Home page: http://www.asam.org

Executives at Philip Morris, maker of Marlboro cigarettes, Kraft cheese and Miller beer, repeatedly have said they have no intention of selling off the company's tobacco unit. But many analysts expect that the competition for international sales will prompt RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp. to sell off its Oreo cookies, Ritz crackers and other food lines and concentrate on selling Camel and Winston cigarettes and other tobacco brands.

Imasco Ltd, which is 42-percent-owned by B.A.T Industries Plc, said on Tuesday that is not involved in the merger discussions between B.A.T and Zurich Group (ZURZN.S). U.K.-based B.A.T said on October 12 that it is in discussions with Zurich Co, which may or may not lead to a merger of B.A.T's interests in financial services. In the event that a merger agreement is reached, B.A.T's investment in Montreal-based Imasco will not be transferred to the merged entity, Imasco said.

Separating the businesses would unfetter the financial units from the burden of tobacco litigation in the United States. It would also let B.A.T plow tobacco earnings back into that division as it strives to build the world's biggest tobacco business. "The most intriguing question is what B.A.T may do with its tobacco side," said Richard Wyatt, a fund manager with Henderson Investors in London, which manages about $9 billion in assets. "I would suspect their intent would be to put money back into tobacco investments in the emerging markets -- particularly China and Eastern Europe."

BRITAIN'S first legal action against tobacco companies could collapse after a ruling allowing the companies to try to make the lung cancer victims' lawyers liable for costs of up to £20 million if they lose. . . Some 47 lung cancer victims are suing Gallaghers and Imperial Tobacco, with lawyers doing the work on a no win, no fee basis because the victims could not obtain legal aid. Mr Justice Popplewell has said he will not debar the tobacco companies from seeking to recover their costs from the lawyers. The tobacco companies argue that it is the lawyers who are funding the litigation and therefore they are an interested party who should be liable for costs.

TWO lawyers at the forefront of anti-tobacco litigation in the United States briefed doctors in London yesterday on how they could back a similar campaign against the tobacco companies in British courts. Prof Richard Daynard, of the Tobacco Products Liability Project in Boston, and James Tierney, a former attorney general in Maine, explained how legal actions being successfully pursued in America had tobacco companies "on the run".

The British Medical Association said Wednesday it might follow the lead taken by the United States and explore possible compensation from tobacco firms to cover treatment of smoking-related diseases. "We are looking today at whether we should be taking more risks in the area of anti-tobacco litigation," John Chisolm of the BMA, the main professional body for Britain's doctors, told a news conference.

B.A.T Industries Plc (BATS.L) said on Thursday that Britain's former chancellor of the exchequer Kenneth Clarke is to join British American Tobacco as non executive deputy chairman following the hiving off of the group's financial services operations.

The Council's Health Working Party has recently been making steady progress towards adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive on the approximation of Member States' laws, regulations, and administrative Provisions on advertising for tobacco products (see European Report Ns 2248 and 2250). However, a group of Member States led by Germany has long argued that EU legislation establishing a total ban on tobacco advertising and related publicity within the common market goes far beyond the intended scope of Article 100a of the Treaty and has now launched a formal challenge.

According to a Guardian newspaper report published in Lagos, the High Court has granted permission to smokers who have contracted diseases from tobacco to sue the Nigerian Tobacco Company (NTC) and 13 other cigarette companies in Europe and the United States According to the report, Mr Justice Christopher Segun gave permission after listening to a suit filed by Yinka Ayantola, a Lagos-based lawyer, on behalf Abraham Dasilva.

"This is cutting edge," said US Representative Martin T. Meehan . . "If there is a ripple effect and other states and even the federal government follow Massachusetts' lead, this will hit the tobacco industry in its financial underbelly," said Meehan, who attended the State House bill-signing ceremony.

Massachusetts Acting Governor Paul Cellucci signed a bill on Wednesday that requires the state to divest its holdings in any tobacco companies and prohibits any further investments.

Eric Packer, Branch Manager of the Wellesley, MA office of Progressive Asset Management, testified in favor of this bill and was pleased to join the Governor, Representative Businger, and many Massachusetts legislators at the bill signing yesterday. According to Mr. Packer, "Clearly, this is a most important and powerful statement to the investment community. It is both positive public policy and financially feasible to divest tobacco securities fully from public and private pension funds. The question now is 'Who is next?"'

A proposed ban on the sale of tobacco products, believed to be the first in the nation, will be put to a townwide vote in April, the Winthrop Board of Health said last night. "We are a democracy. We will let the people of this town speak on the issue," said Ralph Sirianni, the board member who proposed the ban.

A majority of Alabama residents believe the state should join others that have sued the tobacco industry to recover the public health costs from treating tobacco-related illnesses, a new poll shows. . . The telephone survey of 603 people was conducted for the AEA by Capital Survey Research Center. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.01 percent and was taken during the period September 23 to October 8.

The Compton City Council has modified a proposed ordinance that would ban alcohol and tobacco advertising on billboards in the city by allowing a two-year grace period for current advertisers.

The Winona mother of the editor and publisher of Minnesota's Cigar and Wine Connection takes no prisoners when critiquing the work of Rob Hahn. Whether it's publishing a come-hither photo of Eleanor Mondale in the June issue, or ripping gubernatorial candidate Attorney General Skip Humphrey for his fight with the tobacco companies, Mom also bans Rob's cigars and daughter Kristin's cigarettes in her house or car or at their father Bob Hahn's CPA office, where Trudy works. "Oh no, Rob can't even smoke on the porch anymore since I redecorated. And NOW if I catch Rob smoking within 10 feet of his house, I'm just going to go up in smoke because he has a new baby boy." Rob's son, born Sept. 30, is another Robert, who is being called Bobby -- also much to grandmother's dismay.

A substantial majority of people in the U.S. prefer to dine in smoke-free restaurants, stay in smoke-free hotel rooms and relax in smoke-free bars and lounges -- according to a new survey conducted by International Communications Research (ICR) of Media, Pennsylvania. The preference for smoke-free restaurants and hotel facilities is strongest among those who have recently been to Europe or who are planning to travel to Europe in the near future. The nationwide survey, which was commissioned by Mirador International, consisted of 1003 telephone interviews conducted by ICR in September, 1997. Sixty-nine percent of those questioned by ICR prefer non-smoking dining areas. Among travelers to Europe, the preference for smoke-free dining jumped to 82.6%.

In 1996, the U.S. tobacco industry generated over 3.07 million U.S. jobs, produced $105.6 billion in salaries and wages, and accounted for $69.1 billion in taxes collected by all levels of U.S. government -- federal, state, and local, according to economic data generated by the WEFA Group for the Tobacco Merchants Association (TMA).

Swisher International Group Inc. (SWR) began operations at its new El Parasio, Honduras, cigar facility. In a press release Wednesday, the company said the facility is producing hand-rolled cigars, including the Bering brand. The factory will support an initial annual production capacity of 30 million cigars.

The answer to the problems posed by any addictive product lies in education and guidance for the young, while still somehow maintaining our precious freedom of personal choice.

Ranking Democrat John Conyers of Michigan said Republicans should apply their standards to House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and ask for an investigation of his attempt to introduce a $50 billion tax break for the tobacco industry into the balanced budget deal. Tobacco companies make large donations to the Republican Party. Conyers said that was no different from Republicans who said Clinton was accepting a bribe when he declared a southern Utah region off-limits to coal development.

Star Tobacco & Pharmaceuticals Inc. (ST&P) of Petersburg, Virginia (and its predecessor, Star Tobacco), a closely held private corporation, started its business in 1990 with a commitment to develop a range of smoking cessation pharmaceutical products which have a palatable taste, yet mirror the taste of tobacco without the range of adverse health consequences. During the past 34 months, this small company with approximately 120 employees, has invested all of its profits, plus additional seed capital from its founders and its lender, NationsBank, to develop a novel sophisticated proprietary process for curing tobacco so as to eliminate the presence of tobacco specific nitrosamines (TSNA's - - NNN's and NNK's) from both the tobacco leaf and the second hand smoke.

A small Petersburg company made a big splash in tobacco and health circles yesterday by disclosing clinical tests of a new kind of tobacco processing that could remove some of the most dangerous, cancer-causing compounds in cigarette smoke. . . Until now, Star has been known as a maker of such specialty cigarettes as Buz and Gunsmoke. It opened in 1990 in the old Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. facilities. Now the privately owned company with 120 employees appears poised to take advantage of a federally mandated market for "less hazardous" cigarettes. Star also is positioning itself to tap into a growing smoking-cessation business, which could be funded under a new tobacco law.

Dr. Ronald Davis, director of the Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention at the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, said tobacco smoke has at least 43 cancer-causing chemicals, "so removal of some of them certainly doesn't solve the problem." But Dr. John Slade, a smoking researcher at St. Peter's Medical Center in New Brunswick, N.J., was optimistic about the study. "Here is a tobacco company really innovating and asking the right questions to modify tobacco," Slade said. He noted that most previous studies by the industry have been conducted in secret. "They are going through conventional channels about getting their product to market, using the FDA to protect consumers."

A former Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. manager received two years' probation today for helping to smuggle thousands of untaxed cigarettes through Louisiana into Canada. Michael Bernstein pleaded guilty in July to a federal charge of trafficking in contraband cigarettes. He was fined $1,000 as part of the plea bargain. He was the last of 10 people to plead guilty. . The cigarettes were bound for offshore vessels and thus were exempt from taxation. Instead, they were sold to a Vietnamese organization that smuggled the tobacco through Louisiana and into Canada, the indictment alleged.

The Cancer Research Campaign, which is providing £49 million to scientists this year, decided to ban grants to faculties or departments "tainted by tobacco money" as part of its campaign against smoking, which kills 120,000 people a year in Britain. The move was prompted by last year's announcement that British American Tobacco was to give the University of Cambridge £1.5 million to fund a chair of International Relations. After months of consultation with legal experts, the charity has drawn up a code of conduct for research institutions.

The Cancer Research Campaign said it was the first scientific organisation to take an ethical stand against the makers of cigarettes and tobacco products. In the future it will not provide research support to any project which is receiving tobacco funding. "The tobacco industry craves respectability, and seeks to gain it by sponsoring research and facilities in academic centres of excellence. Now, in Britain at least, it would appear those days are numbered," David Simpson, the director of CRC, said in a statement.

Britain's leading cancer research charity on Tuesday announced plans to boycott institutions that accept donations from tobacco companies, starting what it hopes will be a Europe-wide trend. The move by the Cancer Research Campaign was prompted by Cambridge University's acceptance in July 1996 of a 1.5 million pound ($2.4 million) grant from British American Tobacco to fund a chair of international relations. "The tobacco industry has a long history of gaining respectability by funding research and facilities in our centers of academic excellence," said Gordon McVie, director general of the charity. "Now it is only a matter of time before the practice stops and we break that addiction to tobacco funding."

Advanced Therapeutic Products, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: AVTH) (ATP) announced that Pharmacia & Upjohn, Inc. (NYSE: PNU), the world leader in nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), launched its nicotine Inhaler as an over-the-counter product in Austria last week. The Austrian launch is the fifth in an anticipated series of worldwide product launches.

Women who smoke and who are infected with genital warts have a much higher risk of genital cancer than other women. One particular strain of wart virus known as HPV16 increased the risk of cancer by six times in smokers, Margaret Madeleine and colleagues at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle reported Tuesday. . . Smoking and wart virus are also linked with cervical cancer, but the link with vulvar cancer was more controversial.

The U.N. Development Program is providing nearly $400,000 for starters. It says more than 3,000 people have been treated successfully with Heantos since 1991. World Health Organization officials are less enthusiastic. They don't trust Vietnamese record- keeping or believe in a "miracle treatment for drug dependence," which is social and psychological as well as physical. But the Vietnamese say that Heantos, originally a brown syrup and now in capsule form, can eliminate the craving for heroin, opium or cocaine. Some doctors say it can even work for tobacco.

RJR, in its 27th year sponsoring the Winston Cup series, introduced the "Winston No Bull 5" campaign for next year. "No Bull" is the richest single-season bonus program ever in Winston Cup. The program offers a total of $5 million to drivers, with possible $1 million payouts at five events in 1998. The program, which ties in with RJR's current advertising campaign, will substitute for the Winston Million in '98.

Moreover, "if the liquor industry does not start acting in a more socially responsible way," Mr. Bennett wrote, "it may soon find itself held in the same kind of esteem in which the tobacco companies are now held." There are, it is said, only three or four arguments in the world. Two of them are, "It's a slippery slope" and, "No, it's not." In this case, the slope is indeed quite slick. After tobacco, alcohol is next on the hit list of the morally superior and the trial lawyers (two groups that are not to be confused). Already we are hearing that Absolut Vodka advertisements are the Joe Camels of drinking and that, since larger automobiles tend to crunch smaller ones in accidents, sports-utility vehicles are the Joe Camels of automobiles. What will be next? Only the plaintiffs' trial lawyers know for certain. . . To accept the virtucratic answer to our problems is to accept the ethos of self-expression as inevitable and beyond our capacity to alter, except by legal compulsion. Perhaps that is the case. But it would be better to try to inculcate morality, personal responsibility and self-control before we adopt the strategy of treating adults as recalcitrant children.

Legislation sponsored by Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, would ban federal spending to promote foreign sales of U.S. cigarettes and bar U.S. officials from lobbying against foreign laws intended to curb smoking. The Doggett proposal will be acted on by a House-Senate conference committee working on a spending bill for the departments of Commerce, State and Justice.

Findings published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine indicate that, nonsmokers who work in bars may be at increased risk for adverse health effects from exposure to cigarette smoke while on the job. "Among nonsmokers, those working in bars where there are no public smoking restrictions had the highest hair nicotine levels, which were close to levels found in smokers," states Dr. Helen Dimich-Ward and her colleagues from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. . . Hair samples of 26 people, with an average age of 35 years, were analyzed for nicotine and cotinine by gas chromatograph/mass spectrometry, a widely used laboratory test for determining the chemical makeup of various substances. . . "Nicotine levels in hair increased significantly as category of exposure to ETS increased," the researchers write. But a similar "exposure gradient" was not found for cotinine, the nicotine metabolite. . . In addition, the researchers found that the amount of nicotine in the hair of smokers was related to number of cigarettes smoked per day. Moreover, that amount "was slightly higher than that found for nonsmokers heavily exposed to ETS," the researchers state. "In summary, hair nicotine is a good biological marker for the measurement of chronic exposure to ETS from multiple sources," the study authors conclude.

The decision "opens the floodgates," said Carla J. Stovall, Kansas' attorney general. Tobacco-industry attorneys attacked the decision and promised a quick appeal. "This is not really a tobacco issue," said Greg Little, the associate general counsel for Philip Morris. "This is a ruling that would affect every lawsuit with more than one defendant."

Kansas Attorney General Carla Stovall said the decision will make available an unprecedented number of documents involving the Committee of Counsel, which is the tobacco industry's legal strategy arm, the Tobacco Institute and the Council for Tobacco Research.

Ruling that Kansas law does not recognize claims of joint privilege, Judge Jackson's decision makes available an unprecedented number of documents involving the Committee of Counsel (the tobacco industry's legal strategy arm), Tobacco Institute, Council for Tobacco Research, and many other industry meetings, memoranda and decisions.

Creating the pure tobacco company should 'improve prospects for capital and income growth,' make the business more transparent and 'provide superior shareholder returns over the long run,' B.A.T said in a release. B.A.T also said it doesn't expect the ultimate outcome of U.S. tobacco litigation to have a material adverse effect on the rump tobacco company's financial condition and added it's defending all actions 'vigorously.' Leaving litigation fears aside, analysts said the tobacco company is highly profitable.

BAT Industries shareholders are to see their dividends reduced by a fifth according to the terms of the merger of BAT's financial division with the Zurich Insurance company released yesterday. BAT's shares closed 4.5 lower at 596.5, after being as high at 619p, when investors had a chance to examine the proposals in detail. Several of BAT's biggest shareholders are concerned at the proposed board structures, which one said "throws the entire UK corporate governance code out the window".

B.A.T Industries is breaking off its tobacco business and will merge its financial services operations with Zurich Insurance Co. to create one of the world's biggest financial services companies, with growing reach in the United States. . . The companies said they expect the deal to be completed by the third quarter of 1998.

tobacco: B.A.T Industries Plc's plan to merge its financial services arm with Switzerland's Zurich Group (ZURZN.S) promises to underline the true worth of the group's lowly-rated tobacco operations, analysts . . .

The tobacco industry encountered major new legal problems Thursday as two massive lawsuits seeking the recovery of billions of dollars spent treating sick smokers by the federal Medicaid, Medicare and veterans programs were filed in federal court in Wichita, Kan. The suits were filed by individuals, acting on behalf of federal taxpayers. . . Under terms of the proposed national tobacco settlement that would resolve the state cases and 17 major class actions, only state governments were to receive a portion of the $368.5-billion settlement fund, even though about half of the money spent on smoking-related illnesses by the states was provided to them by the federal government, said Mark D. Hutton, a Wichita attorney who represents the plaintiffs in the cases lodged Thursday. Since federal officials have not carried out "their obligations to the taxpayers" to seek recovery of money to compensate the federal government for expenses incurred treating smoking-related diseases, "our clients are doing it for them," said Hutton's co-counsel, Gary L. Richardson of Tulsa . . .

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Winthrop is a classic case of a quiet town that has kept to itself. Until this week. The town's Memorial Auditorium was awash in television lights Wednesday night as national media and tobacco-industry consultants flocked here for a hearing on whether Winthrop should become the first community in the country to ban the sale of tobacco products. . . "What this is is an intrusion of government on my liberty," lawyer Philip Halloran said. "I don't want the board of health to dictate to me whether I use a legal product.

rnia the highest cigarette tax in the nation. The initiatives--one led by actor-director Rob Reiner, another by Assemblyman Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks), and the third by a group of public health agencies--are designed to raise millions of dollars to fund after-school programs, prenatal care classes and health care for low-income children. Each calls for a 50-cent tax increase. But the initiatives face formidable obstacles. The proponents can expect to face strong opposition from the tobacco industry, which is willing to spend millions to defeat their efforts. And backers of the three efforts admit that they are in competition with one another because they are vying for the same funding source.

US tobacco company RJ Reynolds announced yesterday it was closing its local production line, with the loss of 195 jobs. The company said the decision came as a result of a steady increase in costs and the worldwide reorganisation of its manufacturing. The reorganisation means the closure of a factory on Tsing Yi Island, manufacturing Camel and other cigarette brands, where 195 employees were told they had lost their jobs. A spokesman for the Hong Kong Tobacco Industry Employees Union, Chan Wun-ming, said he was worried other companies would follow.

Analyst Emanuel Goldman of PaineWebber reckons that Philip Morris's four major divisions together are worth more than $68 per share, 58% above the recent share price. Given the stock's low valuation, its 3.5% dividend yield and the prospects for earnings growth, Ron Ognar, manager of the Strong Growth fund, says the stock could easily generate total returns of 20% a year.

I think the crime is not smoking itself, but the additives and the manipulation of advertising. Like a lot of drugs, tobacco can be used for medicinal or religious purposes; it's the abuse and the loss of respect for these substances, the loss of human control, that's the real issue. The same is true of sexual and emotional addictions.

Tobacco companies are likely to have experienced strong growth in domestic and international markets for the most recent quarter -- only to see results softened by the strength of the U.S. dollar. Several analysts said they had expected international income growth in the high teen digits, but currency translation -- particularly against the yen -- likely will have pushed it down to the low teen digits.

Smoking and other tobacco use contributes significantly to the three leading causes of death for African Americans -- disease, cancer, and stroke. However, "the butt stops here!" The National Medical Association's SASATAC Project will convene the "African American Tobacco Control Summit '97" to present an agenda for preventing tobacco deaths and announce the next steps in the war against tobacco use. The summit will begin at 9:00 a.m. (EDT), Tuesday, October 21, 1997 in the main lounge of the National Press Club, National Press Building, 14th & F streets, NW, Washington, DC.

This means that passive smoking is about half as risky in terms of developing heart disease as smoking 20 cigarettes a day, in spite of the fact that the actual amount of smoke inhaled by a passive smoker is about one hundredth that of a smoker. "Our result confirms the high risk of a heart attack arising from breathing other people's smoke and shows that it is likely to be due to the blood clotting system being very sensitive to small amounts of tobacco smoke," Dr Law says.

Dr. Malcolm Law of the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine in London analysed 19 published studies involving 6,600 people about the risk of heart disease for a non-smoker living with a smoker. He found that people who have never smoked have an estimated 30 percent greater chance of developing heart disease if they live with a smoker. . . In a separate study also from the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, Allan Hackshaw said 37 studies showed that passive smoking raised a non-smoker's chance of getting lung cancer by 26 percent. The risk for the non-smoker rose with the number of cigarettes their partner smoked and the number of years they lived together.

Dr Fenton Howell, a board member of ASH, said that "a lot of the big players are staying surprisingly silent". The employers' organisation IBEC and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) had a duty to "look after the interests of the majority of their workers. Seventy per cent of people do not smoke, and passive smoking is a known health hazard," he said.

Dr Law and his colleagues might have overlooked studies showing little or no effect of passive smoking. According to Dr Geof Givens and colleagues at Colorado State University, such studies tend to gain little exposure because scientists think that the results are not worthwhile, or they are rejected by scientific journals. Dr Givens and his colleagues have re-analysed 35 studies linking passive smoking and lung cancer among non-smoking women married to smokers, taking into account the likely impact of the missing studies. They found that the effect is far from negligible. "Failing to allow for these would mean the estimated excess risk may be overstated by around 30 per cent, both in US studies and in the global collection of studies." The Colorado team has also re-analysed one of the most influential studies of passive smoking, published by the US Environmental Protection Agency in 1992.

Scientists say they have confirmed a link between secondhand tobacco smoke and an increased risk of heart disease. The findings, reported in tomorrow's issue of the British Medical Journal, also may clear up a mystery about why secondhand smoke appears to be such a potent risk factor for the condition.

But China shows that penetration of Third World markets will not be that easy. Its reforms have opened up large sectors of the economy to competition and foreign investment. But its tobacco industry has remained protected. With the government ranking as the biggest cigarette maker in the world, foreign companies hold only 2-3 per cent of the market. The China National Tobacco Corporation (CNTC) is a state monopoly which employs 10 million farmers growing tobacco leaf, and more than 500,000 workers in the industry.

Austria's government, pressing ahead with a long-running privatisation programme, said on Wednesday it would sell more than half of state-owned tobbaco maker Austria Tabak at a price below market estimates.

Dublin-based lawyer Peter McDonnell said he had launched proceedings in Dublin's High Court on behalf of Susan Riley, 42, and Anne Maloney, 43, who have both been smoking since they were children. McDonnell said the claims were as a direct result of groundbreaking litigation in the United States where two states have secured billions of dollars from the tobacco industry . . "This is the start of the war, today was only the declaration of intent," McDonnell said last Friday, adding that the American cases would open up similar claims across the world.

Two Dublin mothers claimed in the High Court yesterday they have incurred serious illnesses as a result of heavy smoking over the past three decades. Ms Ann Moloney (44), a mother of three from Bray, Co Wicklow, who uses a wheelchair, said she is confined to her bedroom and can breathe only with the assistance of an oxygen cylinder which she carries in her chair. . . Ms Susan Riley (42), from Portmarnock, Co Dublin, said she began smoking at the age of 10 and is still smoking despite having had 11 blood clots on her lungs and two on her stomach. She said she had been warned by her doctors to quit because her condition was life-threatening and she had tried everything in an effort to stop but had failed. . . The case, a landmark in Irish law, is being taken on behalf of the 50 individuals by a Dublin solicitor, Mr Peter McDonnell, of Peter McDonnell and Associates. . . "There is no question but that this is one of the most significant civil cases ever to come before the Irish courts because of the potential scale and impact that it will have on possibly tens of thousands of people, the tobacco industry and the overstretched health services in this country."

The World Health Organisation says international tobacco companies are engaged in campaigns to take advantage of economic instability and weak public health policies in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. A statement released Friday by WHO's regional headquarters in Copenhagen says aggressive marketing has resulted in rising rates of smoking among women and young people and tobacco-related death and disease.

"They owe the world an apology. They owe the world the truth. They have not heard the last of Norma Broin. We're not done yet. It's not over, not over by a long shot."

Public Citizen Litigation Group, a Washington (D.C.) public interest group specializing in overturning settlements it deems abusive to plaintiffs, is trying to see if Rosenblatt's clients want to contest the deal. "I don't understand how anyone can think this is a good deal for the plaintiffs," says co-founder Alan Morrison.

"Right now we are in denial," said Paul Gerhardt, owner of the Usual in downtown San Jose. "I don't know what's really going to happen. I'm nervous about how it might affect business." All bars and gaming clubs in California must go smoke-free once the new year strikes as the second phase of the Workplace Safety Bill takes effect.

Lucy Richardson doesn't have a multibillion-dollar advertising budget, but the lack of money hasn't doused her anti-smoking message that targets children. . . "We needed to do something different. We could show them how the tobacco industry is manipulating them because kids don't like being manipulated. We could reach them before they started middle school," said Richardson . . .

The prescription smoking-cessation market was valued at $70 million during the 12-month period ending July 1997, a 73% decrease from the previous year. The switches of Nicoderm and Nicorette from prescription to over-the-counter products prompted a 66% decline, to 69,000 total prescriptions, in July. . . In June 1997, Glaxo Wellcome launched Zyban into the prescription smoking-deterrent market. The brand immediately captured 41% of the 57,000 new prescriptions dispensed for smoking deterrents in July. Novartis' Habitrol, formerly the market leader, accounted for 37% of new smoking-cessation prescriptions in July, falling from a 60% share in June, according to Scott-Levin's Source Prescription Audit.

Philip Morris International Inc. (PMI) announced today that it had reached an agreement to sell Kibon, a unit of Kraft Suchard Brazil and the leading ice cream manufacturer in Brazil, to Unilever for approximately $930 million. The sale includes Kraft Suchard Brazil's 50% holding in Sorvane, an ice cream company in the northeast of Brazil.

aniel E. Provost 3d, the tobacco executive who got Arthur Godfrey and Ronald Reagan to endorse Chesterfield cigarettes, led the Liggett & Myers campaign against claims that tobacco is harmful and never abandoned his bedrock position that there is no evidence that smoking causes cancer, heart problems or other illnesses, died on Oct. 13 at his home in Ranchero Mirage, Calif. He was 78. His daughter, Ellen Provost, said the cause was heart failure, a vague pronouncement, she suggested, that would have pleased a man who insisted that his three-pack-a-day habit had not caused his three heart attacks or any of the congestive heart problems and other ailments that preceded his death. . . Curiously, while rejecting what others saw as compelling evidence that smoking was a health hazard, Provost was a pushover for health claims made for various food supplements. At dinner he was surrounded by vitamin bottles while having his usual three cigarettes going at once.

Daniel Kobylinski, a security consultant on vacation from New York City, was among the more modest bidders. He and a friend spent $1,900 for a Winston cigarette signed by Clay, who pulled the unlit cigarette from the mouth of boxing historian Hank Kaplan in 1961.

"There's nobody like him. He's the biggest sports icon around," said David Kobylinski, who flew in from New York so he could buy a cigarette that was signed by then-Olympic heavyweight champion Cassius Clay. Ali--who as a Muslim disapproves of smoking--plucked it out of a sportswriter's mouth decades ago. "I plan on keeping it for a while," the 29-year-old security consultant said after successfully bidding $1,900 for the Winston cigarette. "This would be one expensive smoke."

If members of Congress care at all about the deepening cynicism of Americans toward their corrupt political system, they will approve the bill.

The ruling, issued Friday by U.S. District Judge Clarence C. Newcomer, startled antitobacco plaintiffs' lawyers and cast a cloud of doubt over similar suits seeking even bigger damages that are now pending in some two dozen other states. "People forget how iffy this tobacco litigation can be," said plaintiffs' lawyer John Coale

Sheller said he was particularly troubled by the fact that he would not be able to show a jury a videotaped deposition on Oct. 9 of one of the defense's expert witnesses in the case: Dr. Emanuel Rubin, a Philadelphia pathologist and a medical professor. Although he had been hired by the defendants to discuss the work of the Council for Tobacco Research, the industry's research arm, Rubin had authored two textbooks that contained numerous damaging statements about smoking. . . When Sheller asked Rubin if he still agreed with everything that is in his textbook, Rubin responded: "Pure poetry."

Lawyer Diane Nast said she quickly filed a notice to appeal the ruling by U.S. District Judge Clarence Newcomer to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. . . Newcomer, who granted the suit class-action status in August, issued two opinions that together ran a total of 88 pages. "In one opinion, (the judge) decided there were too many individual issues. And therefore he wasn't going to let the class go forward," Nast told Reuters. In the second opinion, which dismissed the case, Newcomer ruled that five of six named plaintiffs had been too slow to file and missed the statute of limitations. "As to the sixth named plaintiff, he said that the medical monitoring plan that we had proposed was not appropriate," the attorney said.

"This decision is a major victory for the tobacco industry," said John J. Mulderig, associate general counsel for Philip Morris. "It sends a clear message across the country that class actions just do not work in tobacco cases because they inevitably turn on individual issues of fact and law."

Despite spring flooding and a summer drought, state tobacco farmers expect the harvest to be 40 million pounds heavier, and maybe $77 million richer, than last year's crop. Burley auctions start Nov. 24.

After all, haven't the tobacco growers known for at least three decades that they were killing millions of people with their crop? Wasn't that enough time for them to find another, more ethical, humane way to make a living? Wouldn't money from a tobacco settlement be better spent caring for those who have been hurt by tobacco than those who have produced it?

The issue is whether the habit and therefore the subsequent illness were the result of military service or simply the ethos of the time. These are not service-related illnesses, and Congress ought to join the administration in having the courage to say so.

"If this was ever a situation where the industry had to have legisla tion at any price . . . that ended this afternoon." Yet a leading booster of the congressional deal said that the Philadelphia decision, in fact, "shows the necessity for a national tobacco settlement" because litigation could drag on for years. "For people to think that we've got 'em on the run is just ludicrous because we are up against a very, very tough opponent who knows how to tie these cases in knots," said Washington attorney John P. Coale.

No one suggests that the GOP, the Gilmore campaign or Philip Morris -- the cigarette maker once based here and still the biggest employer in the capital of this tobacco-growing state -- did anything improper. But those pushing for changes in campaign finance laws say the fact that the money given to Gilmore cannot be traced to its original donor is an example of the limitations of federal and state disclosure policies.

orty-five photographers from around the country gathered in Logan County, Ky., last week to try to capture a glimpse of small-town America. For five days the photographers, each armed with 10 rolls of film and assigned to document the life of one of the county's 25,835 residents . . . They picked a busy week in Logan County. There was the 41st Tobacco Festival, a weeklong celebration . . .

Among his many rejections this fall, he vetoed two bills that would have let citizens get information from government agencies electronically . . .In his cordial and identical veto messages, the governor said that most requests for government information come "not from ordinary citizens, but from political candidates or special interest groups searching for information. . . . "Taxpayers pay for the time expended searching for and segregating these records. However, state agencies are presently permitted to determine the form in which computer data is provided." Wilson is saying these "special interest groups" are just being pesky by asking the state what it is up to. There is no doubt that the tobacco industry, for instance, has made more than a pest of itself by hounding the state about its anti-tobacco advertising program. But why not? Conversely, the American Lung Association and its allies should have exactly the same right to the information to pass judgment on the effectiveness of the state's multimillion-dollar program. To begin deciding who is worthy of public information is a dangerous practice. Political enemies become the "special interests." Friends are "ordinary citizens."

SMOKERS are under increasing pressure to stop lighting up at work after new evidence showed that they were putting their colleagues in danger. The Health and Safety Executive said yesterday it was examining guidelines on smoking and the workplace in the wake of research published in the British Medical Journal . . . The HSE already suggests that smokers should be segregated from non-smokers. And specialists in employment law said companies would face an increasing number of claims by non-smoking employees . . . if they failed to comply.

A MURDERER is threatening to take legal action against the Prison Service because he is being made to share a cell with a smoker. Alex Deas, who has served 16 years of a life sentence, claims the smoke is damaging to his health, and wants to be moved to a single cell or to share with a nonsmoking inmate.

Sweater is the brainchild of KBA Marketing, which in the last few years has pioneered Camel cigarettes' entree into the youthful counterculture that surrounds nightclubbing. And while other, more underground dance music magazines don't accept tobacco advertising, Sweater's anchor advertiser is Camel cigarettes. . . The dance music scene, of which Sweater aspires to be an integral part, is younger than the rock 'n' roll community; many fans are under 18.

In her concert on Thursday night at Radio City Music Hall, Ms. Lang, a nonsmoker, soon made it obvious that she had found a new analogy for her perennial subject: yearning. In Ms. Lang's songs, lovers and addicts are creatures of desire, and whether they need a cigarette or a romance -- or, in a song like "Smoke Dreams," both -- they are humbled and purified by that need.

In a 7-0 decision, the Supreme Judicial Court upheld a 1987 law that bans the hiring of smokers as police officers or firefighters. The law also gives local officials the right to fire anyone hired since then found smoking, whether on- or off-duty. Although it has been on the books for almost a decade, the law was not tested until 1993 when the town of Plymouth fired Lynne M. Rossborough for smoking in a police cruiser. The Civil Service Commission later ordered her reinstated, arguing that public safety officials who abuse alcohol keep their jobs under another state law, and that use of tobacco should not be dealt with more harshly. But the SJC said the Legislature, when it enacted the measure as part of a massive overhaul of the state's pension system that gave police and fire special disability pension rights, made it clear there were to be no exceptions to the no-smoking rule.

Last spring, Betty Rossing and her pupils noticed young children "smoking" Hey Man penny-candy gum. When blown on, the gum emitted a puff of sugar. Its package featured a cowboy resembling the Marlboro man and the words "Hey Man Cool." Rossing and her students persuaded convenience-store managers in Hibbing to remove the candy from their shelves. She then sent student-written letters to the Philadelphia Chewing Gum Corp. in Havertown, Pa.

Donald S. Beyer Jr., the Democratic nominee for governor, yesterday suggested his Republican opponent, James S. Gilmore III, has a secret addiction to tobacco money -- more than $1 million of it. Republicans said Beyer was blowing smoke. Beyer said there was "compelling circumstantial evidence" that during the past year Philip Morris Inc. had funneled $1 million to Gilmore's campaign through national Republican sources.

Another major difference between the candidates is their approach to tobacco, the crop that for generations was the economic backbone of Virginia. Beyer said the state should have participated in the lawsuit negotiations between several states and the tobacco industry. He said the pact, now before Congress, has no provisions to help tobacco growers -- who may face difficulties as efforts to limit smoking curb demand for tobacco -- because Gilmore didn't participate in the talks. "Virginia had no place at the table," said Beyer, who advocates that a major piece of any settlement be reinvested in the state's tobacco-growing communities that in the future would no longer rely on the crop. Gilmore said he declined to participate in negotiations with tobacco companies for good reason. "I wanted to keep my hands free to work in the Congress," Gilmore said.

American Indians smoke at twice the rate of the general population and that's costing taxpayers about $200 million a year in hospital bills, an Indian Health Service official told a Senate committee last week. Indian smoking is "clearly a major public health problem," said Craig Vanderwagen, director of clinical and preventive health.

The costs of settling tobacco lawsuits left Philip Morris Cos. Inc. and RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp. with lower third-quarter profits, but the companies said Tuesday sales were up in the quarter as wholesalers stocked up on cigarettes ahead of anticipated price increases.

Excluding the costs of settling cases filed by Florida and Mississippi and a class-action brought by flight attendants, earnings at the nation's two largest cigarette makers rose, coming in about in line with expectations on Wall Street.

RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp said Tuesday its third quarter earnings were hurt by legal settlements entered into by its tobacco division, which reduced earnings by $133 million after taxes, or $0.41 per fully diluted share. It said the costs were related to agreements reached by R.J Reynolds Tobacco Co with the states of Florida and Mississippi, and certain class action lawsuits. Although domestic tobacco results were significantly hurt by the settlements, the company is encouraged by early results from the repositioning of its Winston cigarettes and continued strength from its Camel and Doral brands, Chairman Steven Goldstone said.

Yet, some believe that B.A.T still has firepower. And that the combined strength of it's huge arsenal of brands -- with names ranging from Kent, Pall Mall, Barclay, Kool, and kim to the Asian favorite, State Express 555 -- can duel it out with Marlboro. "Marlboro isn't invincible everywhere," notes Jonathan Fell, an analyst at Merrill Lynch in London. That's particularly true in emerging markets, like Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, where smokers can't always afford an expensive Marlboro. (Instead, they often buy cheap, local brands and put them in a Marlboro box, to gain the cachet without spending the cash.) In these countries, B.A.T has successfully introduced new, affordable "transition" brands -- like Jan Sobieski in Poland

PHILIP MORRIS Cos. said domestic shipments of cigarettes rose 4% to 62.8 billion cigarettes in the third quarter from a year earlier. An article about the company's earnings Wednesday incorrectly said that shipments increased to $62.8 billion.

The arrangers of an $8 billion fully underwritten loan facility for B.A.T Industries are to launch syndication of the sub-underwriting phase later this week, according to banking sources. The jumbo deal will be one of the largest loans to emerge from the active London-based syndicated loan market this quarter. The facility, which is being arranged by Goldman Sachs, Citibank, BZW and HSBC, will consolidate the company's finances following the merger of its financial services arm with Zurich Insurance Group. . . The $8 billion facility will be used to finance the rump of BAT Industries following the demerger, and will refinance existing debt and provide working capital for general corporate purposes.

Shares in Spain's Tabacalera shot to a new all-time high on Tuesday, as the market rebounded after a correction of several weeks. "Tabacalera has resumed its rise after suffering from heavy profit-taking at the beginning of October," an analyst at a Spanish brokerage said. In just one day and a half, shares in the nation's leading tobacco group had risen more than seven percent and were trading up 330 pesetas, or 3.17 percent, at 10,730 pesetas.

The product, generically equivalent to the Habitrol(R) patch manufactured by Novartis, is the first generic transdermal product to be granted approval in this category.

During the week of October 20-26 -- a week proclaimed by the New Jersey State legislature as "Family Physicians Care for America Week" -- family doctors will visit fifth grade classes. Their mission is to talk about, and illustrate, the dangers of smoking through an innovative program called "Tar Wars." Sponsored by the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) and Statewide by the New Jersey Academy of Family Physicians (NJAFP), Tar Wars is a pro-health tobacco education program that targets fifth-graders, using visual props and "plain talk" to warn of the dangers of smoking.

Man spat long before the game of baseball was ever played. So this is not exactly a chicken and egg kind of issue. But the meaning, the why of spitting, the raison d'expectorate, is just as unanswerable.

THE NIGHT my father died of lung cancer, I looked out my bedroom window and saw my mother dragging on a Marlboro in our back yard. It was 1986, the same year the surgeon general's office first warned that secondhand smoke can kill you. . . By the time I was born, my parents -- already in their forties -- had smoked for a combined total of about half a century. They weren't worried. Not too many years before, ads featured doctors saying they recommended Camels because they were mild in your throat.

Patients who smoke in the hours before their surgery raise their risk for potentially dangerous drops in blood oxygen, experts say. They say a ban on pre-surgery smoking should accompany the long-standing ban on pre-operative eating. . . Dr. Harvey Woehlck of the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee . . . presented the study findings at this week's annual meeting of the American Society of Anesthesiologists in San Diego. In their study of 500 outpatient surgeries, the Milwaukee team discovered that patients who smoked in the 24 hours before their operation faced over 20 times the risk for myocardial ischemia -- inadequate oxygen supply to the heart.

Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, say children less than 18 years old whose mothers smoke are at 3.8 times greater risk for bacterial meningitis and that 37% of all cases of meningococcal disease in this age group have maternal smoking as a risk factor. The findings come from a comparison of 129 bacterial meningitis patients in Oregon and Washington with a control (comparison) group of 274 people without the disease. Patients and comparison group individuals ranged in age from less than 2 years to over 60 years old. . . SOURCE: The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal (1997;16(10):979-983)

Middlesex Superior Court Judge Martha Sossman denied the motion. Philip Morris, (MO), RJ Reynolds(RN - news) and other tobacco companies sought to dismiss the lawsuit brought by Massachussetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger in an attempt to recover billion of dollars in Medicaid costs.

At stake in the election is not just the inside track to the parties' next nomination for governor in 2001, but control over the state Senate, which is deadlocked 20 to 20 between Republicans and Democrats. Although presiding over the chamber is about the only official duty of a Virginia lieutenant governor, a GOP victory would give the party control of Virginia's upper house for the first time in a century.

EXPORTING ADDICTION?

The Charlotte Observer features a week-long investigation of the deluge of US cigarettes into foreign markets--legally and otherwise.

• 10/19/97 Sold on Smoking--The Move Abroad
• 10/19/97 Carolinas Favor Move Overseas
• 10/19/97 JAPAN: Exporting Addiction?
• 10/20/97 Black Market Allure of US Cigarettes Tempts Teens in CHINA
• 10/20/97 What Can be Done Steps countries can take to stem cig contraband.
• 10/21/97 Teenage Smoking Explodes Globally
• 10/22/97 Saving the Farm U.S. tobacco growers' top priority is developing new markets abroad, not safeguarding foreign teens

Donald E. Mikesell -- once a successful Lexington businessman, church deacon and auxiliary deputy jailer -- gave up the fight to prove his innocence yesterday, pleading guilty in U.S. District Court to interstate cigarette smuggling and two other felonies. Mikesell, 50, already is serving a 20-year prison sentence after his May conviction in Fayette Circuit Court for using a minor in a sexual performance. Now, having admitted to smuggling, money laundering and illegal firearms possession, Mikesell potentially faces at least an additional 25 years in federal prison after his state sentence ends. . . Mikesell's most recent problems began in June, when federal agents raided his vending-machine distribution company on Floyd Drive. In court records, federal officials later alleged that Mikesell had raised millions of dollars by smuggling cigarettes from Kentucky -- where the per-pack tax is 3 cents -- to be sold in Michigan, which has a 75 cents per-pack tax.

Gov. Lawton Chiles on Tuesday brought 40 students to the Capitol to screen anti-smoking ads from around the country for use in a new Florida tobacco education campaign. The TV spots are likely to begin airing within two weeks, paid for out of the $11.3 billion settlement Florida reached with cigarette makers during the summer. "I don't know how to tell you or your fellow students to stop smoking," Chiles told the middle and high school students. "We know the message really shouldn't come from adults. We're going to ask you to be our experts."

But despite the effects of the settlements on third-quarter earnings, Philip Morris shares rose $1 Tuesday, to $41.6875, in trading on the New York Stock Exchange. RJR Nabisco shares rose 43.75 cents, to $33.75. And the companies also said that cigarette shipments rose 2 percent in the United States during the quarter instead of falling 1 percent to 2 percent as they have in the past. They did so because dealers stockpiled cigarettes during a three-week grace period last month after cigarette companies announced on Sept. 2 that they would raise prices by 7 cents a pack in the United States. . . The companies made much of the dealer stockpiling "because they didn't want people in Washington to believe that industry volumes are growing," said David J. Adelman, a tobacco analyst with Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. "It's not politically correct for cigarette industry volumes to be growing, because it just brings down more regulatory pressure."

Eighty-five percent of cigar smokers would rather punch than bite the tips of their cigars before lighting, and about 75% smoke between one and five cigars per week, according to a new survey. These findings and others are the result of a survey of 500, conducted by Cigar Savor Enterprises at Cigar Expo New York '97 . . "Cigar smokers may also want to take note that several life insurance companies are 'cigar friendly' including Aetna Life, Prudential, Phoenix Home Life and Metropolitan Life," adds Nicotra.

The association has so far certified 636 products. To be designated "heart healthy," a product must meet nutrient requirements established by the Food and Drug Administration or U.S. Department of Agriculture: it must be low in fat, saturated fat and cholesterol. . . All foods are eligible except those manufactured by a tobacco company or its subsidiaries. This excludes all products from Nabisco (a unit of the RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp.) and Kraft, Post and Jell-O (all owned by Philip Morris). So Post's Raisin Bran cannot carry the heart-check symbol, while Kellogg's Raisin Bran can. And does.

Ricci: It's weird. Like, me and Gaby (Hoffman, her co-star in 'Now and Then' and one of her best friends) will be sitting somewhere and I'll be smoking, and a woman will bring up her little kids and say 'they look up to you so much,' and I feel bad. I consider myself such a mess, and my life is not something people should want for themselves. But, I feel no responsibility. I feel badly smoking around little kids because they probably shouldn't. But I am a teen-ager. I am still allowed a couple years of being bad to myself.

"Because people tend to gain when they stop smoking, it can be a barrier for some people who might otherwise stop," Hurt said. . . In the dose Hurt recommends -- two 150 mg tablets a day -- Zyban costs about $86 a month. "That's less than the cost of cigarettes for most smokers," said Ken Salberg, a pharmacist at Walgreen's on Nicollet Av. near 4th St. in downtown Minneapolis. Salberg said that most people are paying for their Zyban prescriptions themselves. Medica, HealthPartners, Minnesota Blue Cross-Blue Shield and UCare all have refused to cover the cost of the prescriptions, he said.

The Food and Drug Administration approved the marketing of this medicine, called Zyban or bupropion, to help smokers last May. . . The newly published study was conducted on 615 volunteers who wanted to give up smoking and were not outwardly depressed. They took either Zyban or dummy pills for six weeks. A year later, 23 percent of those getting the highest dose of Zyban were still off cigarettes, compared with 12 percent in the comparison group. The study was conducted by Dr. Richard D. Hurt of the Mayo Clinic with doctors from West Virginia University and the Palo Alto Center for Pulmonary Disease Prevention in California.

The documents, obtained last week from the campaign of former senator Robert J. Dole (R-Kan.) by the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, demonstrate that then-RNC chairman Haley Barbour and deputy finance director Jo-Anne Coe tapped big GOP donors to make large contributions to the outside groups. Unlike political parties, such groups don't have to disclose where their money comes from or how they spend it. . . .The biggest beneficiary of the GOP program was the American Defense Institute, which runs a voter turnout program for military personnel, who tend to vote heavily in favor of Republican candidates. The military-oriented group received around $1 million, including $500,000 that Barbour solicited from Philip Morris, the documents show.

Meanwhile, the National Republican Senatorial Committee is aiming to raise more than $6 million at its third annual Senate Majority Dinner here Nov. 5, up from the $3.5 million the event raised last year. William Timmons of Timmons & Co., a Washington lobbying firm. . . has assembled a committee of prominent Washington lobbyists to serve as dinner vice chairmen, each trying to raise at least $100,000. They include two major tobacco lobbyists, Juanita Duggan of Philip Morris and Ralph Vinovich of the Tobacco Institute, along with former Bush aide Nicholas Calio of O'Brien Calio, Dirk Van Dongen of the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors and lawyer James F. Miller. . . "The Senate Majority Dinner will be the opportunity of a lifetime to rub shoulders with the people whose faces you've seen every day on CNN and C-SPAN and the networks," one fund-raising appeal promised. For big givers to the NRSC, the dinner is the culmination of two days of briefings and receptions with top GOP officials, including Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.). For example, according to a tentative agenda sent to prospective donors, contributors to the NRSC Roundtable -- who give $5,000 -- get "personal photo sessions with the entire Republican Senate Leadership" at a welcoming reception the day before the dinner. Members of the Senatorial Trust -- who give $10,000 -- get lunch with Lott, a briefing by Malcolm "Steve" Forbes and Jack Kemp, and a special reception with GOP senators, House members and governors.

W.S. (Bill) Garland, president of the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) International, the leading advocacy group for the commercial real estate industry, will testify on the "Ban on Smoking in Federal Buildings Act" (H.R. 2118) this Thursday, October 23 before the Subcomittee on Public Buildings and Economic Development of the U.S. House of Representatives. H.R. 2118 is sponsored by Representative James A. Traficant, Jr. (D-Ohio).

Reinforced a program where each Friday is observed as Alcohol, Tobacco and Drug Awareness Day.

The Air Resources Board (ARB) today accepted the "Health Effects of Exposure to Environmental Tobacco Smoke" (ETS or secondhand smoke) report, which was prepared by ARB and the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA). ARB Chairman John Dunlap said, ". . . While ARB has the authority to identify compounds as toxic air contaminants, it does not have the authority to regulate indoor air pollution."

The American Advertising Federation is lobbying San Francisco-area legislators today to oppose content restrictions on billboard advertising. . . AAF officials argue that government-imposed restrictions on "truthful advertising" are unconstitutional and violate the right to free speech.

"This is a milestone for Compton and a precedent item for California," said Kris Bailey of the Black Women's Media Project, a group that has pushed for removing the billboards. "We have been working on this effort for more than a year." The ordinance, unanimously adopted Tuesday by the City Council, goes into effect in 30 days. It prohibits placing "any sign, poster, placard or graphic display that advertises cigarettes or alcoholic beverages in a publicly visible location."

UC Irvine marketing professor Cornelia Pechmann will testify at a State Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that will focus on the increasing use of tobacco in movie and television productions and its impact on teen-age smoking. Pechmann will present a report on "Cigarettes in Movies and Antismoking Ads Before Movies: Effects on Teenagers' Perceptions of a Smoker."

Impossible but true. Le Mirador, a five-star luxury hotel and spa near Lausanne, will ban smoking in its public areas November 1. Reason: 82.6 percent of the 9.5 million Americans who will visit Europe this year want it that way. Sounds like the beginning of a trend

The Marshall Islands has filed a suit against the United States tobacco industry, becoming one of the first foreign nations to attempt to cash in on the multi-billion-dollar settlements being offered by tobacco firms in the US. A group of US-based lawyers filed the suit for the government in the Marshall Islands high court in Majuro.

Four out of every five people work in places with policies governing smoking, but only 46% are in smoke-free work sites, says a study in Tobacco Control. Restaurant, food service and bar workers have the lowest rates of smoke-free employment, 21%.

Joel Luton, senior vice president for high-yield research at APS Financial Corporation, a small broker-dealer in Austin, Texas, said bonds and stocks are responding to the possibility that Liggett will be exempted from a national tobacco settlement.

Brooke Group Ltd said Thursday that it knew of no reason for the unusual trading activity in its stock today. Shares of Brooke were up 2-5/16 to 10 in afternoon trading on higher-than-normal volume.

United States tobacco companies' sales in the US and overseas rose during the third quarter this year . . . Philip Morris reported a 4.9 per cent increase in operating revenues, while RJR Nabisco reported a 5 per cent increase in worldwide sales.

Both companies said they believe cigarette shipments for the quarter were inflated by wholesalers stocking up on inventory in anticipation of price increases. Under the settlement proposed in June, the industry is required to increase cigarette prices.

Leading Brands McDonald's leads a list of the world's top 100 brands compiled by Interbrand Group, a San Francisco-based consultant. A look at the list's top 20: Rank: Brand 1. McDonald's 2. Coca-Cola 3. Disney 4. Kodak 5. Sony 6. Gillette 7. Mercedes-Benz 8. Levi Strauss 9. Microsoft 10. Marlboro

Spanish state-run tobacco company Tabacalera SA said it is studying a strategic alliance with Seita SA of France for joint development of the companies' international businesses. An alliance, which Tabacalera said wouldn't involve any type of cross-shareholding, would include developing existing brands in new markets and possible joint bids for acquisitions of tobacco-related businesses outside the companies' home markets. While both companies said talks are only in preliminary stages, a Tabacalera spokesman said, "The alliance would be a matter of added dimension, of bigger size to help both companies in their international expansion."

They can't smoke or chew tobacco, but the leaf is part of daily life and even class work for some teen-agers at David Crockett High School. This is tobacco farming country and about 200 agriculture-vocational students at the school grow tobacco on school ground, as do pupils in about 30 other high schools in Tennessee. "We have programs involved in tobacco because the community is involved in it," said Will Lewis, director of secondary vocational programs for the state Education Department.

" . . . And that's not all. A 34-year tobacco executive, Hager recommended ways to raise nicotine levels in cigarettes. And he still says tobacco's not addictive. John Hager: out of touch, extreme ideas. That's why we just can't trust him to be lieutenant governor." Analysis: . . Payne throws a haymaker . . . Hager in 1972 sent a memo to his boss, the company's president, describing ways that nicotine levels could be raised in cigarettes. He said later that he also described ways nicotine could be lowered, that he was not personally involved in related experiments and that the company has not increased nicotine levels. Hager has said he believes tobacco is not addictive, judging from the fact that millions of people have been able to quit smoking.

Howard County public school students who smoke on campus will be required to attend smoking-management classes and may be expelled if they are caught smoking more than three times, according to a stricter smoking policy to take effect in January. The smoking rules adopted Thursday by the Howard County Board of Education grew out of complaints last school year by Centennial High School students who said the bathrooms had become so smoky that many students refused to use them.

Disease related to tobacco consumption is the number one cause of preventable death in Washington according to the state Department of Health. To explore different perspectives on preventing tobacco use, Department of Health is sponsoring a conference Oct. 26 to 28 at Cavanaugh's, 1415 5th Ave, in Seattle. The theme of the event is Tobacco in 3D: Different Perspectives. . . CONTACT: Washington State Dept. of Health Matthew Ashworth, 360/753-0757 or Lisa LaFond, 360/664-4533

For Sen. Connie Mack, the final straw was when the president of Philip Morris made the remark about Gummi Bears. Until then, Mack had often been a friend of the tobacco industry. . . But Mack said he became increasingly unhappy with tobacco companies over the past few years. He read books and articles that convinced him the industry manipulated nicotine levels to make their product addictive. And he became especially angry when tobacco executives told a congressional committee their product was not addictive. Then came the Gummi Bear remark. . .

Attorneys for the tobacco industry are meeting this week in Cleveland to map defense strategy for the upcoming courtroom battle with the state of Minnesota and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota over reimbursement for smoking-related health care costs.

A veteran Washington litigator has been chosen by Philip Morris Cos. to lead its courtroom showdown next January in the Minnesota tobacco litigation, a company official said Wednesday. Peter K. Bleakley, a trial lawyer with the firm of Arnold & Porter, also headed the company's successful defense of a famous 1988 New Jersey lawsuit brought by Rose Cipollone, a smoker who died of lung cancer. "He is very, very good," said Gregory Little, senior assistant general counsel for the No. 1 cigarette maker.

The poll, conducted last month, showed that the Democratic majority said it would back a Republican legislative candidate who favored a cigarette tax increase over a Democrat who opposed one. "We now know clearly where the majority of Marylanders stand," said state Del. Elizabeth Bobo, a Howard County Democrat who attended a news conference organized by Maryland Citizen Action and Smoke Free Maryland at the state medical society in Baltimore. "It's an eye-opener for any legislators who freeze up when they hear the word `tax.' " The telephone poll, paid for by the Abell Foundation and the Maryland State Teachers Association, included 602 Marylanders chosen at random who said they were likely to vote. It was conducted by the firm of pollster Celinda Lake.

. . . to seek their input in the lawsuit the state of Georgia has filed against tobacco companies.

The Washington Public Power Supply System cannot randomly ban smoking on its property, a state commission ruled. A union successfully argued that a tobacco ban affected work conditions and work conditions must be negotiated.

The company invited eight analysts to its headquarters in Manhattan Thursday morning for an hour-long demonstration session of its microelectronic cigarette holder, called Accord, which eliminates the smoke and ashes from the end of a cigarette and reduces the likelihood of fires. "I'm glad Philip Morris is introducing new products, but I think it's a gadget with very limited appeal," said Gary D. Black, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. But Martin Feldman of Smith Barney said that, "having used it, I came away from the meeting with a more positive view of the product than I expected to have."

But the so-called "cigarette in a box" device that Philip Morris Cos Inc said Wednesday it planned to begin test-marketing in Japan and the United States wasn't exactly lighting up Wall Street -- or anti-smokers. "Can you imagine Bogey and Bacall sharing an electric smoking machine?" said John Banzhaf, the executive director of the anti-smoking Action on Smoking Health. "Can you imagine James Bond pulling out a kazoo to smoke a cigarette?"

• 10/23/97 Photo of an Electronic Puff-Activated Lighter Business Wire
• 10/23/97 Photo of How it Works Business Wire

Philip Morris Cos. is planning to test a microelectronic cigarette holder that eliminates the smoke and ashes from the end of a cigarette. The battery-powered "smoking system" is the first of its kind and cost $200 million to develop after years of research. The device is a beeper-sized, 4-ounce box containing a specially designed cigarette and an electronically controlled lighter that runs on rechargeable batteries. The tobacco burns only when puffed; smokers could take a puff from a cigarette in its holder, put it down and take another puff an hour later. But smokers must lift the device to their lips for each puff, as if smoking a kazoo.

A new front in the smoking wars is among cigarette-makers themselves. It¹s who can be first with a new smoke that could be less dangerous. Tobacco giant Philip Morris is betting $200 million that smokers are ready for a change

Clinton proposed an increase of $1.50 in order to, among other purposes, discourage smoking and pay for smoking-prevention programs for children. If the penalties are increased chiefly through higher taxes on cigarettes, smuggling "will increase exponentially," Dougherty said. "You're going to see it in areas where you don't see it now." On the other hand, if Congress slaps the penalty directly on the cigarette-makers, it will increase the price at the factory, not just in the stores. In that case, smugglers may not be able to avoid the higher prices, ATF agents said.

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. said yesterday that it is testing a new advertising campaign in New York City and Long Island to pump up sales of its sagging Salem brand. The campaign includes four new styles with a slightly different formula and new packaging for the entire Salem line that carries a two-toned, dark-and-light green color that forms an "S" in the middle of the box. The new styles come in a box that slides open on the side. . . 'These ads are vibrant, exciting and totally unexpected for this brand," said Douglas W. Shouse, the vice president of brand marketing for Salem. The campaign's slogan: "It's not what you expect."

Johnson & Johnson said Friday that it has signed a licensing agreement with Japan Tobacco Inc (2914.T) for the rights to a novel class of compounds for the treatment of pain and inflammation.

Despite good performance in Latin America and Europe, tobacco operations have been hit by the cost of settling the Florida Medicaid recovery suit and increasingly competitive conditions in the U.S. Political uncertainty and currency volatility in the Asia Pacific region has also taken a toll, according to the company. The trend in the U.S. market was described by B.A.T as "persistent," but it said that Asia Pacific had recovered toward the end of the period, increasing the probability that the fourth quarter will be in line with the company's original expectations.

THE DENSE smog over Singapore and many parts of Indonesia has reached record levels and is now so severe that it is equivalent to smoking 600 cigarettes a day. As visibility yesterday dropped to less than 15 yards in many areas of Sumatra and Kalimantan, and little more in Singapore, health officials said that they had recorded pollution levels of more than 6,000mg per cubic metre. Dr Keith Bentley, a World Health Organisation consultant in Jakarta, said: "If you use a yardstick of ten cigarettes per 100mg, a pollution level of 6,000 is equivalent to smoking 600 cigarettes a day." . . Dr Bentley said that while asthmatics, the elderly and the very young would experience short-term problems, it was unlikely anyone would suffer permanent health damage.

But giving up small pleasures can lead to big rewards. Stanley studied the parents of one millionaire. The couple smoked three packs a day for 46 years. Stanley estimated that if the parents had saved up the money spent on cigarettes--approximately $33,000--and invested it in the stock of cigarette-make Philip Morris, the couple would have a portfolio worth $2 million.

Vyrex Corporation (NASDAQ SmallCap:VYRX) announced today that a study performed in collaboration with Sampath Parthasarathy, Ph.D., Professor of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Professor of Medicine and Director, Division of Research, Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics at Emory University, identified a mechanism that links cigarette smoking with atherosclerosis. It is believed to be the first study demonstrating this mechanism. A paper describing the study was just published in the Federation of European Biochemical Societies Letters. . . "The study supports Vyrex's efforts to develop Vantox(TM), a novel antioxidant therapeutic for the prevention and treatment of respiratory disease," said Sheldon S. Hendler, Ph.D., M.D., Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. . . Dr. Hendler will be presenting the results of recently completed preclinical studies of Vantox(TM) at the upcoming NMHCC conference on Oxidative Stress to be held in Philadelphia on December 4, 1997.

Vice President Al Gore said Saturday he's found "bipartisan commitment" to fighting smoking and called for a tougher approach in seeking damages from the tobacco industry. At a campaign-style town meeting, Gore carried the administration's anti-tobacco message in the strongest terms, arguing that the debate on smoking has shifted. . . Joining Gore at the meeting were Democratic U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, Republican U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, Democratic Attorney General Tom Miller and Waterloo [Iowa] Mayor John Rooff, a prominent Republican.

Though the credit agencies' actions led to small prices declines for some BAT bonds, analysts at S&P and Moody's say BAT's public debt still has strong investment-grade status, and that the debt doesn't affect BAT's growth prospects. But they have other concerns Ms. Heinbach worries that the tobacco spinoff will be a one-product company -- and no diversification means high risk to a bondholder. In contrast, the creditors of BAT's main competitor, Philip Morris, can rely on both the company's food business and its tobacco business. Cash flow is another worry. Even though British American Tobacco will be asked to carry all of BAT's debt, with the loss of the insurance business its cash flow will be cut in half, Ms. Heinbach said.

Heading a company which sells an addictive substance that kills people never gives him even a twinge of conscience. "Not at all, not at all. The business itself is rather attractive. It is great fun and it has absolutely no need to have any sense of guilt," he tells me in the matter-of-fact tones of someone who has lived daily with the arguments for two decades.

Sen. John Burton (D-San Francisco) has lined up witnesses who will charge that, by just watching screen stars smoke, young audiences are lured into lighting up. "Hollywood's increasingly common depictions of characters smoking on screen sends kids an entirely dangerous message that it's cool to smoke," said Burton. [H]e said that by presenting witnesses who will draw attention to the consequences, he hopes to "heighten awareness" among filmmakers who employ smoking for dramatic effect. He said he is counting on "responsible people in the industry to do the right thing." Burton's hearing at the Screen Actors Guild offices in Los Angeles represents another front on which government has sought to influence mass entertainment content. . . Glantz and fellow researcher Theresa F. Stockwell conceded the difficulty of cutting the on-screen smoking habit, "given concerns about freedom of speech and the need for artistic freedom in making films." But the fact is, they said, movies in particular "are promoting tobacco use."

Your Oct. 23 news article on bupropion, an antidepressant that can help people quit smoking, says this drug can achieve a 23 percent rate of smoking cessation after one year. Current estimates suggest that for all people who stop smoking, no matter what method they use, about 20 percent are still not smoking after one year. . . Studies have shown that it takes many smokers at least six attempts at quitting to maintain their gains over one year and eventually kick the habit. There has been a tendency to medicalize smoking cessation when work on motivation and methods of habit control may prove more successful in many cases.

[T]hey have descended in force on the former Soviet Union and to engage in a battle for business that is being waged with large amounts of cash and cunning. Sensing a growing nationalist sentiment among Russians, R.J. Reynolds, the U.S. giant, launched a hugely popular brand called "Pyotr 1" _ named after Czar Peter the Great. Posters bearing the slogan "Strike Back" have appeared on billboards all over Moscow. This seems to be an appeal to the patriotic Russian consumer to fight back against western imports, but the cigarettes _ Yava Golds _ are the work of a company controlled by British-American Tobacco.

Health worries and a sales tax increase have pushed the percentage of Japanese adults who smoke to a record low of 34.6 percent, despite a slight increase in women smokers, a survey showed Monday. The previous record low -- 35.1 percent -- was recorded last year. In the United States, about 25 percent of adults smoke.

But Josh, a 16-year-old 11th-grader from Virginia, is hooked. He began four years ago, using one of his father's discarded cigarette butts. . . "I'm sure I'll want to quit sometime, I'm just not sure when." Nickita and Josh represent one of the hard jobs facing Congress -- figuring out why some kids begin smoking when they're barely in their teens and why others are able to resist the peer pressure to light up.

The litigants seeking to prove the addictive powers of cigarette tobacco should have been gathering evidence at Pro Player Stadium [Miami] last night. Among the 60,000 plus screaming fanatics at this kill-to-be-there World Series finale were several thousand cheering madly -- while watching the game on television. . . Almost all wore cigarettes between their fingers and lips.

• 10/26/97 Crop in Crisis; Farmers believe their day of reckoning is coming
• 10/26/97 What is Their Share?
  
  Two Senate bills offer different visions of the farmers' stake in the proposed tobacco settlement
• 10/27/97 Tobacco Growers Are Urged to Diversify Winston-Salem Journal
  
  The diversification advocates know that no other crop will give a farmer the returns that tobacco does. And they know that if every farmer who grows tobacco converted to the same crop -- whether it's strawberries, tomatoes, corn or broccoli -- they would flood local markets, prices would plunge and no one would make money. "That's the reality," Sligh said. "Community by community and farmer by farmer, there are going to have to be strategies built." But Sligh and others still insist that tobacco farmers -- especially those in the Piedmont who have smaller farms and depend most heavily on tobacco -- need to consider branching out.
• 10/27/97 FACING UP TO IT: Some Farmers try Pumpkins, Trees, Berries as Alternatives to Tobacco
• 10/27/97 KENTUCKY: Encouragement: Cooperative helps growers test the waters for seafood
  
  In Kentucky, burley-tobacco growers have organized their own effort to find markets for new crops. Though it has gathered its greatest momentum in the past five years, the Commodity Growers Cooperative has been around since 1943. "This is not a new idea," said Karen Armstrong-Cummings, a Surry County native who manages the program. The program -- an offshoot of the burley growers' cooperative -- encourages farmers not to give up tobacco but to diversify into other enterprises.

Reynolds has successfully created a sales program that no longer relies on Joe Camel, giveaways and promotions or even on vending machines. Cleveland is only one of about a dozen cities in which Reynolds has begun to market its cigarettes through bars and clubs frequented by the 20-something smoking crowd. My examination of the Camel Club Program in Cleveland reveals that Reynolds already has a near monopoly on the sale of cigarettes in most of Cleveland's bars and clubs that cater to young crowds. Reynolds created this monopoly by spending more than $120,000 on marketing agreements with club owners, who in turn give Camel Club kids exclusive access to their establishments. Reynolds also has targeted coffeehouses -- havens for young smokers -- and concert clubs that feature all-ages shows.

Ads on billboards and in the local newspaper here encourage Lincoln's [Nebraska] 203,000 residents to "Enjoy smoking without smelling like smoke," "Smoke on your couch, not on your porch" and "Smell like your cologne. Not your cigarettes." The ads tout Eclipse, a premium cigarette that RJR says leaves "80% less secondhand smoke, virtually no lingering odor, no ashes, (and) practically no staining." Oh, and one other thing: It's so hard to light, RJR helpfully provides instructions on every pack. Lincoln is a greenhouse for what's likely the most expensive, most ambitious product development in tobacco history.

This time, Wall Street was ready for some bad news. For months the company has warned investors that the multibillion-dollar bills from settling lawsuits around the country were coming due. U.S. cigarette sales rose The bill came in by Sept. 30, the close of the third quarter. Philip Morris said it had after-tax legal expenses of $496 million that would depress earnings. Yet, on an operating basis, the consumer products giant kept rolling along: Its American cigarette sales, for instance, rose 9.3 percent.

Last year Philip Morris had earnings of $6.3 billion on sales of $69 billion. Microsoft, meanwhile, had earnings of $2 billion on sales of $9 billion. "Philip Morris probably has more in pretax profits than Microsoft has in sales," Yacktman says. Yet Microsoft touts a market value of $136 billion, while Philip Morris' is only $94 billion. Furthermore, he argues: "At some point people will say, `Why do I need to change my software?' And as the cycle gets longer, Microsoft will look more like a capital-goods company. The difference at Philip Morris is that once somebody smokes a pack of cigarettes, it's gone."

The companies that make cigarettes are repugnant, too. Not only do they produce a rotten product, but for many years they have lied about the addictive nature of that product. . . But I'm not celebrating the current treatment of tobacco companies by government and the general populace. That treatment is politicians' attempt to curry votes and smokers' attempt to absolve themselves of responsibility for their own stupid habit.

A Food and Drug Administration plan to regulate tobacco advertisements to curb teenage smoking. Gilmore said that would infringe on "the rights of those Virginians who engage or otherwise enjoy sporting or cultural events sponsored by brand-name tobacco products." . . . His decision to fight FDA tobacco regulation, he said, was to protect an important state industry, not a favor for the $127,000 his campaign received from tobacco interests. . . "His opinions are consistently on one side, over time and without variation," she said. "That is all the proof you need."

Virginia's two largest newspapers endorsed opposing candidates yesterday in the race for governor. The Richmond Times-Dispatch endorsed Republican James S. Gilmore III . . The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot supported Democrat Donald S. Beyer Jr. . . The Times-Dispatch also endorsed Republican John H. Hager . . . The Virginian-Pilot endorsed Republican Sen. Mark L. Earley (R-Chesapeake) for attorney general and former representative L.F. Payne Jr., a Democrat, for lieutenant governor in Saturday's editions.

• 09/30/97 Beyer-Gilmore Race May be Most Expensive Ever in Virginia Norfolk Virginian-Pilot
  
  Lenox Baker, a cardiac surgeon from Norfolk, said he felt compelled to donate $25,000 to Beyer to help offset contributions to Gilmore's campaign from large companies such as Philip Morris and Smithfield Foods. (Beyer announced during the summer that he won't accept contributions from tobacco companies, although the campaign did receive $10,000 from Philip Morris last year.)
• 10/27/97 Roanoke Times Campaign Stories
• You can look up contributions from Philip Morris
• You can find the websites of:
  • 10/27/97 Donald S. Beyer Jr., D.
  • 10/27/97 James S. Gilmore III, R.
  • 10/27/97 L.F. Payne, D.
  • 10/27/97 John H. Hager, R.

"I will be enjoying my 10th smoke-free anniversary this New Year's Eve," Bill said. "I owe my smoke-free existence in large part to your campaign to aid those desiring of quitting." Like hundreds of readers over the years, Bill simply let me know that he had quit cigarettes. I published his name and gave him an ink-stained (but not a nicotine-stained) pat on the back. It was (and is) my way of trying to help cigarette addicts find that extra reserve of nerve that quitting often requires. Yes, embarrassment is the key active ingredient. How would it look if Bob Levey told the world you had quit smoking and there you were two weeks later, puffing up a storm again?

Extinguishing that final butt is like ending a 17-year love affair, one that she describes so vividly we can understand her anguish. "Smoking has been my comfort through everything, more reliable than parents, friends or loves," she writes. But when the pleasure of smoking is surpassed by the pain -- excruciating cluster headaches, breathlessness during her beloved yoga, and possibly a shorter life to name a few -- Nessel, 30, decides to shake the monkey. . . Her emotional symptoms during withdrawal are particularly intense, which, according to a study, is common for people with a history of depression. Nessel, who is on the antidepressant Zoloft, realizes she has been medicating her own depression with cigarettes since adolescence.

Eventually, researchers might come up with the ultimate solution for stalwarts trying to light up in an increasingly smokefree world: the nicotine robot. This machine would not only have a year's supply of cigarettes at the ready but would smoke them - outside in all weather. Costly, yes, but progress never comes cheap.

Even if it had, he said, there were bigger issues at stake that probably would outweigh such concerns. "The court is unwilling at this point to interfere with the state's battle against youth smoking," [U.S. District Court Judge J. Garvan Murtha] said. "In light of the public interest at stake in this matter, even if (the trade group) had met its burden of showing irreparable harm and likelihood of success on the merits, the court would not be inclined to grant the requested relief."

Signs are popping up everywhere that the billboard industry's tobacco scare is fading. Lamar Advertising, one of three outdoor-ad companies that went public last year, yesterday posted better-than-expected earnings, helping fuel a 16% jump in the Louisiana company's Class A stock.

Seven soldiers serving in the NATO-led peace force in Bosnia were arrested and are under investigation for illegal trade, NATO said today. The Ukrainian troops were caught smuggling two truck's worth of cigarettes and alcohol, a NATO official said on the condition of anonymity. They were arrested Tuesday evening in Mostar, 50 miles south of Sarajevo.

It will have to be professionally cleaned. . . Even after cleaning, cigarette odor can linger. Treat it with ozone. . . the ozone procedure can be done in the home or in a dry cleaning plant that has an ozone chamber. In the home, use a large plastic tarp or tent to enclose the furniture and the ozone generator, which will run inside the enclosure. If ozone generation is not an option, pin sachets of activated charcoal inconspicuously in the back of the furniture to absorb odors.

The survey of students in grades 6 through 12 was conducted during the 1996-97 school year and released Tuesday by Atlanta-based PRIDE, the Parents' Resource Institute for Drug Education. It echoes an August report by Columbia University that also found teens are using drugs at earlier ages. . . Highest increases were in the use of cigarettes and hard liquor by senior high students. Smoking rose to 50.2% from 48.2% in the 1995-96 school year.

$6,828/year for quit-smoke program. Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune What's an extra year of life worth to you? . . . Researchers at the Mayo Clinic have come up with estimates of what it costs to add a year to people's life -- on what is spent, for example, to help them quit smoking, nip cancer before it has spread, control their blood pressure or cholesterol, reopen or bypass a clogged coronary artery. . . .Quitting smoking is quite a bargain. . . The researchers looked at the costs and results of a one-year smoking-cessation program in use at the Mayo Clinic Nicotine Dependence Center from April 1988 through December 1992. . . The cost per additional year of life was $6,828, the researchers said.

Officials say cost savings, not punishment, was the motivation for a plan to require future state employees who smoke to pay higher health insurance premiums than nonsmokers. But some workers have voiced concern about the idea, suggesting that the state ought to direct its efforts toward helping smokers kick the habit.

"This morning," Peter writes, "Metrobus 8857 picked up elementary school students at 41st and Garrison Street NW. It had a huge billboard sign on the side that said, `SMOKE THIS TOBACCO.' " As Peter notes, it is legal to advertise cigarettes on buses, and Metro has a right to make money from ads. "However, someone has to stop and think for a second when they select which bus to send out on a school route -- don't you think so?" he said. I think so emphatically, Peter. But to Metro, the issue isn't quite so simple.

Some farmers have worried that a drop in prices for flue-cured tobacco this year might signal trouble in the burley market, but an agriculture economist says the fears are premature. Will Snell of the University of Kentucky said he is not greatly concerned about burley because of key differences in the markets for the two types of tobacco. . . The burley market opens Nov. 24. Snell said the size of this year's crop will determine whether farmers get as much money for their leaf as last year.

Armed with the clout of hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of tobacco-related stocks, Minnesota will sponsor up to seven stockholder resolutions aimed at forcing tobacco makers to discourage smoking by children and pregnant women. A committee of the State Board of Investment, which controls the state's multibillion-dollar stock portfolio, agreed Tuesday to support or lead stockholder proposals at annual meetings next year of firms such as Philip Morris, RJR Reynolds and U.S. Tobacco.

Lawyers for the state of Texas can question one tobacco lobbyist and two former tobacco officials about their confidential strategies for influencing state laws, a federal magistrate has ruled. U.S. Magistrate Judge Wendell C. Radford said in a ruling Friday that the information is "highly relevant" to the state's lawsuit to collect billions of dollars in damages from tobacco companies for health-care costs associated with smoking. . . The defendants argue that the state has never effectively reduced smoking and continues to collect billions of dollars in tax revenue from cigarette sales. "We want to know how they (cigarette companies) influenced the political process, how deep their tentacles ran," the anti-tobacco source said.

Gov. Jane Hull agreed yesterday to let Arizona's indigent health-care program - and its 400,000 enrollees - join the state's lawsuit against tobacco companies. The decision greatly expands the scope of the case, enabling the state to claim actual damages that Attorney General Grant Woods places at $600 million. Hull granted Woods' request to include the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System in the litigation. Woods contends the decision will not only increase the state's potential award, but also bolster its chances of winning.

SANTA ANA--As smoking among teenagers continues to increase, a sting operation revealed that 50% of local merchants illegally sold cigarettes to minors, officials said Tuesday. Under a state program aimed at reducing teenage tobacco addiction, 15- and 16-year-old decoys entered 40 businesses in recent weeks, and walked out with cigarettes in hand at 20 of the stores targeted, said Carlos Hanessian, spokesman for the Department of Health Services' food and drug branch. A variety of stories were targeted, including conve

SAG is sending information to members about the impact of on-screen smoking on young people and offering suggestions on realistic portrayals of smoking as well as alternative choices to smoking. The entertainment industry can advance good causes simply by portraying reality, such as the widespread use of car seatbelts. If it better reflects the current anti-smoking fervor, it could well save the lives of thousands of teenagers.

Seeking to cut teenage smoking, U.S. senators Tuesday unveiled a bipartisan bill to increase tobacco taxes by $1.50 per pack. The legislation by New Jersey Democrat Frank Lautenberg and Utah Republican James Hansen would phase in the new tax in 50-cent increments over three years. After that, it would be pegged to inflation.

Richard Beliles filed an amended complaint with the ethics commission late yesterday, asking it to investigate the tobacco company's role in the Costa Rica trip that House Speaker Jody Richards accepted in June. Beliles also asked that the commission revoke the company's lobbying registration for five years. The five-day trip in June was paid for in part by the New York Society for International Affairs. . . Under Kentucky law, legislators cannot accept anything of value directly from a lobbyist. Beliles has argued that the commission ought to investigate whether lawmakers can receive something from a nonprofit group that receives funding from lobbyists or the companies that employ them.

Broadcasters should help try to keep young people off cigarettes by running other states' anti-smoking ads, Gov. Lawton Chiles suggested on Monday. They should keep running those out-of-state ads, Chiles said, at least until Florida comes up with its own. In a conference call with about 40 television and radio station owners throughout Florida, the governor said his anti-tobacco campaign has been on a roll since the $11.3 billion settlement in August of the state's court battle against cigarette makers. "I think it's awful important we don't let a lag time develop here," he said. Chiles also held conference call meetings with cable-TV and billboard company owners, asking them to donate time and space for anti-smoking ads.

Florida should spend some of its tobacco settlement money to improve treatment of children with asthma and diabetes and to help children kick the nicotine habit, black legislators said Monday. The Florida Conference of Black State Legislators also is proposing a plan for spending new federal dollars available for children's health care. "Through our tobacco settlement program, we will initiate a concerted campaign utilizing outreach and media and focused medical intervention to prevent tobacco use among children and to address the disproportionate effect on minority children," Rep. Cynthia Chestnut, D-Gainesville, said.

Independence is considering a new smoking ordinance that may be the strictest in the metropolitan area. If approved in its current form, the law would banish smokers from virtually all businesses, bars, bowling alleys, restaurants, buses, taxis, elevators, hotel and motel rooms, health-care facilities and office buildings. . . At the heart of the proposal, said Independence Community Health Director John Amadio, is the danger of secondhand smoke. . . A public hearing on the proposal is scheduled for 7 p.m. Thursday at the Independence Health Department. It is on the third floor of Police Headquarters at Truman and Noland roads. Amadio said the hearing will give people the opportunity to state their opinions. He expects the ordinance to be modified before it goes before the City Council next summer.

But the offer showed how much tobacco industry executives feared that healthier air in bars would be unhealthy for their profit margins. They were so worried about the ban in the state's 36,000 bars that they volunteered to subject themselves to business' worst nightmare: higher taxes. Their proposal would have added about 5 cents to the cost of a pack of cigarettes.

Canada's health minister says Parliament is set to amend the new tobacco act to allow Formula One car racing to use tobacco brand names in advertising, but says he has reservations. Health Minister Allan Rock says the amendment is "to fulfil a commitment" his predecessor David Dingwall made last spring, after the act was passed, to allow tobacco sponsorship for Grand Prix races. . . He says, "On the one hand we have the health objectives of the tobacco act, and on the other we have the reality that we have an important event in Canada which is both popular and an important economic advantage." He says, "We don't want to see it lost over this (tobacco) legislation."

Brier . . says Philip Morris had put the Marlboro man everywhere -- looming over the city on the sides of 10-story buildings, peering out from ashtrays in bars and beckoning to young people at a disco tent set up in a park. "In order to get in, you had to produce five packs of Marlboros, three if you were a student. You showed your packs at the gate. You couldn't say, `I don't smoke. Can I pay to get in?' . . . They advertised it consistently for a month. It was on the radio. There were fliers on light poles. Every night there were hundreds of people, sometimes a thousand on weekends." In a city of 2 million, with little to do, the disco tent with its bright lights and state-of-the art sound system was irresistible to the young, he said.

An Italian judge said on Monday he had ordered the president of tobacco company Philip Morris (MO) Europe Walter Thoma to stand trial for tax fraud, but had dropped charges of criminal association. Judge Raffaele Marino said 10 other managers and officials of Italian company Intertaba, believed to have been set up by Philip Morris in Italy, were also indicted. The trial is expected to start on January 5, 1998, Marino told Reuters.

Universal Corp., the world's largest tobacco leaf distributor, yesterday reported a 64 percent increase in first-quarter profit on the strength of increased international demand for flue-cured tobacco.

Henry H. Harrell, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Universal Corporation, announced today that strong earnings growth momentum continued in the first quarter of fiscal year 1998. Net income for the quarter ended September 30, 1997, was $32.8 million or 93 cents per share compared to $20 million or 57 cents per share reported last year. This was an increase of over 63 percent. Gross revenues were $1 billion compared to $821 million in the first quarter of fiscal year 1997.

"Truthful commercial speech concerning legal products, including cigarettes, is protected by the First Amendment. "That may be an uncomfortable reality, but reality it is." Reality to everyone, except Pete, the Pain-in-the Butt, and his fellow Democratic sheep on the council who jump every time he bleats "Baa, baa." There is no evidence that teen-agers take up smoking because they see a sign in a store window. Peer pressure is far more influential.

Armed with statistics showing an epidemic of smoking onscreen, a powerful state legislator dropped in on Hollywood yesterday hoping to persuade filmmakers to stop glamorizing tobacco use. A trio of film industry union chiefs -- presidents of the actors, directors and screenwriters guilds -- listened politely as Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman John Burton, D-San Francisco, urged an end to the "gratuitous" use of cigars and cigarettes. . . Actor Richard Masur, president of the Screen Actors Guild, told the committee that, in fact, cigarettes were "the single most expressive tool an actor may employ" to convey emotions ranging from anxiety to pleasure to sensuality. But he called the reliance on the tobacco prop a "natural temptation" that needs to be overcome.

But Wednesday's decision by the New York state court judge, Charles Edward Ramos, appeared to breathe new life into the relatively novel legal theory that a group of allegedly addicted smokers can sue the tobacco industry for damages on behalf of all addicted smokers. . . In his decision, the New York state judge acknowledged that a class-action suit that hinged on a claim of addiction would indeed raise too many individual questions. But he sidestepped the problem by finding that, while the question of whether cigarettes are addictive may be an issue in proving fraud, the industry's liability will hinge on its conduct in marketing cigarettes. To that end, he wrote, "the issue of actual nicotine dependence is a red herring because damages are to be measured by the cost of cigarettes purchased, not by the harm the plaintiffs suffered from smoking."

People who bought the most popular cigarette brands in New York state after June 1980 will be represented in a class-action lawsuit against five tobacco companies and two trade groups. The lawsuit, which seeks to recover money smokers spent on cigarettes, alleges that tobacco companies induced them to smoke by hiding and lying about nicotine's addictive nature and about its manipulated levels.

[W]e will seek immediate appeal. Plaintiffs had originally sought two classes: a class comprised of nicotine-dependent smokers; and a class of persons who have merely purchased and smoked cigarettes in the state of New York. The judge appropriately refused to certify the plaintiff's first class, recognizing, as previous courts have, that proof of addiction is a highly individual issue. However, we believe the judge's decision to certify a class of persons based solely on the mere purchase of cigarettes is plainly wrong. In order to recover against the industry, the plaintiffs still must resolve issues which will require proof on an individual basis.

Hager, 61, has tried to play down his career as a tobacco executive, in which he was involved in controversial nicotine research. He was hit by a hail of criticism early in his campaign after indicating that he did not believe that nicotine was addictive. But the potential for sparks over Hager's work in the tobacco industry has not been realized. Payne, who represented thousands of tobacco growers in Southside while in Congress, has had close ties to the industry, which has contributed to his campaigns, including this one. Both candidates opposed the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's efforts to regulate nicotine. And both reject any tobacco settlement that doesn't compensate growers for the economic hardship it might impose.

"It seems like you can't go down any street without seeing a billboard for some kind of cigarettes," Rollberg, 14, wrote in a two-page essay he entered in a statewide contest to decide which billboards will come down first. "Kids my age feel as if they have to smoke to be Kool," Rollberg wrote, referring to the cigarette brand of Kool. . . Rollberg, who wants to remove a GPC cigarette billboard off Pass Road, was one of at least 20 Coast students - and more than 150 statewide - who have entered the contest sponsored by Attorney General Mike Moore.

Tax the smokers, gamblers and talkers to better educate the kids. That's the essence of a new plan for fairer school funding in Illinois. And it make some sense. Why not tax bad habits to pay for smarter kids?

The City Council voted Tuesday night to prohibit all liquor and tobacco ads on billboards across the city. . . The council voted 5 to 1 in favor of the citywide ban, with Mayor Elihu Harris dissenting. Councilmen Ignacio De La Fuente, Henry Chang and Larry Reid were absent. Final approval of the ordinance is scheduled for November 18. George Broder, spokesman for the billboard company Eller Media Co., said the council's action was illegal.

HUNTINGTON BEACH -- Thousands of enthusiastic, red ribbon-wearing tykes and teens here and in Fountain Valley dared to say "no" to drugs this week as part of a growing, statewide anti-drug-and-tobacco campaign.

Mainland health officials are in Hong Kong to learn how to promote anti-smoking education. Their visit follows a speech by Life Education Activity Programme workers at the Tobacco Conference in Beijing in August. The programme runs a centre in Stubbs Road and organises audio-visual activities on special buses, teaching children about the harmful effects of smoking and drug abuse.

The Leading Hotels of the World announces that one of its member hotels today will become the first 5-star hotel in Europe to go smoke-free. Le Mirador Hotel and Spa in Mont-Pelerin (Vevey), Switzerland, has taken an unprecedented step in ensuring guest comfort and well being by banning smoking in all three of its restaurants, the lobby, bar, salon, hallways, elevators and other public area, as well as all of the guest rooms in its main building. Smoking will be confined to a small number of designated rooms, each of which will have a separate ventilation system to prevent smoke from reaching the public areas of the hotel.

Despite public attention to tobacco's dangers and to adolescent cigarette smoking, students are smoking more than ever, researchers said. More young people smoked last year than at any time in the 10 years of the survey. Among high schoolers, 20 percent said they were daily smokers, and half said they had smoked cigarettes in the past year, up 2 percent from the year before. Smoking among junior high students remained steady, the report said.

[CARLOS CASTRO JR.] knew he had to make a change. Finally, last November, with the encouragement of Lee and Guerrero - a dental assistant who he met in 1994 - he quit smoking. Predictably, his performances improved. He ran his first 26.2-mile race - the Long Island Marathon - in the spring, six months after smoking his last cigarette. To the surprise of Melnik and others, he finished in an outstanding debut time of 2 hours, 43 minutes, 55 seconds, good for seventh overall.

She also discussed plans for its first fund-raiser: a $100-a-head event Nov. 15 at the N.C. Museum of Art in Raleigh. The evening will feature dinner and the screening of excerpts from documentaries done by Ross McElwee and TV pitchwoman-turned-director Connie Stevens. McElwee, a North Carolina native whose films include "Sherman's March" and "Six O'clock News," will discuss his still-unfinished "Tobacco Road," a documentary that focuses on the state's tobacco industry and his family's role in it.

Film making is an artistic process, one that we have no desire to regulate. We only ask that Hollywood consider the awesome influence the industry has over children before it casually depicts heros lighting up on screen.

Sunday, Nov. 2. "Masterpiece Theatre" invades "Mystery!'s" increasingly patchy turf, presenting Wilkie Collins's 1868 work, often credited as the first English-language detective novel. While it's filled with devices that long ago became cliches, the story still packs its share of surprises, not least of which is its all-too-modern preoccupations with narcotics use, tobacco, and Westerners' religious and cultural insensitivity. 9-11 p.m. EST on PBS. (PBS dates and times vary; check local listings.)

They overestimate their risk of developing lung cancer and the likelihood of being run over or murdered, according to the study, published yesterday in the annual report of the Economic and Social Research Council. It found that smokers on average estimated that they had a 41 per cent chance of suffering from lung cancer; in fact, 17 per cent of male smokers and 11 per cent of female smokers contract the disease. The survey, carried out through the Office for National Statistics, found that smokers were also more pessimistic than non-smokers about other dangers. Stephen Sutton, who carried out the research for University College London, said: "There is no evidence that smokers are less knowledgeable about the risks than non-smokers ...." Smokers correctly believed that they were more at risk of developing heart disease than they were from lung cancer, but failed to understand that they were ten times more likely to develop the illness than those who had never smoked regularly.

Three private sector labor- management (Taft-Hartley) health care funds, representing more than 7,000 Texas blue-collar workers, and their families, today filed a class action suit against eight major tobacco companies seeking to recover money spent treating workers for tobacco-related diseases. . . The suit was filed despite certain terms of the proposed "global" tobacco settlement agreement. Language in that proposed pact would extinguish the right of private sector workers' health funds, including those in Texas, to launch class action suits. The proposed agreement failed to pass muster with Congress and the White House and its authors have been sent back to the drawing board by President Clinton. The suit states that evidence shows the tobacco industry intentionally targeted blue collar workers with special advertising and promotional campaigns, with devastating success. United States Public Health Service statistics show that the percentage of blue collar workers who smoke is more than double that of the national average. The plaintiff funds are: the Texas Carpenters Health and Benefit Fund, IBEW-NECA; the North Texas Laborers' Health and Welfare Fund and the Southwestern Health and Benefit Fund.

We are told to lay off cigars at a time when cigar-smoking is once again becoming very big in our culture. Here and there you may find plush cigar rooms where smokers may sit around enjoying a perfect panatela and its aroma without being unjustly harangued. . . Ron Shelton, a hugely successful director-writer ("Bull Durham" is one of his hits), is always puffing on a cigar. Once he put match to his cigar on the set and an actor in a small part complained. Shelton went back to his office and wrote the actor out of the scene and out of the movie. Serves him right.

Florida Governor Lawton Chiles and state Attorney General Robert Butterworth honored LeBow on Oct. 21 with a proclamation citing his "invaluable assistance" in the state's $11.3 billion settlement with the large tobacco companies. . . But LeBow's award draws no applause from antismoking watchdogs. Most of his actions, says John Banzhaf, executive director of Action on Smoking & Health, are "motivated far more by business considerations than humanitarian impulses."

Having killed any chance for overhauling campaign-finance laws this year, Republicans next week are holding a $6.5 million fund-raising extravaganza. Employing innumerable tactics that probably would be banned under an overhaul plan, the GOP is leaning on lobbyists to raise huge sums and selling access to party leaders. While Senator Trent Lott, the majority leader, said yesterday he would allow a vote on campaign-finance overhaul by March, he is scheduled to be the star attraction at Wednesday's "Senate Majority Dinner." It is expected to be one of the biggest and most successful fund-raisers in political history. . . The dinner is being held largely for the benefit of Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who has led the drive with Lott to kill the campaign-finance bill. McConnell is chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. . . Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, chairman of the dinner, said the fund-raiser is expected to draw $6.5 million partly by using a dozen of this city's top lobbyists - including several for the tobacco industry - to collect $100,000 each and serve as "dinner vice chairmen."

It looked to be a lovely dinner Tuesday night at the J.W. Marriott sponsored by the Institute for Youth Development. The institute's mission statement says it "conducts research, promotes messages, and devises comprehensive programs targeted to American youth to avoid five harmful risk behaviors: alcohol, drugs, sex, tobacco and violence." . . House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) was to talk about "America's Challenge to Kids Who Want to Grow Up," but he didn't show. Others who were there included Reps. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.), and J.C. Watts (R-Okla.), football great Johnny Unitas and baseball's Brooks Robinson. And who funds this campaign against kids' drinking and smoking and such? The 13 "sponsors, benefactors, patrons and friends" include: Coors Brewing Co.; Philip Morris Cos. and its subsidiary Kraft Foods Inc.; R.J.R. Nabisco Foundation; The Tobacco Institute (the trade association); UST Public Affairs (the chewing tobacco folks), and the National Association of Convenience Stores, which are said to earn more than a fourth of their profits from tobacco sales. The hypocrisy meter melted down.

Liquor and cigarettes head the list of items smuggled into the country, the Vietnam Economic Times reported. The Ministry of Trade estimates that more than $100 million worth of cigarettes are smuggled into the country each year.

Together they have graced many a dinner table -- a fine cigar and bourbon. Now, the two after-dinner staples have been rolled into one tongue-tingling, nose-pleasing package. Maker's Mark Cigars are handmade Dominicans seasoned with bourbon of the same name. . . Sales have climbed to 75,000 since the cigars hit the market in July, and its producers have ambitions of gaining a niche in the cigar industry. "It's catching on all across the country," said Ted Jackson, president of The Spalding Group Inc., a Louisville company that pays Maker's Mark a royalty for use of the bourbon maker's name on the cigars.

Colleagues at UCLA and across the country call the energetic 82-year-old "Mr. Public Health," mostly because he helped set the course for modern thinking about health and fitness. Breslow was uncannily on target, not just about smoking, but about many of the more subtle influences on the quality, and quantity, of human life.

In towns and cities across the country, smokers and anti-tobacco activists are squaring off over anti-smoking ordinances and tobacco sales restrictions. There even are communities seeing a backlash against what some view as excessively rigid smoking rules. Take Sierra Vista, Ariz. . . After the city council considered a ban on nearly all indoor smoking, several smokers began an initiative that would require restaurants to have nonsmoking sections but otherwise halt city anti-smoking rules. . . "People are pushing us off into a corner," said Rutherford, who is 53 and has smoked since age 13. "We're not subhuman. We just have a habit which happens to be legal. It should be our choice."

Justice Clarence Thomas has not changed his appearance, but he's given up smoking cigars after being reminded by a youngster that the habit could be hazardous to his health. That leaves two smokers on the court -- Scalia and Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist.

"It was his throat. From all the smoking. And then he died from it." Since the first of this year, Romero has painted, has sculpted, that death. Walking into [Jesus] Romero's live- work studio in North Oakland is not unlike walking into a death chamber or a morgue. Powerful images of blood and suffering burst from the floors and the walls, even the ceiling. Surreal images of a skeletal Marlboro Man or Joe Camel stare from the canvases. The camel's skull shows through the flesh, teeth in a grimace. A pack of Camel cigarettes peeks from the camel's breast pocket. . . He admitted craving a cigarette. Romero started to smoke at 21. He is now 47. Although he has tried many times, even his friend's death has not been enough to make him quit. He smokes, and he fumes.

Former Sen. Howard Baker has been forced to step down as chairman of the Mayo Clinic after he took a job as a tobacco industry lobbyist. "And you can forget all those grandiose plans for the Howard Baker Lung Cancer Wing." (Mills)

A settlement negotiated earlier this month by the Independence firm of Humphrey Farrington & McClain apparently marks the first time a tobacco company has agreed to pay money for damages caused by cigarette smoking. The confidential settlement ends a smoker liability suit filed by former Chesterfield and Lucky Strike Girl Janet Sackman against the Liggett Group. Sackman, who was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1990, sued Liggett in 1993. "I don't know of any plaintiff in the history of the world who has gotten money from Big Tobacco," said Humphrey Farrington lawyer Gregory Leyh.

The 58-year-old Mr. Golub, who won't comment on his habit, is just one of a number of high-profile CEOs whose smoking is at odds with the public's growing intolerance of it, particularly in the workplace. Others include Edward E. Crutchfield of First Union Corp., the nation's sixth-largest bank; Robert L. Crandall of AMR Corp., the parent company of American Airlines; Herbert D. Kelleher of Southwest Airlines; Arthur F. Ryan, of Prudential Insurance Co. of America; Lewis Platt of Hewlett-Packard Co.; and Charles R. Lee of GTE Corp. Peter Kann, chairman of Dow Jones & Co., the publisher of The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition, only recently quit smoking.

A consortium of 48 banks, including seven Japanese banks, will help BAT Industries Plc raise as much as 8 billion dollars in the Eurobond market. The British tobacco and insurance conglomerate needs to raise additional funds to avoid violating existing debt covenants and going into technical default when it spins off its insurance division and merges with Zurich Insurance Co. next summer. . . Sumitomo Bank Ltd. (8318) will join four U.S. and British banks in the lead-underwriting syndicate. A total of seven Japanese banks, including Sumitomo, will finance about 28% of the issue.