Tobacco.org

Lighting up a stogie and sinking into an overstuffed leather couch may be all it takes to rub shoulders with the area's top business guns. At least that's the way Fred McGhee sees it. McGhee -- who will open Fred's Fine Tobaccos in Oakwood Dec. 8 -- expects his guest list to include CEOs and top executives from NCR Corp., Mead Corp., Bank One and The Dayton Power & Light Co. to just name a few.

A group including the New York-based Zweig-DiMenna Associates LLC said Monday it has increased its stake in Consolidated Cigar Holdings Inc's outstanding Class A common shares to 9.6 percent or 1.06 million shares.

Global Direct is the importer of the COHIBA Republica Dominicana cigar into the United States, according to William G. Brooks, Jr., President. "There are a number of cigars being marketed or labeled as 'COHIBA' throughout the world," stated Mr. Brooks. "Of those, the COHIBA Havana Cuba, made by Cubatobacco is perhaps the best known of the 'COHIBAs', but it may not be imported or sold in the United States." In addition, he related, "General Cigar Holdings, Inc. markets a 'COHIBA' cigar in the United States. Although," he noted, "General's U.S. trademark 'COHIBA' was first challenged in July of 1997 by Cubatobacco in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office."

The weekly Juventud Rebelde says the new cigar, which is three-point-four meters long, was rolled in four days by William Cornejo who says it is of the best quality.

Mr. Williams, who has three kids, has stuck with Eclipse. "I was ready to quit, but my wife and kids begged me to stick with it," he says. "They liked that there wasn't so much smoke in the house and in the car. Besides, I'm used to the taste now." "But," he adds, "it is a weird little cigarette."

Dozens of minor league teams might very well become spit-tobacco free if members of the Professional Baseball Athletic Trainers Society succeed in a newly enacted program to help players quit its use. Their secret weapon -- mint leaves. Until recently, the leaf of choice for baseball had been tobacco. But a growing number of players in both major and minor leagues, under pressure to quit by the Commissioner of Baseball's office, have given up tobacco and instead turned to two alternatives made from mint leaves called Mint Snuff All Mint Chew and All Mint Pouches. Reports of quit rates as high as 80 percent have made heads turn in the health and athletic training profession. The program using mint was promoted by the Tobacco Intervention Network, Gresham, Oregon (800-938-1957; www.quittobacco.com) an organization comprised of over 8,000 health professionals trying to help people quit tobacco.

It took place in a movie theatre featuring an evening of TV advertisements from the Asian side of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation region. . . But the most interesting set of ads, by far, came in the very different entries from the Indian subcontinent. For one thing, they advertise cigarettes as cool. The typical Indian ads feature some cool dude who is challenged for his girlfriend by a nasty yob. They square off, they fight, the hero gets the girl, he lights up.

The SurfWatch/PICS implementation removes no material from the Internet or any server, but simply blocks inappropriate material at any computer where SurfWatch rating is active. Through this label bureau, SurfWatch Web site ratings are distributed in four different categories: sexually explicit content, violence (including hate crimes), drugs/alcohol/tobacco, and gambling.

Schmooze or Lose," says Susan RoAne, The Mingling Maven(TM), author of "What Do I Say Next?" (Warner Books) as she offers the Do's and Dont's for ensuring merry mingling. . . Don't -- What to Avoid . . . 4. Don't Have Your Party Go Up in Smoke: Light up ... the party ... not your cigar or cigarette.

Ruth G. Radcliff, 312 Norwood St., fell asleep in her wheelchair with a lighted cigarette, said Trooper Thomas E. Barton of Embreeville state police.

IMPERIAL TOBACCO'S Achilles' heel is its core market; the company is heavily dependent on the UK, where the decline in smoking accelerated last year. After the embarrassing Ecclestone affair, the Labour Government is unlikely to let up on an industry that shrunk 5 per cent last year.

IMPERIAL TOBACCO, the Embassy cigarettes company that was demerged from Hanson last year, has seen a sharp acceleration in the decline of the UK tobacco market (Paul Durman writes). The UK market, in which Imperial holds a 37.9 per cent share, contracted by 5 per cent last year to about 77 billion cigarettes.

Imperial Tobacco shrugged off "punitive" UK duty rises, a strong pound and tough UK market conditions to produce a "healthy" first set of results after its demerger from Hanson.

Imperial Tobacco Group (IMBTY) said Monday, when unveiling as-expected maiden pretax profit of 307 million GBP, that it was failing to maintain its share of the declining U.K. cigarette market.

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 2, 1997--Swisher International Group Inc. (SWR), the world's largest manufacturer of cigars, today announced that it has signed an agreement to purchase a 50% interest in SP Holding Inc., the owner of Puros de Villa Gonzales, a major tobacco processor and manufacturer of premium hand-rolled cigars. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

The state's modified law banning tobacco sales to minors takes effect Monday. People younger than 18 who buy tobacco and people who sell the product to minors face $1,000 fines and 30 days of community service.

(AP) -- A tougher state law banning tobacco sales to minors goes into effect today, but whether it will actually reduce the number of teen-age smokers remains to be seen. The new law, approved by the General Assembly in August, removes a legal loophole that made it nearly impossible to prosecute cases of illegal sales of tobacco to people younger than 18.

Why Danville? What Time magazine lists as reasons to move there: "An unusually diverse racial mix, a first-rate cultural life (recent visitors: Wynton Marsalis, the Royal Philharmonic), and a rock-solid economy (tobacco, livestock, seven Fortune 500 companies) all wrapped up in streetscapes borrowed from Norman Rockwell."

The 1995-96 Community Health Risk Assessment is a pilot program sponsored by the National Center for Health Statistics, a division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. . . Some findings of interest in Columbus and Franklin County: . . * About 52 percent of men and 42 percent of women in both the city and county said they had smoked at least five packs of cigarettes in their lives. * The lower the income and education level, the higher the smoking percentage was. * About 8 percent of smokers said they smoked 40 cigarettes a day. The average smoker went through 20.

The ban is the idea of council President Jim Fouts, whose goal is to make it tough for tobacco companies to influence minors. . . The ban is expected to be considered this month by the City Council. It will be patterned after a similar anti-smoking and drinking law in Baltimore.

About one in three Wisconsin teen-agers smokes cigarettes and most know that smoking is bad for them, a University of Wisconsin researcher says. What they don't know is how hard it will be for them to quit, says Ann Schensky, who works for the UW-Madison Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention. . . Schensky's work on teen smoking was reported on in the current issue of the Wisconsin Medical Journal. . . "Kids are like adults. It might take them four or five attempts to kick the habit. In the meantime, their peers are likely to keep urging them to keep smoking," she said.

The Wisconsin Division of Health Survey says 37% of 14 to 17 year-olds are smokers. The survey says that age group consumes more than 16 million packs if cigarettes in Wisconsin in one year. The report also says that in 1995 17% of all Wisconsin deaths were due to smoking related illnesses. The survey of 600 teenagers could even be a conservative number. That's because the state information is already two years old.

Oklahoma sheriffs are facing increased pressure from health advocates to ban smoking in county jails. Of 77 counties, 35 have banned tobacco in their jails. But some sheriffs say cigarette and snuff privileges are a useful disciplinary tool.

The scientists from Johns Hopkins University and the National Center for Health, who used federal figures, said the statistics indicate that more pregnant women are getting prenatal care, fewer are smoking and advanced technology appears to be helping more premature and low birth-weight babies survive. . . However, improved fertility treatment is contributing to the growing number of babies born weighing less than 5.5 pounds, and many of them need sophisticated medical treatment to survive. The researchers said the proportion of low birth-weight babies rose to 7.4 percent last year, the highest since 1975. The increase occurred even though prenatal care was up last year and smoking by pregnant women was down. Both are considered risk factors for low birth-weight babies.

If you want proof of advertising's powerful ability to produce toxic results, consider the historic success with which it has convinced people that smoking is glamorous, Lynch said. "With the first puff of a cigarette, everything your body tells you is negative -- the coughing, the dizziness, the nausea," he said. Yet, millions of people are smoking, at least in part because of the influence of advertising . . . For nearly five years years now, Lynch Jarvis Jones has specialized in what Lynch calls "marketing that matters," accepting only those clients he deems are similarly concerned about "meaningful social issues."

A committee under Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto's fiscal reform panel is considering raising taxes on tobacco to cover massive debts left over by the defunct national railways and a national forestry project, a government spokesman said on Wednesday.

Shares of Japan Tobacco Inc. (J.JTB or 2914) lost ground Tuesday morning on selling from foreign and Japanese institutional investors disheartened by the news that the government is studying the possibility of raising the tax on tobacco in the fiscal year beginning April 1 by roughly Y1 per cigarette.

Florida's auditor general will investigate trips Gov. Lawton Chiles took at the expense of friends -- some who do business with the state -- as well as money that Secretary of State Sandra Mortham collected from a cigarette company and then spent on parties and trinkets. The double-barreled inquiry is targeting a Democratic governor who will retire at the end of 1998, as well as a Republican secretary of state who has signed on as Jeb Bush's running mate in his bid for governor next year.

If Ramsey County District Judge Kenneth Fitzpatrick agrees with the lawyers' request, the legal tables would be turned on the company as a penalty for withholding documents. Jurors at a civil trial scheduled for Jan. 20 in St. Paul would be told to consider American liable for consumer fraud and other wrongdoing. . . At issue is whether American and its new owners deliberately avoided turning over internal documents about smoking and health. Tobacco companies have turned over 30 millions pages of documents in the Minnesota case. But American's response was "virtually devoid of the types of smoking-and-health, research-and-development and new-product development documents that have been produced . . . by every other manufacturer," according to court papers filed Monday.

Attorney General Gale Norton told members of the Legislature's Joint Budget Committee that she needed authority to spend her existing cash reserve of $791,000 on the lawsuit right away and would return to the committee for an additional $934,000 to last until January. At a hearing Monday morning, JBC members protested the cost and the fact that Norton didn't seek their approval before joining the suit. But by day's end they had approved both the spending requests. If the suit hasn't settled by early next year, Norton said, she'll ask for an additional $2.9 million for the budget year that begins next July.

According to the attorneys, the complaint charges the company and certain of its officers and directors with violations of federal securities laws. The plaintiff claims that the defendants issued a series of materially false and misleading statements regarding the company's financial condition and results of operations.

YOU ARE HEREBY NOTIFIED that a Class Action has been commenced in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida on behalf of all purchasers of Caribbean Cigar Company (Nasdaq: CIGR - news ) common stock between August 14, 1997 and November 14, 1997, inclusive. The Complaint charges CIGR and certain of its officers and directors with violations of federal securities laws.

The National Smokers Alliance, vowing to continue its "righteous" battle against UC-San Francisco's tobacco industry research, said it will appeal the recent dismissal of its lawsuit against the university. "What I'd like to say is: If Dr. Glantz thinks this is over, think again," said Gary Auxier, a spokesman for the Virginia-based alliance. . . "We're supporting this because we believe this is a righteous case," said Auxier

Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Joe Gray ruled Monday there were no grounds for the lawsuit filed by Californians for Scientific Integrity, an organization linked with the National Smokers Alliance, which is funded by the tobacco industry.

The Sacramento County Superior Court has dismissed a lawsuit filed against the University of California San Francisco regarding the work of a prominent UCSF tobacco researcher. The suit, filed by Californians for Scientific Integrity, a group associated with the tobacco-industry funded National Smokers Alliance, claimed that Stanton A. Glantz, Ph.D. . . . had used public funds to conduct politically motivated research -- specifically, research on tobacco. The group, represented by the law firm of Zumbrum and Findlay, challenged the ability of public officials or employees to engage in "political" activity,.

We sent NSA staffers into some of the areas and reached into others by telephone. The reality is that, in most of Glantz's "smoke-free bar" communities, people smoke in the bars. Openly. With no enforcement of the law. Sometimes with no knowledge of the law. Glantz told a reporter for The San Francisco Examiner that local health departments said the laws were being enforced. Yet, in Shasta County, 77 percent of bars we surveyed continue to allow smoking in spite of the bar ban and many said the ban was something of a local joke. In the unincorporated areas of Santa Clara County, not a single bar could be found that didn't allow smoking.

"Of those predicting a change in their restaurant patronage, the proportion predicting increased use was almost four times greater than the proportion predicting decreased use. "For bar patronage, the proportion predicting increased use was almost twice as large as the proportion predicting decreased use," the study said. "Our analysis ... suggests that smoke-free policies are likely to increase overall patronage of restaurants and bars," the report added. . .

In fact, the researchers found that bars and restaurants may actually pick up patrons who had stayed away because they didn't like getting someone else's smoke in their eyes and lungs, or coming away from a night on the town smelling like an ashtray. In the study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, scientists from the University of Massachusetts Center for Survey Research, Boston, and the Boston University School of Public Health, interviewed 2,356 adults in Massachusetts to find out what they would do if restaurants and bars were smokefree.

The researchers concluded: "This study provides further evidence that workers can be protected from the hazards of ETS exposure without adverse consequences for bar and restaurant business."

The following chart reflects the total contributions to candidates or political parties in the 1995-96 election cycle by the top 50 givers, their PACs, employees and members of their immediate families, according to a study by the Center for Responsive Politics. Not included are independent expenditures, money for issue advertisements or other indirect expenses.

Contributor	Total	Democrats	Republicans
1. Philip Morris Cos.*	$4,208,505	21%	79%
3. Association of Trial Lawyers of America	$3,513,588	85%	14%
10. American Medical Association*	$2,794,894	23%	77%
18. RJR Nabisco*	$2,300,336	20%	80%
40. U.S. Tobacco Inc.*	$1,461,215	17%	83%


* Contributions came from more than one affiliate or subsidiary.

The American Cancer Society is launching its "Snappin' on Smoking" program, touted as the country's first hip-hop anti-puffing campaign. Def Jam comedians JB Smoove and Fig play Scratch and Wheez, characters that will target teenagers as part of the Great American Smoke-out. The snapping pair debuts today at a Brooklyn mall. . . The funnymen exchange lines like, "Your smoker's breath is so bad, your girl has to kiss you by fax," and "Your breath is so nasty, you nose is pressing charges."

In his foreword to the first (1982) edition of Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention, Lilienfeld noted, "Less than forty years ago, cancer was regarded as...a natural concomitant of the aging process. As a result of the gradual accumulation of evidence, climaxed by the epidemiologic studies that implicated cigarette smoking as a cause of lung cancer, a major conceptual change regarding the nature of cancer occurred.... This paradigmatic shift [has yielded] the basis for seriously considering methods of cancer prevention and control."

It's never too late to quit smoking, a new study suggests. Even lung cancer survivors who kick the habit are less likely to develop a second cancer compared with those who continue to smoke. . . "This should eliminate the excess risk related to radiation therapy and alkylating agent exposure," according to Glisson and Hong, of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. SOURCE: Journal of the National Cancer Institute (1997;89:1782-1788)

Acting in concert with individual susceptibility, environmental factors such as smoking, diet, and pollutants play a role in most human cancer. However, new molecular evidence indicates that specific groups--characterized by predisposing genetic traits or ethnicity, the very young, and women--may have heightened risk from certain exposures. . . [K]nowledge of the full spectrum of both genetic and acquired susceptibility in the population will be instrumental in developing health and regulatory policies that increase protection of the more susceptible groups from risks of environmental carcinogens. This will necessitate revision of current risk assessment methodologies to explicitly account for individual variation in susceptibility to environmental carcinogens.

Report of a Case.-- A 61-year-old man was brought to the hospital by ambulance after a syncopal episode. He was at a crowded cigar dinner and had just finished smoking 2 cigars . . . Venues in which cigar smoking occurs in a group require adequate ventilation to prevent carbon monoxide poisoning among participants. Cigar smokers, especially those occasional smokers who have a low nicotine tolerance, should be warned of the potential for toxic effects from carbon monoxide and nicotine.

In Woodridge, cigarette use among young people dropped by 70 percent in two years after the village adopted a tough licensing ordinance to regulate the sale of tobacco products. Proponents hope a similar ordinance expected to come before the DuPage County Board next week will have the same impact countywide.

Word of the scaled-back purchasing intentions, combined with a large surplus of leaf from the 1997 crop, mean the amount of flue-cured tobacco that U.S. farmers will be allowed to grow will drop from just over 1 billion pounds this year to no more than 819 million pounds in 1998.

Flue-cured tobacco farmers learned Monday that their crop could bring about 17 to 20 percent less money in 1998 than 1997. The U.S. government likely will limit flue-cured tobacco sales to roughly 810 million pounds next year because demand for the crop is expected to be lower, and because reserves of surplus leaf are higher than expected.

Observers are predicting that the proposed tobacco settlement combined with a large volume of surplus leaf could result in a 20 percent cut in the crop in North Carolina. The US Department of Agriculture is now making its annual calculation of how much tobacco farmers will be allowed to raise in the coming year. The quotas and support prices are scheduled to be announced December 15th.

Warren officials say they adamantly support a local ban on all billboards that carry advertisements for cigars and cigarettes. The ban is the idea of council President Jim Fouts, whose goal is to make it tough for tobacco companies to influence impressionable minors. "Children are often exposed to billboard advertising of tobacco simply by walking to school or playing in their neighborhoods," Fouts said.

Beginning Dec. 10, the agency will launch a $250,000 anti-smoking media campaign aimed at teens. The funds come from the $15.8 million expected to be generated by Utah's new cigarette tax. . . The Health Department and the Utah Anti-Tobacco Commission have asked Crowell and Associates, a Salt Lake advertising agency, to oversee the campaign. A 10-year-old Ogden boy says he recently quit smoking after learning the truth about the hazards associated with it. "It got me pretty scared," said the boy, who started smoking when he was in the first grade.

For the first time, an American tobacco company has begun listing long-secret ingredients contained in its cigarettes directly on the label. Yesterday, Liggett Group Inc. introduced cartons that the company plans to begin using that list the ingredients in its L&M cigarettes, including molasses, phenylacetic acid and the oil of the East Indian mint called patchouli.

Among those makings are, yes, tobacco, but also molasses, patchouli oil, high fructose corn syrup, sugar, natural and artificial licorice flavor, artificial milk chocolate and natural chocolate flavor, phenylacetic acid, glycerol, propylene glycol, isovaleric acid, hexanoic acid, 3-methylpntanoic acid, valerian root ex tract, vanilla extract and cedarwood oil. . . But if health statistics still don't convince people to stay away from the tobacco sticks, perhaps the lengthy list of ingredients will.

The company, a unit of Brooke Group Ltd, has begun printing all 26 ingredients on cartons of that brand. The labeled cartons just began being shipped, a company spokesman said. It's not immediately clear if any of the new cartons are on store shelves yet. "Months ago, Liggett agreed to full disclosure of ingredients on its cigarette cartons and recently has begun making that disclosure nationwide," Brooke Group Chairman and Chief Executive Bennett LeBow said in a statement on Tuesday. "Liggett believes that its adult consumers have a right to full disclosure of ingredients and other relevant information ...," he said.

Brooke Group Ltd. (BGL) said its Liggett Group unit has not joined other major tobacco companies in seeking to delay the reporting requirements under the 1996 Massachusetts ingredient disclosure law. In a press release Tuesday, Brooke reiterated that it agreed to full disclosure of ingredients on its cigarette cartons and has begun making that disclosure nationwide.

"Liggett has not joined Big Tobacco in its attempts to delay the reporting requirements under the Massachusetts ingredient disclosure law. Months ago, Liggett agreed to full disclosure of ingredients on its cigarette cartons and recently has begun making that disclosure nationwide. Liggett believes that its adult consumers have a right to full disclosure of ingredients and other relevant information and we continue to support Massachusetts' efforts toward that end."

A story yesterday about new ingredient labels on L&M cigarettes stated that a list of 599 ingredients used by major cigarette companies was never officially made public; that list was released in April 1994.

Brooke Group Ltd. (NYSE: BGL - news) announced today that it has declared a regular quarterly cash dividend on its common stock of $0.075 per share, payable December 16, 1997, to holders of record as of December 12, 1997.

U.S. cigarette companies stunned tobacco farmers yesterday by announcing plans to buy 15 percent less flue-cured tobacco in 1998, a drop grower representatives said could drive some small farmers out of business. "This is going to be like a stick of dynamite under these farmers," said Andrew Shepherd, a Lunenburg County tobacco grower who represents Virginia on the national board for flue-cured tobacco growers.

The major cigarette companies have agreed to pay as much as $250 million to 11 law firms representing Mississippi and possibly additional lawyers in other states settling their tobacco litigation. By reaching a contractual arrangement on fees, Mississippi and the cigarette companies are trying to bypass congressional efforts to curb legal fees in the massive tobacco settlement, lawyers familiar with the agreement say.

Morales said his main goal during his final year in office will be winning the state's lawsuit against the tobacco industry. "It will be very difficult for the tobacco industry to continue to attempt to mischaracterize this as a political effort simply brought by an officeholder attempting to run for higher office," he said. Peggy Carter, a spokeswoman for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., one of the defendants in the lawsuit, said she expects the trial to be over before Morales leaves office.

"This takes the politics out of the tobacco litigation," he said.

Meanwhile, three GOP candidates for attorney general have blasted incumbent Dan Morales for promising a 15% fee to plaintiffs' attorneys in the state's tobacco liability suit. The state Supreme Court has also weighed in against contingency fees in some consumer-law cases.

A state court judge in King County, Wash., ordered the tobacco industry to turn over 32 internal documents to the state attorney general, saying the documents provide evidence supporting the state's case that cigarette companies used an industry research group "to mislead the public and/or that the RJ Reynolds Co. concealed health risks associated with its products." Judge George Finkle also found that the state showed that "RJR was engaged in or was planning a fraud" at the time some of the documents were written.

King County Superior Court Judge George Finkle has ordered that the State Attorney General's Office be given access to key tobacco company documents for use in the state's lawsuit . . . Judge Finkle specifically found that: "The 32 documents, considered as a whole, provide evidence that supports the state's assertions that defendants used CTR to mislead the public and/or that the R.J. Reynolds Company concealed health risks associated with its products." The Judge also found that: "The state has made a prima facie showing that RJR was engaged in or was planning a fraud at the time certain that the recorded communications were made."

City Council leaders agreed Tuesday to weaken provisions of a bill that would ban outdoor cigarette advertising near schools and playgrounds, saying the changes would insure that the bill could withstand legal challenges from the tobacco and advertising industries. The most significant revision is the withdrawal of a provision that would have permitted only black-and-white text, known as tombstone text, in tobacco advertisements in areas more than 1,000 feet from schools. While the original version would have effectively banned all traditional tobacco advertising in the city, the new version would allow color advertising, including such familiar figures as the Marlboro man, as long as it was not within 1,000 feet of schools and other youth-oriented sites.

A week ago, the Winston-Salem, N.C., company quietly began selling its Eclipse brand at 14 tobacco shops in an affluent area north of Atlanta stretching from Buckhead to Alpharetta. Atlanta is the third test market for Eclipse, which has been selling in Chattanooga, Tenn., and Lincoln, Neb.

Naperville Police Sgt. Lisa Burghardt said two girls were cited Monday after they were found smoking in a restroom at the school.

The students, a 16-year-old girl and a 17-year-old girl, face either a $100 fine or a one-week tobacco education class. The teens were ticketed by police at the school Monday--the day the ordinance went into effect--after a staffer found them smoking in a restroom, Principal Tom Paulsen said Tuesday.

Despite slowing demand for cigarettes in its home market and a growing antismoking crusade in much of the developed world, Spain's Tabacalera SA is smoking. Having just completed a series of U.S. and Central American acquisitions that make it the world's leading cigar producer, the state-controlled tobacco company is preparing for its planned full privatization next year with a blend of cost cutting, new products and plans to expand in new markets in cooperation with France's Seita SA.

Researchers say stop-smoking programs are far more cost effective than mammography and cholesterol screening programs, but less than half of insurance companies cover cessation treatment. A team of economists and preventive-medicine specialists say smoking- cessation programs would cost insurance companies about one-twentieth the amount they pay for mammography screening per life saved. The team also found that even brief counseling could raise a smoker's chance of kicking the habit from about 7 percent per attempt to 15 to 25 percent.

Fiore and his colleagues have analyzed the [Agency for Health Care Policy and Research's (AHCPR) Clinical Practice Guideline] and determined that the recommended smoking cessation interventions are cost-effective. Moreover, the greater the spending on interventions, the greater the net benefit in both money saved for society and quality of life for those who quit smoking.

DynaGen Inc. (DYGN) received a distribution agreement for its NicCheck I diagnostic product from Henry Schein Inc. (HSIC). In a press release Wednesday, DynaGen said Henry Schein will market the NicCheck I product to physician customers within specific specialties. NicCheck I is a strip test that detects nicotine and its metabolites in urine. The test determines smoking status and distinguises between low and high levels of nicotine consumption.

A lot of people still consider smoking cool, their rebellion of choice. Hollywood and Washington aren't much help -- movie stars strike glamorous poses with butts dangling from their lips, and quite a few teens think ignoring a presidential warning is the ultimate rebellion. Then there are the cigarette advertisements that show hip, sexy, fun-loving young smokers not yet diagnosed with hideous tumors.

R.J. Reynolds, for implying that its new "no additive" Winston cigarettes are safer than traditional cigarettes. The company's response: it was emphasizing "true taste," not safety. "New Winston is simply a choice we are offering to the 45 million adults in this country who choose to smoke," said corporate spokeswoman Carole Crosslin.

The Board of Directors of Universal Corporation (NYSE: UVV - news), at a meeting held today, declared a regular quarterly dividend of twenty-eight cents ($.28) per share on the common shares of the Company, payable February 2, 1998, to common shareholders of record at the close of business on January 12, 1998. This represents an increase of 5.7% or $.015 per share per quarter and indicates an annualized rate of $1.12 per share.

Swisher International Group Inc. (SWR) agreed to buy a 50% interest in SP Holding Inc., the owner of Puros de Villa Gonzales, a tobacco processor and maker of cigars.

Goldman Sachs said on Thursday it raised its rating on shares of UST Inc to a trading buy from a market perform. . . "Recent conversations with management have left us with encouraging indications about the state of UST's business, particularly regrading pricing flexibility, for the first time this year," Cohen said.

Merrill Lynch cut its intermediate-term rating on cigarette maker Gallaher Plc to "neutral" from "accumulate," and kept its long term rating at "neutral," the investment bank said on Thursday.

Neiman Marcus' December catalog also features a custom cigar named in honor of the recipient, a six-day trip for four to a private villa in the Dominican Republic as guest of the General Cigar facility and 2,000 cigars. The package sells for $50,000.

Unfortunately, you haven't been able to experience the pleasures of a true cigar bar unless you hit the road (though that's likely to change soon). Cigar bars are required stops on the nightlife circuit in almost every major U.S. city, but the craze has barely registered a flicker here -- surprising, even for the trend-wary Twin Cities. . . Now here's the good news. It appears the Twin Cities' first honest-to-goodness cigar bar is coming to the Warehouse District. Club Ashe is expected to open by the end of the month

Dan (The Common Man) Cole, an afternoon sports jockey on KFAN (1130 AM, 1 to 3 p.m. and 6 to 7 p.m.), was a virgin himself until last year. After giving up cigarettes, Cole tried his first cigar last March and quickly got hooked. He's now up to three or four a day. Here's some advice from Cole before taking your first puff: Spend a few bucks . . .

A ll right, it's time to quit the cigar fad. They stink. They make your clothes and hair stink. They make your companion stink, too, and they make taxicabs stink worse. And they're too expensive, now that the yuppies have found out about how great they are. Enough.

Carlos the Jackal likes his two cigars a day in jail, when he can get them, and still remembers the first he ever smoked -- in Moscow in 1969. The French magazine L'Amateur de Cigare published on Wednesday a brief interview in which the guerrilla mastermind answered 10 questions in writing from his Paris prison.

Tuesday, December 9: "Test Your Smoking Quotient" - Learn how to kick the habit with the second installment of the new MSNBC/HealthBuzz feature. Nonsmokers will also want to take an interactive quiz to figure out health risks from secondhand smoke.

Aged 75, Lord Hanson's legacy is four separately listed companies -- Imperial Tobacco Plc (IMT.L), Millennium Chemicals (NYSE:MCH - news), the Energy Group Plc (TEG.L) and the blue-chip building group which inherited the Hanson name.

It reads like a John Grishman novel: Two small, once-obscure Southern law firms. A big case. Explosive allegations of deceit and greed. And a huge potential payoff -- at least $115 million or, by some estimates, as much as $1.29 billion in money originally meant for Floridians. Who are these guys?

Shocked by the bitterness of the fight, lawmakers lifted the lid Tuesday on a struggle among lawyers for a share of Florida's tobacco winnings to find what one senator called "a pack of dogs fighting over red meat."

Under a new agreement with cigarette makers, two small Southern law firms that handled tobacco suits filed by the states of Mississippi and Florida could end up splitting a total of $90 million for their work. The fee arrangement, disclosed earlier this week, was contained in an agreement reached between both states and tobacco companies.

High-powered lawyers representing Florida in its successful war with the cigarette industry were portrayed on Tuesday as a scheming, corrupt "cartel," thriving on backroom deals and poised to funnel $20 million to a politically connected Texas firm. In emotional testimony, Tallahassee attorney Tim Howard, who played a key role in securing the $11.3 billion settlement, urged a Senate committee to launch a wide-ranging investigation of the state's lengthy tobacco war and its bitter aftermath.

The tobacco industry has agreed to pay up to $250 million this year and up to $500 million annually in subsequent years to satisfy the fees charged by law firms that represented Mississippi and possibly other states, an industry spokesman said Tuesday. The actual amount paid in legal fees would be determined by a three-judge arbitration panel, industry spokesman Scott Williams said.

National law firms hired to help Florida fight big tobacco are part of a "lawyers' cartel" trying to distribute millions of dollars to law firms that had nothing to do with the state case, an attorney told legislators Tuesday. Tallahassee attorney Tim Howard made a list of allegations concerning the conduct of a handful of the 11 law firms involved in the suit during testimony to a state ethics panel. Howard, 36, acted as Florida's liaison with its team of private attorneys on the state's Medicaid case against cigarette companies.

Some lawyers in the case are suing for immediate payment of what could turn out to be more than $200 million each -- or as much as $2.8 billion altogether -- arguing that is what they are owed under the original 25 percent contingency fee deal they signed with the state. "A deal's a deal," said Sheldon Schlessinger, one of the attorneys fighting the state. But Florida officials negotiated a different deal with the industry. Under that agreement, the industry, not the state, would pay all legal fees and the amount would be determined by a panel of arbitrators.

As the influential City Council speaker, Vallone is the driving force behind a bill to ban tobacco ads near schools and other places where kids congregate. The bill prohibits retailers from displaying tobacco ads or logos outside their stores and, for the most part, even inside them. To deny 12,000 mom-and-pop stores, newsstands and bodegas these ads is to take the food right out of their mouths. They pick up a nifty side income, amounting to nearly $30 million a year, for displaying those signs.

Gov. Jim Edgar signed a measure increasing assorted user taxes to raise $607 million more for public education. . . . Besides the new money, which comes from increases in the state tobacco tax to take effect Dec. 15, and the riverboat casino, telephone transmission and late tax payment fees to begin in 1998.

After two hours of debate, the state House passed a $485 million school-funding plan that would raise taxes on cigarettes, telephone calls and profitable riverboat casinos. The bill goes to Gov. Edgar, who called the House into special session to vote on the proposal.

The Oakland City Council has gone ahead with its plan to restrict billboards displaying alcohol or cigarette ads in neighborhoods where youngsters go to school and play. But opponents of the partial ban immediately threatened to challenge the new law in court.

[T]he Entertainment Industries Council (EIC) announced Thursday a tobacco prevention initiative aimed at writers, producers, directors and creative executives. The EIC, an alliance of industry organizations and creative guilds, plans to issue 1,500 copies of its initiative, which includes suggestions as to when smoking might be appropriate in a film and, more significantly, when not. "The industry should try to reflect the reality that the majority of people don't smoke," a summary of the initiative said. "Unless a character's tobacco use truly reveals something important about the character, consider other unique behaviors that might convey the same information," the EIC suggests. "Avoid using smoking as an icon or to stereotype an individual."

Representatives of the Screen Actors Guild, Directors Guild and Writer's Guild -- along with Christy Turlington speaking for supermodels -- pledged to use their own kind of peer pressure to keep their colleagues from depicting cigarettes as cool. It would be a voluntary initiative with no new government regulations or censorship, Gore said. . . Regrettably, he added, impressionable moviegoers "don't see the victim of lung cancer drowning in the fluid that builds up in their lungs." Richard Masur, president of the actors' guild, blamed a new generation of younger filmmakers and TV executives. "They have not had the benefit of the kind of educational process that many of us who are older had," he said.

"It's not Washington's job to tell authors and artists what to put in their movies and television shows. We know that we need to turn the tide against the glamorization of smoking. We will reach that goal when each of us takes responsibility for our actions and their effects on the nation's young people."

PREMIUM CIGARS INTERNATIONAL, LTD . . . announced today that it signed a Retail Agreement . . . with Mobil Oil Corporation . . to roll out its PCI Cigar Program beginning this month to the approximately 500 Mobil owned and operated Mobil On the Run(SM) and Mobil Mart stores located across the United States. The rollout will begin with Mobil's Chicago and Detroit area stores. Add itionally, Mobil will recommend the PCI Cigar Program to its franchisees and distributors nationwide. Combined, the Mobil company-owned stores, franchisees and distributors represent a potential market of approximately 7,500 stores.

Spain's second-largest union, the Confederation of Labor Committees (CCOO), said Friday it's asking tobacco company Tabacalera SA (E.TAB) to negogiate its early-retirement program plant by plant. Tabacalera is going to begin downsizing early next year, ahead of its full privatization.

Spanish tobacco firm Tabacalera said on Friday it had renewed its pact with Philip Morris to produce Marlboro and LM-brand cigarettes in the Canary Islands factory of Tabacalera unit TACISA.

Spanish tobacco company Tabacalera SA (E.TAB) said Thursday it estimates it will lose 24 billion pesetas of its 1997 sales to illegal cigarette sales in Spain.

Philip Morris Companies Inc. (NYSE: MO - news) today announced that Dinyar S. Devitre, senior vice president, corporate planning has decided to leave Philip Morris effective January 15, 1998 to pursue a senior executive role with Citibank.

RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp. likes the advertisements Long Haymes Carr came up with for its Winston campaign in America, so it has thrown the agency a major international account. Long Haymes Carr, based in Winston-Salem, will handle the Winston campaign in Russia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East, and the Magna campaign in Russia. Steve Zades, the chairman and chief executive of Long Haymes Carr, told Adweek that the campaign will use mainly outdoor advertising. The company will make its media buys through the international offices of its parent, Ammirati Puris Lintas. . . Winston advertisements show city skylines and an eagle flying overhead with the slogan: "A taste of freedom," Adweek reported.

The 1997 version of "Spike & Mike's Sick & Twisted Festival of Animation," a collection of animated shorts, lives up to its title -- and reputation -- as one of the raunchiest, most irreverent party films anywhere. . ."Smoking" is an elegant cel piece by Neil Ishmine that's intended to portray the evils of the weed, but ironically almost makes puffing look glamorous.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that only 8 percent of 448 smokers in alcohol treatment centers in Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska were able to quit smoking. The survey, which was taken between 1995 and 1996, was conducted within a year of their alcohol treatment. Treatment centers may shy away from trying to help alcoholics quit smoking because of a fear that the stress will push them back to the bottle. The government is encouraging alcohol treatment centers to start anti-smoking programs too.

"Prior to jury selection, the Court will be conducting hearings on select motions pending before the Court," [U.S. District Judge David Folsom] said. Among the pre-trial issues still to be resolved is the state of Texas' request that it be allowed to use confidential industry documents that it alleges demonstrate the tobacco companies concealed evidence on the health risks of smoking from government regulators and the general public.

Hyland Variety, at 767 Quebec St., has the dubious distinction of being the first convenience store in London to be slapped with a six-month prohibition on all cigarette sales after two convictions in Provincial Offences Court of selling cigarettes to youths under age 19. The ban will expire April 15 and was in addition to a total $1,000 fine for both convictions. . . Another 65 similar charges against convenience store owners and or clerks in London and Middlesex County are now before the courts.

THE end is near for "kiddie" 10-packs of cigarettes which start disappearing from shops next month. Production of the 10-packs stopped in August after they were banned by the Smokefree Environments Amendment Bill in July, which also raised the smoking age to 18.

"We still have major concerns with toxicity" of such additives as glycerol, licorice flavor, molasses extract, and sugars, Connolly said, because burning them may produce hazardous compounds. However, there's been far too little research on the combustion of the many additives to say how harmful they are, he added. What is known, he emphasized, "is that it's the natural stuff that kills you. Tobacco smoke is a lethal combination of natural chemicals."

They also passed a resolution declaring that states should be allowed to retain, for state health programs, all money from the proposed $368.5 billion national tobacco settlement. "The concern is that the federal government will use part of the settlement to balance the federal budget," Kitzhaber said. "This is not a money grab," said Alaska Gov. Tony Knowles, governors association chairman. "It's a health issue."

In his letter, Rep. Rob Leighton, DFL-Austin, criticized the governor for his attack of Attorney General Hubert Humphrey III's handling of the case. Leighton wrote that in order to determine the reasons for Carlson's positions, he wants to know the level of contact the governor and his staff have had with the tobacco industry. He requested the governor publicly disclose his contact with employees, lobbyists, lawyers and other representatives of tobacco companies and tobacco-related organizations within the past six months.

Gov. Arne Carlson intensified his criticism Thursday of the tobacco lawsuit being pursued by DFL Attorney General Hubert Humphrey III. Humphrey's office responded by accusing the Republican governor of "doing the tobacco industry's dirty work." In a seven-page letter to legislators and at a televised news conference in his office, Carlson called on Humphrey to include the governor and legislative leaders in setting strategy for the three-year-old litigation. . . "The governor is trying to undermine our case . . . with statements that read like they came out of the press office of Philip Morris," [Eric] Johnson said.

Bismarck -- It took a jury of fifth-graders at Saxvick Elementary less than an hour to find cigarettes guilty of poisoning and addicting people. Prosecutors in the mock trial said cigarettes are suicide in slow motion.

Philip Morris USA's largest union will vote by mid-December on the company's latest offer of a one-time bonus in return for a one-year contract extension, sources familiar with the negotiations said this week. The 3,522-member local of the tobacco workers' union will be briefed Wednesday in Richmond about the company's offer, sources said. In return for working under the current contract for another year, Philip Morris has offered workers a bonus of more than $2,500. The precise figure was not available.

Also at the meeting: Doctors could demand stronger provisions be included in the national tobacco settlement, which will be debated by Congress next year. They include: increasing penalties for tobacco companies that fail to curb teenage smoking; removing restrictions on the Food & Drug Administration to regulate tobacco; and eliminating the federal subsidy to tobacco growers.

Last month, Citizen Action closed its national office in Washington and dismissed 20 employees . . . The directors of the Indiana and Ohio affiliates say they grew even more concerned after learning that national Citizen Action had received money from a group called the Labor Management Committee, a coalition of tobacco company unions. Although formerly opposed to cigarette and excise taxes, the affiliates said Citizen Action had changed its position on the issue, and was planning to use the labor committee grant to influence voting on tax policies.

Forget about cookies and aprons -- Ms. Rivera is Ms. Santa Claus, the old guy's liberated daughter. . . Ms. Rivera insisted that she was not destroying tradition but enhancing it. She thinks that Santa needs a makeover. His pipe and fur-trimmed costume seem tacky in light of secondhand smoke risks and animal rights.

Make no mistake, the authors caution, SIDS does exist, and it is a tragedy. Recommendations to minimize the risk by placing sleeping babies on their backs, not exposing them to tobacco smoke and so on have helped bring the numbers of SIDS deaths down. But, the authors note, SIDS remains a "wastebasket" diagnosis that is used whenever no identifiable cause of crib death can be determined. The terrible irony is that the apnea and monitoring theory of SIDS was "a godsend to women playing out this grotesque charade" of harming or even killing their babies.

The Australian Medical Association (AMA) has released, "Tobacco in Australia", its second major discussion paper on smoking. The report found that while the smoking rates for adults were down to their lowest ever level - 28 per cent for men in 1992, amd 24 per cent for women - young adults have the highest smoking rates in the community. It found 37 per cent of men in their early 20s smoke, with a corresponding 36 per cent for women.

President Robert Mugabe rallied his ruling party Friday with promises to keep going in a campaign to seize hundreds of mostly white-owned farms and hand them over to landless black farmers. "Let the message be clear. There is no going back," Mugabe told 5,000 delegates to the annual convention of the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front in this eastern border city.

The airport board probably will decide by February whether to build smoking lounges inside the terminals, but a survey shows that passengers are lukewarm to the idea, Dallas/Fort Worth Airport officials said yesterday. . . The survey of 1,082 people conducted in the airport's four terminals during September and October found that 46 percent favored building the lounges. Thirty-five percent of nonsmokers and 83 percent of smokers approved of the idea. . . Even the smokers surveyed expressed concerns about being confined to a room full of other smokers, but D/FW Concessions Manager Pat Gleason said the lounges would have special ventilation systems to pull the smoke out quickly and replace it with fresh air.

After making last-minute changes to toughen penalties against tobacco companies, two City Council committees unanimously approved a bill on Thursday that would ban outdoor cigarette advertising within 1,000 feet of schools and playgrounds. . . The bill would ban tobacco ads on billboards, water towers and buildings near gathering places for children, and would prohibit such ads on the doors and windows of stores within four short blocks of schools, playgrounds, day-care centers, youth centers or amusement arcades. The bill was approved, 7 to 0, by the Health Committee and 9 to 0 by the Youth Services Committee.

A trio of health advocacy groups joined the Maryland State Teachers Association yesterday to launch a drive to increase Maryland's cigarette tax by $1.50 a pack in an effort to curb teen-age smoking. The Maryland Children's Initiative -- a creation of the MSTA, Smoke Free Maryland, Advocates for Children and Youth and the Safe and Sound Campaign -- set a goal of enlisting an additional 100 organizations in its campaign to raise the tax.

Less than a month before most tobacco billboards become illegal in King County, the area's largest outdoor advertising company has agreed to donate signs for a "cutting-edge" campaign to promote cancer support organizations. Throughout 1998, AK Media / NW will donate 150 signs, each for about a month, to three organizations: Cancer Lifeline, Team Survivor Northwest and the Cancer Information Service.

The NRA's latest newsletter highlights a little-reported act introduced in the Senate last month by Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). This act would prohibit smoking in all U.S. restaurants and bars, without exception. . . The act "smells like bad news for restaurant operators who want to continue accommodating diners who smoke," the NRA says.

Offering hospitalized smokers bedside stop-smoking counseling can help them stay off cigarettes after they return home, according to a Massachusetts General Hospital study appearing in the December 8 Archives of Internal Medicine. The research team found that patients receiving stop-smoking counseling while hospitalized were more likely to have stopped smoking a month after discharge than patients who did not receive such counseling. Six months after discharge, the difference in smoking rates between the counseling and control groups had nar?rowed and was no longer statistically significant. "Hospitalization can offer smokers a chance to improve their health in a way they might not have anticipated," says Nancy Rigotti, MD, director of the MGH Tobacco Research and Treatment Center and first author of the report. "We believe that turning this short-term success into permanent smoking cessation will require more support after hospital discharge than we offered in this trial."

NASCAR's 50th anniversary celebration got off to a glitzy start Thursday as part of the festivities leading to the annual Winston Cup Awards Dinner. . . Sports Marketing Enterprises, the marketing arm of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., announced the rest of its big-money No Bull 5 promotion for 1998. Earlier this year, the company announced that the new promotion would replace the 13-year-old Winston Million . . The new deal offers a $1 million bonus at each of the five events in 1998, with the top five finishers in each race eligible to win the bonus at the next No Bull 5 event. . . Robertson also announced a program that could pay as many as five race fans a $1 million bonus.

More recently, a series of highly aggressive sting operations to catch teenage smokers, including a three-week undercover operation at the high school, have prompted questions about the police department's priorities. Some residents complain that the police force is not focusing on more important problems, such as the city's drug trade. . . Police officials also say they conducted the smoking sting largely at the behest of residents. Chief of Detectives Brad Russ says that a survey police sent to 500 residents last year showed that many regarded teenage smoking as a top priority for police. Russ also notes that a drug trafficker was caught at the high school during the smoking stakeout.

[W]hile some antismoking advocates support a toughened approach toward young people who smoke, others see the new state laws, many of which are backed by the tobacco industry, as a draconian response to a custom that was once considered a teen-age rite of passage. . .But many antismoking experts have also said that teen-age smoking rates will fall only if the cost of cigarettes rises far more steeply than the 70 cents a pack called for under the proposed settlement. Some authorities like Warner have put that increase at $2 a pack. Here's the article at the Lexington (KY) Herald Leader

Along with blended tobacco and water, the 26-item L&M list includes high fructose corn syrup, sugar, natural and artificial licorice flavor, menthol, artificial milk chocolate and natural chocolate flavor, valerian root extract, molasses and vanilla extracts, and cedarwood oil. Less familiar additives include glycerol, propylene glycol, isovaleric acid, hexanoic acid and 3-methyl-pentanoic acid. Some 600 ingredients are used in American cigarettes, but a Liggett spokesman said the L&M statement was a "quite exhaustive list" of every ingredient used in that brand. Liggett also plans to list ingredients of its other brands as soon as it becomes feasible, the spokesman said. The Durham-based manufacturer also makes Chesterfield, Lark and Eve brands.

Two school districts in the Babylon and Islip areas held special assemblies in November, with special guests, to demonstrate support for the Great American Smoke-Out. At the Hauppauge Middle School, Rep. Rick Lazio (R - Brightwaters) hosted an "anti-smoking" rally. Lazio spoke to more than 800 sixth-, seventhand eighth-grade students at two 40-minute assemblies. . . At West Babylon High School, Patrick Reynolds, whose grandfather, R.J. Reynolds, founded one of the largest cigarette manufacturing companies in the world, came to talk with students on the day before the Smoke-Out.

It had been a long day for Dr. Edward Staples when the call came about 1 a.m. He'd been up since 5:30 the morning before, and his day included open-heart surgery on one patient and removing a section of cancer from a lung of another. . . Between medical cases, he talked about his family, organ donation and tobacco. . . Seeing these very vivid images, touching a bag of lung cancer, the kids get grossed out," he said. "But it's a zero-cost program that can have the single most impact on preventing smoking."

"When I was Your Age . . . ," subtitled "Remarkable Achievements of Writers, Artists and Musicians at Every Age from 1 to 100" (Triumph Books) is enough to give the most serious over-achiever a sense of failure.

I am not sure what Richard Beard's point is, but I do know that he has his readers pierced and pinned from four or five different directions in mutual defiance of all logical geometry.

• At Amazon, you can Order It Here

"Johnston County" by Todd Johnson and Durwood Barbour (Arcadia. $16.99. 128 pages.) is an evocative scrapbook of times gone by. A photographic history of the county through 1945

He's Straight Edge, a subculture of a subculture -- hardcore punk rock -- whose adherents walk the razor's edge of no booze, no drugs, no cigarettes and no meat.

The health of Canadians comes before any other consideration despite Imperial Tobacco's decision to pull $50 million in sports and cultural sponsorships, he said. "The health question is the primary concern. We have no intention of abolishing the law. We believe it's a major problem and efforts must be taken that children don't fall into the tobacco trap." Chretien said the government will keep its promise "to soften the law" to ease restrictions on auto-racing sponsorship to keep Toronto's Molson Indy and Montreal's Gran Prix alive.

Health Minister Allan Rock said Monday he won't be pressured to go further when he amends anti-tobacco legislation to allow sponsorship of car races. "We shall not be influenced, nor shall we be intimidated by these pressure tactics by the tobacco companies," Rock said in the House of Commons.

If every one of the 270 tobacco-sponsored events in Canada loses its funding next October when the federal government's ban on advertising kicks in, many of them won't survive, said Max Beck, head of the Alliance for Sponsorship Freedom, a lobby group representing them.

Max Beck of the Alliance for Sponsorship Freedom, said the government has failed to realize what the sponsorships mean to the economy. "Our worst fears are being realized now," Beck said. "I think it's just the beginning and we're going to see more events collapse."

Tobacco giant Imasco's decision to pull $50 million in sponsorship of sports and cultural events because of the federal government's anti-smoking advertising law will have no influence on the cabinet, ministers insisted yesterday. The withdrawal, effective October 1998, plunges the finances of sports and cultural events across Canada into uncertainty. Imasco, the parent company of cigarette brands including Players and Du Maurier, is a major sponsor of Toronto's Molson Indy, the jazz festival and the Harbourfront theatre. Public Works Minister Alfonso Gagliano, whose hometown of Montreal benefits from $20 million in Imasco sponsorships, said the government won't give in to blackmail. "I consider this a threat, and the government of Canada doesn't operate under threats," Gagliano said at a Liberal Party meeting.

The federal Liberals plan to take the steps necessary to help ensure the future of the Grand Prix but on their own timetable, Human Resources Minister Pierre Pettigrew said while attending a meeting of the party's Quebec wing. "We are right now working both on the regulations and an amendment to the law," said Pettigrew. "It is a premature decision. The Formula 1 (issue) is going to be addressed."

The tobacco company's "threats" come as the result of Ottawa's new anti-smoking law, which goes into effect next fall. The law will restrict brand-name tobacco advertising of cultural or sporting events to the bottom 10 per cent of the ad, and bans tobacco ads from broadcast outlets, billboards, street kiosks and panels on buses. Print advertising will be allowed only in adult publications. Federal Health Minister Allan Rock has promised to amend the law to allow the Canadian Grand Prix to continue to be sponsored by tobacco firms and suggested that he may water down restrictions for some other events.

Imperial Tobacco announced yesterday it is cancelling support for Spruce Meadows, the Canadian Grand Prix Formula One car race and cultural events across Canada, Le Devoir reported today. The company said it was tired of waiting on the federal government to come up with regulations on tobacco sponsorship, the paper said.

Driving down Interstate 95 toward the Philip Morris Manufacturing Center, the world's largest cigarette plant and the biggest area factory. Normally, billboards touting the joy of smoking Virginia Slims or Marlboros line the highway. But instead, weary tobacco workers will look up and see some kid asking, "Your parents did it. How cool can it be?"

Tensions are mounting, inside the courtroom and out, as Minnesota's three-year-old challenge of big tobacco nears a potentially lengthy and arduous jury trial.

For years, local billboard companies have refrained from putting up signs advertising tobacco or alcohol. New billboard companies have started doing business in the county, though, and they have put up such signs. So the McHenry County Board of Health has instructed Public Health Administrator J. Maichle Bacon to ask the state's attorney about possibly restricting tobacco and alcohol billboard advertising.

The Dover Middle School Youth to Youth program and the Dover Coalition for Smoke Free Youth are sponsoring Dover's third gear exchange on Tuesday. The exchange will take place from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the upstairs conference room of the Dover Public Library. The gear exchange program allows Dover residents to trade T-shirts, clothing and any other promotional items with tobacco company logos or advertisements for a variety of specially designed smoke-free Dover T-shirts and hats.

The November-December edition of the Smoke-Free Dining Guide, listing 150 Sedgwick County restaurants that ban smoking in dining areas, has just been released by the American Cancer Society. A project of the local anti-smoking group, Tobacco-Free Wichita, the list is revised every four to six months, said Cathy Gilmartin, tobacco/school health specialist for the Cancer Society. Copies are available from the society by calling 265-3400. This edition of the book was designed by Wichita State University marketing students, who under the direction of Dr. Joyce Morris, also conducted a sampling of diners about the effect of smoke-free dining facilities on business. Their conclusion: Restaurant traffic suffered no ill effect from banning smoking.

Adolescent girls face increasing challenges to their mental and physical health, warn experts from The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) today at a briefing on adolescent health. . . Although adolescent girls are a relatively healthy sub-group of our population, many of their behaviors put them at substantial risk for poor health outcomes," reports ACOG President Vicki L. Seltzer, M.D. "Smoking is an example of the vicious cycle in which adolescent girls may find themselves. Despite the unpleasantness of the habit, pressures to stay thin or relieve stress may induce teenage girls to take up what can become a lifelong addiction -- one that will increase their chances of lung and cervical cancer as well as infertility."

Global Direct Marketing (GDM), exclusive U.S. importer of the Cohiba Republica Dominicana, has become embroiled in what promises to be a landmark case over one of the world's most complex trademark issues. On October 22, 1997, General Cigar Company (NYSE: MPP - news) filed suit in N.Y. Southern District Court requesting a preliminary injunction against GDM alleging trademark infringement. Two weeks later Cuban cigar manufacturer, Cubatobaco, filed suit against General Cigar Company, Culbro Corp., and Dunhill's alleging the same trademark infringement. The issue is over the validity of the U.S. trademark registration of Cohiba, the most famous name in cigars.

Guidera Communications today announced it has been retained by Advanced Optics Electronics, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: ADOT - news), Albuquerque, NM to inform Wall Street brokers about its patented electronic instantly changeable billboards. "The $2.3 billion outdoor advertising industry grew fast due to technological advances. The rule preventing new tobacco ads on billboards as of 1/l/98 changes the complexion of billboard advertising -- they are more acceptable now. Demand is exploding and rates already increased 50 percent"

Automated age-verification equipment is now installed in 1,169 California 7-Eleven stores to assist sales associates in verifying the age of customers purchasing age-restricted products. The equipment, manufactured by VeriFone Incorporated, enables sales associates to swipe California driver's licenses and receive a message on a display telling them to allow or deny the sale. A news conference announcing the new program will be held at the 7-Eleven store at 5791 Broadway in Sacramento.

MODERN-DAY Viking Ludde Ingvall yesterday unveiled his newlook Swedish maxi yacht Nicorette with which he and partner Ola Astradsson hope to thwart George Snow's long-cherished dream of taking line honours in the Sydney-Hobart race in Brindabella. Nicorette, 22 metres long and a notional top speed of 32 knots before she was optimised in New Zealand specially for this year's Telstra Sydney-Hobart, is the first maxi to contest the ocean classic from Sweden

In his speech, Gore took a subtle swipe at groups that have questioned the premise that global warming causes environmental problems, comparing them to those who have espoused the tobacco industry's denial that smoking did harm. "To those who seek to obfuscate and obstruct, we say, 'We will not allow you to put narrow special interests above the interests of all humankind,'" Gore said.

The following is a statement . . . in reaction to Vice President Gore's speech before the Framework Convention on Climate Change in Kyoto, Japan on Monday, December 8, 1997: ". . . I was also very troubled by the reference to the business community and the reference to tobacco companies. It is the companies in our nation that have created jobs, invested in new technology, that participate in the voluntary programs. I do not know anyone who does not say this is a legitimate concern. And so to attack the engine of economic growth and characterize us as denying there's a problem is troubling to me."

Cigar smoking, a fad in the wider world, is yet another area of caution for corporate Santas. Despite a surge in inquiries about cigars and related paraphernalia this year, few orders were placed, said Amy Noel, vice president of Wood Associates, a promotions and gift service in Santa Clara. "Some buyers say they don't know if they want their company associated with smoking," Noel said.

Over the years GRACE MIRABELLA and Dr. WILLIAM G. CAHAN have given parties for all sorts of reasons, but never for a political campaign. Now they have decided to break that record to help a candidate who will have no direct influence over their lives: HUBERT H. HUMPHREY 3d, the Attorney General of Minnesota, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor in next year's election. The Cahans are giving a fund-raising party for Mr. Humphrey in their apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan on Wednesday because of his efforts against the big tobacco companies.

When Homer went inside for smokes, Gordon freed his wife and they ran out to the highway and flagged down a car. Happy ending for them. . . Bad ending for Minnesota taxpayers. Not only will we have to feed this guy, but in Minnesota, where smoking is a crime at least as onerous as, say, vehicle theft, Homer might have an actionable claim. Tell them it was the tobacco industry's fault, Homer. We have a Hubert who will believe you.

There are state-of-the-art answers in a 670-page report entitled Food, Nutrition and the Prevention Cancer: A Global Perspective, prepared by a team of 150 scientists and available for $69.95 from the American Institute of Cancer Research. . . Lung: Decreases risk -- vegetables, fruits. Probably decreases risk -- carotenoids in food. Possibly decreases risk -- vitamin C in food, selenium in food, physical activity. . . Smoking: Increases risk of mouth, throat, esophagus, lung, pancreas, cervix and bladder cancers; possibly increases risk of kidney, colon and rectum cancers.

As the new year approaches, many people will begin to make important decisions about health and lifestyle changes. In order to make those choices easier, Blue Cross Blue Shield and Blue Care Network of Michigan suggests that you take a close look at some startling facts concerning the harmful effects of smoking and what you can do to kick the nicotine habit.

Farmers were hoping for good prices, but apparently were disappointed this morning at the opening of Lancaster County's eight-week tobacco auction market. In early bidding at the Paradise Tobacco Auction, buyers passed on many bales. And when they did offer prices, they ranged from $1 to $1.80 per pound, with most in the $1.40 range.

The state of Florida said Monday that it had begun a nationwide search for an agency to develop an anti-smoking campaign to be supported by $70 million in spending during the next 18 to 24 months. Charles Wolfe, director for the tobacco team in Tallahassee, confirmed a report of the review this week in Adweek, adding that the state was considering agencies with at least $40 million in billings. Other criteria, Wolfe said, include youth marketing experience, having an office in Florida or opening one by Dec. 31 and an absence of ties to tobacco companies

It's the end of a era at the Charlotte County Stadium. For the past ten years, the Marlboro man stood guard over the field. Monday, stadium officials tore down the smoking cowboy's image. It'll be replaced by a billboard promoting Charlotte County and the visitors bureau.

Although students in Simi Valley have long been forbidden to wear clothes advertising cigarettes or tobacco products, the school board will vote tonight whether to make that policy official in the district handbook.

The next time you walk into a 7-Eleven to buy cigarettes or beer and you look underage, a clerk will probably ask to scan your driver's license. A small electronic device will allow clerks to quickly determine whether you're old enough to make the purchase. The scanner reads information coded onto a magnetic strip on the back of a driver's license or state-issued ID, which includes a person's name, birth date, address, height and weight. The device, developed by VeriFone Inc. (), only registers a person's age and whether a sale of alcohol or tobacco is allowed with prompts such as "OK to purchase alcohol/tobacco" or "denied."

Trade Group Provides Educational Materials Aimed at Enhancing Decision-Making Skills Among Young People WASHINGTON, Dec. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- The National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) today pledged to expand its efforts to equip parents and teachers with educational tools designed to help young people make wise decisions concerning tobacco. The announcement was made in a letter to Chairman Michael Bilirakis of the House Subcommittee on Health and Environment in conjunction with today's hearing on aspects of the Tobacco Settlement relating to the prevention of teen tobacco use.

Heavy volume in some Philip Morris Cos Inc (NYSE:MO - news) options Wednesday was from investors using the options to capture the dividend, but this time around, all the volume was not in in-the-money calls. Typically, investors will buy in-the-money calls right before a stock goes ex-dividend as a way to capture the payout, but some investors in Philip Morris were using a combination of stock and put options as well.

Philip Morris Cos., in an effort to jump-start its lagging international food division, said it would cut its overseas work force by more than 2,500 employees as part of a restructuring that would result in a $630 million pretax charge.

Philip Morris Cos. will slash 2,500 jobs to restructure its international food business, hoping to make the sluggish division as profitable as the North American tobacco and food businesses. The maker of Marlboro cigarettes, Kraft foods and Miller beer said Tuesday it will sell overseas businesses not related to its core food products, which include coffee and chocolate.

Philip Morris Companies Inc. (NYSE: MO - news) announced today that it would take a pre-tax restructuring charge in the fourth quarter of $630 million to significantly reduce costs and enhance focus in its international food operations. The restructuring includes the sale or exit of certain non-strategic businesses, the eventual closure of several manufacturing facilities and a consolidation of sales and administrative functions, resulting in a total workforce reduction of more than 2,500 employees.

Of course, like any smoker these days, she approaches the subject carefully. "I never said smoking is a good thing," she said. "I've never said that. I've never agreed with that." Her Web site, Smokers.Com, is based more on a matter of principle. "It's always about what we're feeling, about our rights and what society has done to us," she said.

It cost me $200 an hour to fly a plane behind the Parliament cigarette plane that went up and down the beach a few summers ago -- Parliament, the Perfect Recess. My plane read, Parliament, the PERMANENT Recess. But $200 is little more than a good plumber charges these days, and guess what? There have been no tobacco planes on Long Island since.

San Francisco City Attorney Louise Renne has been named by California Lawyer magazine as one of the state's top attorneys of 1997. Renne was credited with being involved in a variety of landmark suits on issues related to the city . . . Renne's action in national tobacco litigation, and to end Joe Camel cigarette advertising, was also cited.

If successful, the argument of the national smokers would threaten the integrity of professors and scientists with a personal interest in what their research means outside the ivory tower. And a personal interest is a good thing. This scary attempt to suppress critics has another result. We had doubted that public esteem for the cigarette makers could possibly sink any lower, but we were wrong. And if the National Smokers Alliance thinks this is over, think again.

D.D. Bean & Sons Inc., a company that has been making matchbooks here since 1959, said yesterday that it is closing its Winston-Salem plant Dec. 18 and cutting 65 jobs. . . Walton said that recent improvements at the company's main plant in Jaffrey has allowed the company to increase its capacity without the need for additional workers. The company, founded in 1938 by Delcie David Bean, also wants to focus much of its efforts on expanding its business overseas, he said.

USA DEBATE:

Taxpayers need both judicial and congressional oversight to ensure such relationships don't lead to sweetheart deals. The aim of any tobacco settlement isn't about making lawyers wealthy. It's about improving health - especially by stopping kids from smoking. Until the settlements worked out by the states and their lawyers prove they'll do that, the lawyer fees should be kept low.

The dirty little details: We were told not to worry because the arbitration was fixed. Two arbitrators were already named, the third to be picked by the lawyers. Tobacco would not object to any fee. Tobacco would assist in recovering much more than our contingency contract under its scheme if its global settlement was approved. I would not and will not be a part of such a plan. We are entitled to an honest contract. Tobacco has arranged for the fix to ensure that it can continue as a business which kills 425,000 people per year.

"I don't think First USA has taken into account that there are a lot of public health advocates who would refuse to do business with a bank that promotes an addictive and lethal product-which is exactly what cigars are, " said Ahron Leichtman, executive director of Citizens for a Tobacco-Free Society in Cincinnati. . . "Cigars are synonymous with celebration, success, and achievement. " said Tony Plohoros, a First USA spokesman. "What we are allowing people to do here is express to others when they use the card, that they enjoy that experience. " . . . Jeffrey Baxter, principal of S.J. Baxter & Associates in Forest Hill, Md., came to the defense of First USA, saying that a card for premium cigar smokers was not the same thing as, say, a cigarette card. "They are targeting the upscale cigar here, not the kind you buy in 7- Eleven, " Mr. Baxter said. "I think it is an interesting move in a nice market. "

Releasing internal documents of the Liggett Group to House Commerce Committee Chairman Thomas Bliley, R-Va., does not waive any defense claim of privilege, defense lawyer Peter Sipkins told Ramsey County District Judge Kenneth Fitzpatrick during a pretrial hearing Tuesday. "Today is not the right time to decide it," Sipkins said. Michael Ciresi, lead attorney for the state of Minnesota, had argued that the more than 800 Liggett documents should be immediately turned over to the plaintiffs.

Judge Kenneth Fitzpatrick questioned Tuesday whether American Tobacco Co. was sold to another cigarette manufacturer in order to remove a potentially incriminating link to an Irish company known for its biological research on smoking and health. During a hearing concerning possible financial penalties on American for not producing critical documents to the state of Minnesota, Fitzpatrick asked about the timing of the sale -- only months after the state filed its lawsuit against the tobacco industry -- and the motivation behind it.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota is seeking $350 million in damages against tobacco companies for treating smokers over the past two decades, a lawyer said in court Tuesday. The statement made to a St. Paul judge marked the first time anyone in the 3-year-old Minnesota tobacco litigation has publicly said how much Blue Cross is seeking to recoup from cigarette makers.

[Attorney General Drew Edmondson] cited a ruling by Cleveland County District Judge Tom Lucas, who denied motions by several tobacco companies challenging the state court's jurisdiction in the case.

Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker is in talks to hire two high-powered, high-priced anti-tobacco law firms that played a role in getting the big U.S. tobacco companies to agree to the proposed national $368.5 billion settlement. If hired as the state's national counsel, Ness, Motley, Loadholt, Richardson & Poole, of Charleston, S.C., and Scruggs, Millette, Lawson, Bozeman & Dent of Pascagoula, Miss., would lead Georgia's belated case against tobacco . . .

The Florida attorneys eyeballing big law fees in the state's lawsuit against Big Tobacco aren't alone. An associate of Lawrence Tribe, a Harvard professor with national renown imported for the state's court hearings, turned in a bill for Tribe's time -- $800 an hour. At 146 hours, "conservative estimate," that's $116,800.

The state's public universities have collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in research grants, scholarships and gifts -- $667,000 over the past decade at the University of Florida, almost $40,000 at Florida International University. The many gifts of cigarette makers that Florida sued for endangering the health of smokers covered by state and federal health insurance are tallied in memorandums collected by the state during Florida's court battle with tobacco. . . The biggest way that Florida was beholden for many years: investing a share of the state's $70 billion employees' pension fund in lucrative tobacco stocks.

Florida is launching a nationwide search for advertising firms ready to craft its $200 million anti-smoking effort, but companies with tobacco ties need not apply. The state's campaign, aimed at youngsters under age 18, will be the largest of its kind in the nation and a lucrative contract for media firms, industry experts said Tuesday. But no firm working for cigarette companies or their wide-ranging product line will be considered, a provision that likely eliminates some large national agencies from the competition.

Why would a City Council with four lame ducks take an early vote in an attempt to bind the incoming council? . . Perhaps some are afraid the balance of power on the council is turning to those who support a higher standard of lobbying practices. . . Minneapolis' first lobbying contract is with North State Advisors which also lobbies for . . The Tobacco Institute.

A state tobacco enforcement official says he's pleased a sting operation nabbed just 8 percent of 208 stores for selling chewing tobacco to minors. "I really expected it would be higher then 8 percent. We have been so focused on cigarettes," said Albert Elwell, chief of enforcement for the Department of Liquor Control. Seventeen out of 208 stores sold chewing tobacco illegally to juveniles during the latest undercover sting by the department, Elwell said.

Two Pittsburgh convenience stores and a drug store face fines for selling cigarettes to a minor. Pittsburgh police cited clerks at the A-Plus Mini Market at North Craig and Bayard streets, and Rite Aid Pharmacy at 209 Atwood St., both in Oakland; and the BP Food Mart, 5801 Forward Ave., Squirrel Hill. The summary offense carries a $25 fine, plus court costs. The A-Plus and BP stores were cited for the same violation six weeks ago. Greg Hartley of SmokeFree Pennsylvania noted, "One store even displays four signs that say, `We Card.'"